Dock Allen’s Story
As told to me in a phone conversation with my cousin Jacqui Vincent
Dock Allen was a white man’s son but not the one he ran away from. His owner was a mean man who kept vicious dogs so that the slaves would be afraid to run. Dock decided he was going to escape anyway but he did some things to throw the dogs off of his track. He walked through a wet field of wild ramps. He rubbed himself with them, poured the water on himself and practically rolled around in the field so the onion smell would hide his own.
Further along he came to a farm. By that time he was very tired so he climbed up into the hay loft and covered himself with hay. The tracking dogs came and he could feel their breath as they walked over him, but they didn’t find him because of the onion odor. Eventually they left.
This was the same place where Eliza lived. Later he decided to give himself up and the white people at the house send a message his master. When he came to get Dock he said that no one had ever out smarted his dogs and that any man who was smart enough to do that deserved to be free and he freed him. Dock stayed on that place and married Eliza.
Doc Allen in the record.
I found Dock Allen in in the 1867 voter registration database living in Montgomery, AL. He appears with his family in the 1870, 1880 and 1900 census in Montgomery. According to the records he was a carpenter born in Georgia. He owned his own home. In the 1900 census he and Eliza had been married 40 years which puts the beginning around 1860.
I have three addresses for him, 237 Clay street, 216 Holt street and finally 444 S. Ripley street where he lived for the five years before he died March 29, 1909 of “inflammatory bowels” after being ill for several weeks. His mother is listed as Matilda Brewster on his death certificate. No father is listed. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery.
I would like to find information about a runaway matching his description in the Dallas/Lowndes county area around 1860. Probably that will have to wait until I am able to go to Alabama and do some research there.
Before I continue with the story of Eliza’s husband, Dock Allen and the rest of her children, I thought that a chart might make the story more understandable.
Eliza is in the largest photo towards the center of the chart. Her mother is Annie Williams. Both were enslaved by Edmund and Jane Harrison of Lowndes and Montgomery Alabama. Later, I hypothesize, Eliza went with the Harrison’s daughter, Martha when she was married to Milton Saffold. Milton and Martha (she and her children are in the violet boxes) had three sons and then Martha died. Eliza had a daughter, Mary with Milton. Later Milton married Georgia Whitting (She and her sons are in the green boxes). Oral history says that Eliza and Mary were freed soon after this. Eliza later married Dock Allen, a free man and a carpenter. They had 8 children that survived to adulthood (blue boxes). Around 1874 Milton Saffold had a relationship with Clara Bolten (peach boxes) and they had two children together. Clara had a third daughter with an Irwin. Milton Saffold went to California and died there in 1879.
20 Mar 1911 Monday Article Guard Body of Suicide – Policemen Hold Long Vigil. Estal Loc Townsend Cheats Tuberculosis by killing himself with Carbolic Acid After Attempt to End Life by Shooting Fails.
After Estal Lee Townsend, 19 years old, 227 East New York street, a driver, had committed suicide in a room at 120 North Pennsylvania street yesterday, bicycle officers guarded the body for almost three hours until coroner Durham arrived. The officers were acting under specific instructions given earlier in the week that bodies of persons dying from other than natural causes should not be touched until seen by the coroner.
Townsend swallowed the contents of a phial of carbolic acid while visiting a friend, Frank Black, at the Pennsylvania street address. The suicide was a victim of tuberculosis. He tried to kill himself last Friday night. It is said, by shooting. He was in the act of firing a bullet into his brain when a friend knocked the weapon from his hand. The bullet penetrated the ceiling of Townsend’s room.
Yesterday Townsend spent several hours in Black’s room and although despondent gave no hint of his intention to end his life. About 4:45 o’clock Townsend stepped into an adjoining room.
EMPTY BOTTLE TELLS STORY
A few minutes later Black heard groans and found his friend sitting on the floor at the side of a bed. An empty bottle labeled carbolic acid was on the floor beside him. Black asked Townsend if he had taken the acid and the dying boy nodded his head in the affirmative.
Black notified the police and Bicyclemen Trimpe and Bernsuer went to the room with Dr. A.B. Cleage of the City Dispensary, the policemen worked over the young man, but he died in agony within a short time.
Efforts were made to find Coroner Durham but he was not at his home or office. Trimpe and Bernauer would allow no one to touch the body and it lay on the floor until nearly 7 o’clock. The two officers in the meantime had been relieved by Bicyclemen Schlangen and Glenn. Coroner Durham finally was reached and he pronounced the case one of suicide.
Relatives of Townsend said he had been suffering from tuberculosis and had realized that he could not recover. The body was taken to an undertaking establishment and will be cared for by a sister of Townsend, Mrs. Mary Dickson, 52, West Twenty-sixth street.
My mother wrote this as part of her family history memories for my sister and me in 1980. I am putting the whole piece here then I will reprint each sister’s section with the new information I found and corrections that needed to be made after I found descendants for most of them. My mother’s grandmother was Jennie Virginia Allen Graham. The women she writes about are her grandmother’s sisters, her great aunts. When “grandmother” is mentioned that is Jennie Virginia.
Willie holding grandson Conrad, daughter Naomi looking on.
Now a word about her sisters….Aunt Willie was the oldest….married well…Victor Tulane (Tuskegee trustee and owner of a general store and many houses). He was not what you’d call a “faithful” husband, but Aunt Willie (the family said) looked the other way because he always took such good care of his wife and only child, a daughter Naomi, who was sent to Howard, married a doctor and went to live the high life in New York. Aunt Willie had a beautiful apartment over the store. Always had a maid and never worked. She was living like this when Grandmother was a struggling widow. She was the last sister to leave Montgomery. She died in New York. Her son-in-law had died, left her daughter wealthy with apartments in NY paid for, insurance, money for the education of the four children in the bank, etc. I remember shoes hand made in Italy being in the boxes of impossible things she sent mother. They were always distant “rich relations”. Don’t remember even seeing any of the children except one young woman who came to Detroit briefly, stayed with Margaret McCall. Saw Aunt Willie once. She and Aunt Abbie came to visit us when I was small. Don’t remember her saying much or ever smiling while Aunt Abbie was as you remember her, friendly.
Abbie Allen Brown
Aunt Abbie married a Mississippi Riverboat gambler, swarthy and handsome and no good, who stayed home on two visits long enough to give her two sons and then sent her trunks of fine clothes to wear or sell to take care of herself and the boys. Whenever she talked about him she sounded like she hated him. She resented the lack of money. Said once the oldest boy Earl (named for his father) screamed for days with toothache and she could not take him to the dentist who didn’t want any fancy clothes or jewelry. She resented raising the children alone. I got the feeling she hated them and they hated her and she resented him being off having a good time while she stayed home with the problems. She talked about him In a completely different way than she talked about her Jewish policeman who bought her a house on Ripley St. and spent much time there, for whom she loved to cook and keep house.
She came to live with Mother to take care of Daddy (!) so Mother could come to Springfield and help me when Kris was born. In later years when they lived on Fairfield, Mother and Daddy used to argue about this and they would call me in to referee. He’d say he took Aunt Abbie in out of the goodness of his heart like all the rest of her family, and that she was not supposed to stay on them forever but was to go live with Aunt Margaret. Mother would say Aunt Abbie came to take care of him because (here she would make a mouth at me) he could not take care of himself and work even tho he could cook better than she and do everything else in the house too. I think we are always angered at the way men can say this is the limit. I can’t or I won’t do this or that and we seem to have lives where you do what is to be done since you have no one who will hear you if you say you can’t or won’t…hold my hand Charlie Brown! And that he knew very well she was going to live with them and visit Margaret occasionally. Mother was right. He said Aunt Abbie came to have cataracts operated and to be taken care of. He was wrong. Her eye operations came years later. He said to me once that he had always taken care of Mother’s people and she would have nothing to do with his. I know how Grandmother depended on him to fix things around their house and he was most agreeable and I always thought he loved it. They made over him when he came with his box of tools. I was always there as helper, but he got very tired and mistreated about having both Alice and Aunt Abbie to take care of. He didn’t like either one. But I never could get him to send them to a nursing or residence home to live. He always said what would people say if I did that. When people talk like that I give up because they are obviously making the choice they prefer.
Back to Aunt Abbie. She loved to cook and do everything else about the house. Mother would not let her do anything except clean her own room and do her own washing and ironing and Mother hated everything about housekeeping except cooking, but she said her husband expected her to take care of him and his house and (she didn’t say this) she’d be damned if she’d let anyone else do it as long as she could. I couldn’t talk to her about it.
Aunt Anna was the sister who went to Chicago, got a job as teller in a bank, married the bank manager who was a widower with children. He knew she was black but no one else in his family ever did. I’ve often wondered what they did for birth control. They were young when they married. He was well to do. She used to write Mother and Mother would write back c/o general post office. Said she loved him but felt very lonely all the time not to be able to see her family and knew the children would have nothing to do with her if they knew. She was supposed to look like Margaret McCall. She got sick. Wrote Mother she was not to live long. That there might be no more letters. That she would dearly love to die with her family He had died years before…had left his money to her…had asked her to promise to stay near the children to pass so they would not be embarrassed…and leave the money to them. She promised and told mother she had made her bed and would lie in it to the end but would surely see them in Heaven. Mother was the only one she wrote to. The rest would not answer letters. That was the last letter.
Mary Allen McCall
Aunt Mary married someone named James McCall whom I never knew. Also never heard anyone say who he was or what he did. As I write this it strikes me that the men these sisters married were for the most part very shadowy creatures. I’ve seen a picture even of only one. Strange. Aunt Mary looked rather like Aunt Abbie but was quiet and rather grim, I thought. Lived with Aunt Margaret and her son Uncle Jim all her life as far as I know. I think Aunt Mary helped with money although I don’t know where she got it. Uncle Jim, her son, was blind. There were two children, Margaret and Victoria, and no help from the state. He caned chairs and wrote poetry for a living. I think they were very poor but did better when the state helped blind people And they got enough money from somewhere to buy the Detroit Tribune and make money.
Beulah Allen Pope and son Robert Pope
Aunt Beulah who looked something like Grandmother, I’ve heard, married someone named Pope and went to Milwaukee. Don’t know what he did or what she was like. Never saw her. Sent one son through dental school Robert Pope. Very handsome, his twin sister, a beauty married well, had one child the one who kept pushing me around when they came to visit us. I must have been about four, so was he, and he wanted to follow MV everywhere and not let me come. I went anyway. I remember him banging my head against the wall beside the stairs. Strange. He especially hated me because I could cut up my own meat and his mother wouldn’t even let him try. Ha ha!!! Another son of Aunt Beulah was a teacher who married had one daughter who wrote once to Mother and Daddy about family history. Wonder what she got together. I keep hoping to find someone who has already done all the hard work. Back to Aunt Beulah, who was considered the least beautiful of the sisters. Her son Robert built her a beautiful home and stayed there with her until she died not too long ago. Ten or twelve years. They all spoke of her with envy.
Although the paper is dated 1894, the dates within the article are for after 1900. Click to enlarge!
This is a transcription of the article from The Athens Post Athens, Tennessee 21 Dec 1894, Fri • Page 22
The Athens Mission for the Colored People was established is sustained by the United Presbyterian church through its Freedman’s Board. This board spends annually for the support of this station from $2,000 to $2,500. The public school funds, amounting to $450, are used for incidental expenses. The salaries of the missionaries being paid entirely by the board.
The United Presbyterian Church has always been a friend to unfortunate humanity, and has mission stations among all classes of people who need help. The have established thirteen stations for the Freedmen of the South. Eighty missionaries and $55,000 have been set apart to carry on the work. In all of these stations there are churches which are destined to play a conspicuous part in the cultured Christian civilization of the colored race. This church is strong where the negro needs strength. It demands a clean membership and an educated ministry, family worship and Sabbath observance. It minimizes churchanity and magnifies Christianity. As a result of this its growth is slow. United Presbyterians among the Freedmen are made by a very tedious process.
The schools established by this church are open to all who will take advantage of them. Money and clothing are often sent to be used in helping worthy poor students. So thoroughly have these students have been equipped that the young people who grow up within the bounds of the school in ignorance are without excuse. The object of the school is to do for eager, ambitious students what they cannot do for themselves.
At Knoxville College board, tuition and furnished rooms can be had for $6.85 per month. In Alabama, on the plantations, where the people are poorer, boarding, tuition and furnished rooms can be had for $4 per month. In this way school advantages are put in the way of many who otherwise wouldn’t have them.
Athens Academy has its doors open to students from a distance. It places an education within the reach of young people of limited means. We would be glad to correspond with persons who would like to come. We can arrange so that you can attend school here for about what it takes to support you at home.
RELIGION AND MORALS
The aim of the supporters of our school has been to make the institution thoroughly and earnestly Christian. All plans of work are devised for the purpose of making our students strong, earnest, and liberal-minded men and women.
INSTRUCTORS
Rev. Jno. T. Arter, principal, Jas W. Fisher, Henry W. Cleage, Miss M. Lea Jones, Mrs. Louise Collier, Miss Christianita Totten. All workers of experience and ability.
PROSPECTS
The prospects for the. Future of the academy are good. The school is gaining many friends among the citizens of both races. The moral and religious training which are being taught by the teachers are being seen in the homes of the older people, and in the daily life and character of the youth. The parents of this and adjoining counties are earnestly requested to send their boys and girls here for their college preparation.
INDUSTRIAL TRAINING
Instruction in needle work, patching, darning, plain sewing, cutting and dressmaking is given under the direction of an experienced teacher. All desiring to have a practical knowledge of plain sewing, needle work and dressmaking will have ample opportunity to learn during the regular literary course.
DESIGN
The “Academy of Athens” is consecrated to the glory and honor of God and the welfare of a needy race. Its object is to impart knowledge, discipline the mind and train the heart, so that those who leave its walls will be better prepared for the diversified duties of college and actual life. In the course of study the training has special reference to the preparation of students for college and for becoming successful teachers in the public schools of the state. In short, the course is comprehensive and practical and the teachers endeavor to drill the students in the branches taught, that their knowledge will be through and not a mere smattering. Furthermore, this being a Christian institution, parents of the vicinity and adjoining counties may feel reasonably safe in sending their children here for instruction.
This is an opportunity for any young man or woman who is really hungry for an education. We are taking special pains to provide for students at a distance, and as before stated, will be pleased to correspond with those who desire to attend school.
MRS. LOUISE COLLIER
entered the City School In Savannah GA when quite a child. Later she attended the Atlanta University for a number of years. While yet in school she accepted a position as teacher near Americas, GA. She afterwards taught in the city graded schools o Americus where she continued to teach for seventeen years, resigning there to accept her present position in Athens.
MISS CHRISTIANITA TOTTEN
Of the Danish West Indies, came to this country in 1891, entered Knoxville College and graduated from the Normal department in 1885, after which she taught in the Missions for Freedmen for six years. She is now in charge of the sewing department and is very active in the mission work of Athens.
MISS M. LEA JONES
A native of Dallas, Texas, attended Knoxville College for a number of years. She received her appointment as intermediate teacher to the Athens Mission in the Spring of 1900.
JAMES W. FISHER
Attended the public graded schools of Eufaula, Ala, his home town, during most of his boyhood. He next attended Knoxville College in which he pursued his studies for five years. He was in charge of the Mt. Zion District school in Alabama for three years. His present position is assistant principal of the Athens Academy.
HENRY W. CLEAGE
Is a native of Athens. He entered and finished the course of the Athens Academy under Rev. Cook’s administration. He then attended Knoxville College. His teaching one year at Riceville gave him his first ideas of the practical side of the profession in which he is now engaged. At present he is a member of the corps of instructors o the Academy of Athens.
REV. JNO. ARTER,
Principal of the Athens Academy, is a graduate of the class of ’95, Knoxville College; also of the class of ’98, Alleghany Theological Seminary. For two years he served at Catherine, Ala., as pastor of the U. P. (United Presbyterian) Church. He now has charge of the Athens U. P. church.
MRS. MINNIE J. ARTER
In childhood enjoyed the advantages of the public schools of Americus, Ga., her native home. After graduating from Knoxville College, she taught seven years in the city schools of Americus and seven years in the mission schools in Alabama. She is now in charge of the teachers’ home and parsonage.
MRS. MINNIE B. CLEAGE
Is not in the profession now, but she finished the course at the Academy of Athens, and was a student at Knoxville several years. She is now the wife of Henry W. Cleage.
PROF. COLLIER
All of Mr. Collier’s instructors in his youth, except one, both in and out of the Atlanta University, were teachers from the North. He was graduated from the State Normal School at Fayeteville, N. C. Mr. Collier’s experience extends from the rural district to the principalship of graded schools. He is at present substitute teacher in the Athens Academy. Mr. Collier is in very feeble health.
I just wanted to clarify a few things in the last post before moving on. Mary McCall’s daughter, Alma Otilla “Tillie” owned a three story brownstone in Chicago. She and her husband, Joseph Howard, lived in one unit and relatives lived in the other ones. In 1933, When Sayde visited her sister Blanch in Chicago, Mary McCall (Eliza’s oldest daughter) was 87. Mattie (Sayde’s mother and Mary’s half sister) was 59, Victoria (Mary McCall’s grandaughter) was 18, Sadye was 16 and Margaret(Mary’s grandaughter) was 15.
Mary Allen McCall was born in 1856 in Alabama, probably Lowndes or Dallas County where her mother, Eliza was the slave of Milton Saffold. Milton Saffold’s wife, Martha Harrison Saffold died in 1856 after the birth of her third son. Mary Allen McCall did live in Mississippi for a short time, but as an adult with one of her daughters between the death of her husband in Montgomery and the family’s move to Detroit, Michigan. By 1933 she was living in Detroit.
I hope that isn’t too confusing. I do have a chart showing all these various relationships but before I post that I would like to go back to my mother”s writings and then show what she got right in her memories of her great aunts and how I eventually met people from all branches of Eliza’s children and found more photographs and more stories.
Mattie Saffold Harris with family. Sayde little girl, front. Her mother, Mattie, is on the far right.
Mary Allen McCall on left. Granddaguthers Victoria and Margaret, front.
This is an email conversation that took place between Janis M. and me. We shared a cousin, Margaret McCall. It was from information that Janis gave me from her mother that let me piece together the story of Eliza and her first daughter, Mary. It was so exciting to have the story unfold through her mother’s memories and the records I found online and things my mother had told me. Both Margaret and Janis’ mother Sayde have died. It was really one of those strange happenings where people are in the right place at the right time and can share the important information. Margaret and Sadye were related through the daughters Milton Saffold had with their grandmothers during and soon after slave times.
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 Hi Janis,
You talked to my sister, Pearl, recently in Chicago at a book signing and gave her a chart. Have you ever been in touch with Margaret or Victoria? I can fill in the missing information for you from Mary McCall’s side. This past year I’ve been doing some research for Margaret about Milton Saffold. I found he married the daughter of Col. Edmund Harrison, who was the owner of Eliza Harrison who was Mary’s mother. Eliza’s mother was also named Annie and I remember my great-great aunt Abbie, who was Mary McCall’s half sister, saying that Annie was African but I can’t find a record yet of anyone before the 1870 census. Margaret and I have been trying to find some records to place Eliza and Annie on the Harrison plantation. I was wondering, after seeing your chart, if maybe they, or Eliza went with Harrison’s daughter (Eliza was also his daughter) when she married Saffold. Do you have access to any records from slave times for the Saffolds?
Eliza married Dock Allen and they raised 9 children. How do you know about Mary being a Saffold? Margaret said it was all very hush hush when she was growing up and it’s making it very hard to find information now.
Let me know if you want more complete info for Mary and descendants. I’m so glad you saw Pearl! I will pass on any information you send me to Margaret. Right now I’m at my daughter’s in Seattle helping her with her newborn twins and most of my information is back in Michigan but I’ve got all the basic info on Dock Allen and Eliza. Looking forward to hearing from you. Kristin
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 22:45:31 EDT Hi, Kristin: Wow, I will have to contact my cousin in Birmingham. He is the family historian and if any information is forthcoming about the Saffolds it would be from him. I only know that Milton Saffold was my maternal grandmother’s father. Seems the judge “traveled” a lot! Will send my cousin your email and hopefully he can help us out.
Milton Saffold. Mattie’s family photos.
As it is late, I will have to take in all that you have written tomorrow. Janis
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 22:58:25 EDT Kristin: Forgot to tell you that I talked to Pearl at a reading in Bowie, Maryland. No, I haven’t talked to any other member of your family. My mother, Sadye Harris James told me that you have a relative who lives near me in a neighborhood called Kettering. She is the daughter of Hugo Howard. If this is accurate, I would like to contact her. My Mom got this information from Margaret Ward this past August. Until then I never knew that Milton Saffold had any children other than Mattie (my grandmother), and Frank. I look forward to you filling in the blanks in my chart. Janis
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 10:09:29 -0700 (PDT) Janis, That would be great if your cousin can give me some more information. I’ll get the information I have together and email it later today. I’ll also check with another cousin of mine who grew up in Chicago and might know about the daughter of Hugo Howard and let you know. Kris
James and Margaret McCall visit his sister Tillie Howard in Chicago.
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 10:03:20 EDT Hi Kristin, I spoke with my mother, Sadye Harris James, the last surviving child of Mattie Saffold Harris. Mom told me that in l933 she visited her sister Blanche in Chicago. Blanche was living in an apartment building owned by Tillie and her husband Dr. Howard. Tillie and her husband lived in a unit of the building. Blanche told my mother that Tillie’s mother, Mary McCall, was visiting from Mississippi, and that she looked like their mother, Mattie. She was described as a little “white lady” dressed in a long white old-fashioned looking dress. (My mother only saw her from a distance). When Sadye returned home to Birmingham, she told her mother about Mary McCall. Mattie said she knew about a Mary McCall, and that she was her half sister. Mattie decided to visit Mary in Chicago and confirmed that indeed she was Mary Saffold McCall.
This seems to be in conflict with your information. According to your records, Mary McCall was the child of Eliza Harrison and Dock Allen. Perhaps Milton Saffold fathered Mary and Dock Allen reared her as his own. By the way, Mattie was born in Selma, Alabama. Janis
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 22:05:05 -0800 (PST) Hi Janis, Today I decided to look for Eliza in the 1860 census as a free person in Dallas county. I searched by her first name since I have looked in Montgomery and Lowndes county before with various last names. I found a 25 year old Eliza Williams with a 3 year old Mary Williams in Dallas county living with a 27 year old woman named Nancy Morgan and several of her children. All are listed as white. But Williams is the last name of Anne, Eliza’s mother and they are the right ages. It wouldn’t be the first time family members were listed in the census as white.
Now I need to find out who Nancy Morgan is and connect her with the Saffolds or Harrisons. Another day. Nancy Morgan appears in the 1860, 1870 and 1880 census. She is listed as single in the first two but always has another child or two and in the last one she’s listed as widowed. She doesn’t have any occupation listed. Eliza Williams isn’t listed again as Eliza Williams but appears as Eliza Allen with her husband, Dock Allen. Her mother, Annie Williams lived with them in 1870 and with Mary McCall in 1880.
Anyway, I’m going to bed. Just wanted to share that. Kris
2005 – Janis taped an interview with her mother Sayde. In it she talked about her mother and Mary McCall being half sisters and their meeting in Chicago.
Mary Allen McCallMattie Saffold Harris
“Sadye: Okay. It was the summer of 1933 when Walter, my brother and I drove in his V-8 Ford (It was red) to Cincinnati where he married Edna Gaither and from that we went to Chicago to visit Blanche, my sister, and there she said to me, “Sayde, there’s a little old lady up on the third floor and she sits on the back porch and I think she looks a lot like Mama. And I’d like for you to meet her.” So I went out in the backyard and looked up on the 3rd floor and there she sat in her long white dress and white hair, but I don’t remember ever being introduced to her. However her granddaughters Margaret and Victoria McCall, they came to visit their Aunt Tillie Howard and I got to meet them, but I never did meet Miss Marry Saffold McCall. No her name was not McCall….her name was McCall. So Mama went up to Chicago, not just to see this woman that was one of the highlights of her visit to Blanch. I don’t think it was that summer, but may have been the next summer. And they had quite a delightful celebration because they were half sisters. And I remember Mama telling me she had a half sister named Mary in Mississippi. And I could not understand a half sister in Mississippi, but as time progressed I realized that her father, Judge Saffold, made visitations involving his work as a circuit court judge and this took him to a part of Mississippi. Now who the mother was of Mary, I have no idea. Perhaps Victoria or Margaret will have some information as to who was the mother of Mary.”
I still haven’t found out who Nancy Morgan is. I did find a marriage certificate between a Nancy Wiggins and an Isom Morgan in Dallas County. William Wiggins was the overseer of Edmund Harrison in the 1850 census but I haven’t found any records connecting William with Nancy yet.
When I attended cousin Victoria McCall Davenport’s 90th birthday celebration in Detroit she told me that her grandmother Mary told her she was about 10 at freedom. This fits in with the child Mary in the 1860 census.
Both of these photographs were found in the papers of my 2 X’s great Aunt Mary Allen McCall (1856 AL – 1937 MI) by her grandaughter after her death. Who are they???
