Charley Patton Census Records

Census Records Shed Light on Charley (Charlie) Patton

Charlie Patton

Recently, a reader of this site by the name of Jeff Giambrone came across some interesting information, and passed it along to me.

To my knowledge, this information has not been published before.

Census Records have been discovered for Charley Patton (spelled Charlie) in the 1900 Census Records for Hinds County.  They show Charlie living with his parents and siblings.

These documents also provide more insight into his actual birthdate, which has been a mystery for years, as well as a possible connection to his birthplace.

Read more below to see images of the actual records, and see why this information is so important.

First, let’s go ahead and post these so they can be seen.  You can click on them for a larger size.

The enumeration was completed by LM Jackson on June 16th, 1900.

So as you can see, on about line 5 of the second image is the information on Charley.  This clarifies a few things.

For one, we know the spelling of his name to be Charlie, not Charley.  This fits with the story that Charlie himself spelled it this way, even though others spelled it with a “y”.  This is good information, as this document helps to solidify the fact that his name was spelled properly.

Secondly, and possible the most important, we see that Charlie was born on April in 1891.  This information could rewrite history, as Patton’s age on his death certificate lists him as 44, and having died in 1934.  This would give him a birthdate of 1890.  This is younger than even his sister’s reported.  However, this new document lists him as being born in 1891, which would actually make him 43 at the time of his death.  Being that the dates are so close, and the death certificate information was provided by a witness, and the above document information was provided by family, it is safe to assume this is the correct birthdate.  For this reason alone, this document is a major find.

Being that this shows that Patton lived in Hinds County, the pace of his birth until at least June of 1900, it also proves that Charlie moved to the Delta AFTER the delta style of blues and guitar was already formed.  This is also very important, as it sheds light on the fact that Charlie did indeed have to learn the style, and did not create it.  This is an important discovery, as it puts Charlie further away form the creation of the delta style than once believed.

You can also see on the document Charlie’s parents and siblings listed, which proves the document is for the correct Patton Family.  It lists Charlie’s dad Bill as a farmer, which gels with previous research.  It also shows that Bill – and most likely his family, had been in the home for 7 years, and that Bill himself had no education.  It also shows the family was renting the home.  It also looks like two of Patton’s sisters were in school at the time of the enumeration, though Charlie was not listed as being in school.  The document also shows that the whole Patton family is from a lineage born in Mississippi.

This is an important discovery in the world of blues, as documents often are.   It helps to solidify Patton’s birthdate, which before this document, was not known.  It also proves he lived in Hinds County at least through June of 1900, verifying that he moved to the Delta after the style was created.

Congratulations go out to Jeff Giambrone, for a wonderful find.  Keep it up!

~ by thedeltablues on October 12, 2009.