This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

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The John Stanford Family of Marion County, Mississippi
John Stanford was bom on January 15, 1778, according to the original John Stanford, Sr. Bible. His wife, “Delila Ruark” (also spelled Rourk, O’Rourke, etc.) was bom on June 30, 1779. They married on September 20, 1798, according to their Bible record, probably in Somerset County, Maryland, or a neighboring county, although no record has been located as of this date. John and Delila were both bom in Maryland according to the 1850 and 1860 censuses of Marion County, Mississippi. Their oldest child, Nancy, was bom in “Maryland,” according to the 1850 census of Marion County, MS. Nancy was bom on August 20, 1799, as listed in the family Bible. The next child of John Stanford was Matilda, bom July 6, 1801, in “Georgia” as found in the 1850 Jackson County, MS census. Considering Nancy and Matilda’s place of birth as given in the census records, one can conclude that John Stanford and Delila Ruark were probably married in Maryland and moved to Georgia in or around the year 1800.
John Stanford and family moved to Mississippi in or around the year 1815. We know this because his son, John Jr., was bom in Georgia in 1814 (see the 1850 Pike County, MS census), and John Sr.’s daughter, Delila, was bom in 1816 in Mississippi (see the 1860 and 1870 censuses of Harrison County, MS). The first record of John Stanford, in southern Mississippi, is in the 1820 Hancock County census where he is listed as “John Samford.” The members of his household ages closely match the Bible record of his family, except there are three males between the ages of 16 and 26 that do not fit his children - perhaps they were in-laws, visitors, or who knows what.
Although John was listed in the 1820 Hancock census, he may have actually been living in Marion County near the Hancock County line and was “accidently” picked up by the Hancock County census taker. At that time in history, Hancock County and Marion County shared the same border. John Stanford and family next appear in the 1830 census of Marion County, MS. It was here that he spent the rest of his life and died.
As previously stated, John Stanford was bom on January 15, 1778. The John Stanford, Sr. Bible gives two John Stanfords deaths - one died on September 24, 1860, and the other died on April 7, 1861, - but it does not indicate which one was the senior and which was the junior. In an effort to unscramble this, we tracked down the John Stanford, Jr. Bible that we had heard about, and it gave the junior’s death date as April 7, 1861. Thus, John Stanford, Sr. died in Marion County on September 24, 1860.
Mr. Robert J. Baxter, a direct descendant of John Stanford, and avid genealogist, was a big help with the Stanford research. He was bom in Lumberton, Lamar County, MS, in 1910 and died in New Orleans, LA, in 2002. Mr. Baxter knew many of the older generation Stanfords and wrote a typed 25 page history of the Baxters which included their connection to the Stanfords of Marion County, MS. He told us that older family members told him where John and Delila Stanford were buried, and he “saw their graves about 10 years ago (around 1963) in the Old Howard Cemetery” located about two miles south of the Baxterville, MS, community in what is now southern Lamar County. He said their “head markers were cast iron with sealed glass plates over the inscriptions.” He told us both head markers were badly faded, and he could not read John Stanford’s dates. He could only make out the year of death on Delila’s marker, and it looked like 1863.
This is no doubt John Stanford, Sr., and his wife’s resting place.
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