Adeline Brevard Willis Marshall did not know when she was born or the names of her parents. The slaveholder E.J. Brevard of Fort Bend County, TX told her that he had brought her as a child from South Carolina, which was his birthplace.

It was only my speculation that she might be the same Adeline who was listed on an inventory of slaves from the south Texas Patton Plantation. As an adult counted in the census, her age is only an estimate, dating her birth between 1850-1860.

Adeline/Adaline, born about 1856

Plantation Slavery Project posts a list of slaves (including Kate, 19, and her daughter Adeline, 18 months) that the Patton family sold to Louis Stroble in 1857 to pay for debts.

Louis/Lewis Stroble served with E.J. Brevard in the Confederate Texas Troops. It was my speculation that Brevard purchased Adeline from Stroble. It's still possible that Adeline and/or her mother Kate were born in SC, as were quite a few slaves in Fort Bend County, TX. One freedwoman in Fort Bend County, Kate Robinson, was around the right age to be Adeline's mother. Yet it seems that at Emancipation, Adeline was unaware that her mother might still be living nearby.