Wandering Through My Roots

#12 (catch up) Amanda Metcalf Chaudoin is my 2nd great grandmother. She married William Jefferson Coakley and had four children, one of whom is my great grandfather, Thomas Lewis Coakley, the father of Georgia Mary Coakley, my paternal grandmother.

Amanda was born on 20 March 1848 in Green County, Kentucky. She married William Jefferson Coakley in 1864. She died in October 1876 in Larue County, Kentucky. She was only 28 years old. Her youngest child was 3 years old, her eldest was 11.

There is not much recorded about Amanda but she is listed in a lawsuit brought by her mother’s children from a previous marriage. Her mother was Elizabeth Catherine Carr Young. Amanda’s father married her as a widow following the death of her first husband Ezekiel Young. Ezekiel’s slaves went with Elizabeth to her marriage to Thomas Chaudoin. Elizabeth and Thomas had two children, my Amanda and a brother, Coleman. Upon Elizabeth’s death in 1855, her children by Ezekial brought suit against Amanda’s father, Thomas Chaudoin, as rightful heirs of Ezekiel Young and Elizabeth Carr Young. The seven Young children wanted to “divide up” the slave, Cynthia (26) and her 3 children, Nace (4), Joel (3), and Edmond (<1). They wanted to have another slave, Sam (?), go to Amanda and her brother, Coleman Chaudoin, since they were children of their mother, Elizabeth, as well. Thomas Chaudoin agreed to give up the slaves if the suit was dropped. Amanda and Coleman were only 7 and 4 when the suit was brought so in all practicality, Sam would stay with Thomas Chaudoin.

I can’t imagine the callousness of selling off a young mother and her three tiny children so you could split the money up between these seven older children of Elizabeth.