When I started researching my own family history
in Tangipahoa, I met other people who also had a unique family history in
Tangipahoa Parish. One of the people that caught my attention was a man named Robert
“Free Bob” Vernon. Three of his great, great granddaughters: Glyniss Vernon
Gordon, Jackie Dukes and Ferry Hannibal, shared knowledge of their rich and
unique Vernon family history with me.
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| Robert "Free Bob" Vernon |
Robert was born in 1832 in Rankin County,
Mississippi as a slave. He died July of 1915 in Tangipahoa Parish. He was the
father of seventeen children: Willie, Riley, Georgia, Lula, Jim, Nancy, Isaac,
John, Florence, Emma, Guy, Sam, Owen, Toby Stamp, Anna, Lettie, and Robert Vernon,
III.
He watched as his first wife and sons were sold
off as slaves on a plantation in Mississippi. Robert worked hard to purchase
his freedom. He later moved to Louisiana where his father Robert Vernon lived. He
built a cabin on one hundred and sixty acres; his father told him that if he
worked hard to cultivate the land for five years, he could become the owner of
the land. Robert took the challenges on and began working hard on two plots of
land.
Robert got word from someone that his first wife
who was sold away in slavery had died and their two young sons were alone in Mississippi. Robert
did what any concerned and devoted father would have done, he made his way to
Mississippi to get his two sons to bring them back to Louisiana to live with him and his new family. After returning back from Mississippi, Robert
began growing and cultivating cotton. He enlarged his land holding by
purchasing more land at just four dollars an acre. He soon accumulated a total
of twenty-three hundred acres of land. He donated four acres of land to
centralize a church for the colored folks in the community. The old log cabin
on the land was converted to a church on Big Creek. The church, organized in
1869, was named Mount Canaan.
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| Free Bob's descendant conducting genealogy research at the Amite Genealogy Library |
He joined church and became an energetic and
dedicated worker for his church and community. Although he couldn’t read or
write, making only his “X” he possessed the God given wisdom, which he used
wisely to provide for his family, the church, and community. Robert had a great
love for books. He had his own personal book collection.
He gave each of his children one hundred acres
of land as they married and established their own homes. This area became know
as Vernon Town. Many of his descendants are still living in Vernon to this day.
What an legacy left to his descendants?
