James Lincoln Cochran & (1) Lucinda Daugherty, (2) Melissa Bowling

James Abraham Lincoln Cochran popped up practically out of nowhere in Morgan County, Tennessee, when he married Lucinda Daugherty there in 1881 at the age of 19. (1)   He is listed in the 1900 and 1910 U.S. census enumerations with his first wife and children in Scott and then Morgan Counties; by 1920, he was living in Pulaski County, Kentucky, with his second wife, Melissa Bowling. (2)  None of the records Lincoln created over his lifetime directly identify his parents or siblings, and he is missing from the earlier 1880 and 1870 census enumerations that could have pointed to them.  

Family history information gathered by Lincoln’s granddaughter and great-granddaughter indicates that he was the son of Ezekiel Cochran’s first wife, Serena, but not of Ezekiel. (3)   One record supports the connection with Serena.  In an 1870 deed, Susan Gallamore, the widow of David Gallamore, and their surviving children and grandchildren sold a 200-acre tract in Morgan County.  Listed among the sellers were “David, Thomas[,] Malvina and Lincoln, who are children of said David Gallamore’s daughter Serena, who was married to Ezekiel Cochran but is now dead.” (4)  We are still analyzing the results of Y-DNA tests that appear to confirm no connection with Ezekiel Cochran but that are unclear as to Lincoln’s paternal heritage.

Lincoln was born on 13 February 1861, two months before the Civil War began. (5)   He was probably born in Morgan County, where Ezekiel and Serena Cochran had been recorded in both the 1850 and 1860 U.S. census enumerations. (6)   

It is unclear where Lincoln and his family lived immediately after his birth.  Ezekiel may have moved his family out of Tennessee when the Civil War began.  Morgan County was strongly pro-Union: when Tennessee voted on secession in June 1861, only 7% of Morgan County voters cast ballots in favor of leaving the Union. (7) After secession, Tennessee’s Confederate governor moved to confiscate civilian arms and bring Union sympathizers under control. As a result, many pro-Union men left for Kentucky, with some joining the Union Army. (8)  As a mixed race man, Ezekiel may well have chosen to take his family north rather than stay in Tennessee where life would have been more dangerous for them all.  No major battles were fought in Morgan County, but the conflict affected everyday life. Two years after the war, naturalist John Muir crossed Morgan County near Ezekiel Cochran’s former residence on his long walk to the Gulf of Mexico and met guerrilla bands roving through the area. He wrote that many people had yet to return, their “[h]ouses are far apart and uninhabited, orchards and fences in ruins — sad marks of war.”(9)   

Serena reportedly died in 1863. (10) Four years later, Ezekiel married Elizabeth McKinney in neighboring Roane County. (11)  Ezekiel’s four other surviving children were enumerated as adult heads of household in the 1870 census, all in Roane County; however, Ezekiel, Elizabeth, and Lincoln cannot be located either in Tennessee or another state, despite numerous online searches. 

Ezekiel had moved back to Morgan County by 1880, when he was enumerated in the census with wife Elizabeth, stepson James Alexander McKinney, and mother-in-law Catherine McKinney in his household. (12)  He also is named in the 1881 tax lists for Morgan County as a landowner with 150 acres, though no deed for the land has been found. (13)   

Despite multiple online searches, Lincoln has not been found in the 1880 census, either in Tennessee or any other state. However, he obviously returned to the area sometime in 1880, given that he and Lucinda Daugherty married there on 1 January 1881. (14)

Lucinda was the daughter of John Daugherty and his wife, Rebecca Stringfield, who lived in western Scott County, close to the Morgan County line. (15) Lucinda was born on 1 March 1861, probably in Scott County, and lived there with her parents and siblings until her 1881 marriage. (16)  Family lore is that the two met at a camp meeting in northern Morgan County, possibly conducted by farmer and circuit-riding minister John Brewster, whose future granddaughter would eventually marry one of Lincoln and Lucinda’s sons. (17)

Lincoln and Lucinda spent most of their married life in the northern portion of Morgan County, near Ezekiel’s 1880 property and not far from Lucinda’s childhood home. (See Map 1.)  Lincoln and Lucinda had ten children in all, including three sets of twins. (18)  

Lincoln and Ezekiel’s stepson, Alex McKinney, had a close friendship, judging from census and deed records.  The two were close in age — Alex was about four years older than Lincoln — and they would have grown up together after Ezekiel married Alex’s mother, Elizabeth.  Lincoln also named his eldest son after his friend: James Alexander Cochran.  

Lincoln and Alex also jointly owned property in Morgan County and moved together several times.  In 1883, the two bought 100 acres in Morgan County’s Civil District 6, which they divided equally and ultimately sold in two separate transactions in 1898 and 1899. (19)  In 1898, they moved from Morgan County to Clinton County, Kentucky, just over the state line, where the extended family of Alex’s second wife lived. (Alex’s first wife was Amanda J. Davis, the sister of William Davis.) (20) Just one year later, Lincoln and Alex moved yet again, this time to Scott County, presumably to be near Lucinda’s aging father, the widowed John Daugherty. (21) 

By 1906, Lincoln and Lucinda had returned to Morgan County and repurchased the 47 acres they had sold in 1898.  This is where they were living when they were enumerated in the 1910 census and when Lucinda died on 10 September 1913 of tuberculosis. (22)

Lincoln didn’t remain single for long.  Within a year, he married the widowed Melissa Bowling Nevels; the couple sold Lincoln’s 62-acre tract in Morgan County as husband and wife, appearing before the Pulaski County, Kentucky, court clerk to register the deed. (23) Lincoln and Melissa’s marriage record has not been located, but they likely married in or near Pulaski County, where Melissa’s mother lived and where the couple made their home together. (24)   

Lincoln worked in the logging industry, first at a local sawmill in Morgan County and then buying a team of mules and hauling lumber. His home in Morgan County was near a major route up to the town of Stearns in Pulaski County, where the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company was headquartered. (25)  Stearns was a company town, the location of a major lumbering empire that employed over 2,200 people in 18 different coal and lumber camps scattered between Melissa Bowling’s hometown of Sloans Valley and Lincoln’s home in Tennessee.  Fentress County, Tennessee, for example, was home to a Stearns logging camp along the company’s logging railroad track that went up to Kentucky. (26) There are a number of Bowling families in Morgan County and Clinton County, but we don’t yet know how Melissa may have been connected to them.   

Lincoln and Melissa (or Lissie, as she was often called in records) lived in Pulaski County for about ten years and had three children together.  Melissa died in 1924 and is buried in Sloans Valley. (27)  No death certificate has yet been found for her. 

Afterwards, Lincoln apparently returned to Morgan County, where he died on 9 August 1928 at his youngest son’s home, according to family information; no death certificate has been found for him.  After Lincoln’s death, his three youngest children were sent to live with relatives, according to family lore.  So far, we have located only the youngest, David, in census records in 1930, living with his half-sister, Melvina Cochran Garrett, in Scott County, Tennessee.  

Both Lincoln and his first wife Lucinda are buried in the Union Grove Baptist Church Cemetery in Morgan County, near Sunbright.  Their tombstones were placed by family members sometime in the 1980s.

© 2022 Donna Rowland Gough, all rights reserved

*****

James Abraham Lincoln Cochran (b. 13 Feb 1861, Morgan County, TN – d. 9 Aug 1928, Brewstertown, Morgan County, TN)
m1. 1 Jan 1881, Morgan County, TN 
Lucinda Daugherty (b. 1 Mar 1861, Scott County, TN – d. 10 Sep 1913, Morgan County, TN)

Children of Lincoln Cochran & Lucinda Daugherty:
i. Melvina Elizabeth Cochran (b. 16 Apr 1882, Tennessee – d. 17 Mar 1959, Oneida, Scott Co, Tennessee); m. William Henry Garrett (25)
ii. Miney Sarah Caroline Cochran (b. 13 Jan 1884, Tennessee – d. 3 Jun 1954, Morgan, Tennessee); m1. John Newport; m2. John Samuel Brewster (26)  
iii. James Alexander “Alec” Cochran (b. Oct 1886, Tennessee ­– d. between 1920/29, Pulaski Co., Kentucky); m. Ella Nettie Yates (27)
iv. Bennie Cochran (b. Nov 1889, Tennessee –d aft 1910); no further info 
v. John Cochran (b. Mar 1892, Tennessee – d. ca. 1904, Morgan Co., Tennessee) 
vi. Lenora Cochran (b. Mar 1892, Tennessee – d. aft 1918, possibly Spokane or Seattle, Washington state); m. George Wood (28)
vii. Frank Marion Cochran (b. 27 Jan 1894, Tennessee –d. 17 Aug 1973, Harriman, Roane County, Tennessee); m. Sarah Jane Davis 
viii. Thomas Decatur Cochran (b. 127 Jan 1894, Tennessee – d. 26 May 1970, Scott County, Tennessee); m1. Elzada Bowling; m2. Eva McKinney (29)  
ix. Lorenda Cochran (b. 7 May 1896, Tennessee – d. 4 Sep 1914, Morgan County, Tennessee); m. Jesse Brewster (30)
x. Clarenda “Clara” Cochran (b. 7 May 1896, Tennessee – d. 24 Jun 1975, Seattle, King County, Washington); m. Homer Roscoe Flowers (31)

m2. 1913/14, possibly Pulaski County, KY 
Melissa Bowling (widow of Henry Nevels) (b. 6 Mar 1883, Kentucky – d. 13 Jan 1924, Sloans Valley, Pulaski County, Kentucky) (32)

Children of Lincoln Cochran & Melissa Bowling:
i. Geneva Cochran (b. 29 Apr 1915, Sloans Valley, Pulaski County, Kentucky – d. 12 Dec 1993, Oneida, Scott County, Tennessee); m. William “Willie” Watson (33)  
ii. Melvin Cochran Price (b. 28 Aug 1919, Sloans Valley, Pulaski County, Kentucky – d. 1 Apr 2008, Dayton, Montgomery County, Ohio); m. Edna Mae Shepherd (34)  
iii. David Eugene Cochran (b. 31 Jul 1920, Sloans Valley, Pulaski County, Kentucky ­– d. 1 May 1987, Oneida, Scott County, Tennessee); m. Lennie Byrd (35)

© 2022, Donna Rowland Gough, all rights reserved.

Sources:

1. Morgan County, Tennessee, Marriage Records, Vol. 1862-1887 (1881), page 136, A.L. Cochran and Lucinda Daugherty entry, County Court Clerk, Wartburg TN, FHL #978841 (image 74).
2. 1900 U.S. census, Scott County, Tennessee, population schedule, Civil District #3, sheet #16, enumeration district (ED) 128m dwelling #323, family #324, Link Cochran; Ancestry online, accessed 22 Jan 2022.  1910 U.S. census, Morgan County, Tennessee, population schedule, Civil District #6, enumeration district (ED) 55, sheet #6a, dwelling #29, family #29, Lincoln Cochran; Ancestry online, accessed 22 Jan 2022.  1920 U.S. census, Pulaski County, Kentucky, population schedule, Sloans Valley Precinct, enumeration district (ED) 233, sheet 8-A, dwelling #138, family #140, Jas. L. Cochran; Ancestry online, accessed 22 Jan 2022.
3. Letter from Lola Brewster Crabtree to Donna Rowland Gough, mid-1980s, information from personal interviews and family records.  Letter from Wilma Crabtree Gibson to Donna Rowland Gough, 24 Sep 1997, information from personal interviews and family records.   Ezekiel’s status as Lincoln’s biological father has been questioned; Lincoln’s son Frank affirmed that Lincoln was the son of “a Moisher or Nitzschke” but that “Zeke Cochran raised Lincoln” (see Wilma Gibson letter).  One of Lincoln’s male descendants took a Y-DNA test whose results were inconclusive about Lincoln’s parentage, and research into this line is ongoing.
4. Morgan County, Tennessee, Deeds, Vol. D2 (1891-1892), Susan Gallamore et al to William McEwen, County Court Clerk, Wartburg; FHL #978859, pp 548-550 (images 627-628).
5. Union Grove Baptist Church Cemetery, Glades, Morgan County, Tennessee, Lincoln Cochran marker, photograph supplied by David Rowland.  Ancestry direct message, Wilma Crabtree Gibson to Donna Rowland Gough, April 2022; Wilma confirmed that the modern tombstone was placed by family members probably in the 1980s, using Bible records as their source for the dates.
6. 1850 U.S. census, Morgan County, Tennessee, population schedule, Subdivision #19, p 606 (p 395 stamped), dwelling #409, family #409, Ezekiel Cockram, Ancestry online, accessed 22 Jan 2022.  1860 U.S. census, Morgan County, Tennessee, population schedule, Civil District 5, p 58, dwelling #383, family #385, Ezekiel Cockrum, Ancestry online, accessed 22 Jan 2022.
7. Terry L. Futrell and Michael W. Nancy, Civil War Sourcebook: Morgan County, Tennessee (Wartburg, Tennessee: 2019), p 32; neighboring Scott and Fentress Counties were also Unionist strongholds, with 96.5% and 84%, respectively, voting against secession.
8. Futrell and Nancy, p 37.
9. John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (New York: First Mariner Books, 1998), pp 17-32. 
10. Dave Cockrum, Eastern Cherokee Applications of the U.S. Court of Claims, 1906-1909, National Archives, Record Group M1104; Fold3, https://www.fold3.com/image/222928577 : accessed 9 Oct 2022.
11. Roane County, Tennessee, Marriage Records (colored), Vol. 1828-1879 (1867), p 21, Ezekiel Cochran to Elizabeth McKinney, County Court Clerk, Harriman TN; Ancestry digital images, Tennessee Marriage Records, 1780-2002, Roane County (image 59 of 86).
12. 1880 U.S. census, Morgan County, Tennessee, population schedule, Civil District 6, p 5 (562-A, stamped), enumeration district 133, dwelling #43, family #43, Ezekiel Cochram; Ancestry online, accessed 26 Apr 2022).
13. Morgan County, Tennessee, Tax Lists, 1881-1900, microfilm, Tennessee State Library and Archives.  Only scattered tax lists exist before 1881.
14. Morgan County, Tennessee, Marriage Records, Vol. 1862-1887 (1881), p 136, A.L. Cochran and Lucinda Daugherty entry, County Court Clerk, Wartburg; FHL #978841 (image 74 of 747).
15. John Daugherty, U.S. Civil War pension application, National Archives; John Daugherty’s affidavit stated that he married Rebecca Stringfield in 1846 and that she had died by May 1898.  The full pension application has been requested from the National Archives.
16. 1860 U.S. census, Scott County, Tennessee, population schedule, District 3, page 62, dwelling #418, family #393, John Daugherty; Ancestry digital image.  1870 U.S. census, Scott County, Tennessee, population schedule, Civil District #3, Wolf Creek Post Office, page 25, dwelling #33, family #33, John Daugherty, Ancestry digital image.  1880 U.S. census, Scott County, Tennessee, population schedule, District 3, enumeration district 25, dwelling #203, family #203, John Daugherty; Ancestry digital image.
17. Ancestry direct message from Wilma Crabtree Gibson to Donna Rowland Gough, 20 April 2022.
18. See FN 2 for 1900 and 1910 census enumerations for Lincoln and Lucinda.
19. Morgan County, Tennessee, Deeds, Book I-2 (1883), Eugene Lynch to Lincoln Cochran and Alex McKinney, pp 483-484; FHL #978862, part 1 (images 250-251).  Morgan County, Tennessee, Tax Lists, 1881-1900, Tennessee State Library and Archives microfilm; Lincoln Cochran and Alexander McKinney appeared with equal amounts of land from 1885 through 1898 (the 1884 tax list did not include Civil District 6). 
20. Morgan County, Tennessee, Deeds, Book I-2 (1898), Alexander McKinney and J.L. Cochrane to Mary Douglas, pp 543-544; FHL #978862, part 1 (images 279-280).  Alex McKinney and Lincoln Cochran appeared before the Clinton County court clerk to confirm the deed of sale.
21. 1900 U.S. census, Scott County, Tennessee, population schedule, Civil District #3, enumeration district #128, sheet #16-A, dwelling #323, family #324, Link Cochrum; see also dwelling #322, family 323, John Daugherty, and dwelling #324, family #325, Aleac McKinsy; Ancestry digital images.  Morgan County, Tennessee, Deeds, Book J-2 (1899), Alexander McKinney and J.L. Cochrane to Smith Anderson, pp 207-208; FHL #978862, part 2 (images 452-453).  Alex McKinney and Lincoln and their wives appeared before the Scott County court clerk to confirm the deed of sale.  Of the 100 acres that the two men had bought in 1882, only 94 acres were included in the 1898 and 1899 deeds; it is possible that the original purchase was somewhat smaller than 100 acres, given the vagueness of the survey calls in the 1882 deed.
22. Union Grove Baptist Church Cemetery, Glades, Morgan County, Tennessee, Lucinda Cochran marker, photograph supplied by David Rowland.  For place of death, see Wilma Gibson April 2022 message.  Tennessee did not require death registrations for the year 1913.
23. Morgan County, Tennessee, Deeds, Book Z-2 (1914), J.L. Cochrum and Lissie Cochrum to Thomas Linkaitis, p 582.
24. 1920 U.S. census, Pulaski County, Kentucky, population schedule, Sloans Valley Precinct, enumeration district #233, sheet #8-A, dwelling #138, family #140, Jas. L. Cochran; Ancestry digital images.
25. Stearns Coal & Lumber Company, https://abandonedonline.net/location/stearns-coal-lumber-company/, accessed 17 Jul 2022. See also Big South Fork Scenic Railway, https://bsfsry.com/our-story/, accessed 9 Oct 2022, for more information on the Stearns empire.
26. Rock Creek Loop in Big South Fork, Tennessee Trails Association, https://tennesseetrails.org/event/rock-creek-loop-in-big-south-fork/, accessed 9 Oct 2022.
27. Ancestry, Find A Grave, database with images (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 9 Oct 2022), memorial 33308100, Melissa Bowlin Nevels Cochran (1883-1924), Sloans Valley Cemetery, Sloans Valley, Pulaski County, Kentucky; gravestone photo by Sherrie Foughty.
28. Tennessee, Department of Public Health, death certificate, file #59-07190 (1959), Melvina Elizabeth Garrett, Division of Vital Statistics, Nashville.
29. Tennessee, Department of Public Health, death certificate, file #54-13159 (1954), Miney Brewster, Division of Vital Statistics, Nashville.  Morgan County, Tennessee, Marriage Bonds, 1906-1922 (1906), J.S. Brewster and Mina Cochran entry, County Court Clerk, Wartburg; Ancestry online images.
30. Morgan County, Tennessee, Marriage Bonds, 1906-1922, J.A. Cochram and Ella Aytes entry, County Court Clerk, Wartburg; Ancestry online images.
31. Scott County, Tennessee, Marriage Bonds, 1904-1907 (1906), Charley A. Bruster and Manda Cockram entry, County Court Clerk, Huntsville; FHL #926289, item 2 (image 618 of 724). Tennessee, State Board of Health, death certificate, file #604 (1919), Armanda Bruster, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Nashville; Ancestry online database, Tennessee death records, 1908-1965, accessed 9 Oct 2022. 
32. Clarke County, Washington, Marriage Applications and Certificates (1917), file #10770, George Wood and Lenora Cochran entry, County Court Clerk, Spokane; Ancestry online images.
33. Tennessee Death Records Index, 1949-2014, Thomas Cochran entry, https://register.shelby.tn.us/, accessed 17 Jul 2022.
34. Tennessee, State Board of Health, death certificate, file #4 (1914), Lorenda Brewster, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Nashville; Ancestry online image.
35. Tennessee, Department of Public Health, delayed birth certificate, file #D-322268 (1949), Clarenda C. Flowers, Division of Vital Statistics, Nashville.  Washington, King County Marriages (1935), Homer R. Flowers and Clara Cochran entry, County Clerk, Seattle.  Washington Death Index, 1940-2017, Clara Flowers entry, Ancestry online, accessed 17 Jul 2022.
36. See FN 27.
37. Kentucky, State Board of Health, delayed birth certificate, file #92631 (1949), Geneva Cochran, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Frankfort.  Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007, Geneva Cochran, SS no. 315-52-4774, Ancestry online, accessed 17 Jul 2022.
38. Kentucky, certified record of birth, Melvin Cochran, Registrar of Vital Statistics, Frankfort.  Newspapers.com Marriage Index, 1800s–1999, Melvin Price and Edna Mae Shepherd entry, Ancestry online database, accessed 17 Jul 2022.  Melvin Price obituary, 2008, Dayton Daily News, 3 Apr 2008, p 17.
39. David Eugene Cochran obituary, 1987, Scott County (TN) News, 7 May 1986, p 12.  Scott County Marriage Records, 1941-1951 (1947), Eugene Cochran and Lennie Byrd entry, County Court Clerk, Huntsville, Ancestry online.