by Karen Yvonne Hamilton, 2024

Justin Everett KNOWLES was born on January 8, 1847, in Long Island, Bahamas, to John Thomas KNOWLES (1803-1891 Bahamas) and Hannah Elizabeth PRANCE (1814-1866 Bahamas).

SIBLINGS

In 1850, Justin lived in Key West with his parents and siblings. In 1860, the family was living on Cudjoe Key.

MARRIAGE

He married Jane Ann HOPKINS on May 11, 1865, in Key West, Florida. 

Jane Ann HOPKINS Knowles

A few months after her marriage to Justin in 1865, Jane Ann’s parents, James Hopkins and Frances Elizabeth HARRARD Hopkins contracted yellow fever and died on the same day, August 11, 1865 on Knockemdown Key. They left behind four children ranging from 12 years old to five. Jane Ann took into her own household her siblings, Charles and Henrietta. She and Justin may have also taken in the younger boys, James and John.

Life on the Florida Keys had to have been hard enough just trying to provide food and shelter amidst turbulent weather and isolation from medical care and other people. James and Frances Hopkins would have had no help as they lay dying of yellow fever. In the extreme southern areas of Florida, the threat of yellow fever lasted all year round (Huffard, 84). As Key West had a port that brought goods from the tropics, it also brought yellow fever. And from there and other southern ports, an American epidemic was born. Life in those times were fraught with fear, grief, treatments that were often as horrendous as the virus, quarantines, collapsed economies, and crippled transportation. (Read more here Yellow Jack or the Yellow Plague in Florida.

By the summer of 1866, Justin’s mother, Hannah Prance, died in Key West, 20 days after giving birth to George Washington on May 7, 1866. It was not unusual for women to retreat to Key West, some 20 miles west of Cudjoe Key, for the medical expertise in childbirth, so Hannah probably had gone there when her time for childbirth was near. There is no record of what she died of, although we can assume it had to do with the birth of baby George. Now motherless, the infant George was taken in to be raised by Justin and his wife, Jane Ann Hopkins in Key West.

In 1868, around the time when the Ten-Year War in Cuba started, Justin and Jane lived in Key West, as did others in the Hopkins family, who appear to have moved from Georgia to Florida at some point between 1847 and 1865. The Hopkins may have left Georgia due to the Civil War.

Between 1866 and 1869, the couple added their own children to the household:

*George Washington (1866-1949)

*Silas Everett (1868-1938)

*Hannah Elizabeth (1869-1943)

Justin’s father, John Thomas Knowles, lived on Cudjoe Key in 1870. In his 60s, he had never learned to read or write. Justin was 22 years old and lived with Jane Ann nearby on Knockemdown Key. Living in Justin and Jane’s household were their two-year-old son, Silas, and Justin’s little brother, George, who was now 3 years old. Recall that Jane’s parents had died leaving several small children which Justin and Jane Ann were now raising, Charles was now 16 and Henrietta was 10.

In 1870, Justin and Jane’s growing family lived in Key West where Justin worked as a farmer. Between 1873 and 1880, they added two more children of their own:

*James Everett (1873-1905)

*Clara Dena (1879-1961)

In 1880, Justin’s family lived at 444 Frances St in Key West where he worked as a seaman. He and Jane welcomed three more of their own children to the household:

*Alfred ‘Tukie’ Pillage (1882-1960)

*Leonora ‘Lela’ (1884-1967)

*Belle Corrine (1889-1962)

In 1890, the family lived at 1126 Virginia St (which he owned free and clear) in Key West where Justin worked as a sponger.

Justin died on December 29, 1900, in Key West, Florida, at the age of 53 and was buried there.

[1] In research, Frances Elizabeth’s last name is spelled differently on many documents. Harriede. Harrod. Most legal documents use ‘Harrard’, so that is what I use here. Her first name is often misspelled ‘Francis’. Again, I go by legal documents rather than census records.

[2] That the Hopkins died of yellow fever is family lore; it has not been verified. Yellow Fever epidemics were a frequent occurrence at that time. Jane Ann did record in her mother’s bible that her parents died on the same day, however.

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NOTE: Any additional info or photos would be appreciated.

SOURCES: Ancestry.com, United States Federal Census Records, Bensel’s Directory of The City and Island of Key West 1888, Yellow Jack or the Yellow Plague in Florida.

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