Joseph J. Cohen
The tale
of the missing Jewish Family:
Who was Joseph J. Cohen and why is he such an
enigma? All
genealogists eventually encounter an ancestor that is a
“lost link”, a person whose life story or parents become
seemingly impossible to trace.
In my genealogy, Joseph J. Cohen is that
ancestor. Joseph indicated in historical records that he
was born in Ohio.
He later moved to Georgia in the 1840s, married
outside his Jewish faith, fathered several children then
divorced his first wife.
A second marriage soon followed and he fathered
an additional 7 children with her.
He supported and fought for the Confederacy and
died of a fever while in service to the Lost Cause.
Age
discrepancies of Joseph J. Cohen:
One reason our Cohen ancestry is so hard to
find is because of the discrepancies of age and the
major portion of Joseph’s life occurring before the 1850
census. As
the first census to list names of household members, it
is almost impossible to know how long he had resided in
Georgia prior to 1850 or to trace him through census
records.
The earliest account that I have of Joseph
Cohen is when he first shows up
twice
in the 1850 records.
Apparently, he had separated from his first wife
and was in Ware County, Georgia with the Lastinger
family on the
1st day of November, his age is
listed as 30 making his birth year approximately 1820.
His
second appearance is in the Clinch County,
Georgia 1850 census record that was taken on the 15th
day of November.
Here, Joseph is living in the household of
Benjamin and Martha Sirmons and lists him as a
28-year-old teacher, born in the state of Ohio.
This age would put his year of birth as 1822.
Joseph J. Cohen appears again in the
1864 Census for
Reorganizing the Georgia Militia, Abstracted and
Compiled by Nancy J. Cornell Clinch County 5th
Senatorial District - 586th Militia District, where is
shown as being 50-years-old, a teacher, and born in
Ohio. This
makes his birth year approximately 1814 so we have his
year of birth as 1814, 1820, & 1822, depending on the
document.
Though discrepancies in birth years was not uncommon
during this time and place where family bibles and
memories were the most common records kept, such a wide
range, (8 years), is difficult to reconcile.
Joseph J. Cohen always listed his birthplace as
Ohio and is buried in an unmarked grave in the Arabia
Church in Clinch County, Georgia.
Joseph had two wives, and based on census records
his first wife was Zilpha (Zilphie) Williams.
They appear to have married around 1845,
separated by 1850 and divorced sometime between 1850 and
1852. Joseph
Cohen then married Mary Simpson, daughter of John
Simpson and Mary Russell sometime around 1852.
Zilpha’s parents were John Williams, and his
wife Nancy Smith who was the daughter of a Revolutionary
War soldier who settled in the area of Ware/Clinch
County, Georgia.
Nancy Smith married John Williams and their
family began in 1822.
Zilpha was the third of 10 children born to John
and Nancy Williams.
Based on the 1850 & 1860 census records, Zilpha
had the following children: William Henry Cohen born in
1846, Nancy born in 1854, James W. born in 1857 and
Hester born in 1859.
In the
1850 census taken on the 30th
day of October, Joseph’s first born son, William Henry
Cohen (WH), appears as a 5 year old child along with his
mother Zilpha Williams Cohen.
They were living in the household of
Zilpha’s parents John and Nancy Williams.
William Henry would have just turned 5 in
January, so he was born in 1846, which means his parents
must have married in 1845 or before.
In the 1860 census taken on June 8th,
1860, Zilpha’s children, William Henry (WH), and his
sister Hester are living with their grandparents.
William’s age is listed at 14, he would have
already had his birthday. Hester’s age is listed as “0”,
which means she was a newborn.
No further record of her is found, so it is
possible she died as an infant.
On the
12th day of June
1860, WH and
Hester’s mother Zilpha was living in the household of
Manning Cowart who was married to Sarah Ritter.
Also listed in the household are two of Zilpha's
children. I
assumed they were Cohen's, since they are carrying the
Cohen name (later they show up carrying the Vickery
name). The
children's names are Nancy Cohen, a six-year-old,
putting her year of birth around 1854, and James W.
Cohen, 3-years-old, making his year of birth as 1857.
Joseph Cohen and Mary Simpson already show having
children at this time, their first child was born about
1853 and their twins were born in 1856.
I have been unable to trace James
W. from the 1850 census.
However, Nancy married a Swedish gentleman named
Charles Johnson they lived in Waycross and she died
before 1920, possibly in Waycross, Georgia and it
appears they did not have any children.
Zilpha at some time remarried, as she filed a
lawsuit under the name Vickery against her brother
Hezekiah Ponder Williams, who was the executor of her
father’s estate.
John Williams his wife Nancy, and Zilphie are
buried in the Red Bluff Cemetery in Atkinson, Georgia.
The land was donated by John Williams to the
church, and many family members are buried there.
Joseph’s profession was a teacher, but he never
taught Zilpha Williams or Mary Simpson to write, as both
of them signed with an “X”.
This is apparent when Zilpha files papers in
court regarding her father’s estate and signs with an
“X” and Mary Simpson Cohen Brannen signed her Civil War
Pension records with an “X”.
John Williams, father of Zilphie was the census
taker in 1860, and in
the
1860 census, Mary Simpson is married to Joseph
Cohen. In
their household is Martha (7, born 1853), Mary (4, born
1856), Sarah (4, born 1856), and Nancy (11 months, born
July, 1859).
It is indicated that Joseph Cohen is a school teacher
from Ohio and that the value of his personal property is
$125.00.
Living in the household with Joseph Cohen's family is
Charles Kinard (b. 1835) who married Nancy Simpson (b.
1845), sister to Mary Simpson.
Their next door neighbor is Mary's brother
Jeremiah Simpson who later moved to Hillsborough County,
Florida.
Based on 1860 &
1870 census records, Mary
Simpson had these children:
Martha, born in 1863, twins, Mary and Sarah, born
in 1856, Nancy, born July 1859, Cinthiana, born
September 1862, and lastly Joseph J. Cohen, Jr., born
1864 (Joseph Jr. appears in the 1870 census as a
six-year-old child, did Joseph J. Cohen get a furlough
and visit his wife Mary just prior to his death?)
Joseph J. Cohen Sr, died September 1863.
Mary may have followed the Jewish faith and named
her son after a recently deceased relative, (her husband
Joseph J. that died in the war).
When Mary Simpson Cohen married Joseph Brannen,
she had one additional son, Louis B. Brannen.
After Joseph Cohen died of fever in 1863, his
second family Mary Simpson Cohen moved with her brother
Jeremiah Simpson and Kinard families by covered wagon to
Hillsborough County, Florida.
I suspect that Joseph J. Cohen was from
Cincinnati, Ohio, based on his daughter’s name but I was
curious about the name Cynthiana.
Her name threw me until I learned of a small town
just across the border of Ohio named Cynthiana,
Kentucky.
Another mystery, I need to learn what is the connection
of Cynthiana, Kentucky to J.J. Cohen, Sr.
Another interesting note on Joseph J. Cohen’s
children, there were two daughters named Nancy.
I know they are not the same, because their ages
are different in the census records.
Is it possible Joseph’s mother’s name was Nancy?
Joseph
J. Cohen and history intertwined:
The name Cohen is of the priest tribe in the
Jewish faith.
However, it is also the “John Smith” of American
names, extremely hard to trace.
Although, there were not many Jewish families in
Ohio at the time of Joseph’s estimated birth of
1814-1822 .
What was his middle name?
My assumption is that it is Jacob, “Joseph Jacob
Cohen.”
Today, it is hard to trace many records in Georgia.
Homerville was the county seat, and as Sherman
marched his way to the shores of Savannah, he burned the
court houses along the way, destroying many records.
How and why did Joseph end up in Clinch, County
Georgia? Did
he have a falling out with his family, an issue with
slavery, the precursor of War, or an epidemic?
Slavery was abolished in Ohio by the state's
original constitution (1802).
But at the same
time, across the Ohio river was the slave-state
Kentucky.
Kentucky, took the lead in aggressively barring black
immigration.
During the Civil War, most residents of
Cincinnati supported the United States, but a sizable
number of people went south to fight for the
Confederacy.
Was Joseph one of those people?
Cincinnati served as a major recruiting and
organization center for the United States military
during the Civil War. (website:
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Cincinnati,_Ohio)
Joseph J. Cohen’s son William Henry was born
January of 1846, so Joseph J. arrived before 1845.
So Joseph’s trip to Georgia was not caused by the
1849 Cholera epidemic in Cincinnati.
It is reported that 8,000 people died in the
Cholera epidemic in 1849.
“Unfortunately for people stricken with cholera,
the treatment, at least before the American Civil War,
was almost as bad as the illness. Doctors routinely
prescribed calomel for cholera victims. Calomel
contained mercury, and numerous people died from mercury
poisoning or suffered other ill effects from this drug.”
The oldest Jewish cemetery west of the
Allegheny Mountains has eighty-five graves and was used
from 1821 to 1849, when the cholera epidemic filled the
cemetery.
Were Joseph J.’s parents/family killed in the epidemic?
The first identifiable Jew who settled in
Cincinnati was Joseph Jonas, an English emigrant who
arrived in the city via Philadelphia in 1817.
Jonas, a young man, decided to leave his home in
Exeter, England, with the avowed intention of settling
in Cincinnati. Friends in Philadelphia originally
endeavored to dissuade him from going to a place so
isolated from all association with his co-religionists.
However, Jonas reassured them that he would succeed. For
the first two years, he was the only Jew in the
Midwestern town.
In 1819, Jonas was joined by three others,
Lewis Cohen of London, Barnet Levi of Liverpool, and
Jonas Levy of Exeter. On the High Holidays in the autumn
of 1819, these four men, together with David Israel
Johnson of Brookville, Indiana, (a frontier
trading-station) conducted the first Jewish service west
of the Appalachians. Similar services were held the next
three years. Newcomers continued to arrive, the early
settlers being mostly Jews from England.
Cincinnati, Ohio is approximately 700 miles
from Clinch County, Georgia and was a long distance in
that day.
Did Joseph travel by boat, train, horse or stage coach,
or a combination of all modes of travel?
Along the way where did he stop and why did he
choose Clinch County as his destination?
Was our Joseph Cohen the pre-cursor for other
Jewish families to the region or was he simply making
contact with the Jewish families that had settled in
Savannah in 1791?
Why did he marry outside of his faith?
Joseph
J. Cohen, in Clinch, County Georgia.
Joseph Cohen became an integral part of
Homerville, Georgia and Clinch County, by serving as a
land surveyor (1857-1858), and Justice of the Peace for
two years (1857-1859), and finally enlisted in the 22nd
Georgia Artillery.
Interesting to note for future reference another
surveyor that served was a gentleman named I.T. McLendon
(important later in his son’s W.H. Cohen’s life).
In 1850, teachers may have lived with sponsors
or members of the school board.
Joseph was with the Sirmons family, so where in
Magnolia did Joseph teach, and what did he teach?
Interesting side note Joseph’s great grand-
daughter marries a Sermons in Florida.
According to a book called History of Clinch
County, written by Folks Huxford, there is a sketch of
Joseph J. Cohen and it reads:
“Cohen,
Joseph J., was born in Ohio about 1815, and came to
Clinch County about 1850.
He was a school teacher by profession.
He married Zilpha, a daughter of John Williams,
Sr., and his wife, Nancy, but after a divorce married
Mary Simpson and by her had a son William Cohen.
Mr Cohen was elected a justice of the peace of
the 970th district in 1857 and served two years.
He was commissioned surveyor of Clinch County,
January 12th, 1857, and served one year.
In the Civil War he enlisted in the 22nd Georgia
Artillery.
While in the army he contracted a sickness which
terminated in his death in 1863.
His remains were brought home and buried at
Arabia Church.
The grave is not marked and its exact location in
the cemetery is not known.”
The sketch is incorrect in that it states that Mary
Simpson is the mother of William Cohen.
According to the book Georgia's
Landmarks, Memorials and Legends, Magnolia: A Lost Town
"By act of the General Assembly in 1852 the town of
Magnolia was made the county-seat of Clinch.
Previous to this time the little cluster of homes
at this point was called Polk.
In 1860 another act of the Legislature authorized
the removal of the county officers to "Station Number
11" in the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad where Homerville,
the present county-seat of Clinch, was incorporated in
1869. The
town of Magnolia, no longer exists upon the map, though
a militia district still retains the name. There is an
old church still standing in the neighborhood.
It is naught else-save a few gaunt and spectral
chimneys, to tell where cheerful fires once warmed the
hearthstones of this silent town of Southern Georgia."
According to the book
History of
Clinch County, “The town of Magnolia was never more
than a small village.
It was laid out on land which was drained on
either side by small ponds and branches.
It was situated as near the center of the county
as practicable.
There was a main street running through the town,
east and west, and public buildings were situated on the
north side of the main street.
The main street to-day is a large lane running
through and which divides fields.
The fields are not cultivated with the exception
of an acre or two by negro tenants.
Connecting with the main street on the west was a
stage road which ran from Troupville through the
northern part of the county to Waresboro.
The stage coaches in that day carried the mails
and were as much a necessity then as the mail and
passenger trains are to-day.
Among
the first settlers at Magnolia were John L. Morgan, who
moved there in 1853; also David O’Quin, Reubin Y.
Stanford and Robert F. White.
The last three owned and operated stores there
for a few years.
The following citizens served as justices of the
peace for the district in which Magnolia was located,
during the several years following the creation of the
new county; these citizens lived in or near Magnolia:
Elliot Chancy, Jesse Smith, Aaron D. Dyals, Henry
E. Peacock, Elias Williams, Levi W. Carter, Abraham
Strickland and Joseph J. Cohen.”
There were some Cohen families that settled
nearby in the city of Savannah and also in Macon,
Georgia.
These Cohen families did not come from Ohio as we see
that Joseph stated.
These families came directly from Prussia and
some settled in Jacksonville.
The family history and rumor has been that we are
related to the Cohen Brothers who owned a store in
Jacksonville.
In the 1800's, most of the history
involving our Williams and Cohen families was in the
small town of Magnolia and later Homerville, Georgia.
By the 1900’s our Cohen ancestor had moved to
Florida, along with some of his neighbors.
William Henry Cohen, son of Joseph J. Cohen
indicated in his Civil War Pension records that he had
resided in the State of Florida since March of 1868
(just after Civil War).
The Kinard, and Simpson families
and the children of Mary Simpson Cohen and Joseph J.
Cohen settled the area of Thonotosassa, Florida.
