List of taxables, Indian Springs District, Wayne County, 1856 —
Green Simmons, 10 acres, valued at $50.
George Simmons, 95 acres, valued at $425.
Charles Winn, 92 acres, valued at $480.
Box 5, Wayne County Tax Records, North Carolina State Archives.
Lewis Dunn filed claim #17583 with the Southern Claims Commission. He was 56 years old, lived in Fayetteville (“in my own house, my lot is 1/2 acre”) and worked as a drayman. The Confederate Army conscripted him to work at an arsenal for 12 months.
“I was free. I bought myself. Finish paying for myself about 20 years ago. I was the last col’d man in the state that the legislature emancipated. … My former master was James England.”
Dunn did not see his property taken. He was hauling provisions for the United States Army and when he returned “cattle drivers came and camped all around my stable and made a slaughter pen of my lot….”
William S. Bryant, 58, testified that he lived in Fayetteville and worked as a blacksmith. He was not related to Dunn, but had known him about 40 years. Bryant reported that Dunn said “the war was brought on an account of slavery and he looked for and prayed for and expected to see the time when all his race would be free.”
Carpenter Jere Husk, 40, and butcher Tom Drake, 57, both of Fayetteville, also testified on Dunn’s behalf.
Dunn’s wife Harret Dunn, 30, testified: “My grandmother was present [when Dunn’s property was stolen.] She is now dead. Also a col’d man name Prince McNeill. He is not in this section of the county now.”
Fanshaw v. Jones, 33 NC 154 (1850).
Henry Britt found an infant mulatto child at his doorstep in Currituck County. He took the baby in, named her Mary Ann, reared her as a free child and, at his death, left her $200. Britt’s wife dissented from the will, asserting that Mary Ann was in fact a slave. The purported evidence: about 1829, one Wilson, a Caswell County “negro-trader,” sold to one Willis a pregnant slave named Milly. Milly ran away from Willis to the house of a widow who lived near Britt, “bringing with her a female infant, perfectly naked and apparently not more than a day old.” The widow told Milly that she and the baby would die if they remained exposed in the woods and advised her to return to her owner. Milly left, and a few days later an infant, Mary Ann, was found at Britt’s. The widow could not swear that Milly’s baby was Mary Ann, but Mary Ann was a “bright mulatto” and resembled Milly. Britt and his wife were childless and brought the child up “tenderly,” becoming much attached. After about four years, Willis showed up to claim Mary Ann, but Britt refused to give her up without valid title and asserted his belief that she was the child of a white man and a colored woman. After Britt’s death in 1836, Mary Ann lived with his administrator, William Jones, who did not claim as part of Britt’s estate. The lower court found that whether or not Mary Ann was the child of a slave, the verdict was in favor of Jones, the administrator. The Supreme Court, however, deemed the jury instructions invalid and ordered a new trial.
Fourth Generation Inclusive 