Ordering my grandfather Cecil
Carter's death certificate I learned who his parents
were and began to call around some
local cousins to learn more about them. Then I
ordered his dad's death certificate
which was a big help in my research. Cecil was my mom's
father and she knew nothing
about him since she was orphaned at the age of 4.
He had told her family stories about
being indian , drank too much they say, and even talked
about having a great grandfather
indian chief, which I have thusfar been unable to
locate. His mother had
married three times, first to Fenn, then Dasher, and
lastly to a Carter so any of them could
connect to a tribe or perhaps one of their mothers or
even more likely to his mother's
lineage way back to 1700s Georgia. There are many
new paths to follow to learn the
truth.
His parents divorced after
having six children between 1893 and 1900 and remarried
so the trace became complicated.
He might have been adopted but surely took on a
new last name. My mother was
indian and when I started looking up census records I
found Cecil's mother Anna Lou Stone as
a child in one record and then I found her Uncle
Charles Stone in Alabama and he
had named his sons Osceola and Tecumseh, so
perhaps I am on the right track,
but which tribe? They were all living in former
Creek Territory but Cecil said he was
Cherokee, perhaps they were mixed blood.
Cecil and his brother Emmett
were tall, large men, dark complexion while their
brother Frank Jr had smaller facial
features and black eyes and black hair. Frank's
granddaughter Martha met with me
and she was at least 6' tall and copper skinned,
lovely lady.
When Cecil was born his mother
decided to leave them all and go back to her family in
Macon City, Bibb County,
Georgia. Cecil was in his father's arms crying so
Wiliam told Anna "here you might as well
take this one" and she did. Then he told the other
children that Cecil was only their
"half" sibling. Cecil was found on the 1920 and
1930 census of Fort Bliss in El Paso Texas but
apparently he visited his family in Alabama now and
then, and they said he was very
mean and drank too much. I only found a few of his
pictures and aparently a time book for a
job he was working in Oak Park before he died in 1939.
The only thing I can remember
about Oak Park was the hospital on Forest Avenue so
maybe he worked
there.
Frank Jr even told his children
that his sister Carrie was only his half sister and she
was the firstborn to Anna and
William Fenn so perhaps the kids just did not get along
or perhaps she looked more like an
indian than the others and was
mistreated.
Cecil's father was William
Franklin Fenn born in 1855 Tuskegee, Macon
County Alabama and Wm's parents were Emeline
Harrell and John Fann of Early County Georgia which
was also former indian
territory. John had served in the Civil War and
his father Elijah Fann born 1788 had drawn in the
Cherokee Land Lottery of Georgia. Elijah had
married Martha Rich and her mother was
only known as "Abiah". Elijah's father was Travis
Fann of Virginia, possibly an indian
trader, who married a lady known only as "Mary".
The history of Georgia listed on
usgenweb.com has many stories about the indian traders,
the tribes, the loss of their
lands, and the gold rush of Georgia.
Travis may have been a mixed
blood himself, parents were Alecy McCoy and Zachariah
Fann of Virginia, and I found
some land records on them and their service in the
American Revolution and started
putting those documents on a webpage to view later or
to share with family
Elijah's brother Matthew was
probably the first of the Fenn family to move into
Alabama buying up several hundred acres
of land, employing indians to work the plantation
which was fine but illegal in
the state of Georgia. Matthew Fenn is mentioned in
a book "Early Settlers of Barbour
County".
It was on that plantation where
William Franklin Fenn became the Farm Manager.
Many Fenns may be buried on
that old plantation and a recently found descendant of
Matthew told me that she had to go
to court with the present day owner of that land to
protect the graves of her family.
Anna Stone's parents were Mary
Ann Hendrick, daughter of Christopher Columbus
Hendrick and Augustus Marvin
Stone. Augustus was the son of Sarah Daviess and
Benjamin Wilburne Stone of
Georgia. Ben's parents were Polly Wells of Putnam
Georgia and Michael Stone of
Maryland - they lived in Captain John Stone's District.
Michael and his sons Benjamin
and William Stone were in Macon County Alabama on
the 1850 census with many
returning to Georgia after that but Augustus remained in
Alabama until
1900.
Maybe that is when Anna decided
to go back to Georgia herself and take care of her
mother. The census records
showed that William Fenn was twenty years older than
Anna. His second wife was
even younger.
William and Anna's children were
Carrie/Carolyn, Emmett Marvin, William Franklin,
Robert Lee known as Uncle Lee,
Arthur Lee and Cecil Earl Fenn. Emmett was a very big
man who worked for the railroad
and he lived in downtown Montgomery near the Union
Station. He would stop off
in New York to buy his ver large clothing and that is
where he died of a heart attack. His
nephew Bob Fenn of Millbrook fetched his body back to
Montgomery for burial. Bob
was the son of Frank Jr and principal of Robinson
Springs Elementary School. My mom
put me in touch with him once to discuss our family.
Bob also put me in touch with his
sister Martha. Bob said that he remembered Cecil
being close to a Wm Fenn and Mattie
Mae Adkins Fenn in Georgia but wasn't sure of the
connection. He also told
me that they rememberd Grandma Carter sending pictures
home and gifts. One
picture was of a baseball player, Tige Stone, that they
placed in the living room. Tige
was the son of Anna's brother and played one season in
1923 for the St Louis Cardinals. Bob
siad they had a house fire in Coosada and lost
everything though.
Martha remembered the death of
Grandma Carter and her family taking the train to
Macon. I found grandma
listed as Annie Dasher in 1920 living with her mother
Mary in Macon so she must have married
Carter later.
Cecils's military discharge
shows he received travel pay to his "bonafide" home in
Macon.
His sister Carolyn married later
in life to a Ben Johnson from Choctaw Territory Texas
and they had moved to Creek
Nation in Oklahoma on the 1930 census.
This is so ironic since I found
a nephew listed on the Dublin census living with my
great great grandfather John Thomas
Bozeman and wonder if there were any
connection.
Cecil's wife Ellie died in 1935
after birthing William Lawrence, her third child, and
Cecil remined drunk until he fell dead
in 1939 walking down Columbus Street. The
children, my mom and her two brothers,
lived with the McClains from then on. Some teased
them about being Indian, they were
poor and had a rough life. They attended Capital
Heights School on Federal Drive. "Billy"
stayed in trouble, Cecil was quiet and Annie married at
a young age to Donald Robinson
for a brief time. Cecil Jr married Christine of
North Carolina and spent many years
there, having a son named Mark, but also had a
brief first marriage to Jean McNeil
having one child named Victoria. Cecil's third wife was
Jerri in Atlana and she had
Michael and Jeffrey Earl Carter, before he left.
Billy had no children but married several
times and spent most of his life in Oklahoma.
Annie met Frank Cochran in 1949 and
married.
Cecil Jr died a few months after
a rattlesnake bit his leg twice and he refused
amputation. Billy died in
car accident. Anne had heart bypass surgery
in 1980 and several infections including flu
and pneumonia before she passed in 1992, being buried
close to her brothers in
Memorial Cemetery in Montgomery
Alabama.
Anna's son Victor loved the
firewater and died of cirrhosis in 2007 being buried by
his mother.
Cecil had married Alice Emma
McClain and she was listed as Ellie on his death
certificate which had been
signed by his brother Emmett Marvin
Fenn.
I called around the local
cemeteries to find their graves. Emmett was buried
by their father William in Greenwood
Cemetery in Montgomery. The caretaker showed me
the space next to William with no
headstone was recorded as the grave of Mat Fenn - lo and
behold on the census records,
William had a brother named Madison and family had
mentioned that William was
buried by Uncle Mat. I have taken tons of pictures
of tombstones and saved many of the
census images on another webpage.
Running out of space quickly I
had to start using and abusing other web designers to get
my research "out there" and have
received tons of emails and packages in my home
mail to add new information to
this labor of love
and have met many new family
members. The list is below but I need to say that
the parents of Alice McClain Carter was Charles Allen McClain born
1886 Ramer Alabama and Lorena Emma Bozeman born
1892 Dublin Alabama. One
cousin who contacted me regarding his research linking
to mine regarding Lorena's mother, Alice
Stephens being a Cherokee, told me that I was on the
right track, saying that our
ancestor John Stephens served in the American Revolution
and married a full blood indian
and migrated to Alabama. Another writes that Lorena's
great great Uncle John Bozeman
married an indian in Darlington SC and moved to
Mississippi in 1823. Then of
course we do not know much at all about the widow Sarah
Brown that Lorena's great great
grandfather Peter Bozeman married in 1786 and had
served in the War.
One trip to Dublin revealed the
first home that Ethel Bozeman and her husband Jace
Gibson built while they and the
children lived in a tent. I was there after talking with
some of her daughters, Ruby and
Peggy, who have now passed on and given directions
and stories. Then I found
the tombstones of Ethel and Jace in Hills Chapel
Cemetery. On the way out I stopped at a
small church cemetery where I saw the tombstone of
Herman and "OOTCHA" Broadway who were
our cousins through Charlie McClain's mother
Elizabeth Broadway who was born
1853. Then it seems that Elizabeth's sister
Rebecca Broadway was the mother of Jace
Gibson.
Elizabeth Broadways' mother was
Mary Stephens, a daughter of Benjamin. Elizabeth
had married Josiah Marion
McClain after the Civil War, but I found no marriage
record because he had deserted his
first wife Julia King in Georgia and his several
children. Julie had filed to joined the
Cherokee Rolls and also filed for divorce in 1872.
Josiah was wounded in the war and his
wife Elizabeth filed for his pension so maybe he had no
memory of his other family.
Josiah's mother is only known as "Anna" and was
married to James McClain and they are
buried in Indian Creek Cemetery in GA.
When I had gone to Greenwood
Cemetery to find the graves of my husband's
grandparents Susie Mae Cooper and James Edgar
Brooks Sr., I found his mother Annie
Clark Ballard beside them and on
my way towards the exit I discovered a Bozeman
family plot and pulled over
immediately. There close to the gate was Nancy Jane
Anderson Bozeman's tombstone,
the grandmother of my Lorena. Buried beside her
were two of her sons, Meady and
Robert, their wives and children.
Uncle Robert is the one who
owned a large piece of land near Maxwell AFB and
donated a portion to create the
Memorial Cemetery where Lorena and her children are
buried and my parents. The
road is named Bozeman Drive and for many years I just
hoped for a connection until
recently did I learn the story. He was a contractor and
each of his six daughters received a
piece of land and street name when they married.
Now I can certainly understand
Lorena's connection to this place.
The story and others were told
to me by a new found cousin Dora Stubbs, the
granddaughter of Dora Dillard
and Uncle Peter James Bozeman. I met Dora in May
2007 on a road trip back to Dublin
with my oldest daughter, where we met many new
Bozeman cousins, children of
Uncle Bob actually, and the Gibson children, quite an
exciting day. We met at
Hills Chapel Church which is across the street from
Hills Chapel Cemetery. We were led
around the block to another road which runs behind the
church to an old family cemetery, a
small burial ground encased with barbed wire, and many
fallen branches and years of
neglect.
I like to call it Bozeman
Hill.....it needed a name.
There we found our great great
great grandfather's tombstone of Peter Edward
Bozeman born 1834 who had served
in the Civil War. Near his was a grave of R L Hill
who must have been his cousin and nearby
was the most precious tombstone I have ever seen -
My Darling ALB - Alice Lorena
Stephens Bozeman was Peter's daughter in law, the wife
of John Thomas Bozeman. Alice was
the great granddaughter of John Stephens and his
cherokee wife. There was a small
clover type design drawn upon the tombstone and the
dates worn very thin.
Family says she died a few months after delivering
Little John and her husband married again right
away to have help with the children.
John Thomas Bozeman is buried at
the Hills Chapel Cemetery with his other wife Sarah
Ellen Bean, near his brother,
Peter James and Dora. Dora Dillard's ancetor Nat Dillard
had a large plantation in Dublin
beofre moving on to Troy. Ellen Bean told the
children she was kin to the hanging Judge
Roy Bean.
Dora Stubbs also told me that
several years back we could have seen about 50 other
tombstones in that old family
plot behind the church. When I researched the area
I found it was once owned by a
John Hill who was most likely the uncle to Peter.
Peter's mother was always listed as
Martha H. so she was possibly the sister of John Hill.
Reading back into Darlington SC
I found a John Hill served in the American Revolution.
Darlington is where Peter's
father william Henry Bozeman married Martha H. - nothing
is known about Martha's
mother.
My List of Ancestors'
Names
http://www.hometown.aol.com/kathybrooks53/page46.html
2 1847 Will of Abraham
Crigler leaving all to wife Lydia.
3 1848 Slave Appraisal of
Abraham Crigler
4 1817 Laurence and
William Roby Wills
6 Will of Reason Roby and
Lawrence Roby 1817
7 William Roby Estate Sale
1834
8 1819 Will of our
grandfather Jesse Simmons leaving land to Catherine
Roby
9 George Little Memorial
placed by great granddaughter
Laura
10 Lydia Carpenter marries
Abraham Crigler in 1795
11 Handley Mason and
Worthington of Ireland to Kentucky 1800
12 Slave Owners in Bullitt
Kentucky
15 Frankie Lavern
Cochran
16 Mary Ella Thornton and
James Edgar Brooks Jr.
17 Frankie Cochran with
Kathy in Arizona
18 Charles Allen McClain
born 1886 - his funeral memorial book and many names of
visitors.
19 Anne Alice Carter
Cochran
20 My pictures of Coosada
and Montgomery Indian Historical
Markers
http://www.hometown.aol.com/kathybrooks53/page21.html
22 Thomas Randolph Carter,
Lacy and Jesse Bozeman, Tombstones
24 Letter by Aunt
Ethel Bozeman, Lorena's sister
25 Peter Bozeman -my
research links