Their surnames included Allard, Barbeau, Chalot, Godier, Jacques, Micheau, Paschal, and Roy. They were free people. They were the French Negroes of southern Illinois. They were clustered in Randolph, Union, Jackson, and St Clair counties. How did they get there and where did they come from?

Their story probably begins on the Caribbean island of Hispanola, where on December 5, 1492, the Spanish ship Santa Maria ran aground under the hand of Christopher Columbus. Columbus immediately claimed the island for Spain. The Spanish began importing Africans in the early sixteenth century. French settlers began arriving in 1625 and soon gained control over the western half of the island. In 1697, the Spanish gave the western portion of Hispanola to France. The French colony, named Saint-Domingue, soon became one of the wealthiest colonies in the New World. The French population consisted of the European French, the gens de couleur, and the slaves.

In 1789, the French Revolution began in Europe. Taking notice, the gens de couleur led a rebellion against the colonial government. In the spring of 1791, the French government granted expanded civil rights to free-born blacks and mulattoes. Slaves did not benefit from this action. Thus, in August 1791, slaves in the northern part of the colony, commenced their own rebellion. The French government thereafter revoked the newly-granted rights of the gens de couleur. Not surprisingly, the gens de couleur joined the slave rebellion in force. Under the leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture, the rebels defeated the French colonial government. The French National Assembly then abolished slavery.

In the turmoil that existed, thousands of blacks left Hispanola for mainland America. They went to New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Charleston, Savannah, Florida and Louisiana. In America, plantation owners viewed the “French Negroes” as rebels who might inspire revolution in American slaves. French Negroes were blamed for violence and disease in several American cities.

The French Negroes contributed to the culture and politics of a number of places in the United States, having a particular impact in Louisiana.

The French Negroes of southern Illinois may have come from Louisiana or South Carolina or both.

Next: the Micheau family in Illinois and Missouri.

One of Sister Philomena’s uncles was Joseph Perry Micheau, born February 23, 1888, in Prairie du Rocher, Illinois. He married Edna Julia Lewis of Carbondale, Illinois, on this date [November 27] in 1913 (which is why this story is a bit out of order in terms of the history of Prairie du Rocher.

Joseph Perry Micheau was the son of George Micheau [1852-1942] and Mary Emma Roy [1855-1902]. Edna Lewis [1890-1989] was born to John Henry Philip Lewis and his wife Maggie in Carbondale, Illinois.

Sister Philomena writes that the sisters known as the Adorers of the Blood of Christ had taken on the mission of teaching in the school for black children in St. Joseph’s Parish in Prairie duRocher in about 1909. The Adorers discontinued teaching in 1913 or 1914, according to Sr. Philomena. Edna Lewis replaced the nuns, becoming the first lay teacher in the one-room “colored” school. ["Why separate schools is a good question," Sr. Philomena writes. "I really never heard the answer."

While Edna Lewis was teaching in the parish school, Joseph Micheau was delivering the mail in Prairie du Rocher. He also, following a family tradition, did work around the church. Sr. Philomena writes that her mother Zoe Wright Micheau, her uncles William and Sylvester, and her aunt Angelique, were all employed in some capacity. Joseph was the church's gardener.

Joseph was contemplating entering the priesthood. But meeting Edna Lewis made him think again. He wrote her quite frequently. Some of his letters to her have been preserved by his granddaughter. For example, on May 1, 1913, he wrote:

PDR, Ill. May 1, '13

Dear Friend

This is Ascension Thursday and indeed a most beautiful day. . . .

Ema [later to become Sr. Philomena], has not finished talking about her C’dale visit. Nen [his sister Angelique] expects to go to St Louis next Thursday. Both she and M. [his sister Margerette, known as "Margy"] are coming to see you but said I must make the first trip. Will tell you when I am coming in my next letter. Are you being well-treated by the Catholic people of Carbondale? . . .

Ed, enclosed is the cross, please let it be a token of myy dearest remembrance. Hoping that this will find all as well as it leaves us.

I am truly your friend,

J.P. Micheau

P.S. Sisters send love

Six weeks later, Joseph’s feelings are quite a bit more open.

PDR Ill. June 15, 1913

Dear, Dear Ed—

Finding that I need you, I want you, and today thinking of you, am writing this little message of love . . . . [N]ow each little visit to your home makes you more dear . . .

You may think, well, he has changed his story. All to[o] true but it is not without due consideration and I dare say not to[o] hurriedly either. Frankly & Truely, Ed, it is with a tinge of regret that I cannot see my way through the required schooling to reach my former desires. And now feeling that it is not entirely my fault and trying to make the best of all things, my thoughts are turned to you. . . .

Joseph and Edna were married for 62 years before his death. They had five children of their union, and foster-parented several dozen more. There are 18 grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; and three great-great-grandchildren. Joseph and Edna’s descendants include engineers, artists, teachers, and other successful persons. They represent seven generations of the “French Negroes” of Illinois.

In the Gunsmoke post of a few weeks ago, I mentioned Sisters Mary Celestine (Addie Francis Micheau) and Philomena (Emma Micheau) of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. Since then, I have come into possession of a small trove of information about the Micheaus of southern Illinois and Missouri. This information touches on the Civil War, slavery, Catholic history in America, the demographics of southern Illinois, the history of the Caribbean nation of Haiti, and many other topics. I’m still analyzing it, but present here a brief overview of some of it.

A major piece of information is a letter dated February 28, 1981, written by Sr. Philomena to Sister Mary Joan Weissler at Red Bud, Illinois. Sr. Mary Joan was a member of an order called the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, which has a house in Ruma, Illinois. Sr. Mary Joan apparently was writing a history of the Adorers in Illinois and Sr. Philomena was writing with information.

It affords me great pleasure to assist you in gathering information for the writing of the history of your community which I have known from early childhood. . . .

Your interest and inquiries involve the French Negro families who settled in Prairie Du Rocher [Illinois]. What a great story indeed. This story to be worthwhile and true must begin with the great-grandfathers and slave ancestors of the entire black community who lived in Prairie Du Rocher in 1852 or earlier.

Sister Philomena proceeds to tell the story of Prairie du Rocher with her family, the Micheaus, as the centerpiece. Although Sr. Philomena may not have realized it, the entire story ultimately stretches from revolutionary Paris to an American Civil War battle at Pilot Knob, Missouri, and includes the Haitian slave rebellion.

Prairie du Rocher is a village in Randolph County, Illinois. In 1825, it had less than 300 people, of which there were more than 25 slaves and 10-15 free people of color. At the time of the 2000 census, there were no blacks living in Prairie du Rocher.

Over the next few posts, we’ll explore some of the history of Illinois’ “French Negroes,” aided by Sister Philomena’s letter.

The estate of Martha Sanford in probate in 1920 was quite a bit larger than that of her husband, Reuben Henry Sanford, who had died in 1910. The inventory was as follows:

PERSONAL PROPERTY

1. Money in Bank $1259.31

2. Liberty Bonds $1500.00

3. War Savings Stamps $100.00

4. Rent of Farm for year 1920,
uncollected and unsold,
estimated at, $1791.75

REAL ESTATE

1. 920 acres of land known as the
Martha Sanford land on B.W. Holtzclaw
Grant in Milam County, Texas, value $18,600.00

2. House and lot in Freeman’s Addition
to the City of Cameron, Milam County,
Texas, being
value $3,000.00

The appraisers of Martha’s estate were her nephew, J[ohn] E[dward] Holtzclaw, the Sheriff of Milam County; her son-in-law, Jeff D. Nesbitt, and her son-in-law, Frank Monroe. The executor was her son from her prior marriage, Warner B. Minor.

One obvious difference between Martha and Henry’s estates was the amount of separate-property real estate each owned. Recall that Henry had 282 acres of land. Martha had 920 acres. Martha seems to have been a prudent manager as well. At the time of Henry’s death in 1910, they were still on the farm near Tracy. But ten years later, Martha had been renting out the farm and had moved to a nice house in Cameron. She also had invested in Liberty Bonds and War Savings Stamps, and had a nice amount of cash in the bank.

Part of Martha’s land holdings may have been an inheritance from an ancestor, B.W. Holtzclaw who had served in the Army of the Republic of Texas.

Like Henry’s will, Martha’s is brief and to the point. She revokes two prior wills (March 7, 1910, presumably her last before Henry died; and August 2, 1910, executed the same day that Henry’s will was admitted to probate) and a codicil of January 25, 1911. She devises her property, including the 920 acres (described in the will as 9223 acres) to her children, Warner Minor and Mary Denson (living in Rosebud, Falls County at the time) from her prior marriage; and Sarah Tapp and Mary Catherine Bates, from her marriage to Henry Sanford.

I’ve now received probate papers for both Reuben Henry Sanford and his wife Martha Sanford. You recall that the Sanford family was the family in whose company Billy Sanford (1806-1916) traveled from Virginia to Tennessee and ultimately to Milam County, Texas.

Recall that Reuben Henry Sanford, born in 1832 in Williamson County Tennessee, was the fifth child of Reuben Sanford and Mary (Polly) Wood Sanford. In about 1854, Mary Wood Sanford re-located from Tennessee to Texas, accompanied by her children Archer, Lucretia, Reuben, Elizabeth, Mary Jane, and Sarah. Another son, John, may have gone to Texas earlier with his wife, Nancy T. Hay. John and Nancy appear to have settled in Burnet County, Texas, and had seven children there.

In Milam County, Texas, Reuben Henry Sanford, mainly known as Henry, married a woman named Catherine in about 1860 or 1861. I haven’t found out a lot about her. They had two children, Susan and Daniel Henry. Catherine died sometime in the 1860′s, and Henry was alone for awhile. Daniel lived for a time with his aunt Lucretia and her husband, Hazard P. Hale, a merchant. Frequently referred to as “D.H.”, Daniel later became a rather prominent figure in the civic life of Rockdale, Texas. He and his wife, Texona had seven children. At some point in the early twentieth century, Daniel, Texona, and several of their children moved to Nueces County on the Gulf Coast. Susan married Jeff D. Nesbitt, and they had at least two children.

In about 1871, Henry married Martha Holtzclaw. She had been married to a man named L.M. Minor and had two children with him, Mary and Warren. What became of Mr. Minor is not clear. In any event, Henry and Martha Sanford had two children together, Sarah (“Salllie“), and Martha Catherine, who was known as “Kitty.” Sarah married William E. Tapp, a native of Kentucky, and they later moved to Cleburn in Johnson County, Texas. They had at least two children.

Reuben Henry Sanford died on June 30, 1910, at the age of 78. Martha Sanford died ten years later on August 12, 1920.

The word “probate” comes from the Latin probare: to test and find authentic. In genealogy, probate files confirm known facts and reveal new ones. The Sanford files are just like that.

An almost sinful obsession of mine after genealogy is watching Gunsmoke [TVLand, most weekends; also early mornings during the week; check local listings]. Some weekends, it seems as if the time passes and little gets done except hours of Gunsmoke. And yesterday was one of those days. To mitigate the situation, I tried to thing of some genealogical angles to Matt Dillion, Festus, Doc, and Kitty that I could blog about. I was still pondering that when the fifth episode of the day began. An obviously very ill woman was being tended by three black nuns. The woman’s two children were nearby. The nuns agreed to see that the children made it to the farm their father was supposed to be preparing for the family near Dodge City [Episode #14, Season 15; first aired 12/29/1969]. I was actually about to turn the television off and get down to some real business when one of the nuns mentioned that they were members of the “Oblate Sisters of Providence.” I sat back down to watch the rest of the show. [The children's father turns out to be a drunk layabout and petty criminal who offers to help the nuns build a school so as to get his hands on the funds donated for that purpose. It's a sort of bizarro version of Lilies of the Field]1, 2.

What re-captured my attention was the mention of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, which is an actual order of Roman Catholic nuns headquartered in Baltimore. Founded in 1829, it was the first religious order for African-American women. The first Superior General, Mother Mary Lange, started the order for the benefit of Haitian immigrants. The order has concentrated on child development and education.

On the 1920 federal census for Baltimore, there is a two page section for the St Francis Convent and Orphanage, operated by the Oblate Sisters of Providence. Listed in that section is 16 year old Emma Micheau, born in llinois. She’s the last and youngest “assistant inmate” listed before several boarders ranging from 38 to 94 years old, and then the orphans. “Assistant Inmate” appears to have been the description given to all the nuns and novitiates except the “Superior General” of the Order, who in 1920 was the Reverend Mother “M. Frances.”

Emma Micheau was the daughter of Marshall and Sophronia Micheau of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois. Marshall Emmanuel Micheau was the son of George Micheau, who had been born in Missouri in about 1852. George’s wife was Mary Emma Roy, born in Prairie du Rocher in 1855. George was one of five sons of George [1815-?] and Margret [1834-?] Micheau. I believe, but can’t completely document, that George Micheau was related to Isaac (b. 1815), John (b. 1796), and Auguste (b. 1799) Micheau, all of whom lived in Ste Genevieve, Missouri.

As a religious, Emma was known as Sister Philomena. After her initial stay in Baltimore, she returned to Missouri and later became the Superior at St Frances Girls School in Normandy, Missouri.

In taking Holy Orders, Emma Micheau was following the example set by her aunt, Adelaide (“Addie”) Micheau, who was the daughter of George and Mary Emma Micheau. Addie, born in 1885, became Sister Celestine, OSP, and was resident at the Order’s mission school in St Louis and later, at the Normandy, Missouri, orphanage.

Sister Celestine was my wife’s first cousin once removed and Sister Celestine was my wife’s great-aunt.

Research Tip: The Oblate Sisters of Providence maintains an Archives and Special Collections Library at the Our Lady of Mount Providence Convent in Baltimore, Maryland. The collection is accessible by appointment only between the hours of 9am and 4pm Monday through Friday. Photocopying and photograph scanning services are available. Some of these records contain the names of orphans and students who resided at the various OSP facilities. Many other religious orders have similar archives.

A tip to search for Catholic religious persons is to use the words “father,” “mother,” “brother, or “sister” as either a first or last name. For example, if you search the 1850 census for Maryland for “sister” as a first name, you come up with about 185 members of the Sisters of Charity in Frederick and Baltimore. Catholic dioceses and archdioceses also have records of their personnel as well as worshippers. For more information on Catholic genealogical records, see the guide at http://home.att.net/~Local_Catholic/.

A few months ago, I wrote about my quest to discover the parentage of my great-great-grandfather, Ezekiel Johnson, whom I knew to have been born in Northwest Missouri around 1850. When I started, I knew two things about him: first, that he had married a woman named Sarah Gilbert in Clay County, Missouri, in 1867; and second, my mother who as a young child had seen a photo of him holding her, described him as “a tall thin white man.” There was talk around the family that he was a descendant of an Englishman, or even that he was himself an Englishman.

I found his death certificate in the Missouri Secretary of State’s archives. His father was named as Dan Carpenter and his mother was Harriet Mitchell. Dan Carpenter was said to have been born in Ohio and Harriet Mitchell was stated to be have been a native of Kentucky. That information led me to the strong circumstantial conclusion that Ezekiel Johnson was the offspring of the well-known merchant Dan Carpenter (1825–1920), son of a prominent family which included Declaration of Independence signer Abraham Clark. Dan Carpenter was married to Martha Pauline Gash for sixty-seven years. There is no evidence that Dan and Pauline had any children between them. The question of Ezekiel’s maternal lineage remained open.

I formed the hypothesis that Harriet Mtichell was the slave of a neighbor, and that Dan Carpenter had produced Ezekiel with her. So how to test that theory? I first searched the census’ slave schedules for 1850 in Clay County, and there was a man named Emmons Johnson. In 1850, Johnson owned several slaves, among them a black female aged 24 and a black male, poisitng hsi age as 3. But beyond that information, I had nothing on Emmons Johnson or Harriet Mitchell. I decided to follow them to Kentucky. I found Emmons Johnson in Kentucky on the 1840 census of Mason County. At the time living in his household were two and white males both under the age of five; three white females, one of them16 to 20 years old; another 20 to 30 years old; and another, 60 to 70 years old. The household also included a free black male, 36 to 55 years old, and six slaves, four males ranging from under five years old to between 36 and 55 years old, and two females, 10 to 24 years old.

But except for the 1840 census in Kentucky and 1850 slave schedule in Missouri there seems to be no other record of Emmons Johnson and that’s where things stand for a while. Recently however I found marriage records for Mason County Kentucky which indicate that in 1833 Emmons Johnson married one Helen Morris. So I went back to the Missouri Census records to try and find Helen Morris Johnson. And she appears in the 1870 census of Clay County married to Nat E. Johnson. The 1870 census shows in Johnson’s with two sons and win, 35, and Thomas, 28. Both sons are listed as having been born in Kentucky. So the evidence suggests that this is the same person as Emmons Johnson who came from Kentucky and gives credence to the theory that two of his slaves, the 24 year old female and the three-year-old male are Harriet Mitchell and her son Ezekiel Johnson. There’s a lot more documentation that could be had on this issue . . . let’s see what else we can turn up!

Some time ago, I had discovered that my great grandmother Betty Sanford Manson, had been declared mentally incompetent in Milam County, Texas during the 1930s. I found the case numbers listed on the Milam County GenWeb site. And this comported with my father’s recollection that when he had visited his family in their new home in Midland in 1948, he was not allowed to go near his grandmother because the family said she was mentally ill.

When I went to Salt Lake City last spring on my research trip, I searched the microfilm records of Milam County to find the files pertaining to Betty Manson’s mental status. I spent considerable time looking for those files, but couldn’t find them. It appeared to me that when I got close to the file numbers, the microfilm skipped the ones I was looking for. Now I know why.

Recently I decided to request the records directly from the Milam County clerk’s office. I found both an e-mail address and an “snail mail” address for the clerk’s office. I sent an e-mail inquiry asking if the records existed in that office and if so what the fee for obtaining them would be. At the same time I inquired about the probate files concerning Reuben Henry Sanford and Martha Sanford. I followed up my e-mail inquiry with a letter sent through the Postal Service. I got an e-mail back stating that they had not received my e-mail, but had received my posted letter. About Betty Sanford Manson’s files, the clerk explained:

The files on Bettie Manson are NCM [non compos mentis; Latin. not of sound mind; mentally incapable of managing one's affairs. ] and are closed records. A petition to the District Court and order granting would be necessary to secure the papers.

The clerk also explained that as to the other files I was interested in, the fee is one dollar per page, to be remitted at the time of the request.

So I’m kind of excited about this. I’m going to research the local rules for the District Court which serves Milam County, and figure out how to file my petition. Stay tuned.

By the way, the e-mail address published in several places for the Milam County clerk’s office (including on the Milam County GenWeb archives site) is apparently incorrect. The correct e-mail address for the Milam County clerk’s office is: milamcoclk@tlabwireless.net. The clerk’s office may also be contacted at: 107 West Main, Cameron Texas 76520; tel. 1-800 216-0490.