Tennessee Almira (Lane) James (1849 - 1944)

Born 16 Feb 1849 in Oklahoma

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 4 Jan 1944 at age 94 in Ottawa, Oklahoma

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Biography

Tennessee was Cherokee.

Dawes Enrollee

Cherokee by Blood

Dawes Card #82 Roll #266

Tennessee Almira Lane was born to Garrett M. Lane and Melinda Jane (Harlan) Lane on 16 Feb 1849 at the home of her maternal grandfather David M. Harlan in the Cherokee Neutral Lands, in southeast Kansas. Shortly after she was born, in the spring of 1849, her father left on a wagon train to California to work in the mines. Jane Harlan and her two young children, Tennessee and her sister Lucinda, stayed with their grandfather in Kansas. Two uncles, Bert Lane and John Harlan, joined her father on the wagon train to California, but died along the way of fever. In 1851, her father died in California.^[1]

When her mother remarried to John Blythe, they moved out of their grandfather's home, but remained nearby. Her mother died when she was ten years old in July 1859. She returned to her grandfathers home, while her sister remained with their stepfather to help with the younger children.^[1]

During the Civil War, they were forced from their home in the Cherokee Neutral Lands. Her grandfather rented a farm near Humboldt, KS. The family's sympathies were with the south, though one of her uncles, David L. Harlan joined the Union army. She said that her grandfather complained to a man named Bob Taylor that he should, "Go home and lay down your arms for if the Union wins, we won't have anything left." She said that during the war, her grandmother died in 1864, and was buried in Kansas.^[1] Her biological grandmother, Lucinda (Tucker) Harlan, appears to have died previous to this. She was likely referring to her step-grandmother, Rebecca (Vannoy) Harlan.

Following the war, they returned to their home in the Cherokee Neutral Lands. On 16 Oct 1866 she married Solon James. He was a white man who was raised in Cherokee territory. Together they had eleven children:^[1]

1. Calvin Garrett James (1867 - 1954) (Living in Fairland, OK in 1937)
2. Mattie James (1869 - 1869)
3. Lorenzo Dow James (1871 - 1956) (Living in Miami, OK in 1937)
4. Clara Della (James) Copeland (1874 - 1953) (Living in Welch, OK in 1937)
5. Albert Blunt James (1878 - 1938) (Living in Washington, DC in 1937)
6. Luther James (1880 - 1880)
7. Lulu Belle (James) Huggins (1881 - 1949) (Living near Hickory Grove, OK in 1937)
8. Cornelia Jane (James) (Coffman) Williams (1884 - 1929) (Died in Denver, CO.)
9. Jesse Lamar James (1887 - 1951) (Living in Miami, OK in 1937)
10. Claude Frank James (1890 - 1952) (Living in Miami, OK in 1937)
11. Reese James (1895 - 1895)

Her husband died on 30 Sep 1925. She died 04 Jan 1944. They are both buried at the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery, Miami, OK.^[1][2]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4} Tennessee James, interview by Nannie Lee Burns, 22 Apr 1937. Indian Pioneer Papers, Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma. The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK.
2. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #77284510