Detroit March to Freedom down Woodward Ave. 1963. My father is in the 2nd row, looking serious.
On April 4, 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr was murdered, I was a senior art major at Wayne State University in Detroit. I was walking across campus with Jim, who is now my husband, when Rufus and Brenda Griffin stopped and told us what had happened. They offered me a ride home. I lived in the house at 5397 Oregon with my mother and Henry.
I remember going to school the next day and being in my printmaking class when my mother, who NEVER appeared in my classes, walked into the room to tell me riots were breaking out. Duffield, her school had closed (she was a teacher) and we left. We passed a small group of high school students marching down West Grand Blvd. but no violence.
Either that night or the next I was taken to the airport before the curfew so that I could meet my sister Pearl, who was coming in from Howard University, which had been closed due to the disturbance. She was a sophomore. We spent the night at the airport hotel. This assassination, both in itself and coming after so many others was so depressing. I was 21.
On September 5, 1864, Bluford Hubbard enlisted in the United States Colored Troops (Calvery) in Lebanon, Kentucky. He was 19 years old. It was a month after Thomas Ray Allen had enlisted. Bluford was born about 1845 in Taylor County, Kentucky.
On his enrollment papers he is described as 5 ft 7 in, copper colored with black hair and black eyes. He had been enslaved by George Hubbard of Taylor County and enlisted without his consent. Bluford served along with Thomas until the end of the Civil War in 1866 and was mustered out in Helena, Arkansas.
USTC enlistment paper. Click to enlarge.
Bluford returned to Taylor county and a year later married Eunice Buckner. They lived near to his mother Rachel Gaddie and several of his siblings. Bluford farmed and Eunice kept the house and worked along with him. Six children were born to them but only two lived to adulthood, John born in 1872 and Lewis born in 1878.
By the late 1880s the family had moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1887 Bluford began to receive an invalid pension. He testified for the first time in 1897 that he knew Thomas Allen to be one and the same as Thomas Ray because he had served with him in the army and also continued to see him over the years.
He is listed as a pensioner in the 1900 census. He and his wife Eunice have been married 33 years. Six people lived in the household on Paca. The two sons are listed as common laborers. Eunice’s younger sister, Fannie, is living with them and both Eunice and Fannie are taking in washing. Seven year old nephew Burford Palmer is also a part of the household. The three younger members of the household are literate. The older ones are not.
He testified again in 1897. Click to enlarge his testimony. His name is spelled “Buford” here, but “Bluford” most places. This transcribed copy of his testimony was included in Thomas’ pension file.
In 1908 Bluford was admitted to the Old Soldiers Home in Center, Grant, Indiana. He was still enumerated with his family in the 1910 census. Eunice is doing laundry for a private family, both sons are laborers. Nephew Burford is 16 and an actor and comedian. There is one border who is also a laborer. The family is still renting the house at 868 Paca Street.
Bluford Hubbard died on February 2, 1915 of chronic nephritis (inflamation of the kidneys). His son Lewis was the informant on the death certificate and gave Bluford’s parent’s names as Zealer Hubbard and Rachel Gaddie. He was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery and has a veteran’s headstone.
His son John died in 1929 of a pulmonary hemorrhage brought on by tuberculosis. Bluford’s widow, Rachel, lived for another 20 years after her husband’s death, dying in 1935 at the age of 84 of bronchial pneumonia. Lewis disappeared after the 1920 census.
*Resources I used to find the information in this post: 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 US censuses; Indianapolis City Directories; Bluford’s military records; death certificates for Bluford, Eunice and John Hubbard; records found in Thomas Ray Allen’s pension file. The photograph of Bluford’s gravestone is from find-a-grave. Except for the pension file, which I have in my possession, I found these records on Ancestry.com and familysearch.com I also did a bit of random googling if something called for it.
This is an introduction to Thomas Ray Allen. The other posts during the A to Z Challenge will expand on details mentioned here.
Thomas Ray Allen was born into slavery about 1845 on Foster Ray’s plantation in Lebanon, Marion County Kentucky. Thomas’ mother, Clara was sixteen years old. His father’s name was Louis Allen. Two years later his sister Sarah was born and two years after that his sister Annie (my great grandmother) was born. Slave holder Foster Ray was a farmer/merchant with lands in Kentucky, Missouri and Illinois.
Foster died in January 15, 1863 leaving everything to his wife Marietta Phillips Ray and his nephew Nicholas Ray. Unfortunately there is no probate list naming the enslaved.
Troops at Camp Nelson in May 1864
On August 15, 1864 Thomas enlisted as “Thomas Ray” in Company D, 5th Regiment of the United States Colored Troops – Calvary in Lebanon Kentucky. He was 18 years old, 5 ft 5 in. with black hair, black eyes and copper complexion. Occupation given as “farmer”. On March 25, 1865 Thomas was appointed bugler. The bugler’s job was to sound directions to the troops when there was too much confusion and noise for the commanders to issue orders by mouth.
On Thomas’ enlistment papers Addison Taylor of Marion County is listed as his slave owner, however in his pension file Thomas says several times that Foster Ray was his only former owner. Foster Ray and Addison Taylor, who lived in the adjoining counties of Casey and Marion Kentucky, were cousins.
From March 14 through 18 Thomas was relieved from duty after falling from his horse and receiving a concussion. On March 19, he was returned to duty as they found nothing else wrong with him. On August 15, 1866 Thomas was mustered out in Helena Arkansas, along with the rest of his regiment.
He returned to Lebanon Kentucky and in the 1870 census was living with his younger sister Sarah Ray Primus, her husband Felix and their young children. Felix and Thomas were both laborers.
On 9 March 1871 Thomas Ray and Georgiana McDougal (aka Martin) were married in her home county of Larue, Kentucky. Her older brother Thomas MacDougal had also served in the USCT, although he was part of a different company.
Thomas Ray appears in the Indianapolis City Directory in 1877 as a hostler, a stableman who cares for horses. In January of 1878 he and his first wife Georgiana were divorced. About 1879 he was introduced to the woman who would be his second wife, Katy Wiley by a mutual friend, Lottie Sullivan. About this time Thomas decided to stop using the surname “Ray”, his former enslaver’s name. He began to go by his father’s surname, “Allen”. He explained his choice in his Will here, Thomas Allen – Last Will and Testament.
Finding this envelope addressed to my grandmother C/o Mrs. Katy Allen sent me on a search to find out who Katy Allen was and from there to discover my USCT Uncle Thomas Allen.
Thomas Allen and Katy Wily were married by Rev. Jacob R. Raynor, a local Baptist minister on March 5, 1880. In 1887, they were living in the cottage at 2157 N. Capital, which they bought and lived in until his death in 1907 and Katy’s move back to Ohio near the end of her life.
By 1887 his niece and nephew, George and Sallie Reed, had moved to Indianapolis. They were soon followed by their mother, his sister Anna Reed and the rest of her family by 1894. They shared his home for several years.
In August of 1890 Thomas was 45 years old and approved for a military pension of $12 a month due to total deafness of the right ear and disease of digestive organs. In 1894 his pension was inexplicably dropped to $6 a month. Over the next 13 years he fought to have it raised to at least $8 a month, to no avail. He was examined by doctors who documented his deteriorating health.
Family members, former United States Colored Troop members and friends from throughout the years testified regularly that he was who he claimed to be, and that Thomas Ray and Thomas Allen were one and the same. They also testified that he was ill and debilitated. Because this was long after slavery was over and he was living far from the place where he had been enslaved, nobody from the same plantation testified for him.
In 1904 the doctors found him to be suffering rheumatism, chronic diarrhea and disease of the stomach. His pension remained at $6. By 1906 Dr. John W. Norrel gave evidence that Thomas’ ailments made it impossible for him to support himself. By July 1907, the medical testimony declared that he was in much worse shape and would not last much longer without some relief.
At age 60, on September 16, 1907, Thomas Allen died at home in his own bed. He left his wife to apply for a pension as a surviving widow, which she did successfully. Neither he nor she had any children. In the 1910 census, Katy Allen was living in the same house and doing laundry to supplement her pension. She died in 1915.
This is my 5th year participating in the A to Z Challenge. This year I am going to use the life of my great grandmother, Anna Ray Reed’s brother Thomas (Ray) Allen as the basis of my blog posts in April. I first “found” him in late November of 2016. Thomas served in the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War. By ordering his pension file I was able to find the names of his family, friends and people who served with him during the war and the name of the man who formerly enslaved him. Through researching these people using census records, directories, Catholic Baptismal records and DNA matches, I was able to find other family members and get a picture of his life in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
From top, clockwise: My grandmother Fannie in the 1950s. My grandmother Fannie was 4 holding her hat. Her mother Jennie holding Daisy. Her father, Howard Turner had been killed. 1894. My grandfather Mershell pointing at Fannie about 1917. My grandmother holding my mother Doris up, 1923. My grandmother in the back, her mother in the front holding baby Howard, on the left my mother Doris and on the right my aunt MV, 1930. My grandmother with her daughters MV and Doris, about 1934. My grandparents Mershell and Fannie (Turner) Graham, about 1945.
My maternal grandmother, Fannie Mae Turner Graham, was born 129 years ago on March 12, 1888, in Lowndes County, Alabama. She died on August 13, 1974 in Detroit, Michigan. You can read more about my grandmother in this post Fannie Mae Turner Part 1.
I was 12 and my grandmother was 70. 1958 in my grandmother’s backyard.
I am the same age as my grandmother was when we posed together on her back steps. Looking at the photograph below of me and my granddaughter made me think about the endless circle and the passage of time.
My granddaughter was 12 and I was a a few months shy of 70. 2016, we were at the beach in St. Petersburg, Florida and the water was freezing!
My uncle Louis Cleage with his ham radio and his ever present cigarette.
For many years my uncle Louis communicated with ham operators throughout the world using his short wave radio. In this photograph he is in the sun room that ran across the back of the family home at 2270 Atkinson in Detroit. Later the radio was moved down to a room in the basement. I do not remember hearing him talk or receive messages, but I seem to hear his voice giving his call letters W8AFM – W 8 Able Fox Mary. At one point we talked about learning the Morris Code so we could get licensed as ham radio operators, but we never did.
Pearl Reed Cleage. Photo taken in the 1940 at her home on Scotten in Detroit.
Thinking about my grandmother Cleage today. She would have been 133 if she were still living. Pearl Doris Reed Cleage, born in 1884 in Lebanon, Kentucky and died in 1982 in Idlewild, Michigan.
The Cleage family about 1930 in front of their house on Scotten. From L to R Henry, Louis, (My grandmother) Pearl, Barbara, Hugh, Gladys, Anna, Albert Jr (My father) and (My grandfather) Albert Sr.
