Thanks to my Ancestry membership, I've finally broken this brick wall. The clues lie in two places - the 1870 census for Pulaski county, Georgia, and the cemetery at Antioch Baptist Church in Atkinson county, Georgia.
I have studied the Antioch cemetery because Mae Jowers's brother Harry James Brown (b. Jul. 9, 1898 d. Aug. 31, 1922) is buried there. We also find James Madison Brown (b. Mar. 2, 1865 d. May 2, 1902). Near James Madison's grave is a Martha Ann Brown (b. Nov. 28, 1838 d. Sep. 26, 1904), as well as a John T. Brown (b. Aug. 25, 1862 d. Mar. 8, 1908) and his wife, Belinda Brown (b. Aug. 1, 1866 d. 1955). There is also a William A. Brown (b. 1867 d. 1923) buried in this grouping.
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| Harry James Brown |
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| James M Brown |
Pictures of the additional headstones can be found here. Note that the info listed at find a grave for Martha Ann Brown is (I believe) incorrectly attributed to a Martha Anderson Brown who married a McKinnon. The stone only reads Martha Ann Brown with the dates of birth and death stated above.
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| Martha Ann Brown |
Antioch Baptist Church is located on Highway 82 between Kirkland and Willachoochee, Georgia, between mile marker 9 and 10. Turn north on County Rd 42 (Antioch Church Rd). Cemetery is located at corner of County Rd 42 and County Rd 35 (Sutton Rd). (appro 1 1/2 miles).
The physical proximity of these graves made me suspect a relation, and there was one other family tree at Ancestry that showed our James Madison and John Tyler "Jack" as brothers, with a mother named Martha A Crawford and a father named James M Brown, but I couldn't prove anything until I lined this family up with the 1870 census records.
James M Brown, age 48, planter
Martha A Brown, age 31
Sallie J Brown, age 9
Jonathan, age 7
James M, age 5
William R, age 2
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| 1870 census, Pulaski county, Georgia |
The ages of Martha and the boys line up perfectly with the birth years of Martha A., John T. (assuming he was listed as Jonathan on the census), James Madison, and William A. as listed on the grave stones. This is conclusive enough for me to state with reasonable certainty that the family on the census are our ancestors.
One other item of interest is that the Martha A Brown of the 1870 census is listed as a "lunatic." Don't be put off by that word, as back at that time it may have covered a wide variety of conditions, from schizophrenia to post partum depression (she had four children under the age of 9 at this time) to epilepsy and more. The term was not necessarily intended to be pejorative.
My Ancestry files currently show Ezekiel Brown and Elizabeth Merritt as James M. Brown's parents (James Madison Brown's paternal grandparents). Records for Ezekiel are plentiful, and they show that he had a son named James Monroe Brown in 1823. Unfortunately there is no way at present to know for sure if this is our James M Brown of the 1870 census. The age and birth year line up so it likely is. I also like the fact that both families tended to use the names of U.S. Presidents as middle names for their sons. Ezekiel named two of his sons John Franklin and James Monroe Brown. Our James M named his son James Madison Brown and another, possibly, as John Tyler Brown, although he is listed as John Thomas in some sources.
ReplyDeleteI continue to work on this line and will create a new post if I can solidify our line into the Ezekiel Brown and Elizabeth Merritt line, which would be nice.
This is all very interesting. Thank you for sharing and for taking the time to type this up for your family!
ReplyDeleteThat is interesting that they used so many presidential names. Thanks for pointing that out. I had noticed that there were some presidential names in the family tree, but hadn't looked closely enough to see that it was a trend in this particular family line.