Ancestors

Leathie Ellen Williams

1828-1891 · Greenville AL → Glenmora (Spring Creek) LA
Born 1828, Butler Co AL
Died 1891
Children include Fannie

Leathie Ellen Williams was born in 1828 in Butler County, Alabama. Her son's death certificate names the place as Greenville, the county seat. Her children's papers call her Ellen.

She was probably the daughter of John Williams, a Georgia-born farmer, and his wife Winney Moore, born in South Carolina, a daughter of Lewis Moore. On 18 October 1850 the census taker found an Ellen Williams, 19, in their house at dwelling 232, with Chapman, Elizabeth, James, Francis, Margaret and Caroline. No record calls her their daughter. The census asked no relationships, and her father's will burned with the courthouse in 1853. But she was the only Ellen Williams of marrying age in the county, and her parents' names have come down in the family for as long as anyone has written them.

In 1851 she married Sherrod Sims Howell as his second wife. The 1850 census had just found him in neighbouring Conecuh County with a first wife, Sarah. Their first child came the year after the marriage.

John Williams died before 15 December 1852, leaving a will. On the night of 12 April 1853 the Butler County courthouse burned, and every paper of his estate went with it.

She bore at least nine children. Six are named in the records: S. Winniford, Fannie, J. Paul, Elijah, Letha Ellen and Joseph. In 1862 or 1863 the family moved into wartime Louisiana, and Joseph was born at Aberdine, Louisiana, on 13 May 1863. Sherrod died near Glenmora in 1865, when she was about thirty seven.

She went back to Butler County. She is not found in the 1870 census under any spelling. In June 1880 she was keeping her own house at Dead Fall, a widow of fifty one with six of her children around her. It is the one census on which she answered for herself.

She died in 1891 and was buried at Amiable Cemetery in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, near Sherrod. Her marker is a slab of concrete with hand-drawn letters: LEATHIE E. WILLIAMS / WIFE / B 1828 D 1891.

Children

Fannie Howell (1855-1928)

Sources

1850 United States census, Butler County, Alabama, sheet 193, enumerated 18 October 1850 by Wm. H. Ringgold; FamilySearch image ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-69Y3-LM6
Butler County, Alabama, Probate Court minutes, special term, 26 September 1853; FamilySearch Full Text ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C957-CQVZ
Find a Grave memorial 27982272, Amiable Cemetery, Rapides Parish, Louisiana; photograph by Roger M Pace, 2015
1850 US census, Butler County AL, sheet 193 (FamilySearch image 3:1:S3HT-69Y3-LM6); 1850 US census, Conecuh County AL, dwelling 709; 1860 US census, Butler County AL, Precinct 2 (persona 1:1:MHDH-YBY); 1880 US census, Butler County AL, ED 38, dwelling 343; Florida death certificate of Joseph K. Howell, 1933; Louisiana death certificate of Wennie Sarah Howell, 1938; Butler County Probate minutes, 26 September 1853 (FamilySearch Full Text 3:1:3Q9M-C957-CQVZ); estate of Lewis Moore, final settlement (3:1:3Q9M-C957-N9P5-2); Find a Grave memorials 27982272 and 242733536

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Cite: Heirology, "Leathie Ellen Williams (1828-1891)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/leathie-ellen-williams-1828-1891-8eeefa.