Last updated: October 28, 2024
Person
Clem Horn
Quick Facts
Significance:
Alabama Homesteader
Place of Birth:
Georgia
Date of Birth:
1825
Place of Death:
Geneva County, Alabama
Date of Death:
ca. 1905
Clem Horn filed Homestead Application #14524 for 160.4 acres of land in Coffee County, Alabama on August 11th, 1883 and received his land patent certificate #7508 on June 8th, 1891.
Clem Horn was born enslaved in Georgia in 1825. After emancipation, he moved across the Chattahoochee River into Henry County, Alabama. He was enumerated on the 1870 census in the community of Lawrenceville with his wife, Sarah, and two of their daughters: Elizabeth and Jane. In 1873, Elizabeth (later known as Betty) married Warren Law at the historic Piney Grove Baptist Church in Headland, Alabama. They were married by Reverend Jesse Grant, a Black Homesteader who may have been the catalyst for Clem finding his own homestead land.
Clem became a widower and moved 60 miles southwest to Coffee County, Alabama in the late 1870s. Betty separated from her husband, relocated along with her father, and fell in love with a homesteader from Coffee Springs named Vandy Hutchins. Clem married a young woman named Caroline McGowan and settled less than a mile away from Vandy’s farm.
On August 11th, 1883, Clem went to the office of Benjamin M. Stevens, Judge of Probate Court in Elba, Alabama. He filed Homestead Application #14524 for 160.4 acres of land in Coffee County, and also a Homestead Affidavit for settlers that couldn’t travel to the District Land Office in Montgomery. He testified that he settled on the land on January 1st, 1881, and that he made $75 worth of improvements, including a one room dwelling house and 25 acres of cleared land. He signed the document with an X, indicating that he could not read or write. Clem’s application, as well as a fee of fourteen dollars, reached the Receiver’s Office at Montgomery on August 15th, 1883.
On October 15th, 1888, Clem returned to the courthouse in Elba to make his Final Affidavit. He testified that the property was “ordinary pine timberland valuable only for farming”. He explained that he bought the land from Stephen Stokes, who had built the 16x18 log house that the Horn family was living in. Within the house was one bed, five chairs, and one table, which Clem claimed to have owned “since freedom”, confirming his former enslavement. The value of the improvements was now $85, including a smokehouse that was worth $10. He also owned an ox, a plow, and five head of cattle. Clem raised 20 acres of crops in 1888, such as corn and cotton. He stated that he had cultivated up to 25 acres of produce in the past.
Clem’s family at that time consisted of his wife Caroline and their five children, but they went on to have 12 children together. He said he had never voted before, citing his status as an “old negro” as the only reason. Clem signed his affidavit with his name, instead of an X, showing that he had learned to write by 1888. His witnesses were two young men: Caroline’s brother William McGowan, and Green Thompson. Green testified that Clem’s land was worth $1.25 per acre, while William claimed it was worth $1.50 per acre. Both men lived a half mile away from Clem’s homestead and listed a white man named Abraham Chancellor as another close neighbor. The unincorporated community of Chancellor, Alabama was named after Abraham’s father.
On November 13th, 1888, the Land Office at Montgomery received Clem’s final payment of four dollars and issued him Certificate 7508, proclaiming that he was entitled to a land patent for the south half of the northwest quarter and the north half of the southwest quarter of Section 28 of Township 3N. The southern perimeter of Section 28 is the Coffee/Geneva County line. Clem’s land is currently bordered on the north by County Road 732 and on the east by Thomas Road in Chancellor, Alabama. The patent was signed by President Benjamin Harrison on June 8th, 1891, over ten years after Clem made his settlement.
Clem was not living on his homestead by the 1900 census, but appeared to be living on the farm of William Bridges Noblin in Geneva County, Alabama. William had his own homestead 17 miles southeast of Clem’s. They both received their patents in June of 1891, but William Noblin was not a Black Homesteader. He retained his homestead lands until his death, and even had a census-designated place named after him.
Clem died before the 1910 census, most likely in Noblin, Alabama. His widow, Caroline, moved 90 miles west to Castleberry, Alabama, where she died on December 15th, 1944. Clem fathered at least 14 children between 1850 and 1899, many of whom spread throughout the Wiregrass Region of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama.
~ Contributed by Orice Jenkins, descendant
Orice Jenkins
Photo Credit: Edward LaRose
Orice Jenkins is from Hartford, Connecticut and is the 3x great-grandson of Clem Horn. He is a recording artist, performer, educator, and genealogy researcher.