Black male, born about 1838. Died on 25 March 1923 at the age of 85 at the Escambia County Poor Farm in Pensacola, FL. At the time of his death, he was widowed and his occupation was listed as laborer. His cause of death was parnenchymatous nephritis and mitral insufficiency, for which he was treated from 1 February until his death by Dr. V.R. Nobles. The informant on his death certificate, which includes no information about Ike’s birthplace or his parents, was J.R. Stewart, the superintendent of the Poor Farm. Ike was buried by F.R. Pou at the Escambia County Poor Farm cemetery.
The death certificate indicated he had been at the Poor Farm for 3 days, but I suspect, given the length of time he was treated by Dr. Nobles, they meant 3 months. There is no indication as to whether he had spent any time in the Pensacola area before that. There are several newspaper articles between 1895 and that mention a man of color by the name of Ike Brown – usually involving petty criminal activity – but they do not give enough information about him to know if it is the same man. There was a notice of a divorce filing from 1907 between Ike Brown and Margaret Brown, but I cannot find her, either. There is no Ike Brown in the City Directory; only an Isaac (who was also called “Ike” in the newspaper) who I have confirmed is not the same man, and an Isaiah I have not yet fully identified. There are no men of color in the census records of Escambia County who fit the bill.
SOURCES:
Florida Certificate of Death for Ike B. Brown (No. 3000), Florida Deaths, 1877-1939. Database. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 14 June 2016. Index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City.
Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
“The Criminal Court,” The Pensacola News 10 SEP 1895, p. 1.
“The Criminal Court,” The Pensacola News 13 SEP 1895, p. 1.
“Rowdyism at Concert,” The Pensacola News 12 AUG 1905, p. 1.
“New Suits Filed in the Circuit Court,” The Pensacola Journal 5 MAY 1907, p. 1.
“The Criminal Court Cases,” The Pensacola Journal 15 JUL 1909, p. 1.