Minerva had been living with them at least since 1850 while Eldredge's first wife, Julia Ann, was still alive. She was listed on the 1850 census for Mississippi as 13 years of age. No relationship was given on the censuses for that year.
In 1954 Eldridge was on the tax rolls for Caldwell County, Texas and is listed as owning one slave.
Agriculture developed rapidly in antebellum Texas, as evidenced by a steady expansion in the number of farms, the amount of improved acreage, the value of livestock, and the size of crops produced. Slave labor contributed heavily to that growth.
Only a minority of antebellum Texans, however, actually owned slaves and participated directly in the cash-crop economy. Only one family in four held so much as a single slave, and more than half of those had fewer than five slaves. Small and large planters, defined respectively as those owning ten to nineteen and twenty or more slaves, held well over half of the state's slaves in both 1850 and 1860.
From Texas State History Online
https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/npa01
Eldridge and Minerva had one son named Marcus L. Franks.
What I find particularly interesting about this couple are her name and her son's name. I have a 2X great-grandmother whose maiden name was Minerva M Franks. She also was from Mississippi. She named her second son William MARCUS. She and her husband also lived for a time in Caldwell County.
I'm pretty convinced that there is a relationship between this Minerva Franks and the other Franks who lived in Caldwell County, but I have yet to find the link.
After Minerva Ross Franks died, Eldridge Franks married Martha Elizabeth Fleming, granddaughter of Jeremiah and Sarah Jeffrey. This made Eldridge the husband of my 1st cousin (4X removed).
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