The Bordens Of Greene County, Alabama

The 1850 Census of Greene County, Alabama lists the following members of the Benjamin Borden household:

Based on the ages and places of birth of Thomas and Harriet, it appears that the family moved to Alabama from North Carolina between 1833 and 1838.

Benjamin's first wife, and the mother of Joseph, Thomas and Harriet, was Margaret Hill. After her death, Benjamin married Martha T. (Cocke) Gray, the widow of John Scott Gray, in November of 1845. Martha was the mother of William and Mary, as well as Benjamin Clayborn (born in 1850), and James Pennington, (born in 1852).

Martha also had four children from her marriage to John Gray. They were Ruffin Gray, John N. Gray, Frances Scott Gray, and Mary S. Gray. Frances (or "Fannie") was born in 1833. She and Joseph were married on February 13, 1851, when he was 21 and she was 18. Ruffin and Joseph were close friends, and enlisted in the Confederate Army at about the same time in 1861. Ruffin was killed at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December of 1862.

Joseph and Fannie, like most educated young people of their time, were good correspondents, and wrote extensively to each other while Joseph was serving in the Confederate Infantry, and Fannie was managing the family property in Alabama. We are fortunate that a number of their letters have been preserved, including, remarkably, many of the letters written by Fannie to Joseph. Apparently, Joseph preserved the letters by carrying them in his back-pack during his years away from home. My mother, Winifred Borden, collected the letters from various family members and compiled them in a privately published book (The Legacy of Fannie and Joseph, Winifred Borden, 1992, Montgomery, Alabama).

Fannie gave birth to eleven children, nine of whom survived to adulthood. Their names and birth dates are

The last five children were born after the family moved to Seabright, California when Joseph came home from the war. There is a sizeable contingent of Borden's still living in California, as well as quite a few in North and South Carolina.

Hartwell returned to Alabama as a young man, and in about 1905, he married a beautiful young widow, Alice Smith Garrett. Alice had a daughter, Elia, from her first marriage. She and Hartwell had four children, Margaret Hill, Edna Gray, Joseph Hartwell, and my dad, John Ruffin, who was born on April 1, 1916.

Thomas R. Borden
Montgomery, Alabama
May 31, 2004