ZDUTTON – James, son of James and Mary Dutton

ECol91234@aol.com wrote:
> 
> The son James of James and Mary Irwin Dutton, was on the 1850 census as age
> 3.  That is the only place I have ever seen him, and that is why the
> conclusion is drawn among their descendants that James must have died young.
> These are taken from my notes.  This was one of the first records that I got
> when I first began working on family history and since I did not indicate all
> the information on either census record, I do not know if they are the same
> record, or if one is a U. S. census and another a state or county census.
> Perhaps Gerald has kept his records of this census more carefully:
> 
> 1850 U. S. Census, Walker Co, AL.  Typed from BST 881001 National Archives
> Microfilm, located in Jasper, Walker Co. AL Public Library
> James DUTTON - 43 years old  - male (m)- born NC -
>       farmer, can't read or write, (w Mary, 43, f, KY,
>       Mary, 15, f, AL; William, 12, m, AL: Martin, 5, m,
>       AL; James, 3, m, AL; Elizabeth 1/2, f, AL  1850
>       Zachariah, inmate, m, 30, AL
> 
> 1850 Walker County Census
> F/N 322 James T. Dutton, age 43, born NC, farmer; Mary, 43, KY; Mary Jane,
> 15, AL; William, 12, AL; Simeon, 10, AL; George W., 8, AL; Martin, 5, AL;
> James, 3, AL; Elizabeth, 1/2, AL; Zachariah, 30.
> 
> You can see that James is not on the 1860 census, which means that he would
> have died between 1850/1860 or before the age of 12 or 13.  Where Thomas F.
> was in the 1850 census is a mystery.  You would think that he wasn't born yet
> except that all his family's records (including his tombstone) show him born
> in
> Feb of 1849 and Elizabeth not born until May 1850.  So the census must have
> been taken in the late fall to have Eliz. at age 1/2.  Thomas should have
> been age 1, but then many censuses had mistakes, omissions, wrong names etc.
> 
> 1860 Walker County Census:
> F/N 102 Dutton, James, 52, M, Farmer, NC; Mary, 53, KY; Simeon M., 20 M, fml,
> AL;  George W., 18, M, AL; Martin A., 14, M, AL; Thomas, 10, M, AL;
> Elizabeth, 9, F, AL; Rebecca (Becky), 18, F, fml, AL
> 
> I have been wondering what inmate might have been after Zachariah's name.
> Could this have referred to the fact that he was orphaned before he reached a
> legal age and was listed at some point in Court Records???  Also in the Deed
> Book 1 from Walker Co. which was transcribed and put online, James Dutton is
> shown with 6 or 7 patents.  I assume this must have been land patents as I
> have heard this term.  Exactly what is a land patent?   I seem to be just
> full of questions lately?            Thanks,  Eula

Eula,

I didn't remember seeing the James on the 1850 census, but
when I looked for my 1850 census notes, I couldn't find them
right off. So I ran out to the library tonight and did a
quick lookup. Here is what I got:

[The census taker's handwriting was atrocious-- I can see
how all of us had a hard time reading it.]

1850 Census - Walker County, Alabama - 11th District -
December 3-4, 1850
Page 292-B (stamped)

Dwelling #322, Household #322
James Dutton		43 M	Farmer	500	NC  
Mary			43 F			Ken
(Page 293-A)
Mary			15 F			Ala.
William			12 M			Ala.
Simian			10 M			Ala.
George			8  M			Ala.
Marlen			5  M			Ala.
Thomas			3  M			Ala.
Elizabeth		1/12 F			Ala.
Zachariah (inmate)	30 M	Farmer		Ala.

(Yes, he did forget to cross the "t" in Martin.)

As I said, the enumerator's handwriting (or actually, the
copyist's) was little more than chicken-scratch-- this is
the third or fourth time I've copied this record, as I could
barely read it the first time I saw it. I've since become a
little better at reading the old script. Anyway, it appears
"James" is actually Thomas, as I suspected; a very easy
mistake to make:

Take "Thomas" -- swirl the "T" and scribble the "h" --
You might get "Jomas" -- now if all your vowels look the
same anyway,
(especially if your a's look like o's and your e's look like
a's)
it would be quite easy to get "James" from "Thomas".

So Thomas' dates match up, after all (at least, almost). At
least the birth order is straightened out. If the birthdate
on his tombstone is correct, he would have been nearly 2 on
this census; by that time, it's quite hard to remember
exactly how old your kids are without sitting down and
thinking about it (especially when you have seven). In fact,
interestingly, Mary was almost listed as the head of the
household. The first line of the Duttons' census entry
actually read:

(Mary scratched out) James Dutton, 43, (F scratched out) M,
Farmer, 500, (Ken scratched out) (S.C. scratched out) N.C.

Obviously the work of a careless copyist.

"Inmate" was a foreign term to me until I read your
message-- at least, in the sense it is used here. I did not
remember seeing it on the census before; I think I was
overjoyed just to have read the name "Zachariah". But that's
what it says; this is the only time I've ever seen that on a
census, and I certainly hope our Zachariah isn't a convict
or anything! Anyway, I scanned a dozen or so pages of the
census (before the library closed); I saw the word inmate
beside a lot of other names also: men, women, children, old
people. They all had one thing in common: they were outside
the immediate family, not a child of the man or woman of the
house. Here's an example I scribbled down:

315/315 Samuel Sparks (very close to James Dutton), 32 M,
Ala.; Frances [Kitchens], 26 F, Ala.; Mary, 7 F, Ala;
Thomas, 5 M, Ala.; James, 2 M, Ala.; Lidda - inmate, 18 F,
Ala.

Looks to me that "inmate" probably meant "boarder" or
something similar-- somebody who is living "in" the house
with you. 

I go back and re-check various counties regularly, as it's
exhilarating to review and suddenly see a lot more than you
saw the last time, knowing more now than you knew then. Last
time, I think I barely noticed all the Sparks in the area,
except for maybe saying, "Cool-- Sparks. Aren't they in
Lawrence County?" I saw the Kitchens, also, but still didn't
notice the pattern. I did scratch my head when I saw James
Hogan living not too far from James Dutton. Anyway, tonight
I found a lot of interesting tid-bits: mainly just dates for
children of various "allied" families-- i.e. Sparks,
Kitchens, Brown, Townley, Keeton, Sides, Baker. I thought it
interesting that Thomas and Lovey (Irwin) Brown were listed
on the same page as James and Mary (Irwin) Dutton-- I don't
need any more proof of either their identity or their
relation than that right there.

I spent several hours yesterday at the Huntsville Library,
and raked in a great deal of new information, which I will
share with you all soon. I'll add that to the rest of the
pile of new information which I need to share with ya'll. 

I hope to hear from you all soon,

Cousin Joseph.

P.S. To the best of my knowledge, there is only one 1850
census of Walker County. I think what you're seeing is a
number of different transcriptions, which I tend not to rely
on if I can help it. That's one more copyist in the line
that can botch up the data before it gets to you.