Corsicana Daily Sun, Corsicana, Texas February 2, 2008 Homemade products from 1860 census By Bill Young Last week I started writing about the cash value of the homemade products produced by some of the individuals living in Navarro County in 1860. According to the 1860 agricultural census, 122 people claimed to have produced homemade products with a total cash value estimated to be $4,217. I decided to look at the regular 1860 census to see where some of these individuals who migrated here to our county originally came from. I felt there might be a reason some individuals made homemade goods while others did not. I decided to use anyone who claimed $50 or more for their products and out of the 122 on the census, 28 individuals fit into this category. I also wanted to see what each individual’s profession was in an effort to better understand who and why each person made homemade products. Out of the 28 individuals, one person, James Copell, was not listed so I don’t know what his profession was nor what state he came from. Three others on the list did not state what their profession was for some unknown reason but I feel sure this can be determined. William M. Love didn’t state his profession but we know from other accounts he owned numerous tracts of land and was a land speculator. In other categories on the census he had cattle and crops so he wore at least two hats: land buyer and seller plus a farmer. The second individual without a named profession was Alexander Dunn. Here again was someone who owned land, mainly in the area where Petty’s Chapel is now located, but he also served as a county commissioner so we could say a politician and a farmer. The third person listed without a profession was a women named Nancy Hickman. She was a widow and 90 years of age at the time the 1860 census was conducted. Either the census taker forgot to ask or did not write down her answer to the question of her profession or the census taker in the interest of respect for a women 90 years old just simply decided not to ask what she did. Based on the other categories on the census, she would be considered a farmer because she had a number of children with her plus some other individuals who must have been hired hands to help run her place. The remaining 25 individuals who made the top of the homemade products list came from only 11 states. The number one state was Tennessee with 10 individuals followed by Georgia with four, then South Carolina with three. Two states, North Carolina and Mississippi, both had two representatives followed by one each from the states of Arkansas, Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri, Illinois and Michigan. This indicates 23 out of the 25 came from the southern states if we consider Missouri as a southern state. With this in mind this may be a good indication of why certain people took time to produce homemade goods. Most of these individuals came from a non-industrialized region. They were raised to make do with what they had and to improvise if they were in need of something. Money was scarce especially for those who had recently used their savings to make the migration here. Some of these individuals stopped off first for a while in other states or counties east of here probably in the interest of trying to decided what area would be best for them to put down their roots. We know a number of families who settled here in the late 1840s and early 1850s, picked up once more, migrating farther to the west. There were others who decided the frontier was not to their liking and eventually went back eastward. You would need to be able to interview each individual who lived back in those times to understand all of the various reasons why each one came or went but without a time machine, guessing is our only option. At the top of the list was Augustus Barry, a farmer who stated he had produced $157 worth of homemade goods followed by Alexander Younger, another farmer, with $114. Next on the list was farmer Reece V. Morrell with $111 followed by four people with $100 each. They were three farmers, Mat Finch, Warren Blackwell and J. P. Anderson, and an engineer, Radford Burk. I must admit the title of engineer living on the frontier was not expected. What did an engineer do back in those days? Today we have all types of engineers both mechanical and electrical plus construction and I would assume an engineer in 1860 had a lot of new challenges in a newly developing region but certain supplies such as lumber were hard to come by and iron products were only available back in the northeast. Dependable transportation would not be available for 11 more years when the first railroad finally made its way into Navarro County. Maybe Mr. Burk was one of those men who could look to the future and he decided to get in on the ground floor. Mr. D. Weaver, another farmer, was next on the list with $94 followed by Dr. George Washington Hill with $93. Dr. Hill was one of the individuals who made the 1850 list of homemade products when he stated he had produced $90 worth. In 10 years he increased his production by only $4, so does this indicate he made more products or inflation had started to creep into the frontier? It seems a little strange his two numbers were so close to each other in a span often years. Wonder what he was producing? James Green, another farmer, was next on the list with $86. Just recently I found out Ed Williams, the gentleman who operates the Navarro County GenWeb Site, was related to this particular Mr. Green. A couple of years ago when my partner and I recorded the James and Nancy Green Cemetery, I found where Mr. Green had choked to death on an acorn. Unusual way to go and why did he have an acorn in his mouth? Archeological research says the Native Americans ground and boiled acorns as a food product but there isn’t any description of anyone trying a consume an acorn. However the story doesn’t say what particular type of acorn he was trying to eat. Chinkapin acorns are edible and reasonably small so it might have been this particular variety.