Last updated: October 2, 2021
Person
Samuel Lindsey
Quick Facts
Significance:
Arkansas Homesteader
Place of Birth:
Tennessee
Date of Birth:
About 1862
Date of Death:
1919
According to most records, Samuel Lindsey’s birth year was around 1862 in Tennessee. Very little about his life is known before his marriage to Nellie DeLoach (daughter of Berry DeLoach or Loach and Emma Campbell) on January 13, 1886 in Jefferson County, Arkansas.
The Lindseys settled in Section 7, Spring Township of Jefferson County, Arkansas in 1898 or 1899 but filed his Homestead Application #24401 for 52.02 acres on November 19,1900, at the Land Office at Little Rock, Arkansas.
Over the course of the next six years the Lindseys cleared the timbered plot for about 10 acres of crops and built a three-room house, out house, and fences worth roughly $150. Proof witnesses all mention the family settled and stayed on the land including their children Berry (b. about 1891), John (b. about 1894), Divernia (b. 13 Jan 1865), Maud (b. about 1896), Levi (b. 11 Nov 1899), and Emma (b. 1904). They were later joined by Revida (b. 26 Dec 1906) and Minerva (b. in 1910). Nellie is noted as having had 15 children in the 1910 Census but at that time only these eight were living.
Samuel formally prove up on the land at the county clerk’s office in Jefferson County on September 6, 1906 and signed the paperwork in his own hand. Close neighbors William Henry Barnes, James G. Mayers, JH Summers, and David Walters were named as witnesses in the announcement for the proceedings, but interviews only exist for Barnes and Mayers.
The patent #119925 was officially signed on October 15, 1906. Unfortunately, the land was mortgaged by the time of the 1900 Census and multiple mortgages and deeds of trust are on file over the next several years until it becomes clear that Nellie Lindsey is independently controlling the land and appears in chancery court versus lienholders. The last of the land was lost through court proceedings in July of 1920.
Samuel died sometime in 1919. Nellie died on August 26, 1938, in Pine Bluff, Jefferson County, Arkansas. Nellie is buried at St Luke’s AME Cemetery in Pine Bluff.
~ Contributed by Jessica Trotter
Jessica Trotter is the 2nd great granddaughter of Samuel Lindsey through his daughter Divernia (Lindsey) Walters. Jessica holds a Master of Science in Information, Archives and Records Management Specialization from the University of Michigan—but works in public libraries by day. She has been an avid genealogical researcher for 25 years, and a genealogy presenter for eight years.