Cupid Steward

Quick Facts

Significance:

Alabama Homesteader

Place of Birth:

Alabama

Date of Birth:

Circa. 1832

Place of Death:

Alabama

Date of Death:

Circa. 1900

Place of Burial:

Alabama

Cupid Steward (Stewart) was born circa 1832 in Madison County, Alabama. According to U.S. Census records, Steward’s parents were originally from Virginia. Researchers haven’t yet found documentation confirming that Steward was either a free man of color or enslaved; however, his granddaughter, Leathy Evelyn Steward Baker, insisted that he had been a free man of color. Steward was the father of three children: Lucy Jane Steward (b. 1855), Stephen Steward (b. 1858), and Elizabeth (b. 1867). Researchers haven’t confirmed the identity of the mother of these children. Sometime before 1870, Steward married Mariah Branch and had two more children: William H. Francis (b. 1872) and Cupid Jr. (b. 1876). It is possible that Mariah was the mother of all five children.

In 1870, Steward lived in Kyles, Jackson County, Alabama, in dwelling 578 next to Mariah’s father, Peter Branch, who lived in dwelling 577. Both men worked as farm laborers, likely sharecropping on land belonging to the Rorex family, who lived in dwelling 579.

Documents from the Freedman’s Bank and U.S. Census show that Branch was originally from Isle of Wight, Virginia, so it is possible that the Cupid’s parents and Peter Branch met in Virginia, and they moved together to Alabama.

In 1879, Steward submitted homestead application number 9952 at the Huntsville, Alabama, land office. He applied for a 160 and 19/100 acre homestead at the southwest quadrant of Section 14, Township 3S, Range 6E in Jackson County, Alabama. Application fees for the land cost Steward $14.00.

Southwest quadrant (yellow box) of Section 14 (red box) in Township 3, Range 6 East in Jackson County, Alabama, the location of the Cupid Steward homestead. (source: Google Maps)
 
The location of the Cupid Steward homestead was very hilly, rising from 800 feet to over 1200 feet in elevation. However, according to his final land patent proof of testimony, Steward managed to cultivate a small portion of the homestead, four acres, to grow crops.

On May 10, 1880, Cupid Steward and his family moved onto the homestead into a log house that he had just finished building on May 1, 1880. The 1880 Census shows Steward living on his new farm, dwelling 111 in Township 3, Range 6, also known as Samples, with his wife Mariah and sons Stephen, Francis, and Cupid. The household also included a boarder named Malinda Boyle.

Steward’s daughter Lucy had married in 1873 in Cupid’s house in Kyles, and Elizabeth had also likely married and moved away. His neighbors Lee Lovelady (dwelling 114), J.J. Johnson (110), John Gipson (119), and S.R. Corn (116) would later testify as witnesses to Steward living on the farm continuously between 1880 and 1885. Steward’s other neighbors included the Roach, Brown, and Rorex families.

On February 9, 1885, Steward submitted the final proof to establish his claim to the land, providing the form, signed with his mark (X) in lieu of his signature, to the probate judge of Jackson County, John B. Tally, in Scottsboro, Alabama.

Steward was also required to make his homestead application known to the public. The Alabama Herald newspaper in Scottsboro published the final proof notice for Steward’s claim to the homestead. This notice would be published for six weeks before the land patent was awarded.

According to Steward and his witnesses on his application, he made improvements to the land and built structures. In addition to the two-room log house, he built outhouses, a smoke house crib, and a stable, and on four acres of the land, he grew crops. The improvements increased the value of the house between $250 and $300.

Steward’s application was successful. On May 12, 1885, the General Land Office awarded homestead certificate 3766 to Cupid Steward for the land.

The land patent awarded to Cupid Stewart [sic] in 1885. (source: Ancestry.com) As of 1893, Steward and his family continued to live on the homestead. A plat of the area shows the boundaries of Steward’s homestead in a hilly area near Mud Creek, a waterway that meandered through the county.

Alabama 1893 plat map displaying the Steward homestead and application number. (source: Ancestry.com)

A photo from around that time period shows a person who the Steward descendants believe to be Mariah Steward on the homestead, the cabin just behind her on the rising hill. The photo was taken by the Russell Brothers studio in Anniston, Alabama. Although the studio was best known for its formal portraits of Alabama high society, one of the Russell brothers traveled throughout the area photographing farmers, skilled workers, and their families.

Figure 4. Mariah Steward on the family homestead. (source: Leathy Evelyn Steward Baker)

By 1900, many things had changed in the Steward household. The 1900 Census shows that Mariah was a widow and was still living on the homestead in dwelling 103, in what was now named Precinct 6, also known as Fackler3 . Mariah lived with her youngest son, Cupid Jr. Her other son, William H. Francis, lived in dwelling 104 with his growing family. Still living nearby in dwellings 100 and 101 were William and James Lovelady, the sons of Lee Lovelady, who had been one of the witnesses for Cupid Steward’s homestead application.

Sometime after 1900, Francis and Cupid Jr. left the homestead. Researchers haven’t yet found documentation that explains when and why they left. In July 1909, Cupid Jr., his wife Anna (neé Harris), Francis, and his wife Eliza (neé Tipton) purchased land in a different area of Jackson County, on Old Fackler Road near Mud Creek, and they established separate farms for their families next to each other. Mariah seems have died by this time. The farms are still owned by the descendants of Cupid and Francis. The original homestead now seems to be uninhabited forest.

The living Steward family descendants do not know where Cupid, Mariah, Cupid Jr., or Francis are buried. The burial site for Cupid’s children is also unknown. It is possible that they are all buried at the homestead, because Cupid Jr.’s daughter, Leathy Steward Baker, used to say that her father was buried “up in the mountain.”

The Steward homestead original location (yellow box) appearing completely forested in a satellite view in 2024. (source: Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources)

Contributor: Andrea Brennan Andrea Brennan is the great-great-granddaughter of Cupid and Mariah (Branch) Steward. She is a retired technical writer and editor living in Illinois. She has been collaborating since 2017 with several cousins to document their family history, and she often travels to Alabama with her father, James Talley, to stay at the farm in Fackler and visit with relatives. James Talley, a retired educator and Master Chief Petty Officer (USN), grew up on the farm that Cupid Jr. and Anna Steward purchased.