Nation of Immigrants

I’ve always been fascinated (in a bad way) by how hard it is to find some ancestors.

John Oscar Lovett

You know they have to have been in a certain area at a particular point in time. You see them in that area five, ten years later, using census records, tax documents, marriage bonds, and so on. But before they show up on those records, you can’t find them. Anywhere.

This is the case with the Theads of Mississippi and Alabama. The Harmons. The Lovetts. And so on.

Case in point: Theads are scattered around the U.S. If you use a genealogy search engine, you’ll find them in the Upper Midwest, in California, Colorado, Florida, Alabama, Virginia (where they apparently originally settled).

But as to the branch I’ve been researching (brothers James and Alexander), I haven’t found real evidence so far to place them anywhere BEFORE they arrived in Mississippi in the 1830’s or so. Going back, you’ll see several Theads who were possibly their ancestors, but there’s no proof, no direct records to show it.

In another post (http://theadsnotthreads.blogspot.com/2018/03/theads-who-were-first.html ) you can read about Coleman Thead and the regiment in which he served during the War of 1812. You see that during the winter of 1814 the weather was described as “inclement” (interesting, for southern Alabama!), and that the men were allowed to go home, being without blankets, food, shoes...and back pay.

I THINK (cannot prove) that Coleman was one of those guys who just left. Mt. Vernon, where the regiment had apparently tried to have a winter camp, is in the northern part of Mobile County. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Vernon,_Alabama

Mt. Vernon, from Wikipedia

(For a quick look at the town as it is today, check out http://www.mtvernonal.com/ )
 
Anybody who’s driven to Mobile on Highway 45 knows there’s a desolate stretch of land between just south of Shubuta, really (excluding the Waynesboro area), all the way down through Clarke, Wayne, Greene Counties, MS, and then Washington County, AL. Easy driving, but lots and lots of forest and swamp, and not so many people. It’s convenient to tell ourselves it’s isolated living back there, but in the early 1800s there was a thriving trading post in the area. Originally called San Esteban—for, after all, Spain had possession of the area before 1799—it became known as St. Stephens (English for “San Esteban”). I realize there are many links in this post, but http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1674 is a good one where you can find out the basics about Old St. Stephens and the Choctaw Trading Post.

I would like to believe that after the War of 1812, Coleman Thead may have drifted a bit north into the neighboring county and just stayed at St. Stephens. It’s very near southern Clarke County, Mississippi, where James and Alexander were living in 1840; and also Silas, Alabama, where Alexander Thead ended up by 1860.

From Wikipedia

Do I have any hard proof of Coleman’s moves in that area? No. But, given the time Coleman “deserted” in 1814, and the proximity to the Choctaw Trading Post—a bustling town just a few miles north of where the regiment overwintered—I think it’s probably as good an explanation as any for the sudden appearance of James and Alexander.

Google maps, Silas, St. Stephens, Clarke Co.

I’d like to speculate that perhaps Coleman found a Native wife in the area, but remember that he was fighting the Creeks in the part of the War of 1812 in which he was involved. I do know that the Creek and the Choctaw were at war with each other some of that time; but it’s my opinion it would’ve been out of character for him to become friendly with any Native people of the area. Recall that he was an overseer on a large plantation in Virginia at one point in the early 1800s and seemed to delight in cruelty towards the slaves. (See my posts about William Grimes.)

We may never know for sure, then. The records are just not there. Or I haven’t found them yet.

Another puzzle concerns John Oscar Lovett. This one’s easier to explain but no less frustrating.

John Oscar, you know, was the father of Lottie Lovett, who married Clarence Edd Thead. In the South many of our ancestors came from England, Ireland, Scotland, and the name “Lovett” appears to have originated in one of those countries. Finding John Oscar in 1900 wasn’t difficult. And he’s on later censuses, too.

In 1880, I’m fairly sure this record shows him:

1880 Kemper County MS

You see him on the bottom line of this snip from the page; he’s listed as “Oscar.” Up above you see his parents—John Lovett and Elizabeth, in dwelling #29. Reading straight across the family information, you find John’s occupation: “Peddling.” This is bad news for us. It could mean that he traveled around a good deal, making him hard to locate. I had the naïve idea that there just couldn’t be that many Lovetts around (as there weren't many Theads, for instance), and, oh, boy, was I wrong. YOU try a search just in Mississippi for the years 1870 until, say, 1900, using only the name “Lovett.”

Now, John reported that his parents were born in South Carolina. So did Elizabeth, who said she herself was born in Georgia. Sometimes you can use bits of information like those to trace down family migrations and relationships; it’s worked very well on some branches of my family. But, again, when you pull up “Lovetts” in South Carolina from about 1840 until 1860, he doesn’t show up.

I’ve learned the hard way that either census takers just wrote down whatever (maybe they were busy?), or that the people giving the information didn’t know. So the “South Carolina” birthplaces for John Lovett’s parents could just not be correct. At any rate, that’s where I hit the wall. Anyone who finds out something new, please comment below.

By the way, I’ve found a William Lovett in South Carolina whose family I can trace through several census years, being pretty confident that it’s the same William. I wanted there to be a “John” in that family, but there isn’t.

I’m going to post the 1850 and 1860 Charleston censuses that show William, though, because I find two things very interesting about it. First, his family lives next door to a large group of Irish immigrants, and three doors away from another. Perhaps William felt comfortable near them because his family, going back, were Irish?

—Or, perhaps not, and this is the second point: On this one page, the locations people gave as their birthplaces are pretty amazing. Germany, France, New York, Ireland, North Carolina, Rhode Island. The page right before this one adds Massachusetts, Connecticut, England and Pennsylvania. In 1860, amazingly, next door to William there were people from Maine, England, Prussia, Sweden, Ireland, Florida and Saxony, Germany. In that same year, next door to him, resided a woman who was born in Gibraltar!

So it was probably just accepted that there’d be people from all over, in your neighborhood—a routine thing, hardly to be remarked on. Although these particular pages didn’t specify this, the families I’ve shown probably were in a rooming house or something like that.

And the occupations! William was listed as a shoe maker. On the four pages I include below, there are shop keepers from Germany; boot makers from France; “seamen” and mariners and “riggers” from several places; an engineer, some carpenters, and a “gas fitter”; a student, a printer, an editor and a couple of accountants; a cook and several barkeepers; a tailor, and someone who did “hand sewing.”

We were even then a nation of immigrants.
Ælfwine

1850 Charleston SC

1850 Charleston SC p2

1860 Charleston SC

1860 Charleston SC p2