Nobel worked for the railroad as a Fire Knocker for many years. He died in 1975 in Chicago. Harry died around 1985 and McKinley died in 1991. Mamie died sometime prior to Noble. No info is known about Noble’s parents Henry or Emma (Thomas) Davis.

Laura had one child, Webster L. aka Buddy by Sam Boykin. I have not found a record to confirm if married.

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Laura had a second child, Morrell, born November 25, 1878. The father was a Mr. Marshall. To date, I have not been able to confirm if Laura and Mr. Marshall were married. Morrell Marshall married Reuben Benjamin Langston III on December 10, 1894 in Barbour County. They had seven children; John Henry, James, Jessie, Willie Mae, Benjamin Earl, Evalina aka Evelyn and Laura Bell. Morrell died October 28, 1948 in Chicago, IL.

Laura married William “Billy” Booker on February 3, 1887 in Barbour County. They had three children, Maude, Edmond and Otis Booker. Either Edmond or Otis as a nickname of “Tish”.

In 1910 Laura and Billy were still in Springhill (Barbour Co., AL) They soon moved to Meridian MS. where she remained until her death in August 1913.

In March 2008 I put a query for assistance on Afrigeneas and was introduced to a Linda Rudd who did lookups in Mississippi. She pulled Laura’s death certificate and sent it to me.

The Mississippi Death Certificate included the following information for Laura Booker:
born April 20, 1866-Alabama; married, died August 21, 1915 in Meridian (Lauderdale Co.); housewife; buried August 22, 1915 in Masonic Cemetery by Frank Berry; Father-Elijah Davis; Mother-Rebecca Fluellen; Informant was son Ed Booker whose residence was listed as 13th Ave Bel 18th and 19th St.

On October 21, I received a picture of the headstone from Katie Inge Clawson. The headstone has a different date of death than the death certificate. The headstone reads: Laura Booker age 58; Died August 28, 1915; In Loving Memory of Our Dear Mother; At Rest. I cannot explain the difference in the dates.

I found my maternal great grandparents, Harrison and Mandy Berry Tabor in the Bullock County Court
House. There is a wealth of research information there. Documents include marriage records that date back to 1882, birth records, death records, Poll Tax records from around 1880, bound newspapers dating back to around 1915, jail records, probate records, institution records, voter registration records, and much much more.

The Tabor and Berry families date back to the 1870 Census in Union Springs, AL. On the 1870 census, Harrison’s father, Robert “Tables”, listed his birthplace as the District of Columbia. He was 48 years old. They family was living in Sardis, Beat 9. Robert’s wife Rilda, age 40, was born in Virginia. They
were farmers. Children James-18; Harrison-22; George-17; Matilda-12; Mack-10; and Nicie-5 were all listed as being born in Alabama. Rilda died October 22, 1910 at the age of 80.

Harrison Tabor married Mandy Berry on October 7, 1878 at King’s Place. The minister was Robert Tabor, M.G. Robert’s signature was acknowledged by an X, which indicates that he could not write. Robert may be the father of Harrison.

Harrison died of Malarial Fever on August 26, 1899. He is listed as being 50 years old. However, in 1870, he is listed as 22 years old, which would make him around 47 years old at death.

The 1900 census, published shortly after Harrisons death, shows Mandy Tabor age 43, and her children living in Union Springs. Children living at home were Robert-born February 1880; Rilda-born January 1882; Arrine-born April 1884; Eliza-born January 1886; LadyBug aka Elberta-born December 1887; Joseph-born October 1883; and Fayette-born November 1895.

Mandy (Berry) Tabor
The 1910 and 1920 census’ show Mandy living with her daughter and son-in-law Addine (sic) and John Vanhoose and their children on Union Springs Rd and Baskin Street respectively.

Mandy had moved to Beaver County to live with her daughter, Luvenia Fayette, and son-in-law, Tom Jones, in the mid 1930’s. Mandy died November 7, 1938, and was buried November 10, 1938 by Spratt and Brother Funeral Home. She is buried in the Beaver Falls Cemetery.

Death Notice – Mrs. Harrison Table (Tabor)
Mrs. Amanda Table, 76, widow of Harrison Table, died Monday at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Thomas Jones, at 336 7th Ave, New Brighton, of complications. She leaves the following children Joseph and Mrs. Jones of New Brighton, Mrs. Solomon Estelle of Pittsburgh, Irene Jones of Birmingham, Ala.; Mrs. Elizabeth “Eliza” Davis, Mrs. Atline Van-Hoose and Robert Table of Union Springs, Ala.; 16 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.
Beaver Falls Review 11-10-1938, Pittsburgh, PA

Historical records can be found under both the “Tables” and “Tabor” surname.

Email: emily5505@aol.com

A day later, I received an inquiry from a Jennie (Chicago) who had seen
the same post and was also looking for a connection to a Laura Davis.  I emailed
her my phone number.  Jennie called within two days and during the conversation
mentioned that her mother and sister had passed away within a month of each
other.  She was also looking for a Morrell Marshall whose mother was Laura
Davis.  Could this be the same family that Kim was speaking of?

Jennie had her mother’s phone book and stated that her mother had written
“cousin” by some of the names.  Jennie read a couple of names, Charles and Elisha “Honey”, and addresses. The addresses were the homes of my grandfather’s
brother and his son.  She then mentioned a name (Noble Davis) that I had never
heard. Since I knew Elisha’s daughter, Cora (80+), who also lives in Chicago
still at the same address that Jennie had, I did a 3-way call and asked her
about Noble.  Sure enough, she knew Noble as a family member.  Halleluiah!!
Cora’s confirmation connected our families to each other. I also learned that Kim and Jennie were related and that Kim was speaking of Jennie’s mother and sister as the person who had passed away.

A few days later, I talked to Kim again and confirmed that we were related.  I have
sent them my family tree, what I have written on Elijah and Becky and a picture
and story on Elisha. What a coincidence that two people from Chicago would
contact me via this post within a couple of days of each other looking for the
same person.  They have never visited Barbour County, AL. We have made a promise to talk again soon and to visit together.

The family line is as follows:
Elijah and Becky Davis had a daughter named Laura Davis.  Laura had a daughter
named Morrell Marshall (Father unknown).  Laura married Sam Boykin and Billy Booker. She moved to Meridian MS.  where she remained until her death.  Morrell Marshall married Ben Langston
(Langton) and had seven children (John Henry, James, Jessie, Willie Mae,
Benjamin Earl, Evalina and Laura.

We are still looking for descendants of sisters, Sama and Margaret.

ITEM #22972
October 17, 1850
THE NATIONAL ERA
Washington, D.C., Vol.
IV No. 198 p. 166 

THE DESPOTISM OF SLAVERY. 

We had occasion to comment lately upon the bondage imposed by the Slave Power upon the white race in the South – referring to a recent attempt by the people of Eufaula, Alabama, to eject one of their own citizens, not because he was an abolitionist, but because he was a subscriber to the National Era, in which we had published an extract of a letter received from his, (but not intended for publication) speaking of the injurious effects of slavery on the white population. The sentiments were truthful, but moderate; the language was kind and unexceptionable, and it was written by a man born and raised in the South. But Slavery took offence and demanded his expulsion.

The principal mischief-maker in the case was the postmaster at Eufaula. He wrote us a note, stating that he had refused to deliver the copy of the Era, sent to the subscriber referred to, and that he would not deliver that or any other incendiary sheet. He appropriated the copy of the paper addressed to the subscriber, and was careful, we suppose, to hand it about town for the purpose of showing his own extraordinary patriotism, and the imminent peril that threatened the town of Eufaula. Ere this, we presume, he has received official notification of the expediency of complying with his oath of office. But what an illustration have we, in the insolent tyranny of this postmaster, and in the insensate violence of the good people of Eufaula, of the despotism of Slavery over the white community!

A short time after this, we observed a brutal paragraph in some paper in the “far South,” announcing that several abolitionists were known to be living in a certain neighborhood, and invoking popular violence to “move them.” Who were these abolitionists? What was their crime? What trespass had they been committing? Were they to be lynched because they believed slavery to be an evil institution? Is it the intention of Slaveholding fanatics to drive every man from the South who does not think slavery the best condition of the laborer?

The mob at Macon, which suppressed a respectable newspaper because it published a letter from a Georgian at Atlanta, commenting in indignant terms on the slave pen at the place, was another painful illustration of the intolerance of the Slave Power. We had hoped that this despotism was confined to the planting States but an instance of mean tyranny on the part of a postmaster in Virginia, acting under the instigation of some busybody, has lately come to our knowledge. A citizen, of this place, with a slave attendant, was spending a few months on pleasure at Shanondale, near Charlestown post office. She had been in the habit of reading the Era and the Pittsburgh Saturday Visiter, and they were ordered to be addressed to her at that post office. The postmaster, incited by the busybody abovementioned, took the liberty of breaking open the papers, and the further liberty of withholding them from the lady to whom they belonged. She remonstrated; and the Department at Washington having been apprized of the culpable conduct of the deputy at Charlestown, directed him to deliver promptly the papers, according to law, to the person to whom they were addressed. She remained there several weeks after this order was sent, but no papers were ever given to her. The postmaster refused to discharge the duty he had sworn to perform, and which had been enjoined upon him expressly by the Department.

This is freedom in a Slave State – to be at the mercy of every village postmaster, who may dictate to you, at his own sovereign will and pleasure, what you shall, and shall not, read.

In glancing our eye along the columns of the Greensborough (N.C.) Patriot, a few days since, we noticed quite a remarkable communication from a clergyman. The design of it was to arouse the indignation of the community against two preachers of the Wesleyan denomination, named Crooks and McBride. Their clerical brother charged them with being abolitionists – the preachers of seditious doctrines – and he labored hard to awaken the mob spirit against them. he undertook

ITEM #22901
October 3, 1850

THE NATIONAL ERA
Washington, D.C., Vol. IV No. 196 p. 158

THE SLAVERY OF THE WHITE RACE IN THE SOUTH.

The Slavery of the white race in many parts of the South is as ignominious, if not as cruel, as that of the blacks. The following is from the Southern Press, which seems to sympathize with Lynch Law as the proper remedy for Freedom of opinions:
“We find the following account of a ‘summary process’ case, in the Columbus Times. The climate of Georgia is getting uncomfortably warm for Southern men with Northern feelings. – Southern Press.

“NOTICE TO QUIT. – ‘At a large public meeting at Eufaula, Ala., last week, one Captain Elisha Betts, of that place, was ordered to leave on short notice – he having been discovered as the author of an abolition communication from that city to the Washington Era, abolition paper.
“We have no doubt, from the character of the meeting and from the temper of the sound Southern city of Eufaula, that this time the public decree will be executed. It is a just decree. Our rights may be compromised away in the Free Soil Congress, but it is no time to compromise with Abolitionists in our midst.”

Mr. Betts is an old man, born and raised in the South, in which he has always resided. For the grievous sin of believing that Slavery is an evil, he is “ordered to leave” – that is, exiled from his home and country by a mean, dastardly mob. The “abolition communication” referred to in the foregoing extract is the following, published in the Era of August 29th – certainly a very inoffensive article, as everybody, not a monomaniac on the subject, will admit.
“NEAR EUFAULA, BARBOUR CO., ALABAMA,

July 17, 1850.

DEAR SIR: I have received the National Era of the 14th instant, and after carefully examining its contents, like it well, and therefore enclose to you two dollars, agreeable to its terms of subscription for one year. Having been born and raised (being now in the 62d year of my age) amidst slavery, I certainly have had a fair opportunity to judge of the effect of the system on society in this country. There is no doubt but it has a tendency to vitiate and demoralize those who own them, and to degrade those who do not. I am well pleased with the Hon. Charles Durkee’s speech on the California question; and what he said respecting slavery was well said. But he did not attempt to portray the evils this unjust institution produces on and among the free white population of the slaveholding States, nor do I suppose he could do it for the want of information. If some of the Southern members in Congress were disposed to do it, they could tell all about it; but if they were to do it they would immediately be denounced as traitors to their country by a large majority of the slaveholders – not all. I thank God that I have yet reason to hope that there are some owners of slaves whose sensibilities are not so blunted and benumbed by what we are told are our highest interests, as to admire the institution of slavery; nevertheless we submit to the laws and customs of the land we live in, not knowing how to rid ourselves of the evil. But the introduction of slavery into the newly acquired Territories is quite another question. It seems to me that the people who inhabit these Territories are altogether right in endeavoring to exclude the evil, and that every Christian, yea, every good man, yes, every one who believes in equality and justice, ought to sanction and encourage these praiseworthy efforts.”
Doubly accursed is a system which thus chains two races – enslaving the souls of the whites, and the souls and bodies of the blacks.
The editors of the Southern Press are fond of descanting upon the baleful workings of the free institutions of the North. Has any postmaster at the North refused to deliver their paper to subscribers, on the ground that it is an incendiary or disunion sheet, or that it advocates doctrines which, if carried out, would authorize the enslavement of the whole laboring community in the free States? Has any Lynch Law been put in operation against the tribe of Northern miscreants who advocate slavery on Bible grounds, and as the best condition for the black race? There are political hacks at the North who are abolitionists in the most infamous sense of the word – advocating the abolition of Freedom in one-half of the Territories of the Union. No mob ever pretends to send them the insolent message “to leave.” Hateful as are their sentiments, a Free Labor Population understands too well the Freedom of Opinion and Speech, to call in question their right to hold and to promulgate just such views as they please. The capitalists and property-holders of the North have their rights denied every day be a large class of men who are seeking to change radically the social fabric, but they are not fools enough to attempt to curb and put down such agitators by the application of brute force. That is the infernal policy of Slavery – not of African Slavery alone, but of every species of Despotism that enthralls and curses the masses of mankind.

The slave trade with Africa was supposedly abolished in 1808; however, we know this was too profitable a business for some as well as a way to provide free labor to wealthy farmers. As a result, traders continued to bring slaves into the country via Cuba and South America.

The unknown history of my ancestors generate many questions for me. Was Elijah a slave or free person of color? Was he sold into slavery in Africa and bought to the West Indies or was he born into slavery in the West Indies? Was he sold to a slave trader or to a plantation owner?  How did he get to the United States? Did he purchase his own freedom or was he manumitted? Did he become a free person with emancipation?

The 1870 census identifies Elijah’s wife as Becky, born in Virginia.  This information also raises many questions such as how and where did they meet? But most importantly how did they end up in Springhill, AL (Barbour County-Township 12 Range 28)?

Elijah and Becky had at least six children born in Alabama starting circa 1855. They were Margaret,  Laura, Henry, Sama, Charles, my great grandfather, and William.