The Chipola Connection

As you know from my previous posts I have been searching for Andrew Jackson Lucus and his family in Henry County. The best clue as to their actual location was an 1860 Census Record from Henry County showing them living in Chipola. The page they are listed on does not show a post office. BUT when I looked at other pages from the Chipola area of the census it puts it in the Open Pond post office district.

So I took that clue and tried to find Open Pond. Well there is no current town called Open Pond in Henry County. But in 1908 Henry was split to make Houston county. This is where the trail got hot. Even though there was no current town called Open Pond a little research of old maps of Southeast Alabama shows there once was.

Map 1 from 1849 shows the towns of Columbia and Woodville and also the Chipola River.

Map 2 from 1856 shows the town of Open Pond just north of Woodville and in the same vicinity as the Chipola River.

Map 3 from 1866 shows Open Pond but not the town of Woodville. More importantly this map shows the range numbers from ploting purposes.

It is clear that Open Pond post office would have been in the area of Open Pond in Henry County Alabama in 1860. It appears from census records that Woodville, Chipola and Columbia were all using Open Pond post office and that the census takers traveled South to North taking the census. This comes from the fact that censes takers numbered their pages sequentially. Page 1 of the 1860 Census is in Woodville and follows pages 1-31. Page 32 is the first page of the Chipola section and goes to page 50. Columbia begins with page 51 and goes to page 76. Each of these sections is in the Open Pond post office district.

Another bit of information I have found concerns who may be Andrew Jackson's Father.

These land records come from Henry County;

LUCAS GARLAND 18 8N 29E ST STEPHENS 40 1840/10/10
LUCAS GARLINGTON 13 8N 28E ST STEPHENS 0 1849/09/01
LUCAS GARLINGTON 13 8N 28E ST STEPHENS 0 1849/09/01
LUCAS GARLINGTON 9 8N 29E ST STEPHENS 40 1852/12/01
LUCAS GARLINGTON 13 8N 28E ST STEPHENS 114.88 1849/09/01
LUCUS SAMUEL 18 8N 29E ST STEPHENS 39.9975 1839/09/20

What they show is a number of land deeds for Lucas'. What is most interesting is the Township and Range numbers. All of this property is very close together but it is way in the North of Henry County. It may or may not be Andrew's family but it is as good a place as any to continue looking for clues.

Please post any comments about this information and help me fill in the blanks. Thanks Jeremy