Fortner-Porter Cemetery, Hinds County, Mississippi

It all started in February 2011 when I contacted an individual named Carol Hughes about her post on an Ancestry.com message board.  According to the post, Carol and I were researching the same individual, Anastacia Porter Lawson Porter. Known as "Gracy" to family members, Anastacia was the second wife of William Porter, who died in Hinds County, Mississippi in the 1800s. According to most accounts, William Porter was the son of Landlot Porter and Winnie Palmer Porter. More about the Porter family of Hinds County, Mississippi can be read here. 


Shortly before reading Carol's post on the message board, I had read about a small family cemetery near Raymond, Mississippi that allegedly contained the graves of Gracy, her husband, William, his father, Landlot Porter, and other Porter and Fortner family members. I shared this information in an email to Carol, and was struck with amazement when I received her reply telling me that she lived within a few miles of the cemetery's  location.  Although she had no previous knowledge of the cemetery's existence, Carol readily volunteered to locate it and kindly offered to photograph whatever headstones she might find. As most of us know, family obligations, weather, and life in general often take precedence over family research activities, and almost a year went by before Carol was able to make the trip to the cemetery. Although Carol had actually located the cemetery this past January, she discovered it was located on private property and permission to access the property was needed from the owner. 



But Carol was persistent, and on February 20, 2011, her visit to the cemetery became a reality, albeit a bittersweet one. Although the cemetery is located on privately owned property, it has been vandalized and some of the heavier stones and monuments have been toppled.  Gracy Porter's stone was one of those that had been overturned. Landlot Porter's grave marker is still standing, and with Carol's permission, I have posted a photo of it here today.  

Finding Your Ancestral Home

As a family researcher, I am always looking for information and photos about where my ancestors actually lived. I want to know how they lived, what they did for a living, where they went to church or synagogue, and how and where they were educated. Several months ago, during a moment of genealogical curiosity, I decided to search the National Register of Historic Places to see if any of my ancestors' names were attached to places listed there. Not only did I find photos of the old Porter homestead in Mississippi, I found photos of three historic houses named for other ancestors who lived in Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. So, if you have some brick walls to be broken down, or at least scaled, take a look at the list.  Maybe you will find your ancestral home and the other resources needed to make your brick wall crumble.


Note:  Mississippi's Register of Historic Places can be accessed here.

Landlot Porter's Presence in Mississippi

According to early state and territorial census records, Landlot Porter and four other Porter males, John, Joseph, William, and Shadrack, were residents of Mississippi before statehood. Most researchers agree that William Porter, who married Gracy Lawson in Franklin County, Mississippi, on January 29, 1826, was the son of Landlot Porter and his wife, Winnie Palmer Porter. Since William Porter, who is buried in the Fortson-Porter Cemetery near Siwell in Hinds County, Mississippi, was already the father of adult children when he died in 1834, it is likely that he was born before the Porter Family migration to the Mississippi Territory ever began.  Porter family researchers also seem to agree that Landlot Porter was the son of Edward Sanders Porter and Mary Jeter of Union County, South Carolina.  In fact, Edward Turner Porter, enumerated on the U. S. Census of 1850, son of William and Gracy Porter, was most certainly named for his Porter great-grandfather.


According to U. S. General Land Office Records, Landlot Porter acquired 80.64 acres of land in Hinds County, Mississippi, described as Section 9, Township 5 North, Range 1 West.  This acquisition of land in Hinds County places Landlot Porter near the location where William and Gracy Porter lived during the same time, and also near the location of Fortson-Porter Cemetery where Landlot was later buried.


Sources:
Ancestry.com. Mississippi Marriages, 1826-50 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 1999. Original data: Dodd, Jordan R, et. al.. Early American Marriages: Mississippi; accessed November 30, 2010.


Ancestry.com. U.S. General Land Office Records, 1796-1907 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008. Original data: United States. Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records. Automated Records Project; Federal Land Patents, State Volumes.http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/. Springfield, Virginia: Bureau of Land Management, Eastern States, 2007; accessed November 30, 2010.

Ragland - Porter Marriage

In an earlier post, I wrote about Robert W. Ragland, one of Winiford Ragland Branch's brothers, who was married to Sarah Jane Porter on March 24, 1848.  As I mentioned in the post, some Ragland family research has shown that Sarah Jane Porter was the daughter of William Porter, Sr. and Louisa Anastacia Porter, William's second wife whom he married on January 29, 1826. My own research, at least so far, has not validated this information.  In fact, my review of the transcription of the will of William Porter, Sr. found no provision for a daughter named Sarah Jane. More about this relationship later.....

"Mississippi Court Records - 1799 - 1835"

Since I am still searching for John P. Gibson, my last brick wall ancestor, I decided to take one more look through the handy reference guide above. First printed in 1936, this 193-page book of Mississippi Court Records spanning the time period 1799 -1835, was compiled by J. Estelle Stewart King, a descendant of some of Mississippi's earliest settlers. My copy of Ms. King's book is a Clearfield Company, Inc. reprint (1992, 1994, 1995) of Genealogical Publishing Company's reprint (1969) in Baltimore, MD.


Included in the book are abstracts of wills and marriage records for Adams, Amite, Claiborne, Hinds, Warren, and Yalobusha Counties. Along with an alphabetical index, an appendix was added to the 1969 reprint that includes cemetery inscriptions from City Cemetery, Vicksburg, Mississippi and an excerpt from the Copiah County Orphan's Court (1823-24).


For family history researchers looking for ancestors who lived in the Mississippi Territory and in the state during the early years after its formation, Ms. King's book may be a great source of information.