Women's Work on President's Island

,Freedwoman Leah Black arrived at President's Island after spending time at LaGrange, Tennessee 

Imagining what life was like on President's Island during the war must include a picture of what women were doing there. One way to frame the picture is to consider the thesis of Noralee Frankel, who writes in Freedom's Women that the general view of black women by army officials was that they, like men, should be put to work, and "work," in their perception was employment by whites. According to Frankel and others, most women would be encouraged to move from the camps to abandoned plantations, where they would function as field laborers. One might conclude that women who remained in camp were either unable to work or found other ways to win a place there. 


The story I love to tell is of Leah Black, a.k.a. Leah Martin, who, after losing her husband at the start of the war, lost also two of her four children. She spent time in different occupied towns, first, Bolivar, Tennessee (in the county that neighbored her "home" county of Fayette); next, in LaGrange, which was in fact in Fayette County (just a few miles from where she likely had lived before the war); then to President's Island and Memphis. One may be amazed at Black's movement, but she was likely being transported by the army via train, and given her later activities, there is reason to believe that she would have taken advantage of the best opportunities offered her. At LaGrange, she worked "on a Government farm for pay." But, once in Memphis, she may have decided to try to become more independent.  According to Fountain Day, who testified on her behalf before the Southern Claims Commission, she moved quite a bit around Memphis. He stated, “I saw her often inside the Federal lines—she was in Camp ‘Shiloh’ of the colored people, & also on President’s Island, while I was in service.” Day adds that Black always talked to the soldiers and cooked food for them.


This freedwoman obviously defined her freedom to include an ability to work and fend for herself. She appears in The Register of Freedmen as Leah Martin, but following the war she either took her dead husband's last name or remarried. Her case gives us some idea of the latitude black women in camp had despite the fact that they were registered as laborers and were probably encouraged to work for others. 


There is no doubt that many black women did work within the camps. The University of Memphis holds several copies of payrolls that include women. (See above picture.) One from August of 1864 (for workers at President's Island) includes Margaret Crawford, Cornelia Davis, Laura Davis, Manerva Davis, Zerena Green, Lucinda Hardaway, Mariah Harris, Jane Harvel, Lucinda Harvel, Martha Holland, Roseanna Johnson, Emily Logan, Ellen Louis, Ann McGee, Cathena McGee, Sharlott McGowen, Rachel Miles, Ann Miller, Alena Mitchel, Emma Moore, Milly Smith, Susan Paine, Fanny Thomas, Clarisa Thompson, Eliza Treadwell, Martha Wilkinson, Sally Wilkinson, and Ann Williams. These women would have worked cording wood, as seamstresses, cooks, and hospital help.  This runs somewhat contrary to Frankel's statement that as a way to coerce them to move onto plantations women did not receive pay .

Pay Roll of Laborers Employed on President's Island During the Month of August 1864

There also were a number of white women on the island, who also served as hospital workers and as teachers.In January of 1865, one official reported to Capt. Thomas Walker: "On President's Island there are (3) three schools taught by (4) teachers with (353) pupils. A night school for soldiers is just opening...In the Colored Orphan Asylum in charge of Mrs. Canfield (50) pupils have been regularly in school under the instruction of Miss Mary Cahill [spelling unclear]." In the fall of the prior year, the Office of Industrial Colored Schools reported: "The removal of the Freedmen [sic] from Camp Holly Springs to President's Island the past month has prevented Miss Eliza Mitchell from operating in her school." Gen. John Eaton himself, Superintendent of the Department of Tennessee including Arkansas, wrote in Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen, that Eliza Mitchell was in fact appointed to this position by him in 1863. He added that she found many homeless and orphaned children. She got them under the care of “Aunt Maria” who took charge of the children for about two years.According to Eaton, Canfield's asylum was in the city, and she had 100 orphans there.


Needless to say, this important work, whether that of teaching or that of cording wood, was necessary to the process of reconstruction that began, not following, but during the war.

Reconstructing President's Island

This photo of the New Hope Baptist Church appeared in the Press-Scimitar, November 2, 1937.(From the files of the Memphis Public Library, Central Branch)

It's actually been more than three years since I posted a picture of New Hope Church on President's Island. I'm re-posting that picture in this update. Needless to say, in the last three years I have not stopped thinking about P.I. but have been actively working on other things including trying to find documents on another contraband camp--Camp Holly Springs. In any case, I do have a few updates on President's Island, more than I can write about in this post, so I will try to find time to write several posts over the next two weeks.

Let me begin with the name of the church in the picture included here. According to the 1937 Press Scimitar article, this is in fact New Hope Church. I am curious about its structure and if it would have survived storms and floods over the years. I wonder this because I have evidence that one of the earliest, probably the first, post Civil War Negro churches on the island was in fact New Hope. This would have made New Hope at least seventy-two years old in the year of the photograph. I know the church was in existence shortly following the war (as an organization if not as a building) from studying Freedmen's Bureau Bank records. According to these records, John Crump (likely a slave of William Crump of Marshall  and Tippah counties.) was pastor of the church in 1870 and probably earlier. This is according to Thomas Downey, who was himself a preacher, who lived on the island.

Crump and Downey both have personal bank account records, and Downey makes an additional application in 1870 for an organization--"Laborer's Treasury." I don't know much about the organization, but many of those who lived on the island were farmers or involved in farm work. I have noticed other organizations with similar titles, so my guess would be that these are early benevolent societies since there certainly were many of these being founded at this time. They provided burial insurance and other benefits.

Many of the newly founded black churches in Memphis also opened accounts with the Freedmen's Bank, so it may seem surprising that New Hope did not have a separate church account. (Actually, I haven't given up on finding one.) It may be that the "Laborer's Treasury" served the purpose of creating a fund for families and individuals, funds that would of course be separate from the church. Yet, possibly many of New Hope's members would have also been a part of the benevolent society. Certainly, Crump and Downey's involvement in both (it was on Downey's application for LT that Crump was identified as pastor of New Hope) suggests an association between the church and the society.

I was delighted to find a bank record for Crump because of a personal connection. My second great-grandfather and his family also were residents of the island, and I learned from his pension file that Crump married him and his second wife--undoubtedly at this very church. Having the photo of it helps me and others to imagine wedding ceremonies, as well as other types of services taking place there.

But beyond the personal, a look at almost a third of Freedmen's Bank records provides a list of others who lived on the island between 1865 and 1870 (and likely longer). They are:

Thomas Downey
David Downey (wife Melinda) (David was in the 64th USCT (Co.D)
Fountain Walker(wife Frances)  (In 1869, he reports living on the island two or three years)
Solomon DeVall (wife Betsey DeVall) (Brother of Fountain. In 1869, reports that he has been living on the island 2 or 3 weeks)
Jo Durham (wife Vina Durham)  (In 1869, reports that he has lived on the island for three years)
Ben Kay Jackson (wife Susan Jackson) (In 1869, reports that he has lived on the island for four years)
Samuel Williams (oldest son of my own ancestor Daniel Williams, with whom he lives)
James Anderson (wife Chaney Anderson) (James was in the 63rd USCT (Co. B).
Isaac J. Walker (wife Ann Walker)
Marrina Williams (husband John Williams)
Aaron Hill (wife Martha Hill)

A number of children belong to these families, and needless to say this list is not exhaustive but simply represents those who opened a bank account with the Bureau between 1865 and 1870. I certainly expect that there will be more to add to the list, those who opened accounts in 1871. My own ancestor for instance did not open his account until 1872, and another son also later opened an account.

I have lots of hunches about this population. Perhaps it is becoming clear here that those who opened an account were leaders of a sort. Most of those listed are working for themselves as farmers, an important distinction from sharecropping and also from the contract labor that was the fate of many in the years following the war. I have no doubt that all of these men and women on the island are renting land, and there is evidence to prove that their choice to remain on the island after the war is directly influenced by the agricultural experiments begun during the war.This is an important point to make because local memory often misrepresents those who lived on the island as being in a refugee camp, and the picture too often offered really is of people who were at the mercy of local land owners. Without a doubt, these African American farmers would have had to negotiate with the owners, but there is reason to believe they were quite capable of doing so. This is an important question for further study, especially since at the end of the war all whites [this was the language used in the order] not connected to the military and its projects were to vacate the island.*

Lastly, it is worth noting that Freedmen's Bank records also reveal many blacks living at Fort Pickering following the war. Many of its residents, some veterans and their families, would have been well acquainted with persons living on President's Island, so I would say that these communities were mutually supporting and mutually interested in the same goals, one being religious instruction and another being achieving independence through farming.

*Special Order No. 10, Paragraph 8: “The exigencies of the service rendering it absolutely indispensable, President’s Island, in the Mississippi river below Memphis, Tennessee, is hereby reserved and set apart for the purposes of the Freedmen’s Department, and is placed under the exclusive control of Col. John Eaton, Jr., General Superintendent of Freedmen, and such officers as he may place in charge of camps, farms, mills or other interests.“All white persons not directly connected with the military service will be required to leave the Island before the first day of January 1865, and after that date no white person will be allowed to land on any part of the same without written permission so to do, either from these Head Quarters, the Head-Quarters District of West Tennessee, the General Superintendent of Freedmen, or the Provost Marshal of Freedmen, and none other.”