Notes
- Source: family tradition, a report from a member of the family that Joseph Sanford Jenkins' father was named Jack. And Joseph Sanford Jenkins' 1880 census record reprots his father wa born in South Caorlina, as J S was. The Carolinas are full of Jenkinses. It has not been possible to definitively link Joseph Sanford and his father Jack with any other Jenkinses we have found in South Carolina, Mississippi or Teas and Indian Territory.
"Jack Jenkins was [Joseph Sanford Jenkins'] father." Ref information from Dolores Bess Christiansen Frank, referenced by J Epperson in Notes for Lucinda Amanda Taylor
I have been searching for several years for connections for this Jenkins family to South Carolina as well as North Carolina, where Jenkins families are very numerous. I have found the general area of South Carolina they seem to have come from, Pendleton District. This is the westernmost part of South Carolina, bordering Georgia and North Carolina.
Pendleton District became Anderson County and the two neighbouring counties. Jenkins are found in the neighbouring area of North Carolina as well. There are traditions among the North Carolina Jenkinses that they had kin folks in South Carolina since before the American Revolution. But they are also unable to find the exact connection.
Similar names are found across the whole region, such as Sanford, Elias, and combinations of these two with each other or with the more popular Benjamin, Joseph and John. Most of them seem to have come in turn from the broader Jenkins groups from Virginia and North Carolina.
Some Jenkinses migrated west straight across Georgia, through Arkansas or Tennessee, then on to Oklahoma. Others, like our family, followed a more southerly route, through Mississippi, where Joseph Sanford married and first established his family, before moving into East Texas. Before his death he seems to have followed some of his children, named Jenkins and Christian, into Indian Territory, where he died in Marlow, Chickasaw Nation (now Stephens County).
Family memory recalls only the first name or nickname of Joseph Sanford's father, Jack. No other information has been found on the parents of Joseph Sanford Jenkins. I have found other Jenkins families in East Texas that would fit as Joseph Sanford's family members, with similar age and birth, but have been unable to find any confirming evidence to connect other Jenkins lines to him in Texas, Mississippi or South Carolina.
Here is a summary introduction to the Jenkins lineage and some information about the movement of Jack's son Joseph Sanford Jenkins to Texas and on to Indian Territory in 1890.
--------------
Family stories indicates the ancestors of Joseph Sanford Jenkins moved to the United States from Wales, United Kingdom. Jenkins families in that area were numerous. Jenkins is one of many forms of names indicating Johnson. It is derived from two ancient names meaning Little John. The name is identified with pioneer settlements of Maine and New Hampshire. While no family connections with Jenkins of this area have yet been established, an old dictionary belonging to William S. Jenkins, son of Joseph Sanford Jenkins, has been identified with a book store in Hinsdale, New Hampshire.
Family tradition holds that the Jenkins were from Wales, and that they originally were named McJenkins or MacJenkins. A number of MacJinkins families were living in South Carolina during the early 1800s. A T. C. McJinkins and wife, ages 35 and 33 respectively, along with one male child, is listed in the 1890 Census Roll of the Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, OK. This is thought to be a nephew of Joseph Sanford.
Prior to 1860, Joseph Sanford moved his family into Texas on a flatboat - landing at Jefferson's Landing, Jefferson, Marion County, Texas. Joseph freighted supplies for a time from Jefferson's Landing to Atlanta in Northeast Cass County, possibly before moving to the Dalton area. Apparently Joseph's family remained in the Dalton area during the Civil War. Family tradition indicates that Joseph served as a spy for the Confederate Forces during the Civil War. No information has been discovered to date indicating when, where and with what units he might have served.
Family tradition holds that although Joseph Sanford was only 19 when he married Lucinda, he was said to have married and fathered 2 daughters in MS before marrying Lucinda. The Cass County branch of the family have a tradition that Joseph Sanford was married to two women simultaneously, maintaining two families at once, one in Mississippi and one with Lucinda in Texas. A trip away from Cass County, Texas probably occurred about early 1870, just prior to the 1870 Cass County, Texas US Census, and soon after the death of Joseph Sanford's second wife, Lucinda Taylor. The trip was to MS, where daughters of Joseph Sanford by his first marriage are believed to have lived at that time.
Joseph Sanford and the family were traveling across Arkansas by wagon. Times were hard the family had to stop for awhile to earn money to buy supplies for the rest of the trip. The store owner, noticing Joseph Asa had no shoes, offered to keep and raise him as his own son, promising to see he got a good education. Joseph Sanford refused, however, and they eventually completed their trip back to Cass County, Texas.
Joseph Sanford is believed to have moved to Marlow, Chickasaw Nation Indian Territory (now Stephens County), Oklahoma about 1890. He moved with the family of his son Joseph Asa. It is not clear whether Louisa Christian Jenkins had died before this time or had remained in Cass County, Texas, where she had independently owned a farm before she married Joseph Sanford as a widow. (The Epperson genealogy says Louisa died in Marlow, but we have no death details, and no record of the burial.)
Joseph Asa said he loaded all of his possessions into two covered wagons for the move. This is most likely when the Red River crossing photographs were taken. It took him sixteen days to make the trip from Dalton, Texas, to Healdton, Chickasaw Nation, in Indian Territory.
Two of Joseph Asa's brother-in-laws are believed to have been living in Healdton at that time. One is believed to have been Joseph Benjamin Christian (son of Louisa Christian Jenkins and step-son of Joseph Sanford) and his wife Catherine Smith, sister of Hester Ann, Joseph Asa's wife. The other is believed to have been Nelson Winter and his wife Margaret Catherine Jenkins, Joseph Asa's sister.
Joseph Asa's family, including his father Joseph Sanford, apparently remained in Healdton only for a short time. He soon moved his family on to Marlow, where he leased Indian land and settled. According to Joseph, Marlow was first named Marlow Grove. It was here where the Marlow brothers, desperados from Texas, settled and built a large corral.
The Chisholm cattle trail just happened to pass this way. When a cattle herd passed on the way to Kansas City, the Marlow brothers would try to have the drovers pen their cattle for a charge. If the cattlemen didn't, the Marlow brothers would stampede the herd at night. Then later on they would gather the strays and take them to Fort Sill where they were sold for the Indians.
Joseph Sanford Jenkins passed away while living there on May 26, 1893, and was buried in the Marlow Cemetery.
-- Based on family information originally compiled by Harold Keith Christian in the 1970s from various Jenkins family sources. Harold was a son of Sallie Jenkins Christian, daughter of Joseph Asa Jenkins and Hester Ann Smith. Edited and updated here by Orville Boyd Jenkins, grandson of Joseph Asa Jenkins, and first cousin of Harold Christian. See the whole story at http://objgenealogy.com/articles/josephsanfordjenkinshistory.pdf
--------------
One proposal has been made that the Jack Jenkins who was the father of our Joseph Sanford Jenkins was a Choctaw Indian identified in documents as involved in the Choctaw Removal from Mississippi in 1830.
Note that Joseph Sanford Jenkins was born in South Carolina in 1826 or so. But he lived in Mississippi till he was married and possibly had several children. He did not move west until after marriage.
There are two individuals named Jack Jenkins that some have proposed in the documents related to Mississippi and the Choctaw Removal. One is reported with possible dates of 1744-1830. This individual died in 1830 before the Removal was implemented. The other is reported as a signatory to the Rabbit Creek Treaty, receiving permission to remain, but then inexplicably gave up his lands anyway to move to Indian Territory.
The second Jack/Jock Jenkins is reported to have died about 1835 in Indian Territory. It may be that these two reports are meant to relate differing reports about the same Choctaw in Mississippi named Jack or Jock Jenkins. Or it could be two different individuals.
Both these individuals named Jack/Jock Jenkins were from Mississippi, while our family is from South Carolina originally. Also, neither of these Jack Jenkinses of Mississippi were late enough to be the father of Joseph Sanford Jenkins, born in South Carolina in about 1826. in the 1880 census, Joseph reported that both his parents were also born in South Carolina. Jenkinses are thick and ancient in both the Carolinas. If that Jenkins line has Indian background, it would likely be Cherokee.
These possible dates 1744-1830 would not make sense for the father of our J S Jenkins, who was born in 1826. With these dates, this Jack Jenkins would have been over 80 years old. Joseph Sanford's father would have been born around 1786-1800. The proposed son Abner Ernest Jenkins (1795-1877) is of an age to be a father of Joseph Sanford. At least one posted commentary, however, outlines reasons for doubt that Abner was a son of Jock/Jack.
From our side, the timeline does not fit. This Abner moved away to Louisiana when our J S was still a small child. J S may not have even been in Mississippi yet by that time. He was born in South Carolina in about 1826, near the time of the Indian Removal in 1830 ff, and after Abner was already in Louisiana.
Abner is reported born in South Carolina, which would match our family. But then Abner's first child Latisha Christian Jenkins is reported born in Georgia in 1809, and the next child William Thomas Jenkins is reported born in St Tammany Parish, Louisiana, in 1814. A report of his residence in Louisiana by 1808 is apparently erroneous. Besides the conflict with the birth of his first child in Georgia, he is not even mentioned and I cannot find anything about him in the one document presented as a source for that fact.
Besides the birth in Louisiana, rather than South Carolina, there is no child reported for Abner with a name similar to Joseph Sanford Jenkins.
Abner was in Louisiana by 1914 for the birth of his second child, 12 years before Joseph Sanford was born in South Carolina. At some point unknown, J S moved to Mississippi, whether with his parents or alone is unknown, and married there, where his first two children were born. His wife Lucinda Amanda Taylor was born in Mississippi, and they married in Mississippi, in about 1845.
The county of marriage is unknown, and no residence information has been found. It is also rumored in family tradition that he had a wife prior to Lucinda, but no children from that marriage have been identified. The family rumor/tradition suggests that the first child Nell was the child of that supposed first wife. Nell was born about 1846, so that would place the suggested date of marriage to Lucinda Taylor closer to 1850.
At any rate Joseph Sanford was living in Mississippi until after December 1850, when Lucinda and Joseph's son Cullen was born in Mississippi. The next three children were born in Georgia, the last on 31 May 1859. By April 1860 they were in Texas, where they were enumerated in the census in Cass County, Texas, near Texarkana.
A possiblity for Jack's identity is one Andrew Jackson Jenkins, born in Souith Carolina as we would expect, and dying in the Pickens District, in western South Caroilna. Many of the peopel named Andrew Jackson went by Jack. The genealogy presenting this family has no spouse of children for Andrew Jackson.
Andrew Jackson Jenkins
Birth 14 Jun 1803 in South Carolina
Death 1855 in Pickens, Pickens, South Carolina
Parents:
Francis Jenkins Birth 15 Dec 1764 in Baltimore, Maryland, Death 3 August 1855 in Pickens, South Carolina
Dorothea Henrietta Orne Harbin Birth 15 Oct 1782 in Charles, Maryland, Death May 1855 in Pickens, Pickens, South Carolina
-- Stabler-Hall-Bachman, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/43240403/person/12636039309?ftm=1
Sources
- 1. R Christian GED
- 2. 1880 Federal Census, Cass County, Texas
- 16 June, District 12, Precinct 3, Page 17, Hse/Fam #144
- 3. Harold K Christian, Pedigree Chart, January 1990
- 4. Jenkins Family History by Harold Keith Christian
- 5. Marlow Cemetery List, Marlow, Stephens, Oklahoma
- Location: http://stephenscogen.org/~okstephe/MarlowCem2.txt;
- 6. 1880 Federal Census, Cass County, Texas
- 16 June, District 12, Precinct 3, Page 17, House and Family #144
- 7. 1860 Federal Census, Cass County, Texas
- 17 October, Beat #3, PO Unionville & Cusseta, Hse #483, Fam #495
Page created using GEDmill 1.11.0
