- Notes -

Joseph Cephas was the second son of Jonathan Colbert and Susannah Windham McDonald. According to the census records he was born about 1852 in Troy Alabama.

There is no available information about his having attended school or anything about his early life. I did hear from one relative that there seemed to be a lot of tension regarding the McDonald versus the Windham children. The McDonald kids felt as if the Windham kids were shown favoritism and the story says there was always a problem. If that was true then it likely accounts for the fact that Joseph left home early and found his way south into southern Alabama and the northern part of Florida. We believe that is where he met and married Francis Elizabeth Murphy. That may or may not be so. The family did live in the Nokomas area of Alabama late in the life of Joseph. There is some talk that at some point Joseph followed his son John to Mississippi and worked in the saw milling business but returned back to the family home in Nokomas before he was killed.

There are several stories told about his death. One story tells of his being killed (shot down in his yard as the family watched) by a possee of men who followed him home after he had stolen a chicken. Apparently in this story the possee was waiting for him and followed him home after he did the deed.

The other story is that he was crushed by logs while working in a sawmill near his home. While either story could be the correct one we do know that he kept company with others who did prison time for various offences.

William Hiram told his children that Joseph, after being killed, was not allowed proper burrial in the church cemetery. Instead he was buried outside the fence near the cemetery. No one knows where his grave is or where that church was. There was likely no stone put on that grave.