Edmund Downs

Edmund Downs

Nona L. Edwards-Thomas

Quick Facts

Significance:

Mississippi Homesteader

Place of Birth:

Louisiana

Date of Birth:

April 1832

Place of Death:

Pike County, Mississippi

Date of Death:

July 1893

Place of Burial:

Magnolia, Pike County, Mississippi

Edmund (Edmun, Edmond) Downs was born enslaved. His parents and siblings have not been definitively identified. Edmund, through the Freedmen’s Bureau of Refugees and Abandon Lands, signed a labor contract with Levy Bacot on the Levy Bacot Plantation in Pike County, Mississippi, on October 12, 1865. Edmund’s age on the contract was 35 years old with a birth date of 1830. Levy Bacot owned 278 acres and was a former sergeant in the Confederate Army.  It is unknown how long Edmund worked on the labor contract.

On the August 3, 1870, Pike County, Mississippi federal census, he is enumerated as Edward Downs with an occupation of a farm hand who couldn’t read or write. His inferred spouse was Courtny Downs and four children were listed: Richard (4), Ann (3), Thomas (10 months), and Jesse (15). Downs is noted as being 24 years old and born in approx. 1846.

Downs filed homestead application #4313 on September 12, 1870, at the Land Office in Jackson, Mississippi. He applied for 120 acres of land in Pike County, Mississippi, for a fee of thirteen dollars. The Final Proof document, dated July 31, 1877, showed that J.J. Simmons and Allen Ford were his sworn witnesses. The witnesses stated that Downs was on the land six years and head of a family with five children. He made improvements to the land by building a corn crib, stables, and other out buildings. On August 6, 1877, Downs filed his Final Homestead Proof paperwork and paid a $3.00 filing fee.

Edmund and Caroline Downs

The 1880 United States Federal Census for Pike County, Mississippi enumerated his second wife, Caroline, and six children who were Francis (18), Richard (14), Annie (12), Tom (11), Mary (6), Edmun Jr. (1 month); and three stepsons Melford Buckhalter (11), Jerry Buckhalter (8), and Willis Buckhalter (3).

Downs fulfilled the requirements of the Homestead Act of 1862 and received his homestead patent #919 on June 30,1881. In the 1881 personal property tax roll, he owned two horses and seven cattle valued at fifty and forty-nine dollars respectively.  The total valuation of his property was ninety-nine dollars.

Downs farmed his homestead and worked for another individual in the area. The Magnolia Gazette newspaper reported September 29, 1882, that while working for Van C. Coney, the boiler of a steam gin and grist mill exploded. The explosion resulted in Downs receiving multiple injuries that included dislocation of his right shoulder, a crushed left elbow, and scalds to his body. Dr. W.M. Wroten, the doctor in attendance, hoped for a full recovery.

Downs continued to work on his homestead for over a decade until his unexpected and violent death. It was reported in The Pascagoula Democratic Star newspaper on July 21, 1893, that “Edmund Down, a wealthy colored man of Magnolia, (Magnolia Mississippi) was waylaid the other night and shot to death.” In the 1900 Pike County, Mississippi Federal census his wife, Caroline Downs, was enumerated as a widow. His family continued to live on the homestead however, at this time, it is unknown how long the land stayed in the family or if it remains in the family today.

Patent Details - BLM GLO Records

~ Contributed by Dr. Nona L. Edwards-Thomas

More about the contributor:  Nona L. Edwards-Thomas is a cousin to the descendants of Edmund Downs. As a family historian, she has been involved in genealogy research for over thirty years. Through the years, she has attended many genealogy conferences and researched archives and libraries. She is a member of the National Genealogical Society and the Tennessee Genealogical Society. Her initial genealogical investigation was the black African American Brumfield family of Pike County, Mississippi. This research guided her to research more branches of the Brumfield family tree and neighboring trees. No family lives in isolation having friends and neighbors whose lives intertwine together which shape family history. She has a blog “Brumfield Genealogy and Other Branches and Trees” since 2012. She is also an administrator of Pike County, Mississippi Genealogy & Heritage Facebook group.

Nona L. Edwards-Thomas MD is a retired board-certified physician in Obstetrics and Gynecology and a Fellow in the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She attended Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois receiving a Bachelor of Biology degree. Her medical education was at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and residency Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois now known as the John Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County.