The Lyles Family 2021 update: See Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware (2021), page 2. Mary Liles was married to Jack, a slave of Hugh Redgley, by Rev. Jacob Henderson about 1712 in Baltimore County, Maryland, and had five children by 1728 [Court Proceedings, 1728-30, Liber HWS#6, 29-30]- P.H.
THE LYLES FAMILY IN COLONIAL VIRGINIA
JAMES LYLE
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John (b. about 1774)
by Arlene B. Polk
It is not known which of the States, James Lyle was born in, but it is likely that he was born about 1750, near Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia, and was possibly a son or brother of John Lyle, who appears as a free black male and head of a household on the 1820 census for Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia. John Lyle of Henrico County, Virginia, may have been the grandfather of Jonathan Lyle, who is listed as the free black head of a household of five individuals on the 1840 Henrico County, Virginia census. In 1799, James Lyle, is listed as a free mulatto, on the personal property tax list of Powhatan County, west of nearby Henrico County, in central Virginia and tithed for himself and his ownership of one horse.(1)
There were other free persons of color that appear on early records in Virginia, with the surname, "Lyle," and they each may have been direct or distant relatives of James Lyle. Peter Lyle, who may have been a brother or son of James Lyle, appears as a free black male on the 1801, 1802 and 1810 personal property tax list of nearby Goochland County, Virginia, located just north of Powhatan County, Virginia. Peter Lyle is also listed as over the age of forty-five and as the head of a household on the 1820 census for Goochland County, Virginia. Sarah Lyle, appears as a free black female head of household on the 1820 census in Berkeley County, Virginia, where a fifty-five year old Peter Lyles, perhaps Sarah’s son, appears a generation later on the 1840 census and on the 1850 census with his wife Maria, their eighteen year old daughter, Sarah J, and three other children.(2)
About 1800, James Lyle moved with his children from Powhatan County, Virginia to Henry County, Virginia, where James Lyle is named as a head of household on the 1813 and 1814 Free Mulattoes and Negroes Schedules of the personal property tax listings. William Lyle and Sally Lyle, more than likely also relatives of James Lyle, are named as heads of their separate households on the Free Mulattoes and Negroes Schedules of the Henry County 1813 personal property tax listing. There are other familiar surnames of Virginia free persons of color on the Free Mulattoes and Negroes Schedules for Henry County, including, Cousins, Roberts, Goings and Stuart.(3)
John Lile, the son of James Lyle, moved with his family from Henry County, Virginia, prior to 1812, to Robertson County, Tennessee. His father, James Lyle, moved to Tennessee to rejoin his son sometime after 1814, where James Lyle appears as a head of household on the census in neighboring Montgomery County, Tennessee.(4) John Lile, with his family, appears on both the 1820 and 1830 Robertson County, Tennessee censuses.(5) Colonel Joseph Hopson, an American Revolutionary War veteran and resident of Montgomery County, Tennessee, who had lived, as the Lile family did in Henry County, Virginia, attested on April 23, 1823, to the Montgomery County, Tennessee Courts that James, Patsy, Daniel, John, Joshua and Mahala Liles were free persons in Henry County, Virginia. The Tennessee Court then entered Judgment on July 1, 1823, finding the Liles family members, Free Persons.(6)
It is likely that James Lyle migrated with his son’s family to Gibson County, Indiana, as an elderly male, older than John Lile, is living in the household according to the 1840 census for Gibson County, Indiana.
Endnotes:
1. U.S. Census of 1820, Richmond City, Henrico County, Virginia, roll M33_132, page 234, household of John Lyle. U.S. Census of 1840, Henrico County, Virginia, roll 561, page 269, image 579, household of Jonathan Lyle. See 1799 Powhatan County, Virginia personal property tax list (Library of Virginia reel 57). It is possible that the Lyles family migrated into Virginia from the State of Maryland, as there are numerous black families on the pre-1870 censuses with various spellings of the surname "Lyles" in that State.2. Goochland County, Virginia 1801, 1802 and 1810 personal property tax lists (Library of Virginia reel 136). U.S. Census of 1820, Goochland County, Virginia, roll M33_139, page 12, image 23, household of Peter Lyle; and, it likely Peter’s wife, Sylvie Lile, who is listed as a free person on the 1830 census, Goochland County, Virginia. See also U.S. Census of 1820, Middletown, Berkeley County, Virginia, roll M33_129, page 100, image 113, household of Sarah Lyle. U.S. Census of 1840, Martinsburg, Berkeley County, Virginia, roll 551, page 184, image 381 and U.S. Census of 1850, Martinsburg, Berkeley County, Virginia, roll M432_936; page 342, image 68, households of Peter Lyles. Note that Berkeley County became a part of West Virginia in 1862.
3. Free Mulattoes and Negroes Schedules to the Henry County, Virginia personal property tax lists for 1813 and 1814 (Library of Virginia reel 194).
4. U.S. Census of 1820, Montgomery County, Tennessee, roll M33_122, page 234, image 197, household of James Lyle. It is difficult to know whether this is the household of John Lile’s father, James Lyle, or John Lile’s son, James Lyle, as there are no enumerations on the census other than an indication that there is only one individual in the household. It is likely the household of the elder James Lyles, as during this period of time many older Americans did not know their actual age and despite the use of age ranges on the early census, perhaps this explains the absence of enumerations for James Lyle. 5. U.S. Census of 1820, Springfield, Robertson County, Tennessee, roll M33_125, page 35, image 49 and U.S. Census of 1830, Robertson County, Tennessee, M19_179, page 376, households of John Lile. 6. See Attestation of Liles family members dated April 23, 1823 at p. 169, and Judgment finding Liles family members free persons entered July 1, 1823, County Court Minutes of Montgomery County, Tennessee, Vol. 2, 1823 – 1824, transcribed April, 1942, by The Tennessee Historical Records Survey, Division of Community Services Programs, Work Projects Administration and maintained by the County Archives of Tennessee. See also the Court’s Order mandating the attestation of Col. Hopson be recorded with the Court dated April 23, 1823 at p. 167 of County Court Minutes of Montgomery County, Tennessee, ibid, Mountain Press publication compilation of transcriptions of Montgomery County, Tennessee County Court Minutes at p. 104 (Mountain Press 2010). Note the WPA transcribes Patsy Liles as "Betsy" Liles.
THE SETTLEMENT OF LYLES STATION BY FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS
JOHN LILES
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James (1792) Daniel (b. 1795) John (b. 1798) Joshua (b. 1800)
Tabitha (b. 1812) Sanford (b. 1813)
John Liles may have been born in 1774, in Henrico County, Virginia, the son of James Lyle. John Liles moved from Virginia to Tennessee sometime prior to 1812, and is found on the 1820 census for Springfield, Robertson County, Tennessee, living as a free man of color, in a household with five males (including, himself) and six females.(1) John Liles’ father, James Lyle, is listed as a free man on the 1820 census in Montgomery County, Tennessee.(2) There were four other households on the 1820 census, headed by free men in Robertson County, Tennessee. They were the households of Robert Benson, Reuben Goen, Phillip Silver and Herbert Stewart. In addition to James Lyles, there were four households headed by free black men in Montgomery County, Tennessee, those of Thomas Allcock, Frederic Hammond, Ransom Sexton and Ambrose Davis.(3) The U.S. government bought West Tennessee from the Chickasaw Indians in 1818, and opened it up for settlement in 1820. Rich and poor residents of the colonial States sought to move to the western Tennessee wilderness because the colonial States were overdeveloped and crowded; the price of land in the colonial States was expensive for the quality of land available; and, top soil was quickly depleting, while fertilizer was hard to come by in the colonial States, making western Tennessee extremely attractive.
There is no way to know what prompted the Lyles and the other free African American families to move from Tennessee to Indiana, but the Robertson County, Tennessee Court Minutes from 1823-1824, point out that in 1823, Herbert Stewart, Reuben Goen, Henry Going, Philip Silver and Cornelius Wilson, were arrested for rioting (akin to a modern day breach of the peace offense), and were indicted in August of 1824. Henry Going posted bond for everyone except Philip Silver and Cornelius Wilson, who posted their own bonds. The outcome of the rioting trial is unknown. On February 20, 1824, Herbert Stewart also lost a civil suit on a debt owed Henry Stratton, and Stewart was forced to sell forty acres of land to repay the debt. Six years later, on February 12, 1830, an indictment is returned for rioting against John Liles’ sons, James, John and Daniel Lyle, for rioting. James Lyle was found not guilty, but nothing is known of what happened in John and Daniel’s cases. In August of 1836, John Liles’ sons, James and Sanford were charged with offenses, but nothing is known of the nature or the outcome of those cases.(4) The continuous arrests and indictments of these young black men for the offense of rioting may have been enough to motivate the free black families living in Tennessee in the early 1800s, to move north.
An Indiana story tells of how John Liles’sons, Joshua and Sanford, traveled from Tennessee to Indiana, prior to 1840, as newly freed slaves and settled an area now known as Lyles Station in southwestern Indiana, with money purportedly given them by a former slave owner. The settling of Lyles Station, Indiana, in 1840, however, should also be properly attributed to their father, John. The remainder of the story is a myth. Colonel Joseph Hopson, an American War veteran and resident of Montgomery County, Tennessee, who had lived as the Liles family did, in Henry County, Virginia, attested to the Montgomery County, Tennessee Courts that James, Patsy, Daniel, John, Joshua and Mahalia Liles were free persons in Henry County, Virginia.(5) John Liles and his father or son, James, are not only on the 1820 Robertson County and Montgomery County, Tennessee censuses as free heads of household but, John Liles can also later be seen living as a free man in Robertson County, Tennessee, on the 1830 census. John Liles’ other sons, Daniel and Joshua, and his daughter, Tabitha, were also heading their own households as free persons at the same time on the 1830 Robertson County, Tennessee census.(6) It is clear, therefore, that neither John Liles nor his children were born slaves.
By 1840, John Liles had moved from Tennessee, with his sons, Joshua and Sanford, to what is now, Lyles Station, Indiana.(7) John Liles probably died in Indiana, prior to 1850. John Liles may have, therefore, only lived in Indiana a few years before his death. This may explain why the attribution to John Liles in founding and originally settling the black community in southwestern Indiana, became lost.
Not only should John Liles’ contribution to the early settling of what is now known as Lyles Station be remembered, but with the advancement of technology, including the internet, and advances in genealogical research, it should be known that most, if not all of the earliest settlers, were free persons, who were descended from generations of African Americans who also lived free in their native Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Kentucky. Further, it is unlikely that the early settlers of Lyles Station were given money to resettle by a white slave owner, as the settlers had not been slaves. Their ability to survive the harsh frontier settlement of southwestern Indiana, was not dependent upon the largesse of a white slaveholder, but was more properly due to pooling their resources, their own toil and the love of their families and their freedom. These are simply the same attributes given to all other early American pioneers. Perhaps, with the "truth" that the technological and genealogical advances have now uncovered, we too can be set free.(8)
Endnotes:
1. U.S. Census of 1820, Springfield, Robertson County, Tennessee, roll M33_125, page 35, image 49, household of John Liles (the enumerated females in the household of John Liles may include his spouse, his daughter(s) and the wives of his sons, John, Joshua and/or Daniel). Angeline (Ann) Patsy Wilson, who may have been a sister of Cornelius Wilson, is reported to have been the wife of John Liles, but this remains unsubstantiated.
2. U.S. Census of 1820, Montgomery County, Tennessee, roll M33_122, page 234, image 197, household of James Lyle.
3. U.S. Census of 1820, Springfield, Robertson County, Tennessee, ibid.
4. See Robertson County, Tennessee Court Minutes (1815-1824), Books 6 and 7, Genealogical Society of Utah (Salt Lake City, Utah) reels 2 and 3 at pp. 243, 245, 437, 464, 488-489 and 558, transcribed by the Tennessee Historical Records Div. of the Work Projects Administration (WPA), Nashville, Tenn. 1941; and, Court Minutes (1830-1836), Books 9 at p. 543 and 10 at p. 33.
5. See Attestation dated April 23, 1823 at p. 169 and Judgment finding the Liles family members Free Persons entered July 1, 1823, in County Court Minutes of Montgomery, Tennessee, Vol. 2, 1823-1824 (Archives of Montgomery County, Tennessee).
6. U.S. Census of 1830, Robertson County, Tennessee, roll M19_179, page 376, households of Joshua, Tabitha, John Lile and Daniel Lyle. See also Carter G. Woodson, Free Negro Heads of Families In the United States In 1830, p. 161, pub. The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Inc., Washington, D.C. 1825; and, Terry Houtaling Nolcox, Pro-Slavery Settlers Found Ways to Evade the Law at p. 1, Princeton Daily Clarion newspaper’s "Today" section, Feb. 10, 1992 (Indiana).
7. U.S. Census of 1840, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M704_81, page 19, household of John Lisles (father of James, Joshua, John, Daniel Sanford and Tabitha). The census reveals that there are two elderly males in the household, and one may be John Liles’ father, James Lyle. There is also a woman John Liles’ age in the household and this is thought to be John’s wife, Angeline (Ann) Patsy Wilson Liles.
8. The video, Joshua’s Battle, which includes scenes showing the author Carl C. Lyles, interviewed by two university professors, reveals that the academicians researched the Tennessee and Indiana census records and determined that Joshua Lyles was free as early as 1830. The video clearly reveals, however, that Carl Lvles was completely unaware of this information before the professors tell him. It is apparent that Carl Lyles had never researched whether Joshua Lyles was ever a slave before asserting it as fact in his book.
JOSHUA LYLES marries CARPARTA
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Susan Ann (b. 1828) Joseph (b. 1830) Joel (b. 1831) Angeline (b. 1833)
Drusilla (b. 1835) Mildred (b. 1837) Isaac (b. 1840) Mahala (b. 1842)
Jacob (b. 1843) Jonathan (b. 1844) John (b. 1847) Joshua (b. 1849)
John Liles and his sons, Joshua Lyles, born in Henry County, Virginia in 1800,(1) and Sanford Lyles, who was born in Robertson County, Tennessee in 1813,(2) were the founders and original settlers of Lyles Station, an African American settlement in Patoka Township, five miles west and one mile north of Princeton, Gibson County, Indiana. On the 1813 and 1814 Free Negroes and Mulattoes Schedules of the personal property tax list for Henry County, Virginia, are found John Liles’ father, James, and Sally and William Lyle, all living in separate households and Sally and William are undoubtedly relatives of John Liles. On the lists are other familiar surnames of Virginia free blacks: Cousins, Roberts, Goings and Stuart.(1)
By 1820, John Liles was living as a free man in Springfield, Robertson County, Tennessee. At the same time, John Liles’ father, James, was living as a free man in Montgomery County, Tennessee. The Liles brothers and their father were reportedly given money by a slave master to resettle in a northern state. This is, however, a myth as Col. Joseph Hopson, a white American Revolutionary War veteran and resident of Montgomery County, Tennessee, who had lived as the Lyles family did, in Henry County, Virginia, attested to the Montgomery County, Tennessee Courts that James, Patsy, Daniel, John, Joshua and Mahalia Liles were free persons in Henry County, Virginia. It is more probable that those other early black families that settled in Gibson County, Indiana, before 1840, were also free persons that, prior to moving, sold all of their realty and personal possessions, pooled their money, and selected a literate Joshua Lyles to purchase their land in Indiana.(3)
In 1830, John Liles and his children, Daniel (b. 1795, in Virginia), Joshua (b. 1800), and Tabitha (b. 1812, in Tennessee) lived in separate households as free people of color in Robertson County, Tennessee. The 1830 Tennessee census reflects that there were thirteen free black families living in Robertson County: the families of John Lile, Daniel Lyle, Joshua Lile, Tabitha Lile, Wilson Portee, Bob Stewart, Herbert Stewart, Edmund Stewart, Harrison Chavous, Patsy Chavous, William Silver, Philip Silver and Bennet Mitchell.
Prior to 1840, John Liles and the Lyles siblings left Tennessee, with their families, and traveled along the Ohio river, through Kentucky to Indiana, where in Patoka Township, near the White, Wabash and Patoka rivers, John Liles settled with his father, James, his wife and his young son, Sanford, in Gibson County, Indiana, where his older son, Joshua Lyles, purchased 1,200 acres of government land. Daniel Lyles settled with his wife, Nancy Nolcox Lyles, and family in Union township, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, where he was a farmer. In 1840, John Liles’ son, John, settled in Pigeon township, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, but then moved to Gibson County where he appears on the 1850 census. James Lyles remained in Robertson County, Tennessee, where he married Rebecca White, and bought land in 1837. Nothing more is known of John Liles’ eldest son, James, except that he appears to have visited the Thomas Cole household in Gibson County, Indiana, where he is seen on the 1860 census. Ten black families were listed as free persons of color living in Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, in 1840: the families of Nelson Bass, Joel Stewart, John A. Morland, Robert Cole, Banister Chaves, Joshua Lisles, Thomas McDaniel, John Lisles, Isaac Williams and Duke Anderson. Lyles Station was established in 1849, and still exists today. The Agricultural Schedule of the 1850 census reveals that Joshua Lyles had 60 improved acres, 260 unimproved acres, 4 horses, 10 cows, and 50 swine. The Lyles farm produced 150 lbs. of butter, 10 lbs of maple sugar, 60 lbs of honey and 500 bushels of Indian corn. The cash value of the farm was $500, the farm implements and machinery were valued at $10, livestock was valued at $247 and the value of the animals slaughtered was assessed at $99. From 1849, until the end of the Civil War in 1865, Joshua and Sanford Lyles traveled back to Tennessee and brought freed blacks to Indiana to settle Lyles Station. Joshua sold these later settlers the land on which they built their homes and farms. Joshua, Sanford and their brother, John Lyles, who married Malinda MacDaniels, July 28, 1836, in Vanderburgh County, Indiana, were farmers in Lyles Station and could read and write. Tabitha married Joseph Ferguson, March 22, 1839, in Vanderburgh County, Indiana. Prior to her death on December 31, 1890, Tabitha Lyles Ferguson, had two daughters, Isabel and Tabitha.(4)
Lyles Station, incorporated in 1886, was a thriving community following the Civil War, and from 1880-1913, was an entirely self-sustaining African American settlement, having a population of 800, a train station, 55 homes, a post office, school, lumber mill, blacksmith, cemetery, two grocery stores, a band stand and a church. Joshua Lyles donated the land to the Airline Railroad for the building of the train station along the Louisville-St. Louis line, in 1870, which allowed the Lyles Station farmers to export their goods to Princeton. During the early 19th century, Indiana had at least twenty black settlements, and Lyles Station was the largest and one of the oldest of these early American communities.(5)
Joshua Lyles was married to Carparta (she was commonly called "Clara"), who was born in Albemarle county, Virginia in 1802, and they had twelve children: Susan Ann, Joseph, Joel, Drusilla, Angeline, Mildred, all born in Tennessee, as well as Isaac, Mahala, Jacob, Jonathan, John and Joshua, all born in Indiana.(6) Carparta, could neither read nor write, and died around 1875. Joshua lived with his family in Lyles Station until his death around 1885.(7)
Sanford Lyles, the youngest of the Lyles brothers, married Harriet, born in 1805, and with their son, Joshua, who was born in 1840, lived across the street from his brother, Joshua. Sanford died shortly after Harriet, who died on August 23, 1882, in Gibson County, Indiana.(8)
Just imagine – John Liles, his children, and their families, were living as free persons in the South and southwestern Indiana, more than a generation before the beginning of the Civil War and the legal abolition of slavery in the United States of America
Endnotes:
1. U.S. Census of 1850, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M432_147, page 6, image 12 and U.S. Census of 1870, Patoka Gibson County, Indiana, roll M593_316, page 338, image 676, Joshua Lyles household. It appears that the name earlier oftentimes spelled "Liles" was consistently spelled "Lyles" by 1880. See also Negro Registry of Gibson County, Indiana (c. 1852).
2. U.S. Census of 1860, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M653_260, page 1083, image 574 and U.S. Census of 1870, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M593_316, page 338, image 677, Sanford Lyles household.
3. Ibid. Henry County, Virginia personal property tax list of 1813 and 1814 (Library of Virginia reel 194). U.S. Census of 1820, Springfield, Robertson County, Tennessee, roll M33_125, page 35, image 49, household of John Liles (the enumerated females in the household of John Liles may include his spouse, his daughter(s) and the wives of his sons, John, Joshua and/or Daniel). U.S. Census of 1820, Montgomery County, Tennessee, roll M33_122, page 234, image 197, household of James Lyle. See Attestation dated April 23, 1823 at p. 169, and Judgment of Free Persons for Liles family members entered July 1, 1823, Montgomery County, Tennessee Court Minutes, Vol. 2, 1823-1824 (Montgomery County, Tennessee Archives). See also Emma Lou Thornbourgh, The Negro in Indiana, pp. 47, 134, 229, Indiana Univ. Press (1993), it should be noted that the author erroneously attributes the Lyles’ origins to North Carolina. The author, Thornbourgh, also indicates that Daniel and his son, Thomas Lyles owned 360 acres of land in Gibson County, Indiana. Ibid. at p. 134. Rebecca C. Zorich and Cornelius O’Brien, Our Historical Perspective, African-American Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, vol. 1, issue 1 at p. 3 (1995). See also, Slaves Sought Freedom, Princeton Indiana Genealogy, Lyles Station Historical Preservation Corp. (2000); Bill Shaw, A Beacon of History, The Indianapolis Star newspaper (1997). Carl C. Lyles, Lyles Station in Indiana: Yesterday and Today, Evansville Office of Development, Indiana State University Press (1984), where the author Carl C. Lyles, a direct descendant of the Greer family, notes that there were ex-slaves living in Lyles Station, particularly the Greer family that arrived in Gibson County from Alabama, after 1840, headed by a white slave master, Levi Greer, and his female slave with their children. Once in Indiana, however, Greer emancipated his family. Ibid. at p. 4. See Deeds of Land reflecting purchases of land by Sanford and James Lyles, Robertson County, Tenn. Deed Book Z, August 23, 1836 at pp. 29-30 (purchase of land by Sanford Lyles from John F. Johnson) and Deed Book Z, November 4, 1837 at pp. 353 and 354 (purchase of land by James Lyles from Lorenzo Hox). It is also clear from the Robertson County, Tennessee Court’s Road Orders that John Lyles and Daniel Lyles had land in the County. See Robertson County Court Minutes, December Term 1836, Book 11 at p. 168 and Book 12 at p. 43.
4. Ibid. See also U.S. Census of 1830, Robertson County, Tennessee, roll M19_ 179, page 376, image 8, households of Joshua, Tabitha, John Lile and Daniel Lyle; See also Carter G. Woodson’s Free Negro Heads of Families in the United States, ibid. at p. 161 (Robertson County, Tenn.). See U.S. Census of 1840, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M704_81, page 36, household of Joshua Lisles. U.S. Census of 1840, Pigeon township, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, roll M704_96, page 337, household of John Liles (son of John Liles), and U.S. Census of 1840, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M704_ 81, page 19, household of John Lisles (father of Joshua, John, Daniel, Sanford and Tabitha), it is likely that Sanford and Tabitha are among the enumerated individuals in their father, John Liles’ household on the 1840 Indiana census. See also, Robertson County, Tennessee Court Minutes, Free Person Attestation of James Liles for Rebecca White Liles, December Term 1840, Book 11, p. 355 and Robertson County, Tennessee Deed Book Z, sale of property to James Liles by Lorenzo Hox, November 4, 1837, pp. 353-354. See also, U.S. Census of 1860, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M653_260, page 1081, image 572, household of Tabitha Lyle; See Marriage Record of Indiana, marriage of Tabitha Lyle and Joseph Ferguson, March 22, 1839, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, Book 1, page 70. U.S. Census of 1850, Union, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, roll M432,_176, page 503, image 535, household of Daniel Lyle; however, from 1860 until approximately 1870, Daniel Lyles also lived in Lyles Station. See U.S. Census of 1860, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M653_260, page 1079, image 570, household of Daniel Lyle. See also, Randy K. Mills, They Defended Themselves Nobly: A Story of African American Empowerment in Evansville, Indiana, 1857, Black History News and Notes, the Indiana Historical Society Library, Indianapolis, Ind., August 2005, Vol. – Issue 101 ( an account of the Daniel Lyles family in Vanderburgh County, Indiana). U.S. Census of 1850, White River, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M432_147, p. 74, image 149, household of John Lyles (son of John Liles). See also Non-population (agricultural) Schedule to the U.S. Census of 1850, Patoka township, Gibson County, Indiana, image 9, (from microfilm at Indiana State Archives, Indianapolis, Ind.), agricultural assessments for Joshua Lyles and summaries of agricultural schedules to the U.S. Census for 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880.
5. Ibid. See also, The Fort Wayne Evening Sentinel, No Whites Live There, July 26, 1902 (Indiana). This newspaper article was probably the first written account of Joshua Lyles as a former slave. There are, however, no sources cited in the article that confirm the statement. The assertion was then realleged without any authority cited by Carl Lyles in his book and as, recently as 2002, reasserted again without proof. See, The Story of Joshua and Sanford Lyles. Black History News and Notes, Indianapolis, Ind., August 2002, Vol.-Issue 89.
6. U.S. Census of 1850, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M432_147, page 6, image 12, Joshua Lyles household (note that Carparta is misidentified as "Cleopatra") and U.S. Census of 1860, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M653_260, page 1080, image 571, Joshua Lyles household. There may have been a younger child born to Joshua and Carparta Lyles, Peggy Ann, who is listed as a four year old on the Negro Registry for Gibson County, Indiana (c. 1852). Peggy Ann Lyles can also be seen on the Indiana 1860 census as an 11 year old child in the home of Joshua Lyles. It should also be noted that author, Carl C. Lyles, whose paternal grandfather was Jonathan Lyles, misidentifies Joshua Lyles’ wife as "Mary Jane," which is actually the name of Carl Lyles’ great aunt, the sister of his maternal great grandmother, Ann Greer. Lyles Station in Indiana: Yesterday and Today, ibid. at p. 2. The Negro Registry List of Gibson County Indiana (c. 1852), the listing mandated by the 1850 Indiana law, compelling the identities of each free black person living in the State’s counties, notes that Carparta was born in Albemarle County, Virginia. Carparta may have been the daughter of Thomas Allcock, who was living as a free man in Montgomery County, Tennessee in 1820, see U.S. Census of 1820, Montgomery County, Tennessee, roll M33_122, page 233, image 192. Carparta would be the sister of Nancy Nolcox (the wife of Daniel Lyles), see ibid. at fn. 4, and Western Nolcox, see U.S. Census of 1850, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M593_316, page 338, household of Western Nolcox (it is believed that the surname "Allcock" or "Alcox" became more popularly known as "Nolcox" in later years, i.e., see the Nelson and Elizabeth Alcox family, U.S. Census of 1850, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, ibid, household of Nelson Alcox). 7. U.S. Census of 1880, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, e.d. 115, roll T9_279, page 372.3, image 0525, Joshua Lyles household. All certain dates of birth or death given for members of the Lyles, Cole families and Frank and Mary Coney Jones, may also have been ascertained, in part, from personal reviews of those individuals’ gravesites at Sand Hill Cemetery in Lyles Station, Indiana.8. U.S. Census of 1870, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, roll M593_316, page 338, image 676, household of Sanford Lyles; U.S. Census of 1880, Patoka, Gibson County, Indiana, e.d. 115, roll T9_279, page 370.4, image 0522, household of Sanford Lyles; see also Record of Indiana Deaths (1882-1920), death of Harriet Lyles, Book CH-25, page 3.