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THE ADKINS GENEALOGY and HISTORY

Henry Clay Adkins was born into slavery on the estate of Rev. Aaron Adkins in Warren County, Georgia in 1845. He was the child of enslaved mulatto Sallie Wynne Adkins and free-born mulatto Anderson Johnson. Henry's mother, Sallie Wynne, was bequeathed by her white father (Clement Wynne) to his niece Frances Wynne Adkins, who was married to a schoolteacher named Isaac Adkins, the son of Rev. Aaron Adkins. Henry's father, Anderson Johnson, was also born in Warren County and was the son of a white woman named Jane Shelton Johnson.

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After the Emancipation Proclamation, Henry Clay Adkins was released from Rev. Aaron Adkins’s control and relocated to Taliaferro County. It was there that he wed Jane Meadows on December 30, 1866. Jane was one of the elder daughters of the enslaved mulatto George Meadows and the enslaved Black woman Martha Fluker.

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Henry Clay Adkins and Jane Meadows Adkins were blessed with several children: Lucious Adkins (born 1867, married Anna Ora Peek); Adella Adkins (born 1869, married Thomas Hardin); Ida Adkins (born 1871, married Elbert Harris); Joshua Anderson Adkins (born 1872, married Zenobia Tilman); Henry Adkins (born 1873, married Mary Rhodes); and Linton Thomas Adkins (born 1875, married Mary Green);

William Graves Adkins (born 1876, married Savannah Sanders); Joseph Adkins (born 1878).

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Lucious Adkins, Adella Adkins Hardin (along with her spouse Thomas Hardin), Joshua Anderson Adkins, William Graves Adkins, and Joseph Adkins relocated to Jefferson County, Alabama before the year 1900 to seek work in the Reader's Iron Ore Mines near Birmingham. Lucious and Joshua left the mines to attend Morehouse, but Lucious was called back to Crawfordville to manage the family farm. Joshua eventually moved to Madison, Wisconsin. William Graves remained and married in Bessemer, Alabama. Adella and Linton moved to Youngstown, Ohio. Linton would later depart from there and passed away in Chicago.​

We are their descendants.