James Wesley COTTINGHAM

     James Wesley COTTINGHAM, son of John H. COTTINGHAM and Obedience BROWN, was born in December 1822 in Lowndes County, Alabama.

James Wesley COTTINGHAM purchased a government land patent 2 February 1852 in Crenshaw County, Alabama. From the Cahaba Land Office he bought 38.625 acres in the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 4 of township 12-N, range 17-E.²

James married Georgia A. Shaw on 17 December 1865 in Lowndes County, Alabama. The service was performed by Rev. D. J. Murphy. The bond was co-signed by the bride's brother, William M. Shaw.³

John H. COTTINGHAM Jr.,James Wesley COTTINGHAM and Charles Washington COTTINGHAM were mentioned in a letter received by Arthur W. Bell, Sr. from his father Augustus Poole Bell in March 1929: "The name of your mother's father's family is Cottingham. I knew two of her uncles in 1868. Washington and Wesley. They were living on the old home place. Their father had died. The old man was well off, owned a medium sized plantation and slaves to cultivate it. He lived in a nice house. He gave your mother¹s father, John Cottingham, a good education and made a Methodist preacher out of him. The accomplished young John Cottingham met and married a Miss Caldwell, the first child was a son, Rufus. Four years later, in October 1858, the second child was born, a daughter Mary, destine to be your mother. Your mother and her brother Rufus were, in build, features and complexion purely Cottinghams. Their father, Their Uncle Wash, and his son Warner, were the same all alike. Wesley didn¹t look to be any kin to them. They were all honorable men. John, your mother¹s father, was poor; he barely made a living at preaching, and he wouldn¹t work. He had a little property. He died when your mother was three years old. Her grandfather gave her a Negro youth. Her mother married after the war was over, a young man five or six years her junior, after having the offer of a man who was tolerably well to do. But she chose Snead because she thought he would be good to her two children, which he was, and exception in that respect, but he was a poor worker and no manager. It was her management that kept soul and body together, she wore the breeches, she advised him and forced him too. Our Uncle Rufus died January 1875 from relapse of pneumonia in Dallas, Texas."⁴

James Wesley COTTINGHAM and Georgia A. Shaw appeared as head of household on a census enumerated 13 August 1870 in Sandy Ridge, Lowndes County, Alabama. The household was listed as J. W. Cottingham, a 47-year-old farmer and Georgia, his 34-year-old wife. Also in the household were daughters Martha, 13, and Lida Ada, 10.⁵

James Wesley COTTINGHAM and Georgia A. Shaw appeared as head of household on a census enumerated 9 June 1880 in Sandy Ridge, Lowndes County, Alabama. The household was listed as J. W. Cottingham, a 57-year-old farmer, and his 43-year-old wife, Georgia A. Living with them was their 23-year-old daughter, Mattie E.

James Wesley COTTINGHAM appeared as head of household on a census enumerated 19 June 1900 in Surles, Crenshaw County, Alabama. The household was listed as Wesley Cottingham, a 77-year-old widow, born December 1822, and his daughter, Mattie Edwards, a 45-year-old widow. She was born in 1855. He next door to the households of Warner and John W. Cottingham.

James Wesley COTTINGHAM died in 1901 in Crenshaw County, Alabama.⁶ He was buried in Magnolia Baptist Church Cemetery, Clearview, Crenshaw County, Alabama.