James Henry McCauley

James McCauley was born in Abbeville, Alabama, the eldest son of Anderson and Louisa McCauley. He became a skilled carpenter and stonemason like his father. James met schoolteacher Leona Edwards while visiting his sister Addie in Pine Level, Alabama. They married on April 12, 1912, at Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Pine Level. Source: Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/rosa-parks-in-her-own-words/about-t...

Shortly after their marriage James and Leona McCauley moved to Tuskegee, Alabama. James found work in Macon County building houses. Leona had to leave her teaching job when she became pregnant. On February 4, 1913, she gave birth to a daughter Rosa Louise, named for her grandmothers. Leona wanted James to teach at Tuskegee Institute, but preferring the more lucrative contracting work, he decided to return to the McCauley farm in Abbeville. Source: Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/rosa-parks-in-her-own-words/about-t...

Rosa's father, James McCauley, hailed from Abbeville, Alabama, a farm town ninety-five miles south of Montgomery known for its wood pulp and cotton gins. With his light skin, thick, wavy hair, and broad shoulders, McCauley was sometimes mistaken for a Cherokee or Creek Indian, owing to the fact that one of his grandmothers was a part-Indian slave. A skilled carpenter and stonemason, McCauley built houses all over Alabama's Black Belt region, a 4,300-mile strip of rolling prairie land underlain by a sticky black clay soil ideal for growing cotton. McCauley met Rosa's mother-Leona Edwards, a beautiful, prim-and-proper schoolteacher-in Pine Level, Alabama, a town not far from Abbeville. Source: From "Rosa Parks" By DOUGLAS BRINKLEY

Rosa's father was an excellent builder and actually designed and built the old Henry County Training School in 1914. This school closed in 1970 and over 1300 black students graduated from there. Jim moved with his wife to Tuskegee in 1912 and Rosa was born there in 1913 before they moved back to Henry County on the farm. Jim later went north to build and Rosa's mother carried her back to Pine Level near Montgomery where her grandparents lived. Anderson McCauley died in 1922 and his wife sold the land to payoff a loan in 1928. Source: https://dynastybailey.weebly.com/about.html

• Born in Alabama
• Married to Leona Edwards in 1912
• Father of Rosa and Sylvester McCauley
• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Jan 10 2018, 0:27:38 UTC