Moses Dyson

Quick Facts

Significance:

Louisiana Homesteader

Place of Birth:

Louisiana

Date of Birth:

about 1830

Place of Death:

Louisiana

Date of Death:

between 1900 and 1910

Based on 1910 census data, Moses Dyson was possibly the brother of my great great- grandfather, Isaac Dyson. In 1910, Clara Ann Dyson, the wife of Moses in prior census records, was living with Frederick and Sophia Dyson and was most likely the “Clary” listed as widow and “aunt” to Frederick, the head of household. Frederick Dyson was the son of Isaac and Elizabeth Dyson, my great great-grandparents. Isaac named one of his sons Moses, possibly the namesake of his brother.

According to census data of 1870, 1880 and 1900, Moses was born around  1830 in Louisiana; his father was also born in Louisiana and his mother was born in Tennessee. His Wife, Clara Ann, was born in Louisiana between 1830 and 1840 according to 1870 thru 1910 census data; she did not have any children per 1900 census data. Clara Ann’s parents were born in Virginia. Moses had two sisters and a niece residing with him and his wife in 1880 - Matilda, single, 52 years old and a younger sister, Esther Brumfield, a widow, age 40, along with her daughter, Matilda Brumfield, age 7. Moses died prior to the 1910 Census which was recorded on May 4. Clara Ann died after 1910. Their burial locations are unknown.

On April 3, 1872, Moses Dyson submitted Homestead Application # 2874 to the Land Office in New Orleans Louisiana. The tract of land consisted of 161.94 acres located in Washington Parish, Louisiana near the Palestine Post Office. Moses paid the required application and filing fees for the tract of land which was legally described as: NE 1⁄4 of the SE 1⁄4 of Sec 29, W 1/2 of SW 1⁄4 and SE 1⁄4 of SW 1⁄4 of Sec 28 in Township 1 South of Range 9 East of the St Helena Meridian.

Moses settled on the land immediately, establishing residence in April of 1872, and began building a home for him and his wife. Over the next seven years, Moses built a kitchen, several outbuildings, cultivated about seventeen acres under fence, and planted crops of corn, cotton, potatoes and peas. With all the improvements, his homestead was valued at $150.

His Homestead Proof Claimant Testimony along with witness testimonies from his neighbors, Daniel Dyson and Granville Tate who confirmed the above, were documented and certified on August 22, 1879 by Washington Parish Judge James M. Burris. Moses and his witnesses signed the homestead documents with an “X”. Moses Dyson, Daniel Dyson, and Granville Tate were part of a larger Black homesteading community in Washington Parish, Louisiana – all three men successfully proved up homesteads.

On September 9, 1879, Patent Certificate# 1050 was issued for Homestead Application# 2874. However, the Land Office in New Orleans did not record the patent for almost three years. A potential legal issue was noted with the March 28, 1872 Homestead Affidavit which Moses filed with the Clerk of Court in Washington Parish instead of the Land Office at New Orleans. Moses expressed in that affidavit that he had no means to travel all the way to New Orleans to file the affidavit in which he swore that he satisfied all the requirements for a homestead. His claim was referred to the Board of Equitable Adjudication on October 12, 1881, confirmed and approved December 2, 1881. After 10 years, Moses Dyson’s homestead patent was finally recorded on April 10, 1882 in Vol 2 Page 493.

~ Contributed by Jackie MB Chapman

More about the contributor: I hail from LaWoods of Washington Parish, Louisiana but became a Southern California girl at the age of 8. I am a thankfully retired systems analyst who is in seventh heaven when searching for and piecing together family connections. For close to 20 years now I have been searching to uncover my ancestors’ documented past with little success other than the census records and the graciously shared recollections of the family griots. Fortunately though and thanks to genetic genealogy, I have had remarkable success positively identifying some of my ancestors’ descendants. I am the author of a blog in progress, “Where Art Thou”, in which DNA cousins help me forge a path to the “wall”, but the path takes an unexpected detour. Another blog, “Coming Together With Isaac and Elizabeth Dyson”, brings all of their nine offspring together in one electronic file and brings generations of their descendants together in person at a MEGA DYSON Tailgate where some 400 attended.