To commemorate Juneteenth, I’ve decided to share what I know about two Black pioneers and former slaves, Lewis and Peggy Barnes, who came to Petaluma in the 1850s. My research on these individuals isn’t complete and may never be, but why wait?
According to his obituary, Lewis Barnes was born in 1801 at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and was sold at auction into slavery (no date provided). Lewis came to California in 1849 with his owner, “a Mr. Cassiday,” and “worked out his freedom.” He settled in Petaluma in 1855, where he was employed as a white washer and general laborer. The U.S. Census lists Lewis living on Fifth Street near F Street with Peggy Barnes in 1860 and 1870. Just seven months before his death, Lewis registered to vote. When he died on January 16, 1871, his funeral took place from the Methodist Episcopal Church, located on the northwest corner of Keller Street and Western Avenue (the parking lot of the Petaluma Market today). The funeral was well attended and pastors of several denominations officiated. I’ve yet to determine where Lewis was buried, but I have located Peggy’s grave at the Cypress Hill Memorial Park.
Peggy is buried in a non-endowment care section of the cemetery. Her tombstone states that she was born in Virginia in 1785 and died on July 2, 1890. Census records have her living on Fifth Street in 1860, 1870, and 1880.
In 1888, 1889, and 1890, Peggy’s neighbors and friends petitioned the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on her behalf, requesting she be provided with an indigent allowance.
Here is the text from one of the original petitions submitted on June 22, 1888:
“The undersigned citizens and taxpayers of Petaluma Township, County of Sonoma, respectively, petition your body to grant such assistance from the funds of the County as you may seem just and right to one who has for the past 35 years lived in Petaluma and is now over 80 years of age and without any means whatever, Mrs. Barnes, familiarly known as Aunt Peggy, a Colored woman who is respected and liked by every old citizen of Petaluma, she has never asked of the County any aid and now really needs assistance and your petitioners fully believe that she is certainly worthy of any aid you can bestow upon her. And if your body grants her a stipend, we feel assured that it will meet with the hearty approval of every citizen of this place, who know Aunt Peggy.”
The petition was respectfully submitted and signed by the following Petaluma businessmen: Wm. B. Haskell, D.B. Fairbanks, H.H. Atwater, J. Campbell, J. L. Winans, F. Maynard, A. B. Hill, S. D. Towne, Josiah H. Crane, M.D., T. A. Gilbert, Philip Cowen, J.E. Gwinn, W.S. Fritsch, George W. Lamoreaux, H. W. Silsby, A. B. Case, D. W. C. Putnam, Chas. Putnam, Wm. Zartman, T. C. Putnam, H. F. Fairbanks, I. G. Wickersham, Samuel Cassiday, James McNabb, E. Denman, Frank S. Shattuck, W. F. Shattuck, Geo. P. McNear and J. A. McNear.
A week after this petition was filed, the following article appeared in the Petaluma Weekly Argus:
“Aunt Peggy is undoubtedly the “oldest inhabitant” of Petaluma. She has been an honest, industrious, good woman and has to depend upon the charity of her neighbors for subsistence. There is a movement a foot to send her to the Poor House at Santa Rosa, but Aunt Peggy protests against it. She says that as she has but a little while longer to stay with us, she wishes to die at home. The Bank of Sonoma County has given her the use of her present dwelling house during her life, free of rent, and if County Supervisors can’t appropriate five dollars per month – all that she requires – the people of her neighborhood will continue to take care of her as they have for several years. Yesterday, we met with J. H. Overton of Vallejo Township, who is well acquainted with her history, and he informed us that Aunt Peggy was born in North Carolina in 1784, the “property” of his grandfather, John Overton. She was brought to California in the early fifties by the late O. B. Mathews, whose widow and several children reside on the old homestead near this city. Aunt Peggy will not go over the hills to the Poorhouse.”
The description of how Peggy came to be in Petaluma in this article caught my attention and led me to research John Overton and O. B. Matthews. Using Ancestry.com, I found Overton B. Matthews (1816-1875) in the 1850 U.S. Federal Census – Slave Schedule as owning one 45-year-old female slave while residing in Perry, Missouri. Given the age, this woman could have been Peggy. Digging a little further, I came across the photo at the right and the following text posted to a family tree for Overton Bettis Mathews (the single t in Mathews is not a typo).
“Aunt Peggy as she was affectionately called in her latter years, was born in a log cabin on the John Wesley Overton Plantation in North Carolina in 1784. Her early life was spent with the Overtons, and at some time in her youth, she became a slave of Edward H. Matthews and his wife, Lovely Bettis Matthews.
It is quite likely that Edward H. Matthews grew up in or near the same area in Moore County, where the Overtons lived. As other parts of the history indicate, the Matthews made the long move from North Carolina to Missouri in the early 1800s and it is probable that Peggy went with them along with a number of other slaves. Anna Saul, a descendent of Overton Bettis Matthews, in a letter to her cousin Alfred Puckett of Petaluma, said that Peggy was given by Edward to his son Overton Matthews as a wedding present. If this was so, then Peggy made her home with them as early as 1837. The Overton Matthews went by wagon train to California in 1853. Peggy had been given her freedom, but she wanted to remain with them, so she made the trip to California. Edward Harrison Puckett, eldest son of Dr. Alfred Harrison Puckett and wife, Amey, was also in the same wagon train.
Peggy lived with the Matthews for many years but it is likely that she was living in her own home with family in the latter years of her life. She died in Petaluma July 3, 1890, at the age of 106.”
As stated above, the census shows that Peggy was indeed living in her own home in Petaluma with a husband and not with Overton Mathews and his family, including his wife Talitha and their six children in 1860. And by the way she died in Petaluma, not in a Santa Rosa poor house.
In the coming months and years, additional records may be discovered that will contribute to a more complete telling of Lewis and Peggy’s lives and those of other underrecognized Petaluma pioneers. In the meantime, I’m pleased to finally share what I do know beyond an audience of one.
Sources:
Journal & Argus “Death of Septuagenarian” January 21, 1871
Petaluma Weekly Argus “Aunt Peggy” June 30, 1888
Santa Rosa Daily Republican “See is 105 Years Old” July 10, 1890
Petition for Indigent Allowance – Board of Supervisors June 22, 1888 Part of Indigent Petitions (1855-1919) Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, Last Names A-K Sonoma County Archives Collection
Petaluma General Plan Update and the Trestle
Thank you for this interesting information. Mrs. Barnes was already old when that petition was written and still capable of living on her own – that’s impressive.
Lovely story, Katherine, but I was left wanting to know if the Supervisors granted the sustenance request? That ought to be on file somewhere.
Always leaving them wanting more! I suspect the Board of Supervisors did honor the request. I know she did in Novermber and December 1889 – $5 a month. I could do a deeper dive into the newspapers. For this type of research I’d need to look at the microfilm as the OCR used for the digital versions doesn’t necessarily pick up every item.
Wonderful story. So interesting to learn the way in which people arrived in California. Petaluma must have been an interesting place in the 1850s.