Levi Danford

Levi Danford was born in New York.  His birth dates ranged from 1828 to 1832 per the census.  He completed an 1860 census in Burlington, Vermont and another in Peru, New York for the same year.  His first documented entry into the Lake Champlain region was on January 18, 1855 when he was arrested on third degree burglary and larceny charges and was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in the Clinton Prison (Essex, New York).  Levi’s prison records provided a physical description that included his height, 5feet 1½ inches, powder mark on right cheek, right shoulder larger than left, and he had a short neck.   In 1860, Levi worked as a laborer in Burlington and was living with 6 females and their surnames were Coflin (2), Joseph (2), Danford (Levi and Eliza) and Carolina Freeman. Both of the Josephs’ ladies and Freeman were mulatto and Levi’s race was black.  On the census in Peru, he was a farm laborer for the Hckstaff family and his race was black.  Eliza Danford was his inferred spouse when he took the 1870 census and his age was 39 as he listed that he was born in 1831.  Levi’s race was now white, he had moved to Beekmantown, and his occupation was still a farm laborer.  He had 4 children, Isabelle (Vermont), Henry (Vermont), Rosana (New York), and Benney (New York).  In the 1880 census, his race changed to mulatto, he had moved to Altona and his occupation was listed as a laborer.  His wife’s race became white in the 1870 census and mulatto in the 1880 census.  Her maiden’s name was WA??, as the transcribers could not read the family’s last name.  In this census, which was his last one, his wife and Isabel kept house, Levi and Henry were laborers, Rosanna was a servant and his son Benjamin was at home.