1850 Free Persons of Color--
The First Black Citizens Enumerated
in Ft. Smith & Van Buren Arkansas
The data provided here in this listing comes from the 1850 Federal United States Census of Sebastian and Crawford counties. It should be noted that the 1840 census did reveal that there were free blacks living in the county, however, they were listed as living with free whites and their names were not included, until the 1850 census.
The data consists of Name/Age/Gender, Race, Occupation, and Birthplace. If information was not provided in the occupation category, the marks “-----” will appear noting that info was not applicable. Those names followed by the questions mark (?) symbol represent those whose names appeared illegible or difficult to read on the census page, and the author acknowledges that they may be listed erroneously. They are listed in the order in which their names appear in the Federal Census, and they are grouped by the order in which the household where they were enumerated, appeared.
Ft. Smith Arkansas
Sarah Sisco/1/Female Black/-----/Arkansas
Benjamin Gunter/63/Male/Black/Laborer/ No. Carolina
Charity Guneter/58/Female/Black/-----/No. Carolina
Celia Sanders(?) /39/Female/Mulatto/-----/Virginia
Lavinia Ann Stone/9/Female/Mulatto/-----/Arkansas
Celia A. Stone/6/Female/Mulatto/-----/Arkansas
Mary A.. Carroll/8/Female/Mulatto/-----/Arkansas
Van Buren Arkansas
Thomas Eppler/ 3 /Male/Black/Servant/Arkansas *
Ned Williams /60/Male/Black/Laborer/So. Carolina
Penny Williams/56/Female/Black/-----/No. Carolina
John Williams/3/ male/Black/-----/Arkansas
*Note that the child Thomas Eppler is actually enumerated with a white family in Van Buren. There are no parents to the child listed in the household. It is possible that he may be the child of parents who were live-in servants to the household at one time, and who had left or died for unknown reasons. There does not appear to be another black family in the Ft. Smith nor Van Buren Arkansas vicinities with the same name.