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
1st sign I have of him is 1860 census where we see his wife Anna Ward Covington and daughter Gertrude, aged 2, born in Michigan. Living in Owosso, Shiawassee County - which became a sundown town. No Theophilus. 2/
During the Civil War, there were income taxes so I find Theophilus L Covington (fabulous uncommon name) in Houghton County Michigan by November of 1862 operating a saloon. 3/
Arthur Tays was a showman, restaurant owner and more in Iron Mountain, MI.
Son of formerly enslaved Union veteran Rev. Christopher Tays, he grew up in Missouri. #MIHistory#BHM#Unerasing
Seeking medical attention was almost impossible for a Black man in Iron Mountain circa 1900. Tays died as a result of a tooth allowed to decay so badly his jaw went with it.
He left a wife, Rose, and a son, James. Rose was white but found herself shunned in short order regardless. Rose and Jimmy went to Chicago.
William Docking Warner is a "famous" family member who started saying he was born in Wisconsin 1840-1842 about the time of the Civil War.
Sources say he knew that was a lie. 1841 Camborne, Cornwall census
He came to the U.S. in 1842 aboard the Isabella arriving in Fall River, Massachusetts. They went to Wisconsin, lead mining, and the children were orphaned a few years later.
In 1850 he's in Shullsburg living with his big sister Mary Ann and her family. Mary Ann is my direct ancestor and has by this time married Daniel Webb, a son of one of the first Cornish miners mentioned in the district.
Ontonagon peeps... anyone else remember being told by their reassuring parents the bones they found on the beach near the Epidote St. dead end were just cows? Phew... oh wait.
Dead end is apropos. Ontos' first Catholic church and graveyard were riiiiight there. #Cemeteries