Person:Thomas Price (27)

Reverend Thomas Price and Origins

Thomas Price, the man

We only have glimpses of the man, Thomas Price. We have nothing of what he wrote, little of what he preached, nothing of his childhood, nothing of his education, so we know very little about Thomas Price. Possibly there is such information buried in someones attic or old papers that were passed down from an older generation. Search your old papers and share anything that would anything that would give him a personality and make him come alive.

As to whom this man, Thomas Price, really was, must be left to the reputation which he left behind. My father was born in 1899, two years after Thomas Price died, but my father held him in the highest regard. No doubt my fathers regard came from his mother, Docia Price Batson, who was Thomas Prices daughter and his father, James Dunnon Batson who lived on adjoining farms with Thomas Price and family for twenty years.

The few glimpses that I have gotten of the man are included in the following excerpts from other writings which give the opinions of four men that knew Thomas Price

In a letter written in 1935, Dr. Ira Bush, who was about 70 years of age, wrote his memories of his grandfather Rev. Thomas Price: When a child I spent much time with Grandpa and Grandma and can yet remember those days. Do you know that our Grandfather Price was a Great man? He was a philosopher. He could see into the future. He used to say that the day would come when carriages would run without horses and man would fly through the air. Truly, Thomas Price was a great man.

In a chronicle written in 1909 Rev. Thomas DeLoach Bush, at age 65, wrote a brief out line of his life. The following are excerpt from his chronicle: ŒŒ..I was converted at the age of fourteen (about 1858) and baptized by Rev. Thomas Price of Lawrence County, one of the best men I ever knew ŒŒ

The following is an excerpt from an Obituary in the Niles City (Wiggins) Record in April 1897: ŒŒŒBrother Price, as he is commonly known, had many years been an honored and worthy minister of the gospel. In this capacity he has done much good for this country and his Master, whom he delighted to serve. He was also a worthy member of the Masonic fraternity. He was in good health until April 1896, when he was taken down and kept his bed for 11 long weary months, awaiting the welcome approach of summoning angel.

No one has, or had, aught against Brother Price. He enthroned a monarch of truth in the hearts of those that knew him.

The following is an excerpt from an article written for the Lawrence County Press by Rev. J. P. Culpepper in May 1897: ŒŒ..Well do I remember when Bro Price came from Harrison County to preach to Crooked Creek and White Sand Churches, riding more than 200 miles for two long years. He traveled through the rain, the snow, and the burning sun of summer. He has done more work for his Master than any I knowŒŒ.

We do not remember Thomas Price because he was rich or famous or held high public office. He is remembered because of his integrity and the heritage that he passed on to his family.

Thomas Price, Origins

Thomas Price said that he was born in Kentucky on Nov. 6, 1817. His parents were Jonathan Price and Sarah Longino Price who were married in January 1817 in Floyd County Ky. Their marriage was witnessed by James Kirby, who was married to Sarah's older sister Elizabeth. Kirby, stated in the marriage bond that he was Sarah's guardian as her parents were in N.C. The record of a marriage license in Floyd County Ky. seems to contradict Vivian Borneman who said that they were married in Surry County, N.C., which seems to have been conventional wisdom, because Sarah Longino was the daughter of John Thomas Longino, a prominent citizen of Surry County N. C.

I searched the Surry County marriage records for the marriage of Sarah and Jonathan without success. I did find the records of the marriages of some her sisters and brothers in Surry County, but not Sarah. With Thomas Price saying that he was born in KY., I began to search computer records from Kentucky and found a transcribed record where a Jonathan Price and a Sally Lungins was married in Floyd County Ky. Sally is a nickname for Sarah and the name Lungins could have been a misspelled version of Longino. As so often happened, the scribe spelled the name as it sounded to them. With ethic backgrounds and different pronunciations, illiterate citizens and semi literate scribes, it was common to accidentally change the spelling of family names. So I assumed that I had found the correct Sarah Longino. It was later on that I employed Nancy Carter Moore, a genealogist from Raleigh, N. C., to research Jonathans origins and she found the license which was witnessed by James Kirby. We knew then that we had located Jonathan and Sarah.

We have been unable to find any records that establish how long they were in KY or Illinois, or when they migrated to MS. We do not know exactly how they came to MS except family tradition say that they came via flatboat

I have recently found a statement made by Dr. Ira Bush who quoted his grandfather, Thomas Price, as saying that his parents, Jonathan and Sarah, came down the Ohio River

I have a picture of Mrs. Clara Price Jett of Jasper Texas with a note typed on the back which says: This picture was taken in San Antonio, Texas, Aug. 1, 1925. Aunt Clara says she is 84 years old and left Mississippi for Texas in 1866. She says that her father, Jonathan Price, came from Illinois down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in a flat boat. They left the boat in Natchez, bought horses and packed some and rode others out to Lawrence County. He settled there and raised a family and is buried there.

Family tradition and the above information would conclude that Jonathan traveled to Mississippi by flatboat, but we do not know exactly when. Jonathan is not found on the 1820 US Census for Lawrence County MS, but Sarah's father, Thomas, was on that census. I thought that possibly Jonathan and Sarah had traveled with Thomas and were living in Thomas Longinos household at the time of the 1820 census, but the age distribution in Thomass household did not have the correct ages for Jonathan and Sarah to have been in his household, so if was Jonathan in Lawrence County in 1820, was he missed by the census taker. Perhaps he had not yet arrived. We do not know.

The Longino Family

In researching the Longino Family, one needs to be aware the name of the patriarch, the Italian immigrant, John Thomas Longino, appears over and over in succeeding generations. Some of his sons named their sons for their father. In the particular Longino family we are following, the grandfather was the original John Thomas, the father was named Thomas and he named his son John Thomas. The Tax Assessor at times used John when he meant John Thomas. Since there were several John Thomas Longinos living at the same time, it can be difficult to distinguish one from the other.

The Great Western Migration

The Longino Family was in Surry Co N.C. for many years and were well established there. Their father, John Thomas 1, an Italian immigrant, had been a public official, had participated in the development of Rockford, now Dobson NC and owned a board house which indicated that he was well-to-do, as most people lived in log houses. His will, which is extant, also indicated that he was a substantial citizen. Why then did his sons leave Surry County? Why had John Thomas 1, who had first lived in Prince William County VA, moved to NC?

This is an example of what happened over and over again in colonial times and why there was such a continuous flow of people from the East Coast moving westward. It was called the Great Westward Migration. In this case Bartholomew, the oldest, left Surry County NC before his father death and settled in north Georgia where new lands had just opened up via treaties with the Indians. John and Thomas remained in Surry until after their fathers death before they moved west to MS. What was the powerful force causing them to move from their ancestral land? Someone more learned that I would have to answer that question, but I can understand some of the attraction or force that moved them. First there is a natural human desire to see what is over the hill. There is the human characteristic to think that the grass is greener down the road. Many saw opportunity in the new lands. Land ownership seemed to the great motivating factor. In fact that is what brought so many from old country in Europe where they could not or did not own the land they farmed. With each new treaty with the Indians, new land was opened for settlers. That land was cheap or free or you could squat on public land. Some enterprising young men would move onto public land, make a log cabin, clear a patch for subsistence farming and then sell the improvements to a new immigrant. The enterprising young man would then move south and or west onto newly opened lands and do it all over again. He was in the real estate development business as long as his health lasted or until he could acquire slaves.

In the case of the Longino family, I believe that they began to hear about the high prices for cotton in the Natchez area.  Natchez had one of the wealthiest towns in the nation at that time and the basis of that wealth was cotton.  At last, a cash crop, a crop highly sought by the textile mills of Europe.

The land in Lawrence County was ceded by treaty with the Choctaw Indians in 1805. Lawrence County was the first county east of Adams (Natchez) and it contained good land suitable to grow cotton. Also the Pearl River offered seasonal transportation to the New Orleans market. To reach Lawrence County from the more populated areas in the east required a trip down the Ohio-Mississippi Rivers by flatboat, an overland trip via the Natchez Trace1 or if you were in Georgia, it required a trip across the Creek Indian Nation in what is now Alabama and western Georgia.1 Through treaty with the Creek Indians it became possible to cross their land with a passport issued by the Georgia governor. The first migrants followed Indian trails on foot and horse back to reach the Mississippi Territory. By 1811 the government had improved the Federal Road across Alabama to the point that wagons could travel and then the migration began in earnest.

Jonathan Price

The Tax Rolls show that Jonathan was in Lawrence County, on the Pearl River, beginning in 1822 paying only the Poll Tax for 1 white poll. This was the minimum tax indicating that he did not own any land, slaves, clocks, carriage, money loaned at interest or anything of value. We can be reasonably sure that he was farming or he was working for someone else, renting or most likely he was squatting on government land and farming . With the exception of 1825 when he paid tax on 80 acres of land, he did not pay tax on land until 1840 when he paid tax on the 40 acres which he purchased from the U.S. Government in 1836. There were years in which he paid a tax on one or two slaves, but not every year. The years 1823, 1826, 1832, 1837 are missing. In the year 1840 he had three slaves and by 1853 he had 12 slaves. By the year 1841 he had prospered sufficiently to buy a luxury item, he owned a clock valued at $40. At the time of his death in 1864 he owned 17 slaves and 480 acres of land.

The Destination

It appears that the different Longino families came to MS, came both ways. Some came from Georgia overland and some from Kentucky/Tennessee via the river route. Jonathan Price and Thomas Longino settled east of the Pearl River, on or near Silver Creek in Lawrence County MS. There were good cotton lands on both sides of Silver Creek and between Silver Creek and the Pearl River (The Town of Silver Creek developed later adjacent and south of the Jonathan Price land).

Reverend Thomas Price 1817-1896

My father was Braxton C. Batson. His Mother was Theodocia Ernestine Price Batson. Her father was Reverend Thomas Price; therefore, Reverend Thomas Price was my Great Grandfather. It is my intention with this biography to record those things that I was told and those things I have been able to learn about Thomas Price, a pioneer Settler and Baptist Preacher in South Mississippi, so that his memory will be perpetuated- just as his moral influence will not be forgotten.

Thomas Price said that he was born in Kentucky on Nov. 6, 1817. His parents were Jonathan (nmn) Price and Sarah Longino Price who were married in January 1817 in Floyd County Ky. Their marriage was witnessed by James Kirby, who was married to Sarahs older sister, Elizabeth Kirby, stated in the marriage bond that he was Sarahs guardian as her parents were in N.C. The record of a marriage license in Floyd County Ky. seems to contradict Vivian Borneman who said that they were married in Surry County, N.C., which seems to have been conventional wisdom.

I searched the Surry County marriage records for the marriage of Sarah and Jonathan without success. I did find the records of the marriages of some her sisters and brothers in Surry County, but not Sarah. With Thomas Price saying that he was born in KY., I began to search computer records from Kentucky and found a transcribed record where a Jonathan Price and a Sally Lungins was married in Floyd County Ky. Sally is a nickname for Sarah and the name Lungins could have been a misspelled version of Longino. As so often happened, the scribe spelled the name as it sounded to them. With ethic backgrounds and different pronunciations, illiterate citizens and semi-literate scribes, it was common to accidentally change the spelling of family names. So I assumed that I had found the correct Sarah Longino. It was later on that I employed Nancy Carter Moore, a genealogist from Raleigh, N. C., to research Jonathans origins and she found the transcribed license which was witnessed by James Kirby. We knew then that we had located our Jonathan and Sarah.

Thomas Prices father, Jonathan (nmi) Price, was born in Virginia in either 1793 or 1794 (as per the 1850 and 1860 Lawrence Co. Ms. census). Efforts to trace Jonathans origins have been only partially successful. The information developed by Nancy Carter Moore, Genealogist, and this author will be discussed later in a section on Jonathan Price.

Thomas Prices mother was Sarah Longino Price who was born into a prominent family in Surry County N. C in 1796. Her father was Thomas Longino, born 1755 in Prince William County Virginia. Her father was a veteran of the American Revolution. Her mother was Mary Ransom. Her grandfather was John Thomas Longino, an immigrant from Italy, who was of noble birth and had left Italy as a boy to escape religious persecution that had murdered his father.

I assume that Thomas Price, as a child, moved with his family, Jonathan and Sarah Longino Price, from Kentucky to Mississippi. Thomas Price said that he was born in Kentucky on November 6, 1817, but we do not know the place. We do not know where Jonathan and Sarah lived after their marriage in January 1817 in Floyd County Kentucky until we find Jonathan in Lawrence County Mississippi in 1822. Where did they live during that five year period? If that intrigues you, see Appendix 4  ???????? for additional clues and speculation. We can only speculate as our efforts to find records of Jonathan Price during that time frame have not been successful. Appendix 4

His daughter Clara Price Jett (b. 1842), living in 1925, said that her father and mother, Jonathan and Sarah Price, left Illinois to come to Mississippi by flatboat . Bornemans book The Batson Family said that they (Jonathan and Sarah Price and James and Elizabeth Kirby) left southern Kentucky via the Cumberland River to come to Mississippi. . Thomas Price told his Grandson, Ira Bush, that his family traveled down the Ohio River.

My speculation, after some study of the geography of the area, leads me to believe that they would have traveled north on the Big Sandy River in Kentucky to the Ohio River, then down the Ohio to Illinois, then to Mississippi. Floyd County, where Jonathan and Sarah were married, is on the Big Sandy River. We believe that Jonathan was living in Floyd County when they married. If they were going to Mississippi by flatboat, more likely they would have traveled on the Big Sandy, then on the Ohio River to the Mississippi River, rather than crossing the mountains to the Cumberland River in southern Kentucky where it is doubtful that the Cumberland would have been large enough to have floated a flatboat.

Subsequent records show his father, Jonathan, settled east of the Pearl River near the present day town of Silver Creek and prospered as a cotton farmer until his death in 1864.

I do not have any information about Thomas formative years growing up in Lawrence County. He obviously received some education, but where we do not know. The fact that his father, Jonathan, and mother, Sarah, signed deeds with their mark would indicate that they could not read and write, so I dont believe that Thomas was home schooled. It was not uncommon during those times for neighboring families to hire an itinerate teacher to school their children in reading and writing.

As a young adult, Thomas Price began acquiring land, most likely for farming cotton. Some of his land lay just south of the Silver Creek Community. In addition to farming, we believe that he was preaching, for family tradition says that he began preaching periodically at Red Creek Baptist Church down in Hancock County, now Stone County, Mississippi about 1835. He would have been about 18 years old.

Red Creek Church was some 80 miles south and east from Silver Creek through the bridgeless wilderness, a two day trip by horseback in good weather and low water. This tradition cannot be verified, but we do know that he married Mariah Dale, daughter of John Dale and Agnes Culpepper Dale, of the Red Creek Community in 1842. If he was indeed preaching at Red Creek, it is easy to assume that they became acquainted with Mariah, the Dales oldest daughter during his preaching trips, when he probably stayed with the Dale Family.

Thomas and Mariah set up housekeeping in Lawrence County where they lived from 1842 until they moved back to Red Creek in 1859. All of their nine children, except for Maria Josephine, were born in Lawrence County. When they moved to Red Creek, Harrison County the approximate age of their children were: Thomas Jefferson - 14 years Emily Caroline - 12 years Arminta Frances - 11 years Louvenia Idell - 8 years James Monroe - 6 years Daniel Webster - 4 years Theodocia Ernestine - < l year

The Lawrence County land records include several transactions where he bought land and there was no reason to buy land in that time other than to farm it, to raise cotton. I believe that his primary occupation was that of farmer and his avocation was preaching. During that period of time, particularly in rural areas, most of the churches were part time and the pastors served more than one church.

Thomas Price was set apart and ordained to the work of the Gospel Ministry by the Baptist Church of Christ at Silver Creek on March 13, 1859. This document was found while searching the Land Records of Lawrence County in Book G, page 568. Certainly an unlikely place for such a document and totally unexpected since I thought that he was already preaching before 1859. The questions raised by discovery of the Ordination Document made me question the family tradition that had him preaching at Red Creek Church in 1835, but I have since learned that a person can be licensed to preach but not be authorized to perform the duties of a Minister or Pastor such as Communion, Baptism, marriages, etc. So it may have been possible for Thomas to preach, but not minister to a church. Since this laying on of hands occurred about the same time that he was moving back to Harrison County, is it possible that he was preparing to pastor Red Creek Baptist Church and the newly organized churches at Crooked Creek and White Sands which he continued to do even after moving his family to Red Creek. He rode that circuit from Red Creek to Crooked Creek and White Sands in Lawrence County for sometime. I am led to believe that the circuit lasted for at least two years.

As I have researched this, I have learned of the Campbellite movement in Baptist Churches during the 19th Century. The name, Baptist Church of Christ, is significant as it indicates that that particular church was following that new teaching. So here we have, in 1859, at Silver Creek Baptist Church of Christ ordaining Thomas Price. At the same time a new Baptist Church of Christ is constituted at Crooked Creek and although I have no proof, probably at White Sands. All three of these churches were in the same area of Lawrence County where Thomas Price lived along with his relatives, the Longino and Dale families. This ordination may indicate that Thomas Price was converted to the Campbellite Baptist movement. Some reference material I found referred to this group as Primitive Baptist which is a term I have heard used for fundamentalist Baptist Churches.

Another series of events occurred in the same time frame (1859-1862) where his brothers-in-laws, Sebron Culpepper Dale and Henry Hardy Dale, moved not only their families, but also their livestock from Harrison County to Lawrence County and bought land in Lawrence County where they remained the rest of their lives. This story is told by Donna P. Griffith in her book Sebron Sylvester Dale. On page 86 Donna, quoting a daughter of Calvin Dale, says: During the move to Lawrence County from Harrison County two of Sebrons sons, Calvin and Hardy, drove 1,000 head of hogs. It took four days and three nights for the trip. Sebron went ahead of the boys to make arrangements for spending the night. He gave three hogs to each of the three families where they spent the night. The Dales returned to Harrison County in order to drive 1,000 sheep, and then made the four day trip with 1,000 head of cattle.

This story, even if may not be accurate in all its detail, confirms my understanding that livestock, raised on open range, on mostly public land, was the principal cash crop and about the only way to accumulate a little money. Sebron and Henry Hardy were, in effect, moving their wealth to Lawrence County.

It would be interesting to know what was going on in the Dale/Price families during this period, just a couple of years prior to the Civil War, to cause the Dale brothers to move lock, stock and barrel from Harrison County to Lawrence County and for their brother-in-law, Thomas Price, to move lock, stock and barrel from Lawrence County to Harrison County. John Dale and his second wife, Elizabeth Bond Dale, were still living in that period, 1859-1862, as far as we know, on the old place; although they still owned residential property in Village of Biloxi, on Pass Road.

In that time, before the advent of nursing homes for old folks, it was a common practice for one of the girls to move in with the olds folks to take care of them. Quite often the child would then inherit the place. This could have been in play with Mariah coming home to take care of John Dale who died in 1867. Although she did not inherit the home place as Thomas Price bought the John Dale place from John Dales Estate, at auction, from the estate administrators, Sebron and Henry Hardy Dale.

Along the same line of thinking, Sebron C. Dales wife was Elizabeth Longino, daughter of Anne Porter Ramsey and John Thomas Longino (b.1800). John Thomas had died (1854) so it may have been that Elizabeth wanted to move to Lawrence County to be near to her aging mother (d.1868).

What was Henry Hardy Dales motivation to move to Lawrence County? His wife, Eliza Bond, was a daughter of Elizabeth Bond who was second wife of John Dale, Henry Hardys father. So she would have been moving away from her remaining parent, Elizabeth Bond Dale. Her father Brantley Bond had died in 1854.

Thomas Price acquired the property and built his house about one half mile south, down the old ridge road, from John Dale. The pecan trees that were around his house are still standing. The land was gently sloping land of excellent quality. I believe that he also farmed some of the rice fields developed by John Dale in the Red Creek bottoms not very far from his residence. The fact that his grandson, Ira Bush, remembered playing in his grandfathers cotton house, about 1875, would indicate that he grew cotton. No doubt, the Price family, just like all the rural people of that period, was a subsistence farmer, meaning that they grew almost everything they needed to survive, buying only those few items that could not be produced on the farm. Salt, for instance, was needed to preserve the pork from the hogs that were slaughtered on first cold days of the winter. Brown sugar was a luxury that was often kept under lock and key. Coal oil, for the lamps, had to be bought on the coast, probably Mississippi City, the County Seat, or Pass Christian, a trading center due to its proximity to New Orleans by water. Did Thomas have livestock in the woods, on Public Domain, as his brothers-in-law, Sebron and Henry Hardy Dale had done before moving to Lawrence County?

Perhaps it is in order to explain the land ownership situation during this period of time. Initially the government owned all of the land. It was Public Domain land, that it is owned by the public or the U. S. Government on behalf of all the people. As the migrants moved into the newly opened territory, they would find a likely looking piece of land and they would settle or squat on the land making improvements such as clearing, building structures, fence, and etc. even though they did not own the land. As the immigrants decided to move on, such places were often sold to a new arrived immigrant that bought the improvements on the land as he could not yet own the land.

After a period of time the Federal Land Office was able to have all of the new territory surveyed and laid off in Townships/Range, each being six miles square.  Each Township was laid off in 36 one mile square Sections.  Each Section was further sub-divided into 16 squares each containing 40 acres.  After the laborious task of subdividing the land was accomplished a particular parcel of land could be legally described and located on the ground; therefore, it was possible for the Land Office to identify or describe the parcel of land being sold and give title or issue a Land Patent. Using the Land Office maps and corners which were set in the ground, a Land Surveyor could take a description and locate that parcel on the ground.

After the Land Office could identify or describe the land, they would put the land on sale on a first come, first served basis. Obviously the settler was anxious to own or have title to the parcel of land where his house and improvements were located; however, sometimes some other person would get to the land office first and if he bought the land, then he also owned all the improvements on the land. In Exhibit 4, Rev A. C. Ramsey describes the problem his father encountered with a fellow church member when the Public Land in Greene County was first offered for sale.

On the other hand there was such a large surplus of land, a settler would only buy a particular parcel that had some features that he particularly wanted. Such as the parcel that contained the water mill that Sebron and Henry Hardy Dale bought and later sold. After the Dales used Arrowhead Springs for their rice fields, they were careful to own that land. In 1841 John Dale first patented only the forty acre tract where his house was located. The rest of the land remained public domain land or open range land which anyone could use. Many of the enterprising settlers did just that by running livestock on the open range. It was many years before all of the Public Land had been dispensed. Cora Batson Jordan, as a young woman, homesteaded 80 acres, about a mile from her parents home, around 1900, by making lean to and spending the night (living) on the land so many days a year.

Thomas Prices father, Jonathan, apparently lived on Public Land from 1820, when he first arrived in Lawrence County, until he bought Land from the Government in 1837. Good cotton land was prized in Lawrence County, so the population increased more rapidly there than it did in Harrison County making it necessary to secure the desirable land early on.

Thomas Price appeared in the Book titled Original Entry for 80 acres in Section 34-T8N-R20W in January 1836.  He would have been 19 years old in Jan. 1836.

When Thomas and Mariah moved their family to Harrison County in 1859 the approximate age of their children were: Thomas Jefferson - 14 years Emily Caroline - 12 years Arminta Frances - 11 years Louvenia Idell - 8 years James Monroe - 6 years Daniel Webster - 4 years Theodocia Ernestine - < l year

Thomas Price (b.1817) had two brothers, both younger than himself. Jonathan M. Price , often called Jonathan Jr. was born in 1829. Jonathan married Francis Dale, John Dales daughter and Mariah Prices younger siste