Platting Orientation Using the Census and a Timeline

My progress with creating John Washington Womble’s neighborhood has been slow of late.  This weekend I took a break from visiting my local family history center to research so that I could spend more time on this project.

Earlier in the week I came up with the idea of creating a timeline of events that happened in the Civil District where John Washington Womble lived.  My idea was that perhaps the various land sales would develop into a better grasp of where the various plats were supposed to be. 

A few months ago, I’d listened to a webinar about neighborhood recreation. The lecturer mentioned that one will never completely be able to locate every single tract of land and be able to place it with 100% accuracy in a particular area.  This bit of information was a wonderful boost and needed realism for me.

In creating my timeline I learned a few things, Ellen Womble Bowling and her husband sold their land within a few of her father, John Washington Womble.  Also Womble’s neighbor, Samuel Faught sold his land the exact same day.  Of further interest, John J Womble, nephew to John Washington bought a presumed neighboring tract two years later.  I had always thought mistakenly that at least for a short time the men had been neighbors.  But not so, according to my timeline.

Unfortunately, listing out the various land transactions became less numerous or easy for me.  I’d platted a number of tracts in DeedMapper and began trying to arrange them in a logical manner according to their Census enumeration.  This is slow work because the trying to follow the plats and their placement in the Census doesn’t always seem to follow a logical sequence.

Perhaps something to keep in mind is that the enumerator was likely on horseback and likely wasn’t walking.  The Census for the 12^th Civil District of Hardeman County isn’t too helpful because it only provides the month on some of the pages as an indication as to when the enumeration was done.  So I have no idea if it took the enumerator the entire month to complete where he spent a couple of hours each day traveling around in that Civil District, or if he was able to complete his task within a day.

From prior research I know that there is a bridge that goes across the Hatchie River that was owned by a man named Simpson.  A road known back in that time as the Bolivar Simpson road likely ran from the Hatchie River to Bolivar.  My thought is that likely the enumerator may have traveled along that road and then made his way in a circuitous route off the road and onto whatever lanes, paths, or pastures may have existed to reach the various people living in that Civil District.

Continuing Adventures of Neighborhood Land Search Part 2

I’ve finished reading through vol. N online, but haven’t platted more deeds since then.  Instead, I looked through what deeds I’ve found including those from my visit to my local Family History Center and looked through what tracts I’m missing by using the spreadsheet I’ve created of people enumerated in the 1870 Hardeman County, TN census.

Since some of the acreage amounts don’t match deeds and tax records I’ve found, I decided to go with the theory that those amounts are for multiple tracts of land and then build on that theory with the idea that these multiple tracts of land are next to each other—unless it’s explicitly mentioned in the documents that they’re not.  This may be a bad theory to make, but I feel that it’s logical since that seems the only reasonable explanation for the tax records I’ve found to agree with the deeds.  Also, my theory seemed to work when I was able to “tie” 3 deeds together for one land owner when their cumulative acreage matched exactly to the acreage they were taxed on in the tax records.

Raiford Bizzell listed in 1870 tax list.

Raiford Bizzle's platted deeds in DeedMapper.

Raiford Bizzell compiled taxed acreage and plats listed in spreadsheet.

 As I compared the records I’ve found with the spreadsheet, I found tracts that were possible matches for what I was missing and indicated this on the spreadsheet.  I still haven’t found deeds for all of the land owners listed on my spreadsheet, but still feel that I’m making progress on this project—albeit slowly.

Once I finished reading through vol. N, I began on vol. M, Sept. 1853-July 1855.  In this vol. I found some interesting deeds that may help me in placing some of the other plats I’ve found.  One of these is the deed for 189 acres that Wm. Fulgham sells to Pitser Miller.  This mentions a 2000 acre tract belonging Thomas Claiborne that seems to stand out in some of the land records I’ve viewed and also shares a boundary with one of my ancestor’s deeds.

Another deed I found was Stephen Childress’ 127 acres that he sold to Robert H Goad.  Goad later sells part of this land to Henry Bizzle.  In the deed to Henry, it mentions a road that runs from Bolivar to Simpson’s Ferry and states that it was once part of Childress’ entry.

I don’t know if I’ll find the time to plat out the deeds that seem pertinent to recreating my ancestor’s neighborhood.  But my plan is to definitely review more closely those deeds I’ve found to see if they will fit into the puzzle and help create an accurate depiction of the neighborhood.

Platting Through My Summer Vacation

I wrote back in April that I’d finished looking through Deed books W and X.  With summer vacation having ended here in the DC metro area since school started, I’m offering readers a look at how I spent my summer vacation.

In May, I purchased DeedMapper 4.2 from Direct Line Software.  I had no problems installing it and have found it to be helpful with what’s evolved into a mass platting project.  The software has made creating the plats so much faster and easier than using graph paper and a protractor and put an end to the Geometry class flashbacks/nightmares.

I’ve spent nearly every Saturday afternoon at my local Family History Center this summer reading through deed books page by page and scanning records that I believe to be relevant to my platting project.  My vacation was even spent there reading through a deed book.

At first with DeedMapper, I was putting the plats where I believed they were supposed to be on the map I’m using to place the tracts.  This became too problematic when other plats didn’t appear to jive with tracts that I felt surer of their probable location.  This was resolved by moving the questionably placed tracts out of the area until I had more information to suggest where they were located.

So the end all is that I concentrated on plats that mentioned creeks, rivers, and roads that I could readily identify on the map I’m using.  As I worked I felt a sense of accomplishment when in reading some deeds more closely that specifically mentioned relationships between the parties involved where an ancestor was parsing out pieces of their land to their grandchild or child.  Unfortunately, these records don’t completely apply to the line I’m researching, but I felt it was good to see.  One record was helpful as it concerned the son-in-law of my ancestor John Washington Womble and coupled with some other records I’ve found on the son-in-law it added more pieces to the jigsaw as why my ancestor moved to Hardeman County, Tennessee in the first place.

The deed books that I’ve read through at this writing are:

Vol. W January 1870-October 1871

Vol. X October 1871-November 1872

Vol. Y November 1872-February 1874

Vol. Z February 1874-January 1876

Vol. V September 1, 1868-January 29, 1870

Vol. U April 1867-September 11, 1868

Currently, I’m reading through Vol. T Oct. 30, 1866-April 29, 1867.

Another event in my research was reading a book on Reconstruction.  At first I checked out a book titled, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 by Eric Foner.  The copy they had at my local library was published in 1988.  As my due date for returning the book got closer, I tried to renew it, but couldn’t.  I wound up purchasing an updated version kindle edition that was written by the same author and published in 2014.  This is a fantastic book in my opinion and gave me more insight into the time period that John Washington Womble lived in while he was in Nashville during the Civil War and why he and his family relocated to Hardeman County.

Unfortunately, it didn’t give me insight as to why they left briefly returning to live in Nashville for about a year or so and then returning to Hardeman County, but I likely need to read about the Panic of 1873 or do more research on the family as to their motivations.

After reading the book it sort of made me wonder why that point in history wasn’t covered in much detail in my American History class in high school.

I feel that in my research I’m reaching the end of what’s available deed wise just after the Civil War.  There appears to be a gap with either what the LDS church filmed of the deed books during the Civil War years or the recording of the records was interrupted because of the war.  My thought was to order the vols. AA-BB 1876-1879 next and then to move on to the older records before making a trip out to the Bolivar Courthouse to see what I’m missing.

It was interesting reading the Reconstruction book while reading through the deed books from the same era because I found items recorded that showed many people having financial problems as a result of the end of their way of life prior to the Civil War.  An interesting sight, were records recorded about events that happened before the war and the parties involved were now attempting to resolve their issues now that the fighting had ended.  One record was about a woman who purchased slaves before the war as part of an estate sale.  She had apparently purchased the people on credit and hadn’t paid what was owed on the slaves.  No mention was made in the record that the slaves were now free--only that she was past due on her debts.