1. Matilda Allen

Headstone of Matilda and Ann Allen

ALLEN, MATILDA (1871-1891): Matilda “Tilda” Allen was born in 1871 in Beat 9, Chambers County, Alabama to Sam (1823) and Ann Allen (1832). Though Matilda was born free, her parents and several of her siblings were born into slavery on Woodson Palmer Allen’s plantation. Matilda was the tenth of the Allens’ eleven children; Sandy (1853), Martha (1854), Harriet (1856), Nick (1856), Simon (1859), Jose Ann (1861), Jennie (1863), Thomas “Manus” (1867), Eliza (1870), Tilda (1871), and Mary (1873). In the early 1880s, Matilda moved to Texas with her family, following the newly minted train line that ran from Chambers County, Alabama to Denton County, Texas. In North Texas, Matilda’s father rented land and worked as a farmer under his own account. Matilda worked alongside her siblings as a laborer on her father’s farm and the family made a decent living there. Matilda’s brother, Thomas and mother, Ann, preceded her in death. Matilda died of unknown circumstances at twenty-years-old. Matilda was buried beside her brother in St John’s Cemetery, where she shares a headstone with her mother.

Citations: "Texas, County Tax Rolls, 1837-1910", database with images, FamilySearch 21 July 2017), Saml Allen, 1885.  Year: 1880; Census Place: Woods-Shop, Chambers, Alabama; Roll: 5; Page: 136B; Enumeration District: 022;  Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 28 April 2018), memorial page for Matilda Allen (1871–1891), Find A Grave Memorial no. 32002502, citing Old Slave Cemetery, Pilot Point, Denton County, Texas, USA ; Maintained by RMLeahy (contributor 46809355).