Hello, all interested in Talbot, Taylor and Upson Counties! My surname interests in these counties are MANSON, BIRDSONG, and BROWN. Here are the particulars:
MANSON: My ggg-grandmother, Jane Manson and her two daughters, Matilda (my gg-grandmother) and Mary C., were free women of color and listed on the 1850 census of Talbot County. Jane, born in about 1826, was said to have been the daughter of a white woman, Charlotte Manson, and "a man of the Creole race." Jane drops off the census (at least under the name Manson--more on that below) after 1850. In 1857, Jane appears in the Taylor County Superior Court records, having been convicted of running "a lewd house," for which offense she was fined $10.45. Matilda disappears from census records until 1880 when she turns up in Upson County with her son Otis (my g-grandfather) living in close proximity to a white man, George Preston BIRDSONG.
BROWN: In October 1853, a white man, Nathaniel Brown (b. 1787, North Carolina) conveyed to "Mary C. Manson, daughter of Jane Manson, with love and affection, 1/2 acre pineland where Jane Manson now lives." The Taylor County deed described the parcel as "southwest corner of land conveyed" to Brown by three others. Mary C. Manson would have been about 8 years old at the time. In 1856, Brown, a wealthy landowner, swsore in an affidavit in Taylor County Superior Court that he knew Jane Manson to be a free woman of color and that Jane Manson was "commonly called Jane Brown."
BIRDSONG: As noted above, Matilda Manson and her son in 1880 lived in close proximity to George Preston Birdsong. In fact, Matilda's household is listed next after Birdsong's in the Upson County records. Birdsong was the scion of a prominent antebellum Georgia family; his father had been sheriff of Upson County and Captain of the Upson Guards militia. "Preston" as the son was known, had served in the 5th Georgia Infantry with his brother Albert. By 1880, most of the Birdsong family wealth in Upson County was gone. Preston lived alone and apart from the rest of the family. In 1884, Preston Birdsong, his brother Albert, and Matilda Manson and her son Otis, all left Georgia for Milam County, Texas. They did not share a household, but according to family lore, Birdsong visited Matilda's children and grandchildren every Sunday at the train station in Rockdale, Texas.
Obviously, I want to know more about all these folks, as well as what life was like in western Georgia.