A woman of African descent inherits significant property. Hubby and son have her hospitalized as insane. She challenges them and gains her business back, founds/sells a town - much as her mother did. Meet Gertrude Covington Phillips. #Keweenaw #BlackHistory #WomensHistory 🧵
Gertrude was born in Detroit in the late 1850s to Anna Ward Covington & unknown Covington (#genealogytwitter 👀 for a challenge? Find Covington lol) in 1860 she and her mother are in the household of barber James Evans in Owosso. Might Mary Evans sister to Anna? #MichiganHistory
By 1864 Anna and Gertrude Covington were established in Houghton (MI state census) where soon, Anna remarried to recent widower Larkin J. Jones
Jones was a barber and hotelier, built a half-way house with tavern on the "Eagle River Road" which stood into the 1970s on land he purchased from the St. Mary's Canal Co. You may have known it as the Phillips' boarding house at Phillipsville. NPS photo, my edits (lost orig oops)
Jones gained title later, but evidence shows he was active here by 1863 & 1st wife Eunice A Williams Jones died there in 1864.
Gertrude grew up on the Houghton/Keweenaw county line in Schoolcraft, then Calumet Townships. The municipal lines changed; they didn't move: quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micounty/274…
Her mother's marriage was in decline, and the Jones' divided their property through mortgage & a cash transfer in 1871. By then Gertrude had a sister, Hattie. Anna got the property & girls, Jones the $. Divorce followed in 1874. County land records & Chancery (@mtuarchives )
In 1878, Gertrude wed Cornish immigrant John Phillips.
Anna Ward Covington Jones, "tavern keeper," died in October 1880 leaving her estate in probate to her daughters. Still need to go to the courthouse for that; also after 1880 I lose track of Larkin Jones. (any ideas?) Anna had paid off the mortgage prior to her 1874 divorce.
Before her mother's death, Gertrude is almost always BIPOC on records. Afterwards, she never is. Other context is important though: #Reconstruction is over.
So too, it seems, is her marriage. Her husband and heirs disagree with Gertrude's apparently sound business sense and grasp for power over her... and win it, for the majority of a decade. In spite of the patriarchy, she persisted... and finally prevailed. books.google.com/books?id=VEdNA…
They brought it to the Supreme Court. Just... gross.
But she got her own back, and John Phillips pretty much ran the tavern from here on out... getting into plenty of legal trouble along the way.
In 1910 Gertrude (and Gertrude alone) planned with local developers to develop a new subdivision beside Renova on her inherited real estate. Phillipsville. She should be remembered for it.
An attempt to get some stories out there that haven't been widely told, using excessive primary sources. They're important here as 2ndary sources have but scant mentions of BIPOC, feeding an assumption of absence or unimportance to the #Keweenaw story. Never was true. #Unerasing
Gertrude is buried at Lake View Cemetery in Calumet, originally without a marker. I need to check; a friend has spoken about getting her one.
In 1875 Gertrude was a dressmaker in Detroit and living with her grandmother; Kezia Ward WAS Anna's mom! Thx city directories for helping me confirm this longtime question about the family origins of these Houghton County community-founding women. #MIHistory #BlackHistory
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