By Staff
It has been a couple of weeks since I left the Brewton famly. I wanted to let you know what else Brian Nilsson has sent to me. If you did not read the earlier columns, Nilsson is one of the top-most authorities on the Brewton family (at least I believe him to be).
We had gotten to Emanuel Brewton, who was a son of Nathan Brewton who remained in Georgia.
Emanuel received three land grants in Bulloch County, Ga.: one for 150 acres in 1835; a second for 1,000 acres, also in 1835; and a third for 50 acres in 1837.
Around 1826 Emanuel married Eliza Caroline Bacon, daughter of Jonathan B. Bacon and Eliza Myers. Jonathan and Caroline had six children, but were not married until after the birth of their fifth child. Caroline, who was born around 1810, was one of five illegitimate children. One of these siblings was Charlotte Malvina Bacon, who married Emanuel's brother, Benjamin Brewton. In 1830 Emanuel was commissioned as a justice of the peace in Bulloch County. He is listed in the U.S. census that year in Bulloch County. There is one man listed who was between the ages of 30 and 40; he may have been a boarder or farm hand. There were also two children, boys, in the household under the age of five, probably Edmund and William. There were also three female slaves in the household between the ages of 10 and 24.
Emanuel was the executor for the estate of Aaron Mattox. He was paid for his expenses after appearing in the Tattnall County Court of Ordinary on Feb. 13, 1837. Mattox's property was sold on the first Tuesday in May 1837, a public auction at which Emanuel's brother, Benjamin Brewton, purchased roughly 1,100 acres, as recorded in the Court of Ordinary on July 3, 1837. On the same day in court, Emanuel was reimbursed for expenses for Harriet Mattox, as Emanuel was her guardian.
Emanuel conducted an appraisal of the estate of his brother-in-law, John Hendricks, filing the appraisal on February 24, 1838. Cullin Barrow and Uriah Rogers were co-appraisers with Emanuel.
Emanuel and Caroline moved to the Fort Crawford area in southern Alabama in 1839, where the railroad was later built through their land. They moved there to join Emanuel's uncles, Joseph, who settled there in 1816, and Benjamin, who settled there in 1819.
Emanuel and Caroline are named in a court case brought against Caroline's mother, Eliza Bacon, over Eliza, taking possession of slaves left to her late husband's two children from his first marriage. When the first child, Sarah Bacon, died without issue, the slaves that she inherited passed to her brother Edmund Bacon. Edmund died in September 1824 with no heirs, so Eliza Bacon, Edmund's step-mother, sought and obtained letters of administration for the estate of Edmund Bacon, and then took possession of the slaves. The suit was brought against Eliza Bacon by one of her other sons-in-law, Benjamin Brewton. The Tattnall Court of Ordinary records names all the Bacon siblings and their husbands, as they joined together in the suit against Eliza Bacon, claiming that they, as half-siblings to Edmund, were the rightful heirs and not Eliza, who was not a blood relative to Edmund. On Sept. 10, 1839, the court ordered Eliza Bacon to appear at the next court.
This case went on for many years, and there were other suits in the 1840s brought by Benjamin Brewton against his brothers-in-law for defaulting on loans he made to them.
Emanuel also appears in Bulloch County, Ga., records in 1840 records, when he appears in the July records of the Bulloch County Inferior Court. He was involved in a lawsuit with William D. Rogers. Emanuel appeared in the Alabama census in 1840. At that time he had six children. He had two more children in Alabama. He is believed to have died there in 1848.
In 1850 Caroline purchased a 40-acre tract of land called "Old Prickly Pear Field," so named because of the many cactus plants growing there. Emanuel no longer appears in records; it is assumed that he died sometime before 1850. His wife lived for a number of years. On May 29, 1883, she sold a 200 foot by 300 foot lot in the town of Brewton for the construction of the new Escambia County courthouse and jail. She received $100 for the property. According to the 1870 Census in Escambia County, Caroline was living with her daughter and son-in-law, Cannie and James Coleman. Upon her death she was buried in the Fort Crawford Cemetery, the oldest burial ground in the county.
I will continue with the children of Emanuel and Caroline next week. HAPPY HUNTING!!!