“…find old Jacob & Mrs Sowder at home and stay there a long while. They are very delightful people and he (who is 70) evidently knows a lot of songs if we can only extract them….the old man eventually sings me quite a lot of interesting modal tunes which delight me greatly. I like him & his wife immensely but Miss Davis gives him a very bad character and tells me he is a foul mouthed backbiter and a degenerate both physical & moral. As he is 70 years of age, very active on his feet & in his mind it is difficult to see the force of the criticism!” –Cecil Sharp’s Diaries.
Dates of Interviews with Sharp: 13, 14 & 17 August, 1918
Age in 1918: 70
DOB: 9 September 1848, Callaway, Franklin County, Virginia.[1]
DOD: 25 September 1922, Franklin County, Virginia.
Cemetery: Sowder Cemetery (Callaway w 2.5 mi), Franklin County, Virginia, USA
Jacob Sowder was a farmer. The 1910 Census lists him as being illiterate.[2] He married Malinda Helms on 20 August 1868[3]. The couple had 8 children.
On the 1900 Census, Jacob Sowder has a black servant (day laborer) named Robert Finney, age 12. He’s listed again in the 1910 census as age 16. In the 1920 census, he’s listed as 18.
Sowder’s roots in Franklin County, Virginia go all the way back to the American Revolution. An ancestor, also named Jacob Sowder, left Pennsylvania to fight with the American patriots as a private in Virginia’s fourth regiment. After his service ended, he married in 1788 and settled in Franklin County[4]. This ancestor married Anna Prillaman, whose family came from Switzerland to escape religious persecution.
Genealogy Charts for Jacob Sowder
Songs Sharp Collected from Jacob Sowder
Sources
[1] Jacob Sowder in the U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current
Accessed: 4/4/2016 11:42:33 AM
In the various censuses he’s mentioned in Sowder’s birthdate varies. Jacob Sowder’s birth year is given as 1848 in the Virginia, Select Marriages, 1785-1940 database. In the 1900 Federal Census his birth month is Sept but his birth year is 1849. Ancestry.com. Virginia, Select Marriages, 1785-1940 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, 2014.
[2] 1910 Census, Place: Blackwater, Franklin, Virginia; Roll: T624_1629; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 0031; FHL microfilm: 1375642, Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910 (NARA microfilm publication T624, 1,178 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
[3] Virginia, Select Marriages, 1785-1940 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, 2014. Original data: Virginia, Marriages, 1785-1940. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.
[4] Dodd, Jordan. Virginia, Marriages, 1660-1800 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1997. And Yates Publishing. U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Accessed 4/4/2016 12:06:38 PM
Cecil Sharp in Virginia 