By Staff
I want to continue with the Hoomes material this week. This family is very interesting and long time residents of the area. I suggest you go to Jake Hoomes web site at www.gult1.com/families/holmes.htm and see what all he has about the family. Anyone looking for information on this family would do well to go there.
Around 20 years after the death of George Churchill Hoomes grandfather John and just before the death of his father Armistead the large estate was in a chaotic condition. Many suits were filed against his sometimes "erring and irresponsible grandsons." The court finally ordered settlement on the Hoomes estate in about 1820 and about five years later in 1825, George Churchill Hoomes began the long journey to lower Alabama.
George Churchill Hoomes, along with a member of the Blow family, Churchill Jones, young Dr. Taliaferro, and Mortimer Boulware, and one other were all sons of well-to-do Virginians and were all well educated-one was a doctor, one a lawyer, two were teachers.
George Churchill Hoomes staked out his claim in what became known as Teddy. He was a school teacher. One of his descendants later would relate how he ran away from home at the age of 18 and came to Alabama with the Bolers. He married Celia Holleman from around Evergreen. She was the daughter of a North Carolina woodsman. They settled down and built a house that is now the J.T. Sheppard estate. According to his granddaughter, Pickie Hoomes Stone, he was ashamed of running away from home and marrying beneath his station in life and therefore he lost communication with his relatives. After the birth of his son, he did contact his brother informing him of the birth and received a gold watch as a present for the baby. Later after the death of George C. Hoomes, the mother, Celia, returned the watch to its sender and refused to correspond with him or any of the relatives.
George C. Hoomes died at the age of 32 and was buried in an unmarked grave near McGowin's Bridge. His widow later moved to New Orleans with two of her grandchildren, Will and Emma White, children of Steve White and Fannie Hoomes.
The children of George and Celia Hoomes were Armistead Hoomes (1830-1897), John Willis Hoomes (1831-1899), Henry Hoomes, Fannie Hoomes and Julie Hoomes.
As I told you before, George Churchill Hoomes came to Alabama in the early 1820s along with some companions. These companions were to be well known citizens of Conecuh and later Escambia Counties. Mortimer Boulware staked his claim for land on the creek later known as Boler Mill Creek. This is the site of the McCreary Plantation that I have told you about in past columns. He became a wealthy man and owned more than 3,000 acres in the Teddy area.
Dr. Taliafero later owned a plantation on the Brooklyn-Evergreen road, now known as the Horton Plantation. Armistead Dudley Cary is believed to have been one of the men who came with the Hoomes/Boulware party. His family was closely associated with the Hoomes family in Virginia and may very well have been related in some way. He was later a circuit clerk in Conecuh County in 1833 and 1850.
Amistead Hoomes (2 August 1830-27 August 1897) was the first child to be born to George Churchill Hoomes and Celia Holleman. He was born in the part of Conecuh County that would become Escambia in 1868.
He married first Nancy Mancill and they had one child that died in infancy. After Nancy died, he married Marjorie Murphy on 12 July 1863. Marjorie Murphy Hoomes (26 August 1846-19 March 1919) was the first to be buried at the Hoomesville Church Cemetery. They had a total of 12 children. They were Stephen Alonzo Hoomes (1864-1878), Sarah Juliet Hoomes (1867), Florence Eugenia Hoomes (1869-1948), John Allen Hoomes (1870-1946), William Willis Hoomes (1872-1878), Matilda Ann Eliza Hoomes (1874-1969), Henry Bennett Hoomes (1878-1956), Mary Hoomes (1879), Emma Hoomes (1880-1952), Armistead Jake Hoomes (1883-1964), Marjorie Josephine Hoomes (1886-1925) and Aggie Bell Hoomes (1891-1967).
Armistead Jake Hoomes (12 March 1883-13 October 1964) was the father of Mr. A. J. Holmes/Hoomes who wrote this material. He was born at the home his father had homesteaded and is buried at the Hoomesville Church Cemetery. On 15 December 1907, he married Ella Frances Crosby (19 November 1888-16 November 1968) daughter of Thomas Jefferson Crosby and Mary Ann Martin. They had five children, Ethel Blanche Holmes, Eunice Christine Holmes who married Chester Baggett, Miford Pennell Hoomes, Mary Marjorie Holmes who married Homer Lambert, and Amistead Jake Holmes, Jr. who married Judith Ann Wilson.