Theads Who Were First

[NOTE: This post has been edited 3/3/18.]

Alexander and James were the first--at least, the first I am sure of.

I enjoy thinking of ancestors as real people, so I personalize them as much as I can, without getting into fiction. On several censuses Alexander is listed as "Alex," so I'm guessing he probably went by that in his community. I never saw James listed as "Jim." So let's just keep them "Alex and James."

I'll come back to them in a while. For now, I'm going to post a few other things I've found, in the hopes that someone can help sort these people out.

First: just recently I found a Thead Revolutionary War soldier. I'm not sure yet how he fits in, but here's his record.

I'm including the original, above, but it's really hard to read because of its age. So I used a "snipping" tool to have his name appear at the BOTTOM so that you can find it easily. 

Revolutionary War--Samuel Thead, second from bottom

We'll try to get him placed later.

In the first post on this blog I put up a copy of an inventory made of Richard Thead's estate in Virginia in 1783; but I can't get Richard connected with the earliest Thead (Thomas Theed) I've found in America. In the book Original Lists of Emigrants in Bondage from London to the American Colonies, 1719-1744 (by Marion and Jack Kaminkow), this is said about Thomas:

"Thomas Theed...emigrant in bondage from Essex, England. Destination: Virginia. Name of ship: Caesar. Captain: William Loney. Number of persons: 118. Came on board January 13, 1733."

So it would appear that Thomas was what we'd call an indentured servant--that is, in return for passage to what became the United States, he agreed to work for a period of time after he arrived for whoever paid his way here.

I don't know for sure that Thomas was the great-grandfather (or maybe even two "greats") of Alex and James. There's no way for me--at this time--to say for sure. I don't know even if he had children at all, although--since there don't seem to have been any other Theads around at that time--it seems pretty likely that he was the original emigrant and that he may have been Richard's grandfather...possibly father.

I've learned not to trust just everything I find in records. The other night, for instance, as I was browsing through some individual family pages, I found these bits of information...intriguing stuff, and maybe all of it's true...but probably not.

Summarizing it, we get this family tree:

It's possible...but I don't have ANY proof for it. And it bothers me somehow, because it looks suspiciously like a family line I speculated about years ago. The real tipoff about its inaccuracy is the part where George Thead is said to have had one son, Coleman Solomon.

I've found Coleman Thead (Thede) in the rosters of people who served in the War of 1812; he was in Major Smoot's Battalion, Captain Jones's Company of Mississippi Militia.

But in the actual rolls someone transcribed his name as "Solomon"at least one time.

So, as you see--and as I've observed in my blog about handwriting and faded papers from long ago--it appears that somebody just read the name wrong.

By the way, I also discovered a George Thead who served in the War of 1812. His record is below. It's possible he is the George Thead referenced above. Notice how HIS name was spelled!

In documents I found some years ago, Coleman is said to have "deserted" or was "absent without leave." (These records were copied from microfilm, so they are more like photographic negatives, which is why they're dark.) 

Solomon ("Coleman") Thede/Thead War of 1812

The name "Coleman" for me was hard to accept, as it just wasn't typical of that time. I always felt as if it would end up being the "Solomon" of Dunbar's list, above. However, look at the next post, and you'll see I was proven wrong, as has happened many times, and will happen many more times in my life. I hated that he was located in the way he was (again, next post), but that's the way history goes. 

So if Coleman actually did desert, as the records show above, I imagine there may have been good reason for him to do so. In The Military History of Mississippi 1812-1836, we see this:

In the area of Southern Alabama (people refer to it as "Lower Alabama" these days), several battles were fought, mostly associated with the Creek Indians. Assuming Coleman was one of those men referred to in the passage above, I wonder if he didn't just decide to stay in that part of the world. For sure, there weren't any other Theads (Thedes, Theeds) around in the Deep South then...until sometime between 1830 and 1840, when Alexander and James turned up in Clarke County, MS.

Alexander lived in Beat 1 and James in Beat 2 of the county. I have no idea just where those boundaries would've been drawn at that time, but Alex ultimately ended up in Bladon Springs, AL--across the state line from James, who was older by about 2 years. Interestingly, Alex shows up in 1840 on the census, but James does not. 

1840 Clarke County MS (red arrow points to Alexander Thead)

Alexander married Sarah Miller. James was married to someone listed as "Jane" in 1850 and "Rhoda" in 1860, 1870 and 1880. It could've been the same person; censuses don't always get people's names right.

In 1850 an interesting document turns up--at least, it's interesting to me. By then, apparently, James and Alex were planting cotton, like so many other people in Mississippi. Someone must've decided it was a good idea to ask the farmers in some counties (perhaps all) how many children they had of educable age, male and female, and how many bales of cotton they'd produced that year and the weight of the bales. That particular set of questions is what makes it delightful to me--how many children and bales of cotton have you grown?

James seems to have had better luck as a farmer: he'd had five bales of cotton to Alex's one! I wonder if that encouraged Alex's later move to Alabama.

By 1853, this snip from a state census shows the two brothers and the numbers of male and female children in their households by then.

So the families were growing.

I'm going to close this particular post with the 1860 censuses for Choctaw County, AL, and Clarke County, MS. Notice that somebody--whether Alex himself or the census-taker--spelled his name "Thede"...just like in England. And it appears that James is still outfarming Alex, if you can judge by the value they give for their lands and property.

1860 Clarke County MS

1860 Choctaw County AL

 But this was before the Civil War. Things changed drastically for both brothers over the next five or ten years. I'll cover that next time.


Ælfwine