Juneteenth in Sutherland Springs, Texas
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| Courtesy of the grand daughter of Henrietta Noble |
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| The Diary of J. L. Tiner |
This story began with a photograph and a diary.
The diary was written by J. L. Tiner in 1886-1889.
J. L. Tiner moved from La Vernia to Sutherland Springs with his wife, Connie, the grand daughter of J. H. and Mary Polley, buying a piece of land with a house and some outbuildings. In 1886 he began building a new house that would be attached to the older house. The diary gives us detailed accounts of the materials he bought to construct the house, the people that he employed to help him build it, and much more. In fact, the diary gives us a glimpse into the political and social life of Wilson County for those three years, a survey of the weather and agriculture, and a personal history of the Tiner family and their neighbors in Sutherland Springs. It's a delightful read.
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Sadly, the house has deteriorated and the present owners are looking to tear it down. The Wilson County Historical Society and friends of the Tiner house are investigating the possibility of moving the house to a nearby location and restoring it. You can see some more photos on Preservation Texas' Instagram. The possible relocation site is just a few blocks away. It's rare to find an old house with stories to tell and a diary that actually tells those stories.
This is where the photograph comes in.
Knowing that my research involves the Freedom Colonies along the Cibolo, a friend sent me a photo from his cousin of a group of people going to a Juneteenth celebration in the late 1880s in Southern Spring. He has confirmed that they meant Sutherland Springs.
I looked up the Noble family in the 1900 Census for Sutherland Springs. The J. L. Tiner family is listed directly after the Richard Noble family on the Census record.
They were neighbors. Coincidentally, J. L. Tiner mentions the neighbors on June 19th in his diary.
Perhaps it was this very group, Richard Nobles, Sister Queen Nobles, and their friends, that J. L. Tiner saw passing by his house on their way to the Emancipation Day celebration.
There are other stories to tell about this neighborhood of Freedmen in Sutherland Springs, including the building of a two-story African American School in 1899, "the handsomest building in Sutherland Springs."
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ReplyDeleteI did a little further research on the photograph. In 1880 the Noble family members were living in Gillett. That is where Queen was born. I recently visited the Gillett Lone Star Community Cemetery. It has just recently received a Historical Cemetery designation. I did not find any Nobles listed for that cemetery on Find-a-grave. There is no Census Record for 1890. The Richard Nobles family was living in the town of Sutherland Springs in 1900. Their names are listed right before J. L. Tiner. However, in the 1900 Census, Queen was 12 and Richard Jr. was 9. They would have been too young for the photograph. By 1910 the family was still living in Sutherland Springs, but some of the older children had left home. The family name is listed as “Noble” in the 1910 Census. The Black community had increased a lot in those ten years. In fact there are seven pages in the Census Records before we get to the listing of the Hendricks/ Hodge family. J. L. Tiner had sold the house to the Hendricks and moved to Uvalde. Of course the Nobles could have moved also. Also in the 1910 Census I found Richard Jr. (19) and Queen (22) living in San Antonio on Virginia St. with Mattie Taylor (34). Queen and Mattie were a laundresses, and Richard was a porter for a saloon. Queen died in 1920 of uterine cancer. She was buried in Sutherland Springs. In 1920 Richard Jr. was still living on Virginia St. in the home of Mattie Taylor. He was working as a cook.
It seems that there might be something incorrect with the inscription on the photo. If it is Queen and Richard Jr., the year must have been around 1910. If the year was the late 1890s, it could have been the father Richard, but Queen would have only been less than 12 years old. Could the woman have been his wife Rachel? This seems unlikely, because Richard was 56 and Rachel was 50 in 1900. Too old for the photo, I think. The photo must have been a little later, around 1910. The clothes match that time period better also.