The 1865 Douglas County Census

The 1865 census for Douglas County, taken from May to August, is significant because it provided the full names of formerly enslaved and freeborn individuals and their children five years before the genealogical “wall” of 1870 censuses. This census enumerated more than 2,000 African Americans, of whom 768 individuals resided in the City of Lawrence and 160 individuals lived in North Lawrence (annexed to the City in 1870) for a total of 928 people or 17% of Lawrence’s total population.¹ The following categories not only illuminate their identities but also characterize this developing community.²

Birthplace: A majority of individuals claimed three states as their birthplaces: Missouri (392 or 42%), Kentucky (189 or 20%), and Arkansas (142 or 15%). Other states included Virginia (58), Tennessee (28), North Carolina (9), Alabama (7), Georgia (4), Louisiana (2), South Carolina (2), Maryland (2), and Mississippi (1). Nothing further is known about three freemen born in Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Kansas births of 77 children suggest when residents may have arrived in Lawrence. For example, Leonidas “Lee” Smith was born in 1855 to Newton and Anna Smith (p. 12).

Four persons listed the Cherokee Nation (future Oklahoma) as their birthplaces. For example, Rector Buffington, born in 1833, was a Cherokee slave who had pending claims of land in the territory at the time of his death. Having worked as a coachman and porter at Gould and Co. for about 15 years, he “always proved himself an industrious and upright man” and “was beloved all who knew him.”³

Ages ranged across the entire gamut from infants a few months old to elderly women and men (ages 70-99). For instance, one aged woman “Aunt Judy” Modessy “distinctly remembered incidents which occurred during the Revolutionary War,” having been owned by Capt. William Ball at the Culpepper Court House in Virginia. As a resident at the county poor house, she was willing and patiently able to work. While sitting up in bed, “she closed her eyes, rested her head upon her hands, whispered an affectionate farewell to those about her, and laid down the burden the life. She had borne that burden well with but little worldly compensation.”⁴

Marital status: Out of 502 listed individuals, 288 persons (57%) were married and 214 (43%) were single.

Literacy: Given that slave codes forbade teaching enslaved people literacy skills, 416 individuals (nearly 45%) could not read or write. In other words, over half (55%) of all Black residents did have these abilities. In addition, 136 young people (around 15%) were attending school. The majority (110) were children (ages 5-12) with 22 adolescents (ages 13-15) and a few older individuals.⁵

Occupations: Male occupations included mostly soldiers (94) and day laborers (84), along with teamsters (24), farmers (16), blacksmiths (7), porters (6), barbers (4), hostlers (3), woodcutters (2), stonemasons (2), draymen (2), rock quarriers (2), and one each for brickmolder, carpenter, coachman, distiller, harness maker, miner, preacher, printer, saloon keeper, shoemaker, and US (Postal?) Service. While a few women were listed as “housekeepers” (6) who stayed home to raise children, many more labored from home as “washerwomen” (26) washing and ironing clothes and bedsheets for white families. In addition to caring for their own families, many girls and women also worked as “domestics” or “servants” (52) for white families, hotels, or boarding houses.

Value of Real Estate and Personal Property: Twenty-three people (2 women and 21 men) or 3% of those residing in the City of Lawrence owned real estate property valued from $200 to $1,000 and personal property valued from $25 to $3,000.⁶ 

In this regard, one case in particular may explain not only how people earned their wealth but also how long-time residents met their spouses. Sarah Mumford, born enslaved in 1813 in North Carolina, her husband, and their nine children were listed as “free inhabitants” in Sevier County, Arkansas in the 1850 census.⁷ By 1854, her daughter Rachael Mumford had married Absalom Dimery and given birth to four children in Arkansas. When an 1859 Arkansas law threatened expulsion of all free Black people, Sarah, six of her children, and the Dimery family fled to Bourbon County, Kansas, home of Fort Scott by August 1860.⁸ There, Sarah’s daughter, Frances E. Mumford, married Elias L. Bradley, a freedman, and the couple moved to Lawrence, Kansas in 1861. At some point, Sarah and three children followed the Bradley and Dimery families to Lawrence where they all survived Quantrill’s raid in August 1863.⁹ Two years later, the 1865 Douglas County census showed Sarah residing with her children John W., Harriet, and James, next door to the Dimmery [sic] family. She owned $1,000 worth of real estate property and $400 in personal property (over $27,000 in 2025 dollars), possibly earned from selling her Arkansas property.¹⁰

Although nothing further is known about Sarah, John W. Mumford worked as a barber and married Cora Dillard, the eldest daughter of Jesse and Frances Dillard, on December 17, 1871.¹¹ Shortly thereafter, the couple moved to Pueblo, Colorado, where John prospered as a barber and built two large brick houses overlooking the city. He also became a commissioner for the 1884 New Orleans World’s Fair and later farmed property on the Great Divide.¹² Sadly, in November 1904, Cora E. Mumford died in Pueblo at age 50 from a stomach tumor. She lies buried with her parents at Oak Hill Cemetery in Section 1, Lot 48.¹³ By 1920, John W. Mumford (at age 77) resided at the Lincoln Home for the Aged and Children in Pueblo, but his death and burial place remain unknown.¹⁴