There were seven students named Freeman in the Mordecai school roster I assembled in the early 1990s:
- Eliza Freeman (one session, 1812)
- George Freeman (four or five sessions, 1809-1811)
- John Freeman (1811, both sessions)
- Maria Freeman 1809-1810, three or four sessions)
- Martha Freeman (1812, then 1816-1817, four sessions total)
- Mary/Polly Freeman (1810, both sessions)
- Sarah/Sally Freeman (1816, both sessions, and 1818, both sessions)
Okay, so: two boys, five girls, most attending early in the school's run, but a few (Martha and Sally) attending later in the school's existence. All one family? Two or more families? I'm going to assume the Freeman boys are from a family lives near Warrenton (boys would have been day students). I don't have much more about any of these children in my dissertation notes. So let's see what some googling and ancestry.com can tell me now.
Hm, not much. Common names and not a lot of context, but here are some leads for starters.
A George W. Freeman was principal of Warrenton Academy in the early 1820s; I'd be surprised if none of these Freeman children had any connection to him, but... I'm not finding it right now.
Maria could very well be Maria L. A. Freeman, born 1795, the daughter of Robert Freeman and Sarah Freeman. She married John Snow in 1812 in Warrenton, and had two children, Theophilus Hunter Snow (born 1813 or 1814) and Emma J. Snow (born 1815). Her husband died in 1819, in his thirties; there were four enslaved people mentioned in his will (Tom, Ephraim, Shadrack, and Pinny). As Maria A. Snow, she appears as head of her household in Warrenton in the 1820 census, with her young children and three slaves. In 1823, she remarried to Alexander J. Lawrence, in Franklin County, and had two more children, Alexander Lawrence and Anna Lawrence. In 1843, her elder son was vice-president of the Raleigh Temperance Society. In the 1850 and 1860 censuses, the Lawrences are keeping a hotel in Raleigh with their daughter Anna. In the 1870 census, she is still alive, living with her second husband in Raleigh; both of their children and two Snow granddaughters also live with them. In the 1880 census, she is a widow again, and living with her son Alexander in Raleigh.
UPDATE: From Shannon S. Christmas in comments: "Sarah Freeman, daughter of Robert Freeman and possibly Sarah Green, was the wife of Adam Hawkins (son of Philemon Hawkins and Mary Christmas) of Franklin County, North Carolina. After marrying in Franklin, the couple appears to have relocated to Tennessee's Haywood County, before settling in Mississippi's Marshall County. Adam Hawkins died prior to 1856, leaving his widow to raise their children in Mississippi. Sarah died after 1860."
Thanks Shannon S. Christmas!
