Louisa (Morgan) Fields (1844 - 1915)

Born 1844 in North Carolina, United States

Wife of George Burton — married 15 Oct 1873 in Charlevoix, Charlevoix, Michigan, United States

Died 15 Feb 1915 at about age 71 in Toledo, Lucas, Ohio, United States

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Biography

Louisa (Morgan) Fields is a part of US Black heritage.

Louisa was born in 1844. She was the daughter of George Morgan.

She married her second husband, George Burton (abt.1835-1885), in Charlevoix, Charlevoix, Michigan,on 15 October 1873. This record lists him as age 30, born in Missouri, his bride a widow at age 28, born in North Carolina.^[1]

Lousia died as a widow in the Lucas County Hospital, Toledo, Lucas, Ohio, on 15 February 1915 of a uterine carcinoma and was buried on 18 February in Forest Cemetery. ^[2]

An extensive biography appears at Find A Grave, from which the following information was extracted:

Louisa Morgan (Swann, Burton, Fields) was a black pioneer in Northern MI in the Charlevoix County area. Louisa's family were "free people of color" and she was of "tri-racial" ancestry: European, African, and Indigenous American. After the Nat Turner Uprising, free persons of color fled the Carolinas and Virginia .... The Morgan family first moved to Indiana, then to Ontario, Canada..l. Louisa's parents, George Morgan and Delilah Bass Morgan and some of their children, emigrated to Haiti from Canada in the 1860s. It is ... likely she stayed in the US with relatives or Canada, as she married William Swann, her first husband around 1860. Their first children were born in Indiana. Her parents and siblings moved back to the USA after the Civil War, citing climate and cultural issues in Haiti and not being provided the free land they were promised.

William was murdered in 1870 by former Union soldiers. In a letter held at the University of Michigan, Louisa wrote to her siblings and parents, asking them to come to Charlevoix County to settle, as she did not want to travel any more with her six young children. Eventually they did. Louisa married George Burton in 1873. He also died tragically in 1885, the day after Christmas, when a tree fell on him and crushed him to death. She married her third husband, Henry Fields, in Flint, Michigan, in 1887. After his death in 1891, she moved to Toledo, Ohio, where her son Frank (Francis) was living. She died there in 1915 and was buried at Forest Cemetery. {Contributor: EDTC (48765079) }^[3]

Sources

1. ↑ Michigan, U.S., Marriage Records, 1867-1952 for George Burton. Registers, 1868-1886, 1868-1875, 1872 Tuscola-1873 Montcalm, online at Ancestry: https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/941353:9093?ssrc=pt&tid=14051676&pid=20476231005
2. ↑ "Ohio, County Death Records, 1840-2001," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVNS-2XKN : 1 March 2021), Louisa Fields, 15 Feb 1915; citing Death, Toledo, Lucas, Ohio, United States, source ID cn 424, County courthouses, Ohio; FHL microfilm 1,689,634.
3. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (accessed 15 February 2022), memorial page for Louisa Morgan Fields (1844–15 Feb 1915), Find A Grave: Memorial #132323816, citing Forest Cemetery, Toledo, Lucas County, Ohio, USA ; Maintained by ForestC (contributor 48458053).

See also:

• Michigan, U.S., Marriage Records, 1867-1952 for George Burton. Registers, 1868-1886, 1868-1875, 1872 Tuscola-1873 Montcalm, online at Ancestry: https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/941353:9093?ssrc=pt&tid=14051676&pid=20476231005
• "United States Census, 1870", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MHHX-JQG : Tue Oct 03 07:33:42 UTC 2023), Entry for William Swan and Louisa A Swan, 1870.
• "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYB7-94LD?cc=1417683&wc=XW8Q-DP8%3A1589394748%2C1589407125%2C1589407185%2C1589394813 : 24 December 2015), Michigan > Charlevoix > South Arm > ED 55 > image 14 of 18; citing NARA microfilm publication T9, (National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C., n.d.)