Randolph Reed

In 1830 in Clay County, Randolph Reid is a free colored man with a white wife aged 20-30 and three boys under 5 counted white. He had bought land in Morgan County, Indiana, by 1834: as Randle Read he received federal patents for a forty in T11N R1W, Section 25 (30 September 1834), and in 1838 for another forty there and land in T11N R1E, Sections 22 and 27. He sold 77 acres in 1836. In 1840 Randle Reed heads a free colored household in Morgan County: three boys under 10, three males 10-24, a man 24-36, a girl under 10 and two women 24-36, which fits the 1830 household ten years on. In 1846 he sold 36 acres to “James’ widow, probably his mother” (JoEllen Reed’s notes).

His Section 25 forty touches Solomon Reed’s 1837 forty across the section line, a few miles southwest of the Reed block in Section 17.

Open questions

• A James Read consent or bond in his 1825 Clay marriage file would test him as James’s son.
• The 1846 deed itself: does it name James’s widow?