52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 42: Adventure: Traveling from North Carolina to Mississippi Territory in 1811

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

In 1811, John Core [Coor] of Sampson County, North Carolina, obtained a passport to travel through “Indian Nations to the Western Country.” He was with his mother, his four sisters and two small children – negroes. Also receiving passports at the same, and thus may have been traveling with John were Mr. John Keayhey [Kethley] with his wife, seven children, and three negroes from Richmond County, North Carolina, and William and Henry Toler, from Cumberland.[1]

Here is the image from the book. This is a transcript of course, not the actual passport.[2] During the 1930s, the passports as a project of the WPA, were transcribed/abstracted by two members of the Samuel Sorrel Chapter in Houston of the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution under the direction of Mrs. J. E. Hays, the state historian of the Georgia Department of Archives and History.[3]



These passports were obtained from the Governor of Georgia to travel through the Creek Nation. Their ending goal was Mississippi territory. Often people traveled together for safety. However, these three families were from different places.

John Coor was already living in Mississippi before he obtained this passport. He was enumerated 1810 in Franklin County as a single male over twenty-one.[4] Perhaps he returned home to bring his mother and sisters out to the territory he had previous scoped.

How did they get from Sampson County, North Carolina to Lawrence County, Mississippi?  Possible trail is the Federal Road.

  • The Federal Road, started in 1805. The Creek allowed a development of a “horse path” through their lands in order for a more efficient method of delivering mail from Washington City to New Orleans. It started at Fort Wilkinson (near Milledgeville, Georgia) and ended at Fort Stoddert (near Mobile, Alabama). It was widen in 1811.[5]

Did the passport give them safety to travel across the Indian Lands? Perhaps. They did arrive in Lawrence County and John ended up marrying Ann, the daughter of John Kethley.



[1] Passports of Southeastern Pioneers 1770–1823, Indian, Spanish and other Land Passports for Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Dorothy Williams Potter, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., p. 294. This book can be viewed at FamilySearch, digital film 7900778.
[2] I am attempting to find the original passports so I can get an image of this one. Waiting to hear back from the archivist at the Georgia Archives.
[3] “Introduction,” Passports Issued by Governors of Georgia, 1785-1820.
[4] “Mississippi State and Territorial Censuses, 1792-1866,” digital images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : 18 Oct 2019), 1810, Franklin Co, p 4, line 9, John Coor, citing Microfilm V229, 3 rolls, Heritage Quest.
[5] “Federal Road (Creek Lands),” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Road_(Creek_lands).


Copyright © 2019 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

Comments

Post a Comment

All comments on this blog will be previewed by the author to prevent spammers and unkind visitors to the site. The blog is open to other-than-just family members particularly those interested in family history and genealogy.

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Blogiversary & Happy 100th Blog Post!

Image
Today is a big milestone. This is the 100th blog post I have written and the 6th anniversary of the beginning of this blog. I began the blog on January 15, 2011, through a blog writing class I took at California Genealogical Society, taught by Craig Siulinski. It was something I wanted to do but wasn’t really sure what I would focus on. I finally settled on writing about my grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster’s family and this was my first post . In the beginning it was hard to get started. I learned from the Geneabloggers website, that there were blogging memes I could use and I have done that off and on, especially at the beginning. But I finally learned that what worked best was to write about my discoveries as I researched my grandmother’s family. So what have I written in six years? I discovered I have only written four posts specifically about my grandmother: “Mam-ma was a Tomboy” “Fearless Females – Day 12” “Mam-ma 1913-2013” “My Grandpar
Read more

John Coor of Copiah County Made an Agreement with Joel Hoggatt

Image
This week at RootsTech 2024, FamilySearch announced a new feature that an every-word search was available for U.S. deeds and probates. It is still in the trial mode and can be found at https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/ . This is the search screen. It clearly states it is for US land and probate records and Mexico notary records. You can do a keyword search or if you click on the “more options” you can add a name. My Find I immediately gave it a try and searched first for records of the COOR family using the keyword search. Up first came deeds from Wayne County, North Carolina.  At the top, you can filter using record year, record type, record place, and collection. For the past few days, I have mainly filtered by record place. I filtered down to Mississippi. You can even filter to the county. The first entry was a document I had not seen before. It was an 1826 agreement between John Coor and Joel Hoggatt to build a set of grist and sawmills. John Coor is my 4x-great-grandfath
Read more

Using the Attendees at Lela Ann (Loveless) Lancaster’s Funeral to Discover Residences

Image
Lela Ann Lancaster, my maternal great-grandmother, died on 17 May 1951. [1] She had died in Wichita Falls, Texas, at the state hospital. The doctor’s handwriting is nearly illegible so the cause of death is difficult to determine. She was conflicted with Parkinson’s Disease which probably contributed to her death. Her funeral was three days later. [2] Lela Ann (left) with Warren, daughter Pansy, granddaughter Lela Nell, and son Wayne, c. 1935 Obituary Tells Story of Life Two obituaries were published on the same day in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune on two different pages. One gave information about her life and the funeral, and the other was about who attended her funeral. The transcription of the first is here: "Mrs. Warren G. Lancaster"    Funeral services for Mrs. Warren G. Lancaster, 55, who died at 4:30 a.m. Thursday at a Wichita Falls Hospital, were at 3 p.m. Sunday at the First Baptist Church with the Rev. Felix Gresham and the Rev. Ernest Rippetoe officiating
Read more