Over 30 years ago my cousin shared a photocopy of a marriage license with me.
I'm not sure where she got it. It probably was photocopied by the person who possessed the original marriage license, but if so, I don't know who may have had it. More than likely the original has been lost. I have also never been able to find the certificate online, not even indexed. That could be because it hasn't been scanned, or because of the location in which the marriage took place, which I will explain below, or perhaps because I haven't been looking in the right place. In any case, this copy of the license/certificate is all I have, and I have examined it carefully for any clues it contains.
My cousin and I share great-grandparents, Thomas Jefferson Bell and Cornelia Roberts, whose marriage certificate this is. While the details of Thomas's life are fairly straightforward, Cornelia has been a bit of a puzzle. She was born in Jackson County, Tennessee, 4 February 1865, according to her headstone in the Fairview Cemetery, Dustin, Hughes County, Oklahoma. She first appears on the 1870 census of Jackson County with her parents, Stephen and Elzina Roberts. Here's the first little anomaly: she is listed as Permelia, age 14! I have determined, to the best of my knowledge, that this was just the census taker's mistake, either in mishearing name and age, or having been given wrong information by a family member or neighbor. Permelia does not appear on the 1860 census with the Roberts family when she would have been 4, nor in any record since 1870. She first shows up on the 1870 census, which would also be the first census in which Cornelia should appear at age 5.
Stephen and Elzina divorced in the 1870's (I've written about the divorce in this blog on several occasions), and Elzina moved herself and her children (minus oldest daughter Mary/Polly who had married in Jackson County) to Caldwell County, Kentucky, sometime before 1880 when they appear on the Caldwell County census. Puzzle #2: Why there? I have been unable to find any relatives in Caldwell County, nor any direct route that would lead Elzina's family there. Maybe they just saw an advertisement for farm land and took the chance to start a new life away from Stephen. On the 1880 census of Caldwell County the household consists of Elzina (enumerated as Elmira), age 54; Nancy, age 24; James Henry, age 18; Thomas J., age 14; Cornelia, age 13; Nathan J., age 12; and hired hand John Grider, age 23, who would later marry Nancy.
From there the family splits up. Cornelia ends up in Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, in what is now southern Oklahoma. The marriage license/certificate above records her marriage there to Thomas J. Bell on 15 October 1893. Puzzle #3: She is listed as Mrs. Cornelia Spurlock on the marriage license. Until yesterday I didn't know anything about Cornelia's life between 1880 and 1893.
I wasn't even looking for proof of Cornelia's marriage to an unknown Spurlock, which I have done for over 30 years without success. I actually was looking at the 1860 Jackson County census, trying to make some sense of the DNA matches I have that might lead me to the names of Elzina's or Stephen's parents. For the hundredth time I saw the family of Drury and Paralee Spurlock at Dwelling #206 and Stephen and Elzina's family at #215. I have always suspected that Cornelia's first husband came from this family just because of their proximity but I had never been able to find proof of it. For some reason this time I clicked on the name Lock, the 4-year-old son of Drury and Paralee. Suggested Records showed me that the only other time he appears by this name is on the 1870 census.
I clicked on his name there, and Suggested Records showed me records under various names, including Jones T. Spurlock, James T. Spurlock, and James L. Spurlock. Thinking that James L. might be Lock, I clicked on his name and under the Suggested Records was a marriage record for a James L. Spurlock in Kentucky. Knowing that Cornelia had lived there, this was a possibility. When I clicked on it, I couldn't believe my eyes! Here was the marriage record for Cornelia and the formerly unknown Mr. Spurlock, now known as James L. They had married in Caldwell County, Kentucky, on 10 August 1882 when James was 26 and Cornelia was 16.
I don't know why I had never been able to find it before, but this was one time when clicking around was not a waste of time! My guess is that I gave up on finding that record long ago, and in the meantime it had been added to Ancestry's database. In any case, I wouldn't have found it this time because I wasn't searching for it. It was just a very happy accident.
I was hoping to find something in the document that was new information about Cornelia's family. I really didn't, but it did verify information that I already knew or suspected and gave me a couple of new questions to ponder. I already knew that Cornelia, her mother, and four of her siblings were living in Caldwell County, Kentucky, in 1880, so it doesn't surprise me that she married there.
Of course, the most important piece of new information was the identity of Cornelia's first husband--James L. Spurlock. Information about the groom and bride show that both of them resided in Caldwell County at the time of the marriage, and both of them were born in Tennessee. There were no Spurlock families in Caldwell County in 1880, so it seems likely that James L. Spurlock is from one of the Jackson County Spurlock families. How did he end up in Caldwell County? It seems unlikely that he followed Cornelia there, as she was only 13 on the 1880 census and could have been much younger when her family moved to Kentucky. I can't find James on the 1880 census in either Jackson County or Caldwell County; all I know is that he was there by 1882 when he married Cornelia.
John Grider and James signed the marriage bond. Remember John Grider? He was the hired man listed with the Roberts family on the 1880 census and also Cornelia's new brother-in-law. He had married her sister Nancy on 30 July 1882, just days before Cornelia married James. Is there a previous connection between James and John, or did they just strike up a friendship because each of them had a connection to the Roberts family? If I knew why the Roberts family moved to Caldwell County, it might help solve this mystery too.
I started this journey by clicking on Lock Spurlock in Jackson County, Tennessee, on the 1860 census. He was living with his parents, Drewry (Drury) and Parilee (Paralee) Spurlock. On the 1870 census he is again enumerated as "Lock." I don't know if this is just a nickname for Spurlock or perhaps a family name. There were Lock/Locke families in Jackson County that intermarried with the Spurlocks, but I can't find any preceding the birth of Lock Spurlock in 1856. After a quick search for males named James or James L. Spurlock of the right age in Tennessee before 1880, I can't find any that aren't accounted for by other marriages. I cannot find anyone named Lock Spurlock after 1870. My gut instinct tells me that Cornelia married the Lock Spurlock that was her childhood neighbor in Jackson County.
I still don't know how or why Cornelia came to the Chickasaw Nation. There is a lot of time unaccounted for from her marriage to James L. Spurlock in 1882 and her marriage to Thomas Jefferson Bell in Woodford, Pickens County, Chickasaw Nation, in 1893. As far as I know, T. J. Bell never lived in Kentucky, so he probably met Cornelia in Indian Territory. Did she come there with her husband, James L. Spurlock, or perhaps with her youngest brother, James Nathan, around 1890? James Nathan married in Troy, I.T., in 1903. What happened to James L.? Did he die in Kentucky, did they divorce, did he come with her to Indian Territory and die there?
I thought I had found a clue years ago, when I found the grave of Maggie L. V. Spurlock in a cemetery in Woodford, which is now Carter County, Oklahoma. I surmised that she was the daughter of Cornelia and the unknown Mr. Spurlock. There are no other Spurlock headstones in the cemetery, so still no clue about what happened to James. (There is a family story about a father and child dying in a wagon accident, but if it was James and Maggie, wouldn't James be buried there too?) Maggie was born in 1887 and died in 1892, before Cornelia married T. J. Bell in 1893, so the timing of a divorce or James's death around 1892 is plausible. The location of the cemetery ties Cornelia to this area as well. George Benjamin Akers, the second husband of T. J. Bell's mother, is buried in the same cemetery. There are lines written on Maggie's headstone below the birth and death dates. Maybe someday soon I can visit the cemetery and see if there are any other clues.
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| Headstone of Maggie L. V. Spurlock 1887-1892 Woodford Cemetery, Carter Co., OK Contributed to Findagrave by pegsueca |
By the way, if you know anything about the history of Oklahoma, you probably wonder how my ancestors were able to reside in a tribal nation before those lands were open to settlement by non-tribal individuals. I'm not sure I know the answer, but I know that ancestors from all four of my family branches were in what became Oklahoma before statehood in 1907. As far as I know, none of them had tribal affiliation. Only one of my great-grandparents applied for tribal (Cherokee) citizenship and was denied because she could not prove her connection to a tribal member.
The marriage certificate for Mr. Thos. J. Bell, age 22, and Mrs. Cornelia Spurlock, age 25, states that they both are residents of Woodford, Pickens County. Pickens County doesn't exist anymore. It was one of four counties that made up the Chickasaw Nation from 1855 until statehood in 1907. All or part of eight present-day Oklahoma counties comprise what was once Pickens County. In reality, Woodford doesn't really exist anymore either. According to Wikipedia, it no longer has a school; students in the area attend school in nearby towns. Its last store closed in the 1980s.
Marriage licenses are usually handled by the county. You can see why it might be hard to search for documents from Pickens County since it doesn't exist anymore. It doesn't even show up as an option when I search on Ancestry.com. Woodford does come up in a search, but in present-day Carter County, Oklahoma, where it is located. If you do research in the areas of Oklahoma that belonged to the tribes before statehood, you will find that searching for "Indian Territory" often doesn't get you where you want to go.
As it turns out, marriage licenses for white inhabitants of tribal nations pre-Oklahoma statehood were not given by the county; they were requested from and recorded by the U.S. Federal Court. Thomas and Cornelia's wedding license and certificate of marriage were given by the "United States of America / The Indian Territory / Third Judicial District" and signed by Joseph W. Phillips, Clerk of the U.S. Court.
According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, three judicial districts were established in 1890. The First District included the Creek and Cherokee Nations and its court seat was in Muskogee. The Second District included the Choctaw Nation and its court seat was in South McAlester. The Third District, where Thomas and Cornelia got married, included the Chickasaw and Seminole Nations and its court seat was in Ardmore. In 1895 the districts were divided further and more court seats were added.
The Oklahoma Historical Society Research Center in Oklahoma City holds the marriage records of the U.S. District Court in Ardmore, Chickasaw Nation, Carter County, from 1895 to 1907 on microfilm. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society's guide to Territorial marriages on their website, the County Clerk of Carter County holds the original 12 volumes of records. They were microfilmed by the LDS Church. An index to the marriages has been produced and is also available at the OHS Research Center.
Where are the records from 1893? The Third District Court seat at Ardmore didn't change from 1890 to 1907, so where are the records from 1890 to 1895?
I haven't been to the Oklahoma Historical Society Research Center since before covid. The center is open now and available to the public Tuesday through Saturday. I think I am going to have to make a field trip to Carter County by way of Oklahoma City. I could visit the cemetery where Maggie Spurlock is buried and check out the available marriage records at the OHS Research Center. I'll let you know if I find out anything.
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