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The Barney History Project: The people, places, and stories of Barney, Georgia

Amos Emanuel and the 1827 Little River ferry proposal

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Latest audit conclusion

The Georgia Senate's 43–20 vote is verified, but the bill's absence from the official 1827 session laws strongly contradicts enactment. The 1830 tax image lists Emanuel only as a single poll in Captain Studstill's District and supplies no land description. No exact Amos Emanuel deed appears in the reviewed Lowndes index. The evidence therefore proves neither an operating ferry nor an exact crossing, and the proposal cannot be assigned safely to Joyce's Ferry, Miller Bridge, Folsom Bridge, or another site.

What the record proves

Amos Emanuel was a Lowndes County resident named in an 1827 bill for a ferry across Little River where Coffee Road crossed the river. Senator Duncan Blair introduced the measure. The Georgia Senate amended it and passed it 43–20 on November 14, 1827.[1][2]

The published 1827 session laws do not contain the bill. Their roads, bridges, and ferries index also omits it.[3] No record located in this research shows that the House passed the measure, that the governor approved it, or that Emanuel opened the ferry. He should therefore be described as the proposed ferry proprietor, not as a verified ferry operator.

The proposed crossing

The newspaper report placed the ferry on Emanuel's land where Coffee Road crossed Little River.[1] It did not give a land lot, adjoining owner, distance, or other detail that fixes the site.

Two later crossings are central to the local road history. Washington Joyce's ferry is associated with the later Miller Bridge, while a separate body of evidence places the early Coffee Road corridor near the later Folsom Bridge. Emanuel's tract has not been tied to either crossing. Until a deed, plat, tax land return, road record, or the original bill supplies a location, the site remains unresolved.

Identity and movement

The Amos Emanuel named in the bill is strong probable as the man found in a sequence of South Georgia records from 1820 through 1850. The uncommon name, compatible household, Lowndes County residence, and later militia service support the identification, but the census ages do not align perfectly.

  • 1820: Amos Emmanuel headed a Montgomery County household of five. Two household members were engaged in agriculture.[4]
  • 1830: Amos Emanuel headed a seven-person household in Lowndes County.[5]
  • 1830 tax digest: He appeared under “Single Polls in Capt. Studstill's District” and paid one poll. The entry lists no land, acreage, district, lot, watercourse, or value.[6]
  • 1838: Folks Huxford's transcription of state records lists Amos Emanuel as a private in Captain Levi J. Knight's Lowndes County company, which served from August 15 through October 15.[7]
  • 1840: An Amos Emanuel headed a Ware County household in District 719.[8]
  • 1850: Amos Emanuel, age 55, was recorded as a Georgia-born farmer in Ware County with Martha, 60, and five other household members.[9]

The 1830 census places Amos in the forty-to-forty-nine age range. The 1840 and 1850 records instead imply birth around 1790–1795. An enumeration error could explain the difference, but the Montgomery–Lowndes–Ware chain remains strong probable rather than verified.

Household and Martha

The 1850 Ware County census is the only original record located here that names Martha. It lists her in Amos's household at age 60 but does not state relationships. She was probably his wife. The unnamed adult women in Amos's 1820, 1830, and 1840 households fall within age ranges generally compatible with Martha, though the censuses do not prove that they were the same woman.[4][5][8][9]

Public family trees call her Martha Elizabeth Jones and call Amos “Amos Enoch Emanuel.” No inspected marriage record, deed, probate file, death record, Bible record, or other original source confirms Martha's middle or maiden name, Amos's middle name, or either person's parents. No reliable connection has been established between Martha and a particular Jones family in Montgomery, Lowndes, Ware, or the Barney area.

Joyce and Folsom associations

The census records place Amos near members of a broader Joyce migration group. Henry Joyce appeared eight households before Amos Emmanuel in Montgomery County in 1820. The 1840 Ware County sequence placed Amos among Cornelius, Michael, and Henry Joyce, with Asa Emanuel adjacent.[4][8] Census order shows proximity, not kinship, shared land, or ferry succession. None of these entries names Washington Joyce.

No reviewed census, tax, military, probate, deed, family-history, or newspaper record connects Amos with William Folsom, Lawrence Folsom, or another member of the Folsom family.

Newspaper findings

A Georgia newspaper search for 1820–1860 used Emanuel, Emmanuel, Emanual, and Manuel spellings. The 1827 ferry report was the only located item that clearly concerned the Lowndes County man.[1] An 1846 Early County list also named an Amos Emanuel, but it contained too little identifying information to connect him with the Lowndes and Ware County resident.

A later online history reports that the Ware County sheriff seized seven cattle belonging to Amos Emanuel on July 2, 1844, to satisfy court debts. The original newspaper notice has not been preserved and inspected for this project, so that statement remains an unverified lead.

What remains unresolved

  • Whether the House passed the ferry bill or why the measure did not appear in the session laws
  • Whether Emanuel ever opened or operated a ferry
  • The land lot and exact location of his 1827 tract
  • Whether the proposed site corresponded to a later named crossing
  • Whether the Montgomery, Lowndes, and Ware records all concern the same man
  • Martha's maiden name, parents, and relationship to local Jones families
  • Amos's death date, burial place, and estate record

Sources

  1. Weekly Telegraph (Macon), November 27, 1827, p. 2, report of Duncan Blair's ferry bill and Senate passage; Newspapers.com image 823537670.
  2. Journal of the Senate of the State of Georgia (1827), pp. 21, 28, 36, 42, 59–60, Internet Archive.
  3. Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Georgia (1827), published session laws and index, Digital Library of Georgia.
  4. 1820 U.S. census, Montgomery County, Georgia, p. 62, Amos Emmanuel, NARA M33 roll 9; Ancestry record 1480766.
  5. 1830 U.S. census, Lowndes County, Georgia, p. 86, Amos Emanuel, NARA M19 roll 19; Ancestry record 1850986.
  6. 1830 Lowndes County tax digest, Captain Studstill's district, single-poll list, Amos Emanuel; Ancestry collection 1729, record 3440981, image 40141_1220705227_0567-00028.
  7. “Indian War Troops of 1838,” South Georgia Historical and Genealogical Quarterly 1, no. 1 (January 1922), p. 6, roster transcribed by Folks Huxford from Georgia capitol records.
  8. 1840 U.S. census, District 719, Ware County, Georgia, p. 134, Amos Emanuel, NARA M704 roll 52; Ancestry record 1855293.
  9. 1850 U.S. census, Division 89, Ware County, Georgia, dwelling and family 422, p. 116b, Amos and Martha Emanuel, NARA M432 roll 86; Ancestry record 16036802.