Back in August I wrote about extracting census data in an effort to learn more about my great, great grandfather, John Washington Womble. As a correction to the previous post, the Civil Districts I extracted the census data from were the 12th and 13th from the 1870 census and then the 11th Civil District from the 1880 census. I’m curious to learn where exactly in Hardeman County, Tennessee he lived and anything else this information can tell me about his life there.
This has been a long process and I’m not finished yet, and probably haven’t even reached the tip of the iceberg. I spent the fall going through deed indices; yes some may say that wasn’t truly a great starting point because indices don’t always contain a thorough listing of everyone in a particular book. However, I needed a place to start and knew going in that I would need to consult the deed books themselves to truly cover all of my bases.
I even ordered a roll of microfilm of surveys for Hardeman and made several copies of surveys that were located either entirely or partially in Civil District 12, range 1, section 2 of the 10th Surveyor’s District. This was the limit I set for what I would search in an effort to learn where his land was located, and yes I know I’m leaving out the 13th Civil District—I will cover that.
After collecting this information, which I knew wasn’t enough, I began to plat out the surveys I’d copied. I tried using a free online program and considered purchasing an expensive program to help me plat all of these surveys. Instead, I took the hard road and platted them by hand using graph paper, ruler, pencil, and at times a protractor when necessary.
This was time consuming, but interesting because I became drawn into what I believe may be the terrain of his neighborhood. My thought is that John Washington Womble likely lived in the vicinity of the Hatchie River. I could be wrong; as I haven’t finished platting all of the surveys I collected and haven’t finished my search of the properties that surrounded his.
I tried comparing my plats to the present day Hardeman County, Tennessee on Googlemaps, but still could never completely connect them enough to tie the plats with the images I found online.
While creating the plats, I found mention of a property that always seemed to be referred to in similar with sometimes varying terms: Entry No. 953, for 2000 acres, in the name of Thomas Claiborn & others. I first noticed this description in a land transfer from Aby Grantham to John J Womble.
The last name Claiborne is significant because it may be connected to John Washington Womble’s 2nd wife Rhoda Caroline Richardson. Additionally, some of the property description of the land purchased by John J Womble seemed to mirror a neighboring property that coincidentally was owned by John Washington Womble, who I believe, was John J. Womble’s uncle.
I had the opportunity to visit the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah this past February when I worked the NGS booth at the RootsTech/FGS conference. There I did a page by page search through deed book W looking for land transactions that were in the area I’d cordoned off in my mind-Civil District 12, range 1, section 2 of the 10th Surveyor’s District. Again I saw mentioned in various deeds the infamous, Entry No. 953, for 2000 acres, in the name of Thomas Claiborn & others and made copies of those. Hopefully, I can use that plat as an anchor in which to join all the other “puzzle pieces” of plats that I’ve already created or will create and be able to fit John Washington Womble’s plat in amongst them.
Upon returning to Virginia, I’ve ordered microfilm from the FHL of deed books W and X and once it arrives plan to continue my page by page search for properties within Civil District 12, range 1, section 2 of the 10th Surveyor’s District.
My plan is that once I’ve gathered together those plats for the Civil District 12 that I’ll then work on locating plats for the 13th Civil District and then be able to put John Washington Womble’s 1870’s neighborhood together.
