Ada (Clay) Moorehead (1856)

Born 1856 in Huntsville, Madison, Alabama, United States

Descendants

Died [date unknown] in Arkansas, United States

Biography

Ada (Clay) Moorehead is a part of US Black heritage.

Ada Moorehead was interviewed in Pine Bluff, Arkansas about 1938 about her life and her time as an enslaved person. The typescript is stamp dated but only the year 1938 can be read.

"I was here in slavery times, honey, but I don't know exactly how old I am. I was born in Huntsville, Alabama but you know in them days old folks didn't tell the young folks nothin' and I was so small when they brought me here. I don't know what year I was born but I believe I'm about eighty-two."

"My white folks was Ad White what owned me. Called him Marse Ad. Don't call folks marse much now-days. My father was sold away from us in Alabama and we heard he was here in Pine Bluff so Aunt Fanny brought us here. She just had a road full of us and brought us here to Arkansas. We walked. We was a week on the road."

" When we got here I saw my father. He took me to his sister - that was my Aunt Savannah - and dropped me down."

"I was sixteen when I married. I sure did marry young. I married young so I could see my chillun grown. I never married but once and I stayed a married woman forty-nine years till the very day my old man died. Lived with one man forty-nine years. I had my hand and heart full. I had a home of my own. How many chillun? Me? I had nine of my own and I raised other folks' chillun. "

Slave Owners

1. Ad White

Interview: Ada Moorehead was interviewed in Pine Bluff, Arkansas by Mrs. Bernice Bowden as part of the Federal Writer's Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The results are made available by the Library of Congress. ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ [1] Library of Congress - WPA - Slave Narrative - Ada Moorehead - Vol. 2, Arkansas, part 5; pages 125-126, images 130-131 of 373.

• "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNWZ-DZK : 13 January 2022), Woodson Morehead in household of Robert Morehead, Vaugine Township, Jefferson, Arkansas, United States; citing enumeration district , sheet , NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), FHL microfilm .

• "United States Census, 1900", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M3FC-1DR : 8 March 2022), Daniel Morehead in entry for Robert Morehead, 1900.

• "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKV7-DVT : accessed 27 September 2022), Daniel Morehead in household of Robert H Morehead, Niven, Jefferson, Arkansas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 101, sheet 3B, family 47, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 54; FHL microfilm 1,374,067.

• "United States Census, 1920", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MDJM-ZTG : 31 January 2021), Ada Morehead, 1920.

Daughter's death record names parents: "Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N3CR-3XL : 9 March 2018), Robert Moorehead in entry for Annie Peet, 09 Nov 1945; Public Board of Health, Archives, Springfield; FHL microfilm 1,983,370.