Interment source:
Bay View Cemetery Map, ca 1940
NO HEADSTONE
Obituary and Biography
Steve Sinclair, age 65 years, a Negro, who for forty years has made his home in Corpus Christi, during that time driving a dray, died yesterday afternoon at 5:45 o'clock at his home 807 Winnebago street. He was attacked by a stroke of paralysis last Saturday night and was unconscious until his death. He will be buried this afternoon at 3:00 o'clock, Rev. R. E. Brown, pastor of the Colored Baptist Church officiating. Steve was a quiet, unassuming fellow, who so conducted himself that he numbered his friends, both white and black, by the scores and there will be many to miss the familiar face from the streets. He was attentive to his work and frugal, and unlike so many of his race, managed to husband earnings so that in his older life he was able to care for his family without worry. Last summer he made a trip to California to the Expositions, being away from the city for two months. He is survived by a wife, a son and two daughters.
Source: Corpus Christi Caller & Daily Herald, December 7, 1915, p 5, c 3
Research by: Monsignor Michael A. Howell
Transcribed by: Kathryn H. Martin, member Coastal Bend Genealogical Society
Stephen Sinclair was born in Mississippi in January of 1852 according to the 1900 census (Nueces County, ED 133, page 160A/sheet 5). He first appears locally in the 1870 census, living with Clara Sinclair who appears to be his mother or another elder of the family as she is 40 years old and he is 17 years old (1870 census of Nueces County, page 151). There is indication he married initially in the early 1870s, but his spouse must have died young as she does not appear in the 1880 census as listed in the marriage records of Nueces County. Instead by 1880 Stephen had married again. This time he had traveled to Goliad County where he married Victoria Lott on 27 June 1877 before Rev. Jackson Johnson (Goliad County Marriage Records, vol. 2 page 25). To this union were born son Perry (May 1878), son Ollie (June 1880), daughter Ethel (May 1883), son Thomas (December 1885), and daughter Maud (March 1888). The 1880 census records indicate that Stephen was in some way related to the Stafford family (his niece with last name of Stafford is living with him in 1880) and the later Sinclair family which included also Rev. Moses Sinclair/St. Clair. The Sinclair family appears to come from Louisiana as both Clara and Moses Sinclair give Louisiana as their place of birth. His relative Jane Stafford initially married veteran George Owen (also in Old Bayview Cemetery) on 13 September 1874 in the presence of Moses Sinclair. And subsequent to George’s death, she married veteran William Warfield (also in Old Bayview Cemetery) on 15 January 1881 (also in the presence of Rev. Moses Sinclair).
Research and transcription: Michael A. Howell