Author: Laura Scott Cleveland

  • Under My Nose

    ” I’m compelled to share…regardless of the reception.”

    –Chilly Billy Howell, Moon Lake, MS

    What’s in a name?

    My sympathy is with those ancestry hunters whose surnames are “SMITH.” Verifying their correct “Grandpa John” or “Cousin James” must be the stuff of nightmares. The debut post of FAMILY HEROES and villains in which I shared the events that led to the discovery of my missing 4ggf (fourth great grandfather) demonstrated that a unique name is an extremely helpful clue in confirming that a person is one’s family member. My relatively new cousin Bruce and I may never have connected had it not been for that unique name of our shared grandfather, “Histasperus.”

    On Pandemic Time

    Everyone in the world remembers the year 2020. Covid-19 sent us all home and time seemed to stand still. To exasperate matters, a medical issue extended my family’s house arrest. What was our escape? Social media. Among the top three apps I used to waste–I mean occupy–my time, was Facebook. I’m not a very interactive member of social media. My “feed” is dominated by posts from historical and genealogical societies, county history pages, Ancestry and FamilySearch groups and recipe pages therefore, that’s what my “algorithm” serves up to me. (Who could have predicted that the word “algorithm” would be become part of our everyday vocabularies?)

    One day in 2021, mid pandemic, scrolling through my feed, I saw a post about the Crabb, STEWART, Key, Dotson home in Morgan County, Alabama. Of course, the sight of a family surname, STEWART, especially one of a direct line, grabbed my attention. At the top of the page was a pinned post about the unveiling of a historic marker at the home, coinciding with Alabama’s Bicentennial.

    Crabb-Stewart-Key-Dotson Home Marker1

    There it was! “Histaspas Stewart!”

    I read the marker in disbelief:

    “In 1850, prominent merchant Histaspas Stewart purchased the property from the Crabb estate.”

    Seeing that name and the tiny bit of biographical information on the historical marker ranks in the top five most exciting moments in all my 30 plus years of family research. Up to that point, my STEWART family had been so elusive, and then in an instant, I was bursting with hope that my lost family was found! Although the spelling wasn’t exactly as I’d known it, I knew that minimally, this man had to be connected to my “Histasperus” STEWART.

    Needless to say, I pored over every detail of that Facebook page. The page’s photo albums included images of a 1925 title search listing the heirs of Histaspas STEWART, a gold mine of information! I immediately started exhaustive research of those heirs that continues today. Traditional genealogy begins with yourself, working backward through your ancestors.  This situation called for forensic genealogy or reverse genealogy, beginning with ancestors and moving forward. I soon learned there had been 11 children, ten who lived to adulthood. This was going to take a minute!

    The “Where”

    The Cherokee’s cession of their land in Alabama through the 1816 Treaty of Turkeytown2 opened a new “western frontier” situated in what is now north Alabama. Early settlers soon purchased the forested lands and journeyed in the same manner as their adventurous ancestors who migrated through the upper colonies in hopes of better opportunities. Almost exclusively, migration was a cooperative effort of several families and took place during the winter between growing seasons. Ideally the family groups included a carpenter, a blacksmith, a miller, etc. Ahead of the journey, they pared down their belongings to what was required to survive the trip and to quickly establish shelter upon arrival. In most cases everything was loaded onto pack animals and carts, not necessarily because they couldn’t afford wagons but because roads, as we know them, even primitive ones didn’t exist, only trails and paths which weren’t sufficient even for carts in some places, much less wagons. The families journeyed mostly on foot toward their new lives. Once they arrived, second only to constructing shelter, clearing land of trees and rocks was priority to prepare for the life-sustaining crops to be planted in the spring.

    In 1817, bending to pressure from white southerners who desired to have a slave state, the Alabama Territory was formed from land in the Mississippi Territory. Occupying the territory were the Native Americans and the earliest settlers who had journeyed from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia.

    “The State of Mississippi and Alabama Territory” Francis Shallus 18183

    Cotaco County, later renamed Morgan County, in Alabama was formed from the Cherokee cessions in February 1818. Somerville was the county seat from 1818-1891.

    Photo credit: http://www.townofsomerville.org

    On July 10, 1818, five months after Cotaco County was established, Thomas Drane CRABB registered his purchase of 161 acres, near present day Falkville, the property upon which he would eventually build a home. Thomas CRABB became the first sheriff of Cotaco County. He was also one of two representatives from the county who were delegates to the Alabama Constitutional Convention in Huntsville4 in July and August of 1819. They signed the 26-sheet parchment which was adopted on July 30th. On December 14, 1819, Alabama was granted statehood, becoming the 22nd state.  Mr. CRABB was the county’s state representative for the remainder of his life.

    Constitution Hall – Huntsville, Alabama
    The Alabama Constitution – Thomas Drane Crabb’s signature


     In 1822, four years after frontiersman Thomas CRABB purchased his tract, a man named Abraham STOUT was commissioned to build Alabama’s first north to south running road, from Gandy’s Cove in Morgan County to Elyton, the seat of Jefferson County at that time. Stout purchased land all along the road on which to live as construction of “Stout’s Road” progressed. He set gates to collect tolls that he was allowed to keep as part of his agreement. Over the years as settlements were planted, sections of the road were renamed but there are remnants in Jefferson and Blount Counties still carrying the name Stout’s Road, not to mention, Stout’s Mountain in Cullman County.

    Excerpted Civil War correspondence from G.M. Dodge, Brigadier-General [USA], 16th Army Corps, Athens, AL, March 27, 1864, to Maj. Gen. J.B. McPherson, Army of the Tennessee, Huntsville, Ala., describing roads from the Mississippi line to the Coosa Valley:

    “Stout’s road runs directly south from Somerville, crossing the headwaters of the Black Warrior…This is an excellent road, well provided with everything, avoids all large water-courses, and is mostly used. It forks near Day’s Gap, one branch leading off by way of Blountsville into Coosa Valley, another to Gadsden; crossing of mountains good.”

    Thomas CRABB’S home stood on Stout’s Road about ten miles south of Somerville, conveniently located next to a natural spring. Glyphs found high on its chimney were studied by researchers at Western Carolina University and determined to be of Cherokee origin and predating Sequoyah’s 1821 Cherokee Syllabary. This finding led historians to speculate that local Cherokees may have constructed or assisted in the construction of the log-framed home. It also narrows the timeframe for the construction of the home to 1818-1821. My own logic causes me to speculate that the stone existed on the property and was chosen by whomever constructed the chimney. Although this theory negates the more narrow timeline, with certainty through documentation, we know that the home was built between 1818 and 1828.

    Photo credit: Crabb, Stewart, Key, Dotson Home Facebook page.5
    Sequoyah, oil on canvas, Henry Inman c. 18306
    Sequoyah’s Cherokee Syllabary7
    Photo credit: Crabb, Stewart, Key, Dotson Home Facebook page5

    The spring located on Mr. Crabb’s property on this solitary north-south road provided the perfect stagecoach stop. Other researchers have concluded that in its life it had a store and was possibly an inn. Though I haven’t found confirmation that it was an inn in the classic sense, there was the decades-old custom that allowed travelers to stop at any dwelling with the expectation of being fed and housed, as primitive as the accommodations might have been.

    After the death of Thomas CRABB, the home and 160 acres were purchased by Dr. and Mrs. James B. COLLIER in 1830 for $500. In 1837 Dr. COLLIER passed away, without a will, but with a valuable estate. That was a time when women weren’t allowed to own property, with a few exceptions, one being dower’s rights. A husband could legally will one third of his property to his widow in a dower’s portion. In the absence of a will, Mrs. COLLIER was forced to petition the county court for her dower rights which she did. A year later, she was granted possession of one third of the property, including the home.

    Not only did women have no right to own property at that time, but they also had no right to custody of their own children. The word “orphan” did not refer only to a parentless child, but also to a fatherless child.  When a father passed away, a guardian was appointed for his minor children regardless of whether his wife survived him. This was the circumstance in which Mrs. COLLIER, the lady of the CRABB, COLLIER home, found herself, so Mr. Riley S. DAVIS was appointed guardian for the COLLIER children. I’m unsure which came first, the guardianship or the marriage, but Mrs. COLLIER became Mrs. DAVIS. A dozen years later the COLLIER heirs sold their inherited property to their stepfather/guardian, Mr. DAVIS, who then, in 1853, sold the home and 240 acres to Histaspas STEWART for $900.

    The “Who”

    Sometime between 1797 and 1801, Histaspas STEWART was born in North Carolina. There is much research yet to do as I have collected few reliable records of his early life. Family Bible records revealed the names of two brothers, Lincoln and Othneal (there’s another great name, it’s biblical!). The first two U.S. Censuses of the 19th century place both brothers in Mecklenburg County. Lincoln lived in Providence Settlement, a section of Charlotte. An unnamed member of Othneal’s household in 1830 fit Histaspas’s age leading me to suspect he resided with his brother, having found no record of his heading a household of his own. Oral history from STEWART descendants suggests Histaspas’s family immigrated from Ireland. One descendant stated his grandfather was a “red headed Irishman,” probably a misnomer. Considering that Charlotte was settled by Scots-Irish Presbyterian (and later in fewer numbers, German) immigrants plus the name STEWART, one can assume the family were Ulster Scots, Scottish people who moved from Scotland to Ulster, Ireland, many moving on to America. So, the “red-headed Irishman” was most likely a red-headed Scotsman whose family eventually came to America by way of Ireland.

    When he was a young man, Histaspas migrated to Alabama with another family. To my knowledge the first recorded event of Histaspas’s presence in Alabama was in 1823 at approximately 22 years of age, as he purchased 81 acres which adjoins the present-day Quail Creek Resort in rural Morgan County. Within two years of his arrival in Alabama, Histaspas and Eliza NUNN were married by a Presbyterian minister. Their family grew with the birth of their first child, daughter Mary, on July 14, 1826, who was born deaf and mute. Histaspas and Eliza continued to add to their family as well as amass acreage in Morgan County.

    For research purposes it is extremely helpful that these STEWARTS were intent on passing down this unusual name. (Most likely it originated from Hystaspes the father of Darius I and grandfather of Xerxes from the Biblical book of Esther.) To date, among his descendants, I have identified five men and two women who were given a version of his name, one of whom isn’t blood related. To explain the unrelated: Histaspas was appointed guardian of a true orphan, Archibald TAPSCOTT, in 1830. Archibald then named a son “Histaspas Stewart TAPSCOTT.”  Two women in the family were given the name “Tassie,” the nickname my great grandfather Franklin Histaspas STEWART disliked so much. It makes one question, when these parents were considering names for their babies, was it the name they loved or the man who carried it? I prefer to think the latter. Besides naming patterns, another advantage to my research was that the STEWARTS were a well-documented family in the rural area of Cedar Cove as well as the city of Hartselle, which was first established as a village in 1870.

    The careful study of Histaspas’s children, three sons and eight daughters, revealed that two of his sons served as Justices of the Peace in Morgan County. Interestingly, four of his daughters were born deaf and mute, three of whom never married. Exploring the next generation led me to Histaspas’s grandson George H. STEWART, son of Joseph STEWART (who was NOT involved in public service therefore not as well documented.) Was this “my” George, my 2ggf? As described in my first blog post, my George was a mysterious (nefarious?) character. To confirm if they were the same individual, I turned to DNA. My Ancestry.com DNA results produced two great grandchildren of George H. STEWART genetically matched to me. It was a “Eureka!” moment. These were indeed my grandfathers, my George, my Joseph and my Histaspas. The discovery of the STEWART home through a somewhat random Facebook post coupled with the subsequent research revealed two more generations of my elusive STEWART family. Histaspas STEWART, my 4ggf, raised his large family in the home with the historical marker that stands just 20 miles north of my own home.

    Old houses or old places in general evoke indescribable sentiments in me, much like those felt when flipping through old, musty, handwritten pages or ultimately finding new ancestors. Standing on ground where my ancestors walked generations before me strengthens my connection to them–literally grounding. Generally, the only known, much less accessible, common ground to be found surrounds an ancestor’s grave. When the “where” and “who” converged on the ground of my fourth great grandparents’ home, allowing me to walk where they worked and lived their day-to-days, it was a visceral experience. Some will think this sounds a bit crazy. Some will understand it as my “why.”

    As noted, Histaspas was acquiring property in Morgan County decades before purchasing the CRABB home and he continued to add to his land holdings for most of his life. About the same time he purchased the home, he donated 20 acres about a mile away on Cedar Cove Road “near Fairview Mountain” for the site of Fairview Presbyterian Church and graveyard. About 1860 on the heels of a “great revival” the church was enrolled in the Tuscumbia Presbytery.

    “The past year has been one of unprecedented outpouring of the Holy Spirit in many parts of our beloved country and other lands, so that hundreds of thousands of precious souls have been added to the church.” 8

    The year 1861 began with Alabama’s secession from the Union. The following year, “the Yankees invaded North Alabama.”8 Of Histaspas and his three sons, I’ve found service records for only one son. One could hypothesize that these men had the means to pay a substitute to take their place in the military, a controversial practice of both the Union and the Confederacy, prompting the label “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” Histaspas II “Tass,” the youngest son, already a widower at 23 with a two-year-old daughter, enlisted with Confederate Company C, 1st Cavalry in November of 1861. He returned from the war, remarried, grew his family and was deeply involved in the founding, business and civil matters of Hartselle, Alabama. It’s worth noting that a search of the U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedules, listed no members of this family as enslavers, despite their relatively large land holdings, suggesting the practice of sharecropping or tenant farming.

    The churches were not immune from North Alabama’s devastation during the war. The Tuscumbia Presbytery’s churches did not have a single meeting from September 1861 to November 1865. In 1903, about 50 years after it was established, “poor interest led to the dissolution”8 of Fairview Presbyterian Church along with seven other churches in the Tuscumbia Presbytery. It is unknown to me how long the Fairview church building was used and when it ceased to exist. All that remains on the site is the graveyard in the woods containing approximately 22 marked and unmarked graves. The last known interment in the graveyard was William T. RHEA in 1910. The names BARNES, BLEVINS, EPPERSON, JOHNSON, LONG, STOVALL and of course, STEWART can be found in the burying ground.

    One hundred years and forty-one days before I was born, on May 31, 1863, at the height of the Civil War, Histaspas STEWART passed away at 62 years old, the age I am now. He died intestate therefore his widow Eliza and his eldest son Thomas were court-appointed administrators of his estate. Thomas paid their friend W.T. MORRIS $16 to make a coffin, and his father was the first of the STEWART family to be laid to rest in the Fairview Presbyterian Church graveyard. He was survived by his widow and ten children, with seven of his daughters, including two minors, still living at home. A guardian was to be appointed for the “orphaned” minor daughters.

    American Farm Yard–Evening, Fanny Palmer 1812-1876, artist. Published by Currier & Ives9

    As the law required at that time, three “independent” appraisers were appointed to inventory and value the estate. Those chosen were closely associated with the STEWART family, one being another 4ggf of mine, George TURNEY, whose daughter was married to Histaspas’s son, Joseph. The estate inventory provides a glimpse of a way of life during a very different time. Partial inventory of Histaspas’s property: 430 acres of land, 3 horses, 1 wagon, 14 head of cattle, 22 head of sheep, 29 head of hogs, blacksmith tools, a cotton gin, a rifle, 6 plows, 3 harrows, debt payable to the deceased in notes totaling $80.25. Apparently, all his cash, $400, was in Confederate notes. We’re more familiar with the term “greenbacks,” the nickname for northern notes. “Greybacks” or “bluebacks,” are nicknames for the Confederate notes, which were worth approximately 33 cents on the dollar in 1863.

    Histaspas STEWART, I heirs’ property agreement. Note the required signatures of the husbands of the female heirs (signatures shown that aren’t named STEWART.)

    Although an appraisal was completed, the administrators petitioned the court to keep the estate’s property together for a period of five years for the benefit of the four daughters who were “deaf and dumb.” And so, it remained for six years until 1869 when brother Thomas, administrator, once again petitioned the court, but this time to request permission to sell the personal property because it was “an expens and trobel to those to who we have the care.” Within a month a sale of the personal property was held. The proceeds were divided between the heirs, one-fifth share to the widow amounting to $115.17 and $57.57 each for his seven daughters and youngest son. The same heirs entered into a sales agreement to deed 280 acres from the estate to the deaf and mute sisters, Mary, Jane, Atheldria and Margaret Ann, all unmarried and by that time having reached the age of majority. As often was the case, it appears the two elder sons, Thomas and Joseph, had already received their inheritances from their father as they didn’t receive an heir’s portion of the sale, nor were they parties to the land agreement with their sisters. It is known that Thomas had already been gifted land by Histaspas and most likely Joseph had, as well.

    Thirty years after the settlement of Histaspas’s estate, sisters Mary, Jane and Atheldria, still lived in the family home and managed the property, even adding to the acreage. In 1902 they deeded five parcels totaling 155 acres to their sister Eliza’s son, nephew Nathaniel “Nat” KEY for “$100.00, paid, and Love and affection for our nephew” with the stipulation that they “shall be permitted to remain on the said premises and have full and free control of the rents and proceeds of the said property until their death, the management and superintendence of the said property however is vested immediately with the said N.A. KEY.” What a deal! The terms “rent and proceeds” from the property lend credence to the idea that sharecropping and/or tenant farming was practiced by Histaspas and then his descendants.

    One can assume that Nat KEY moved into the home with his aunts upon his marriage to Nelie MURPHY in 1906. By 1910, of his three STEWART aunts, only his Aunt Jane survived. She was 80 years old and still lived in her old homeplace with her beloved nephew and his family on that section of old Stout’s Road that was renamed Nat Key Road. Jane lived seven more years and is buried in a family plot on the homeplace, Key Cemetery #2. The plot’s first interment was sister Mary STEWART in 1905. Mary wasn’t buried with her family in the old Fairview Cemetery less than a mile away, perhaps because Jane and Atheldria wanted her near to them on the property. Eventually sisters Atheldria, Jane and Eliza the mother of Nat KEY joined Mary there in the cemetery on the homeplace along with approximately a dozen others.

    Photo credit: Laura SCOTT CLEVELAND

    FYI: A burial ground beside a church is a “graveyard.”

    A “cemetery” is not associated with a church.

    Photo credit: Crabb, Stewart, Key, Dotson Home Facebook page.

    The lovely yet formidable, more than 200-year-old home was occupied by Histaspas STEWART and his descendants for 162 years. It passed from Nat KEY to his son James “Arthur” KEY and then to Arthur’s daughter, Eula KEY. In 2015, my 3rd cousin twice removed, Miss Eula KEY, 82, sold it to the current owners, the Dotsons. She passed away the following year.

    Sadly, in the process of writing this post, I learned that Mrs. Dotson passed away early this year. She is buried in the cemetery on the property. The Dotsons researched, rehabilitated and lovingly care for the historical home. I owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude for their preservation of the past, otherwise I may never have found my STEWART family and this rare, amazing piece of my family history, the Crabb, Stewart, Key, Dotson home, that was standing right there UNDER MY NOSE!

    Dig a little deeper:

    1. The Historical Marker Database ↩︎
    2. Treaty of Turkeytown 1816 ↩︎
    3. University of Alabama – Historical Maps Collection ↩︎
    4. Constitution Hall – Constitution Village, Huntsville, Alabama ↩︎
    5. Crabb, Stewart, Key, Dotson Home ↩︎
    6. Smithsonian – National Portrait Gallery ↩︎
    7. Sequoyah Birthplace Museum ↩︎
    8. James William Marshall, The Presbyterian Church in Alabama, (Montgomery, AL: The Presbyterian Historical Society of Alabama, Donald Carson Graham, 1977, p. 131 ↩︎
    9. Library of Congress ↩︎

    PREVIOUS POSTS:

  • Welcome to my blog!

    Who knew that my curious nature would lead me to dip my pen, so-to-speak, and enter the world of internet blogging to share my personal experiences in amateur genealogy? I certainly never dreamt of such a thing. The rich experiences of finding fascinating people from generations ago (or not-so-long-ago) whose names I’d never heard, but with whom I share the very building blocks of my physical being, have become too precious to keep to myself!

    This is for my daughter. She was a motivator before she knew or cared about her family history. I just knew she would, one day, and now she does. She’s my biggest encourager. This is for my husband who, as an adult, learned his last name came by legality not by blood. This is for my future grandchildren and their grandchildren, should I be so blessed. This is for my nieces and nephew and their children, present and future. This is for my son-in-law who humors me when I’m dying to share something new I’ve found. His ancestors are some of the most memorable! This is for anyone who isn’t bored by my frequent tales of those who came before us, passed their DNA to us and who were family even without the DNA connection. Our ancestors teach us, present tense, about God, human nature, failure, success, struggle and grit. Judgement is left to the reader to determine under which category each story falls

    In all honesty, first and foremost and without shame I admit, this is for ME! It’s been a long time coming, but recording our ancestors into perpetuity starts with one post…

    “I wish you could find out what happened to my daddy.”

    My family “research” began through tunnel vision—MY surname and my surname only, SCOTT, was my complete focus.  It was the end of the 80’s and the closest and oldest member of my SCOTT family, my beloved Papa (pronounced pop’aw), Joseph Fornie SCOTT, had already passed away.  By default, my font of information was his wife, my sweet Mamo (pronounced mah’maw), Ethel Olena STEWART SCOTT. Her mind was sharp and her memories, sweet. BUT every conversation with Mamo about my SCOTT family history elicited a melancholy response from her, “I wish you could find out what happened to my daddy.”

    Spoiler alert: I did!

    Recently I found my notes from one of those conversations I had with Mamo SCOTT back in the 80’s. Everything she knew about her father fit on a single sheet of pencil-scratched paper that I’d torn from her notebook, a stenographer’s notebook she most likely used for letter writing. According to those notes, her father’s departure happened when she was 13 months old and her little brother “Jack” was one month old. Obviously, her knowledge of those events was not firsthand, being too young to remember, but the math worked with their birthdates. Her father, best known as “Tassie” STEWART, worked in Birmingham, Alabama as a streetcar conductor during the week and returned home to Hanceville, Alabama on the weekends. It was circa 1910. A daily commute wasn’t a reality, after all. When her father failed to return home, her grandfather and her Uncle Joe traveled to Birmingham with photograph in hand and talked to his employers at the railyard. They were told no STEWART worked there, but the picture looked like an employee named SMITH who was transferred to Athens, Alabama, along with a secretary. And that’s all Mamo knew–for ALMOST her entire life. I took that tiny bit of information and hit the genealogy rooms of the libraries in my area, exhausted their resources and came up dry. I tried.

    Left: Franklin H. STEWART in his work uniform, ca. 1904
    Birmingham, AL – Black and white photograph of Second Avenue looking east from Nineteenth Street, which includes businesses, street cars and pedestrians.19101

    Fast forward to January of 2000. While visiting Mamo at the rehab center where she was living, I broached the subject of her father. She explained that she had spent a lot of time with Uncle Joe’s (William Joseph ALLRED) and Aunt Addie’s daughters, especially in the summers after the annual “protracted meeting.”  It was Uncle Joe who told her things about her Daddy. On that day in 2000 she retold her story almost exactly as she had a decade or so earlier. What had changed over the years was the availability of a wonderful new tool in every household, the World Wide Web. I can still hear the racket of the dial-up modem and remember peeking through a squinted eye at the phone bill every month!

    Hey kids, in the old days we used to pay for internet access by the minute!

    I also remember the glory days when you could do an internet search and the massive results included EVERY instance those search terms were found within sites, as crude as the sites were, without algorithms and targeted results, full of information, no fluff, can you imagine? It truly was glorious! But I digress.

    In the world of genealogy, as we approached the new millennium, message boards ruled. One would post a query to a board that would have been categorized by surname, location or interest and then WAIT for a response. Thankfully, my great grandfather had an unusual middle name.  Mamo had to spell it for me: H-i-s-t-a-s-p-e-r-u-s STEWART, nicknamed Tassie, and she thought his first name was Franklin. The day after my visit with Mamo I sat at my gigantic computer at home in Arab, Alabama and composed a query for information on Franklin Histasperus “Tassie” STEWART. I included his name, place and time period, but not the whole story. I posted my query then WAITED–for two months.

    That name!

    At the end of March 2000, I got a hit on my query from someone named Bruce, in Panama City, Florida. His “Grampa Frank” had a funny middle name, too. Thankfully, Bruce didn’t get hung up on spelling and hit the “reply” button. A flurry of electronic mail communications ensued. In between our emails he called his mother, Maxine, in Iowa, informing her of what he’d learned from me, as unsubstantial as it was. One at a time, the puzzle pieces fell into place. Within a couple of days we, three, concluded that my Tassie and their Frank had to be the same person. With reasonable confidence, I could finally tell Mamo what happened to her daddy!

    Fact vs. Fiction

    As it turns out, Maxine’s father, Frank, was a bit of a mystery to her as well. He shared very little about his extended family and what she was told about his early life was sketchy, at best. As we shared information, some of what she knew as fact was actually fiction, most likely meant to distract from the truth.

    Maxine2: “I’m afraid I’m very unsure about my father’s family (Stewart).  They lived on a plantation near Birmingham, Alabama before the Civil War.  There were 28 slaves on the plantation so it wasn’t too large.” “Frank was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1885” and his “mother died when he was 9 months old…a Negro ‘mammy’ in the home of his grandfather whom Frank Called ‘The Old Colonel’ took care of Frank. The Old Colonel had fought in the Civil War, the Colonel died when Frank was 12, which seemed to have left him devastated.”

    The Research: Frank’s paternal grandfather, Joseph L. STEWART appears to have lived his entire life in Morgan County, Alabama, not on a plantation near Birmingham. I ruled him out as “The Old Colonel.”

    Frank’s maternal grandfather, Joseph ALLRED, lived on 300 acres in Blount County, Alabama (in present day Cullman County after the lines were redrawn) which could be considered “near Birmingham.” I found no evidence that he enslaved people. He enlisted with the 2nd Ala Engineer Corps, CSA and left service with the rank of private. He died in 1911 when Frank was 25 years old. Joseph ALLRED was an industrious man – a farmer, dry goods merchant, letter carrier (on horseback), shoemaker, postmaster and according to his Civil War service record, a blacksmith.

    Frank was born in 1885, not in Birmingham, but near Hanceville, Alabama. He did live with his ALLRED grandparents for a period of time.

    The story of the Old Colonel, enslaver on a plantation (and his premature demise) and the “Negro mammy” is debunked, although the details seem familiar, borrowed, perhaps, from plots in literature and film? We’ve proven that Frank took creative license with the chronology of events. Subterfuge?

    The ALLRED family’s version of Tassie’s early life3: Gladys ALLRED GRAHAM (1904-2000) wrote that after the death of Tassie’s mother Litia, his father, George, moved with him to north Alabama. George remarried, but the new wife didn’t want the boy, so they put him on a train south to Hanceville. Tassie’s grandmother “saw him walking up the road with his little sack of clothes…crying.” He was about nine years old. “Grandma and Grandpa ALLRED took care of him until he was grown. His father and stepmother disappeared into oblivion.”

    The Research: Tassie’s mother, Litia Jane ALLRED, did indeed pass away when he was a baby. She was killed circa 1886 in a fiery accident. (Or was it? To be explored in a future post.) His father, George STEWART, moved home to Morgan County, Alabama, fathered a daughter with a 14 year old girl in 1888, and married the young mother in 1890. Their marriage license is the last record I have of George’s life. (It has to be said: like father, like son.)The stepmother moved west to Texas and started another family.

    We have photographic evidence that Tassie was with his maternal grandparents when he was about 12 years old.

    The Joseph and Emily ALLRED Family – ca. 1897. Front row: Roy W., son of James M.; Joseph; Franklin “Tassie” STEWART son of Litia Jane ALLRED; Emily holding Effie, dau. of William J. Back row: Andrew J.; Telula F. and James M; Hattie A. and William J.
    Franklin H. “Tassie” STEWART and Alice C. MEADOWS STEWART – Wedding Day?
    Ethel Olena STEWART SCOTT

    The Research: In 1900 Tassie, at age 15, was still living with his ALLRED grandparents in the Pleasant Hill community (present-day in the area of the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament.) He married my great grandmother Alice MEADOWS in 1907. A baby girl was born to them circa 1908 but died in infancy. In 1909 another baby girl was born, my Mamo Ethel. The following year a son, Earl “Jack” was born to Tassie and Alice.

    Much like the weaving of eyewitness accounts through the Gospels, we (the Alabama and Iowa STEWART families) managed to create a reasonable timeline of events from various accounts and records. In the summer of 1910 most likely, “Tassie” went to his job in Birmingham, but “Frank” left there, never again to contact any of his Alabama family. From that point forward, he dropped his unusual middle name and his middle initial and became Frank STEWART. Definitely subterfuge.

    Maxine2: She was “not sure of the time frame” —

    • [Frank] worked as a conductor. He lost his job in 1912-13 because the railway found out he was colorblind to red and green.
    • He had Tuberculosis and lived in Arizona for a time where he did landscape work.
    • During World War I, he worked in a shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia. He was never in the military.
    • He helped to build a brick road about 20 miles long between Des Moines, IA and Fort McKinney [McKinley?] It was probably during this time that he and Lillian met.
    • He helped to build the school [Maxine] later attended and taught.
    • He was also a policeman for some period of time.
    • He spent some time in the Dakotas threshing wheat where an engine or boiler of some sort exploded and crippled his left hand.

    It seems Frank inherited the work ethic his grandfather Joseph ALLRED modeled. Maxine told of the hard times they endured and how Frank worked anywhere he could to support the family.

    The Research: Frank lived in a Birmingham boarding house (perhaps only during the weekdays) in April 1910 and worked as a streetcar inspector. His son, Earl “Jack”, was born in June. Assuming he didn’t leave until after the birth of his son, his departure was probably in July or soon thereafter, as was told to Mamo. There are various unproven family theories on the reason for his disappearance. From April 1910 to September 1918 there is no paper trail for Frank, leaving an eight-year gap when his whereabouts and details of his life are unknown at the time of this writing.

    Frank’s 1918 World War I Draft Registration card listed his home address as Norfolk, Virginia where he was employed by the Norfolk Navy Yard. He listed a friend in Dallas Center, Iowa as his “nearest relative.” Logically, one can assume that having a friend there means he was there himself before this time.

    Indeed, Frank had returned there by January 1920, where he lived and worked and on June 20th of the same year, he married Miss Lillian HERR.

    The “brick road” is possibly the Lincoln Highway*, The Main Street Across America, the first national memorial to President Abraham Lincoln, dedicated in 1913 and improved through the 1920’s.

    There is an indication that Frank was a “constable”, a law enforcement officer with limited authority who served small towns in support of the local sheriff’s office.

    Frank’s first child with Lillian, a son, was born in 1921. In the years following, they grew their family, adding another son and four daughters.

    In 1950 as empty nesters, Frank and Lillian moved to a farm in Clarksville, Arkansas. Lillian passed away on January 8, 1952, at the age of 55.

    Maxine: At age 82, Frank was living independently in Omaha, Nebraska near his daughter Rozella in Council Bluffs, Iowa when he had surgery for a burst appendix. He was recovering and was going to be released the following day, and the doctors told him he had to decide who he was going to live with. He refused.  He said not to worry that he would be gone tomorrow. A nurse was assigned to watch his room overnight. He was dead by the following day, the 14th of March 1968.

    Eureka!

    For a long time, I thought that Bruce and I finding each other in 2000 was the magic moment that facilitated the solving of our great mystery.  It was only recently that I learned differently: In the Spring of 1999, Bruce published his own query in the Allred Family Organization Newsletter publication, which had/has a nationwide reach. He was seeking information about Frank’s mother, “Jane Allred.” He also listed her son’s funny name “Hoziekial(?) Franklyn Stewart” and other identifying information. Mr. Woody JACKSON, 78 years old, in Sevierville, Tennessee, whose mother was an ALLRED, answered Bruce’s request. Woody knew about Frank’s life when he was still Tassie. This was THE pivotal moment for those of us searching for answers! Maxine, and her husband Chris, made a trip to Tennessee. They learned a different spelling of Frank’s funny name, sufficiently similar though for Bruce to respond to my query. More importantly, Woody told Maxine she had a “sister named SCOTT.” Woody JACKSON, a historian himself, held the knowledge needed to reconnect a once-fractured family line. He is the hero of this story!

    We were gifted with a two-sided, bittersweet coin. My excitement about the solving of our biggest family mystery was tempered by my heartfelt concern for Maxine. At age 77 she was understandably overwhelmed by revelations about a father she thought she knew. Maxine said, “[Frank] was a very stern, strict father who held very high standards for his children.” Reconciling his actions with those standards was a difficult pill for Maxine to swallow. She could have been bitter, and rightfully so, but it was with sweetness that she embraced the fact that she had another family, the secret her father had taken to his grave.

    Having lived almost a century with the reality that she’d been abandoned by her father and knowing few details about him, Mamo might have embraced bitterness, as well, yet I don’t believe there was a bitter bone in her body. To the end she was naturally curious and hopeful of learning more about him. She had long suspected there were siblings out there somewhere. When the suspicion became reality, the knowledge alone seemed to be a sweet relief.

    On Easter Sunday in 2000, the two STEWART families came together. Bruce and his wife Susie, Bruce’s mom and dad Maxine and Chris traveled to Alabama where we were able to introduce the (half) sisters, Maxine and Ethel.

    Ethel STEWART SCOTT and Maxine STEWART STRAMPE, April 23, 2000

    In the Summer of the same year, 2000, my Daddy and I attended an Allred family reunion in Hanceville, Alabama where we got to meet Woody JACKSON and many more Allred cousins. It was a pleasure!

    Ethel Olena STEWART SCOTT passed away August 17, 2001, at the age of 92. I’m thankful she lived long enough with a clear mind to find out what happened to her daddy and then to meet her sister. She was survived by Maxine and another sister she didn’t meet.

    Verna Maxine STEWART STRAMPE passed away August 19, 2014, at the age of 91. She was the last remaining survivor of her eight siblings.

    Here ends the first installment of FAMILY HEROES and villains. Chronologically, the discovery of Frank STEWART, a resurrection of sorts, falls in the middle of the life of my family research but holds its place at the pinnacle above all others in the 25 years since.  As a matter of fact, I took a little break from research at that time, being overwhelmed myself and having the attitude that all other discoveries would pale in comparison. Many times I said, “How will I ever top that?” Thankfully, I got over it!

    The STEWART family story doesn’t end here. A future post will address what happened when I found the correct spelling of that funny name, H-I-S-T-A-S-P-A-S.

    *Want to dig a little deeper? Check out these links:

    1 Birmingham Public Library (Alabama), Birmingham De Luxe book, 1910, F334.B68 A23 1910

    2 Letter from Maxine STEWART STRAMPE to Bonnie RICKE, 1986.

    3The Allred Family, compilation by Gladys ALLRED GRAHAM

    2 responses to “Welcome to my blog!”

    1. Rebecca Hagen Avatar
      Rebecca Hagen

      Laura, this blog post is outstanding! Well-written, facts carefully documented, the wheat separated from the chaff as is usually necessary when considering family lore. My connection to this fascinating story is through the woman my father (1928-2024) called Grandma, though she was not related to him by blood, Alice Meadows Stewart Brannan.

      I knew Alice had been married before she married Francis Marion Brannan, I knew she had children with her first husband, and I always wondered what had happened to him since there was no evidence that Alice had been widowed. My dad’s grandfather Frank was a strict and conservative Baptist and I couldn’t see him marrying a woman with the “taint” of divorce on her in the ordinary course of things.

      Your research explained so much! I have a photo or two of Alice in later life and a few amusing stories from my father that I can share if you are interested. Thanks so much for posting this! What an incredible amount of work and research and excellent record keeping went into it.

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. Laura Scott Cleveland Avatar
        Laura Scott Cleveland

        Rebecca, thank you so much for your very kind and supportive words!

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