About the 1860 Mortality Schedule
of Freestone County, Texas


In addition to the actual 1860 Federal Census and accompanying Slave Schedule, each census enumerator was required to record the names and cause of death of all persons who had died in the county within the past year, i.e., from June 1859 to June 1860. This information was noted on a form called a "Mortality Schedule."

Each hand-numbered page had spaces for 35 individuals and was divided into 11 columns which asked for the following information:

1. Name of every person who died during the year ending 1st June 1860, whose usual place of abode at the time of death was in this family. (Note: A name followed by a dash and another name or a blank space indicates a slave-holder and a slave, the slave being the person who died.)
2. Age.
3. Sex.
4. Color (White not indicated by Freestone County enumerator. B = Black; M = Mulatto, i.e., mixed race).
5. Free or Slave (Free not indicated by Freestone County enumerator. S = Slave).
6. Married or Single (Single not indicated by Freestone County enumerator. M = Married).
7. Place of Birth.
8. The month in which the person died.
9. Profession, occupation or trade.
10. Disease or cause of death.
11. Number of days ill.

At the bottom of each page was space for miscellaneous remarks by the census enumerator, regarding the prevalence of disease, water quality in the county and so on. 

W. R. Daviss, the Freestone County enumerator chose to skip columns 4 and 5 if the person who died was a free white, filling in those two columns only if the deceased was a slave. For column 6, he chose only to indicate if a person was married. It can be assumed that all others were single. The occupation of a slave is sometimes given, sometimes not. No occupation is given for any woman. If a slave died, his or her master's or mistress's name is written first, followed by the deceased slave's name. Sometimes a slave is not named. However, it should be noted that aside from deeds, wills and bills of sale the Mortality Schedule is one of the few places in which a slave's name might be recorded. For this reason, the mortality schedule may be of particular interest to anyone researching slave ancestry.

The majority of deaths which are listed in this particular schedule are those of children. Unsanitary conditions, among both slaves and free whites, often accounted for many of the diseases which took the life of a young child. Yet it appears that if a person, lived to middle age, he or she stood a good chance of living to an exceptionally ripe old age. In this schedule, for example, are recorded the deaths, from old age, of three slaves who lived to be 80, 90, and 105 respectively! Two were women. The oldest was born in South Carolina about 1755 - more than twenty years before the American Revolution! She was the servant of Mrs. Mary McIlvain. Siss (?), a slave belonging to Mary Hatcher, was born in Africa in 1770. The man, whose name was John, was born about 1780. His birthplace was unknown.

The majority of adults listed in the schedule were slaves. Their particular susceptibility to disease was probably no doubt owing to their limited diet and the crowded, unsanitary living conditions they had to endure.

Modern day readers may not be familiar with 19th Century names for some diseases. "Flux," for example was an excessive, abnormal discharge from the bowels; "Dropsy" was what is now called Edema - an abnormal accumulation of fluids in body tissue, usually the result of impending kidney failure; and "Consumption" was Tuberculosis, a then-incurable lung disease which caused a great deal of suffering and claimed many lives.

One death was due to some particularly tragic and unfortunate circumstances: a slave mother “overlaid” her baby, while both were sleeping, and smothered it (see page 109).

It seems surprising that so few deaths were the result of accidents. The accidental death of a slave named Lewis, who belonged to H.L. Graves, is especially curious: he was overcome by “foul air in a well” and died suddenly. Why was he in a well? Was he digging it?

Another slave, William, was also the victim of an accident but again, no details were noted. He was the property of W. F. Daniel.

One unnamed slave, a young man of only 22 years of age belonging to W. A. Milam, committed suicide in April 1860.

Some families seem to have had more than their share of untimely deaths. The Nunn family, for example, lost two children and their mother (presumably) in June and July 1859. And in May 1860, two of the Netherland children were taken away - one by “flux,” the other by “inflammation of the brain.”

Betty Morrow of Teague, Texas, has published an index of Freestone County cemeteries (see Bibliography) which may include some of the same names that are listed here.