Black male, born about 1838 in Alabama. Died in Pensacola, FL on 30 October 1898 of Bright’s Disease at the age of 60. His occupation was laborer, he was widowed, and he had lived in the city for 15 years at the time of his death. He was buried in the Escambia County Poor Farm cemetery.
This record was contained in the City Death records ledger book; there is no death certificate available at this time.
The 1885 Pensacola City Directory has two entries for Thomas Banks: one a Laborer living at Tarragona and Government and one a barber living at Government and Tarragona. (Presumably they are the same person.)
The 1885 Florida State Census lists a Banks family in Pensacola headed by Thomas, a 50-year-old Black male working as a laborer, born in Alabama with both parents born in Alabama. The rest of the family was Mary, his 40-year-old wife who worked as a washerwoman; two daughters: Mary (17), Cora (15); and two sons, Henry (10) and George (8). All members of the family were born in Alabama.
Last, the 1890 Pensacola City Directory lists a Thomas Banks working as a laborer, living at Zarragossa and Government Sts.
I would like to see more information to tie the Thomas Banks in the directories to the Thomas Banks in the census to the Thomas Banks in the death record. The 1885 Florida census does not give address information that would confirm the identity, but it strikes me as odd that a man with that many children would have been left to be buried in the Poor Farm – though of course there are many reasons why that could have been the case.
SOURCES:
Pensacola births and deaths, 1891-1910, Escambia County (Florida) Health Department. Salt Lake City, Utah : Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1973.
Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
Ancestry.com. Florida, U.S., State Census, 1885 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Original data: Schedules of the Florida State Census of 1885; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M845, 13 Rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington D.C.