Monday, October 17, 2011

Mystery Monday - A year in Oklahoma

I'm finishing up the NGS Home Study Course and am getting information together to write an ancestor biography.  I have decided to write it on my gr gr grandfather Zephaniah Webb (1826-1906). 

While I don't have a lot of information on him I probably have more than on most other ancestors I could do this assignment on. 

I had assumed that once he moved to Arkansas with his father around 1858, he stayed there until he died. 

In the 1880 census, he is living with his wife Clementine and four children:
     Elizabell (Elizabeth) age 14
     Huston N. age 13
     Mary A. age 10
     Charley J. age 5

In the 1900 census, he is living with his son Charley J. and his family.  His other son Huston is also living in the household.

According to a letter written by a cousin, Zephaniah moved with Charley J. and his family to "...Oklahoma about 1898...where they made only one crop and then returned to Pope County." 

I have not found any other reference to this move to Oklahoma.  I did search the Reconstructed 1890 census : taken from personal property tax rolls recorded by school district, range and township, Pope County, Arkansas / copied by Genealogical Records Committee, Persis Lovely Chapter, DAR and did not find any CJ or ZT Webb’s listed. 

My next step is to try to find some Oklahoma property records around that time period.  Hopefully they did own the land they farmed otherwise this may be one of those mysteries that remains unsolved.

3 comments:

  1. Isn't it funny to think about - a fact that would be so easy for him to answer that might be a forever mystery. It might not have even been a fact that he would ever want to remember, and here you are, searching for it.

    K. Thomen

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  2. Zephaniah Webb had a daughter named Mary Webb. I believe this is the Mary Webb who married Doke Hamilton in 1887. They moved from Pope County Arkansas to Oklahoma. Doke farmed land in Oklahoma until 1923 when he moved to California. He is listed with his family in the 1910 Oklahoma census. His oldest child is my husband's grandfather.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the information. It does sound like the right Mary. Feel free to contact me at my email address under the 'about me' on the right and we can trade notes.

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