Margaret Robinson

H.S. Halbert and T. H. Hall's History of the Creek War, 1813-1814:

"Upon Fort Pierce, near by as it was to Fort Mims, the Indians made no attack and its few inmates retired unharmed. They reached the Alabama River where they were joined by other refugees, but none of them could cross until Peggy Bailey, a sister of Captain Dixon Bailey, swam to the west side and procured a flat boat on which they ferried themselves over and safely reached the arsenal at Mount Vernon. In acknowledgment of that daring act, swimming the Alabama River in August when alligators were quite abundant, the United States Government bestowed a tract of land upon this heroine."

An act of Congress passed April 20, 1818, allowed Peggy Bailey to enter 320 acres of land on the river Alabama,” being part of section number seven, township five, range five, including the improvements made by Dixon Bailey, a half Indian, who had been killed at Fort Mims. whilst in the service of the United States”. Peggy and her sister, Polly, who was married to Walter Arthur Sizemore, entered claims for compensation for property that belonged to their brother Captain Dixon Bailey.

The main sources of information regarding Peggy Bailey and other members of her family consists of (1) the congressional act authorizing the grant of land that was recorded in 1818, (2) a record of the sale of Peggy’s 320 acre estate which is signed both by Peggy Bailey and her husband, Richard Robinson, (3) accounts of her heroic swimming of the Alabama River whereby she, Peggy, obtained the flat boat she used to rescue those identified as refugees that were trapped on the other side of the river, this account being taken from Halbert and Bell and Pickett’s History of Alabama, (4) an unpublished genealogy of Peggy's sister Polly Bailey Sizemore’s family, (5) claims made in the behalf of the Dixon Bailey Estate, and,(6) interestingly, an affidavit signed by Peggy Bailey’s grandson, Dixon Bailey Reed, a resident of Escambia County, Florida in 1908.

From these sources we derive a description of both Peggy and her sister Polly. Polly’s husband Arthur Sizemore operated a ferry on the river and Polly on number of occasions was forced act as ferryman. Their brother Dixon has been educated by the Quakers in Philadelphia and the two Bailey sisters were literate, even if less so than their more famous brother, Dixon. Much of the sisters’ wealth resulted from claims made against the estate of Dixon Bailey who was at the time of his death at Fort Mims the owner of considerable property including 260 head of cattle. The descendants of Polly Bailey Sizemore do not appear to have retained much from the estate of Dixon Bailey, although at the time of her death in Alabama in 1862 Polly left a considerable estate including a plantation home and slaves.

Peggy's being willing to remove to the Oklahoma Territory had been made a precondition of her being able to sell her land in Alabama, she had a representative affirm in 1836 that she and her husband Richard Robinson had moved “across the Arkansas.” Peggy and her husband, however, had not moved to Oklahoma. This becomes apparent from the affidavit provided by her grandson, Dixon Bailey Reed, that she and her husband Richard Robinson, had moved from Escambia County, Alabama across the Alabama State Line to Escambia County, Florida. In Escambia County Alabama both Peggy and her husband were known to be Creek Half Breeds. In Escambia County Florida, they, and their descendants came to be identified as “White” and appear as such in Florida census records. Peggy’s descendants, all of whom are the children and grandchildren of a daughter, Cynthia Robinson, continued to be identified as White in Florida Censuses done in the years 1880 and 1900 while those of Polly and others were listed as Indians living in Alabama in the 1880 and 1900 censuses.

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• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - SmartCopy: Aug 11 2018, 15:34:49 UTC
• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - SmartCopy: Aug 11 2018, 15:36:49 UTC