Those Places Thursday: Mapping my Family in Marion County, Alabama

I love maps!! Just about as much as I love military pension files. It's so much fun to see where my family lived as well as their migration paths. With Google Maps, you can even see beautiful satellite views of where your folks once resided.

The other day, I was messing around in Ancestry.com, and found that they've recently made available some amazing plat maps in 12 states, including Alabama, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma and Oregon. Plat maps are like candy to a genealogist -- these are the maps that show the exact parcels of land that our ancestors may have owned at a given point in time. I delved into the collection and almost immediately came up with the 1859 plat maps for Townships 12 and 13 in Marion County, Alabama -- right in and around the little town of Sulligent, where a good portion of my Sandlin, Turman and Noe ancestors lived during that time. (Note: as county lines were shifted over time, this part of Marion County eventually became Lamar County).

I've known for a long time that these families resided near each other for years because I consistently see them on the same pages as each other in the US Census documents. They also intermarried quite a bit, and stuck very close to each other. I didn't realize just how close, though, until I was able to view them on the land ownership -- or, plat -- maps for Marion County, Alabama. Here are the two maps, for Range 15, Townships 12 & 13. The Sandlin, Turman and Noe families straddled both maps -- they are at the very bottom of Township 12, and throughout the top half of Township 13 -- above the Buttahatchee River (no fart jokes, please!!).

Marion County, Range 15, Township 12

Marion County, Range 15, Township 13

Here, I've stitched the two maps together, zoomed in a bit, and color coded the land that each of the families owned: Noe is coded as Green, Sandlin is Blue and Turman is Red. By the way, you can click on each map to view it larger (and zoom in to see details).

Three of my 5th great grandfathers, Jesse Littleton Sandlin (1801-1863), Milton Anderson Turman (1802-1890) and Thomas R. Noe (1806-1867), are represented on this map. One of the great things about these maps is that they also included the land patent numbers that were granted when each of these families purchased their land. For example, here's the land patent document (#30112) for my 4th great grand uncle, H. Littleton Sandlin. Can you find his parcel of land on the map, above?

OK, one more map for you to check out. This one is a satellite map I found on Google Maps, and it shows what the area looks like today. Beautiful, isn't it? One of the coolest parts of this map is that it points out two important cemeteries in my family: the Sandlin Cemetery, where Jesse Littleton and Mary Nabors Sandlin are buried, and Pine Springs Cemetery, where my 5th great grandparents, Thomas R. and Mary Fitzgerald Noe, were buried after they were murdered together in their home in 1867.

Can you see the Buttahatchee River winding its way below
Lost Creek Road/County Road 35?

Plat maps and land patent documents are getting easier to find online. I've found a ton of land patent documents at the Bureau of Land Management's website. I have to dig a little harder to unearth plat maps (Google is my friend), and I'm thrilled that Ancestry is making it easier for us to find these gems that help us to tell our families' stories.

I hope you enjoyed this little "tour" of my ancestors' homeland in Marion County, Alabama!

Wedding Wednesday: Jesse James & Louiza Jane Jaggers

I love finding really old documents and photos of my family. The old marriage certificates and licenses were not only beautiful, but they also often contain information that may help me to fill out the branches of my family tree. For example, some marriage records show that their parents may have given them permission to marry (especially if they were quite young). Marriage records also list witnesses to the ceremony, and those witnesses are often family members. I don't know why, but I also get a kick out of seeing their own handwriting.

Here's the marriage record for my paternal 3rd great grandparents, Jesse James Jaggers and Louiza Jane Turman. They were married on October 3, 1875, in Sanford County, Alabama, by the Reverend J.R. Baker, Minister of the Gospel. Alexander Cobb was the probate judge who granted them the marriage license. It appears that a mistake was made in the part where the time of marriage was supposed to be written: Louiza's father's name, Robert, appears on that line. Strangely, it also appears Jesse, along with Robert, was witness to his own wedding (unless there's another Jesse J. Jaggers in my line that I'm not aware of...).

Jesse was born sometime in 1854 in Morgan County, Alabama, to Benjamin Franklin Jaggers and Nancy Catherine Sandlin. I can't find any record of his death but, based on census documents and the birthdates of his children, I believe that it happened sometime after 1889 and likely somewhere in Oklahoma. 

Louiza was born on December 15, 1854, in Alabama to Robert Wilson Turman and Dezina Noe. I don't have documentation, but it is believed that she died on October 14, 1905, in LeFlore, Oklahoma. 

Like most of my ancestors, Jesse was a farmer. He and Louiza had five children: Robert Franklin, Nancy Dezina, James Thomas, Catherine Elzoria and William Donald. All lived into adulthood and had families of their own. Their daughter, Nancy Dezina Jaggers, was my great great grandmother. 

I don't really know much else about Jesse and Louiza, but I love the one picture of them that I found in my Grandma Edith's files.

Here's how I'm descended from Jesse and Louiza:

Jesse James Jaggers (1854-?) & Louiza Jane Turman (1854-1905) >

Nancy Dezina Jaggers Martindale (1877-1944) and Riley Harrison Martindale (1876-1899) >

Ethel Modena Martindale Hunt (1896-1977) and James William "Earl" Hunt (1891-1961) >

Edith Vivian Hunt Brittain (1921-1993) and Woodie Leroy Brittain (living) >

William Lee Brittain (1942-2003) and Rebecca Elizabeth Bartram Brittain (living) >

ME!

Tombstone Tuesday: Richard T. Purser 1841-1896

Here's a photo I found online of the tombstone of 3rd great grand uncle, Richard Thomas Purser. You may have read a little bit about Richard in my stories about his brother (and my 3rd great grandfather), James Monroe Purser. Richard, Jim and their brother, Moses, served during the Civil War in the 28th Alabama Infantry, Company B. Richard and Jim were captured at Missionary Ridge during the Battle of Chattanooga on November 23/24, 1863. They were both held by the Union Army at Rock Island Prison until Spring 1865, when they were released at the end of the war.

Richard was born on April 11, 1841, in Henry County, Georgia. After the Civil War, Richard and his family eventually moved from Alabama to Texas. He died on May 19, 1896, in Lexington, Lee County Texas. He is buried near his mother, Elizabeth Scott Bentley Purser, at the Hugh Wilson (Tanglewood) Cemetery in Tanglewood, Texas.

Photo by Carol Wilson at http://www.cemeteries-of-tx.com

Military Monday: Benjamin Franklin Jaggers in the Civil War

B F Jaggers grave at Nashville National Cemetery

Genealogists can be so nice and helpful! About a week ago, I was searching Find-A-Grave for information on where my 4th great grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Jaggers, was buried. I knew that he had died in Tennessee in Civil War and found that he was buried in the National Cemetery at Nashville. However, I was sad to see that nobody had posted a picture of his grave. I figured it wouldn't hurt to post a request for a Find-A-Grave volunteer to take a photo, but wasn't really expecting anything. Lo and behold, a very helpful volunteer named Florence Keels  trekked out into the snow and snapped a photo of the gravestone for me! It's now up on his Find-A-Grave memorial page, and I've included it here, too. Thanks, Florence!

Benjamin Franklin Jaggers was born on June 30, 1832, in Morgan County, Alabama, to Thomas Garrison Jaggers and Martha Vest. He was one of nine children, and grew up a farmer in Alabama. He married Nancy Catherine Sandlin on February 15, 1852, and they had three children, including my GGG grandfather, Jesse James Jaggers.

As many young Alabama men did, Benjamin joined the Confederate Army, enlisting on July 21, 1862, and mustering in at Huntsville, Alabama, on August 18, 1962. He was 30 years old and a Private in the 1st Alabama Cavalry. Benjamin would not get to see much, if any, action during the Civil War. Less than two months after he joined up, he died on October 16, 1862, of measles (also known as "Rubeola") in Hospital #14 at Nashville, Tennessee. He is buried at the Nashville National Cemetery in Section A, plot 4518.

Here are some of Benjamin Franklin Jaggers' Civil War records. My favorite is the one that tells us a little bit about him, including:

• He was 5'10 1/2" 
• He had a dark complexion (there's legend of Cherokee genes on that side of the family, but I've yet to prove it)
• He had light hair and blue eyes
• He was 30 years old at enlistment
• He had enlisted for a term of  three years

Military Monday: James Monroe Purser, Civil War Confederate Soldier

The first couple of episodes of PBS's new season of "American Experience" have focused on the Civil War (I'm watching the one on Robert E. Lee right now). That has me thinking of my own Civil War ancestors and how they contributed to both sides of that defining event in our country's history.

The soldier that fascinates me lately is one James Monroe Purser. Known as "Jim," he was born in Georgia on June 10, 1843, to Richard William Purser, of North Carolina, and Elizabeth Scott Bentley Purser, of Tallapoosa, Georgia. He had four brothers and one sister. When Jim was a child, his family moved to Alabama, where they farmed. His father died sometime between the 1850 and 1860 US censuses.

On February 4, 1862, at at Murphee's Crossroads in Blount County, Alabama, Jim enlisted in the Confederate army to fight the Union in the Civil War. His brothers, Richard and Moses, also enlisted and fought in the war. Jim was promoted from Private to 2nd Corporal in the 28th Alabama Infantry, Company B, but his service in the Confederate army wasn't without its trials and tribulations. As you can see in the army documents, below, Jim became ill within just a couple of months of enlisting, and ended up in the hospital at Shelby Springs, Alabama, for a time. Shortly after that, he somehow managed to lose his "gun and accoutrements" somewhere near Tupelo, Mississippi.  

Jim's most serious trial, however, came during a defining battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Chattanooga in Tennessee. From the end of September through October 1863, General Braxton Bragg’s focus was on cutting off supplies to the Union army. On October 17, Major General Ulysses S. Grant took over the Western armies and moved to reinforce Chattanooga and establish a new supply line for the Union. When Major General William Tecumseh Sherman arrived with his divisions in mid-November, the Union began its offensive at Chattanooga.

Battle of Chattanooga as reported in Harper's Weekly

On November 23 and November 24, Union forces captured Orchard Knob and Lookout Mountain. On November 25, Union soldiers assaulted and captured the Confederate position on Missionary Ridge. Thousands of men were captured or died on both sides during these three bloody days, but the Union army held Chattanooga, which became the supply and logistics base for Sherman’s 1864 Atlanta Campaign.

A scene at Rock Island, painted by fellow prisoner, John F. Gisch

Jim and his brother, Richard, were both captured during the Battle of Chattanooga at Missionary Ridge in November 1863. They were confined at Rock Island Prison, Illinois, on December 5, 1863.

Rock Island hadn't even been completed when it started taking in more than 5,000 Confederate prisoners that December. The water supply and drainage were sub par, creating a sanitation problem; the temperature was well below zero degrees; and a smallpox epidemic sickened thousands and killed more than 600 within three months. During the Civil War, more than 12,000 men were imprisoned at Rock Island, and nearly 2,000 prisoners died there.

Both Jim and Richard Purser lived through their imprisonment, and were released in March 1865 as part of a P.O.W. exchange program with the Union army. All three Purser brothers who fought in the war lived for several decades after the war, raising families and, hopefully, enjoying their lives.

Inscription reads: "Beloved One, Farewell"

James Monroe Purser returned to Alabama and married Nancy Susan Hodge in 1866. They had eight children (including my great great grandmother, Francis Georgia Ann Purser), most of whom lived to adulthood. They moved to Texas sometime between 1870 and 1880, and Nancy died there in 1883. Jim married Sarah Jane Sykes in 1886 and had five more children with her. They moved from Texas to Indian Territory (what is now Oklahoma) sometime after 1900, and Jim died in Non, Hughes County, Oklahoma on January 29, 1914, at the age of 70.

James Monroe Purser was buried at Non Cemetery in Non, Oklahoma.

Tombstone Tuesday: A Double Murder

Below is the tombstone of my GGGGG grandparents, Thomas R. Noe (1806-1867) and Mary Fitzgerald Noe (1804-1867), of Pine Springs, Alabama. They, along with a traveling doctor who had journeyed to their home to help care for their sick grandson, were brutally murdered in their sleep on the night of December 1, 1867.

So far, I've found only one newspaper account of their tragic death. It doesn't mention their names or the doctor's name (I later found out he was a Dr. DeGriffenreid), but it does mention the surname of the killer: a man named Briggs. Apparently, Mr. Briggs was a very disturbed soul who had recently been let out of an insane asylum. My ancestors allowed him to spend the night in one of their outbuildings. When Briggs entered the home during the night, uninvited, the grandson quickly hid underneath their bed. Then, Briggs killed Thomas, Mary and the doctor with an axe handle. The young boy was, of course, too frightened to come out from under the bed, and the bodies weren't found until the next morning by a man who worked for the Noes.

Briggs was captured, hiding in the loft of a barn, and led authorities to where he had hidden the murder weapon: an axe handle that had been drying near the fire.

According to information I've found online, and email conversations with another descendant who has actually held the murder weapon, the murder of the Noes is common knowledge among Noe decendants in Lamar County (known as Jones County at the time of the murders), Alabama, as well as among many others living in the area.

Here is a picture of the double headstone in the Pine Springs Cemetary (near Sulligent, Lamar County, Alabama) bearing the same date of death for both Thomas R. and Mary Noe:

Picture found at www.findagrave.com, submitted by Beverly Knight

Here is a copy of a newspaper article about the murders that appeared in the December 18, 1867, edition of the West Alabamian. Unfortunately, some crucial journalistic details (like NAMES) are missing from this account, but this is the sad story of my ancestors:

The copy reads:

Horrible Tragedy by a Lunatic

A man named Briggs was confined in the jail at this place on Sunday last for the killing of two men and a woman, with an axe, in Jones County, Ala. -- For years past, Briggs has been deranged, but this, we understand, is the first act of violence he has committed, or attempted to commit. At one time, he belonged to the Alabama Methodist Conference, and was regarded as an able and efficient minister until he lost his mind.