Fourth Generation Inclusive

Historical Documents of Genealogical Interest to Researchers of North Carolina's Free People of Color

Month: November, 2012

November 12, 2012

North and back: an odyssey.

On 20 September 1865, Montreville Simmons, 22, born in NC, residing in Chatham Township, Kent County, Ontario, Canada, son of John C. and Hepsie Simmons, married Victoria Brown, 16, born in Indiana, daughter of John and Mary Brown.  Witnesses: Edwin Simons and C. Moore.

In the 1850 census of the South Side of the Neuse River, Wayne County: Calvin Simmons, 42, wife Hepsey, 46, and children Harriet, 13, Susan, 11, Montrival, 9, Jno. R., 7, Margaret, 5, Dixon, 3, and Geo. W. Simmons, 1, plus Robert Aldridge, 26, hireling.

In the 1861 census of Chatham and Gore townships, Kent County, Ontario: John C. Simmons, 50, wife Hepsy, 55, and children S.M., 16, Montreville, 15, John R., 14, Margaret A., 12, Dickie, 10, and George Simmons, 9.  All reported being born in the US, and all were Baptist.

By 1870, Calvin Simmons and his youngest sons had returned to North Carolina, and are listed in Brogden township, Wayne County: Calvin Simons, 63, and Montville, 29, John R., 26, Dickson H., 21, and George W. Simmons, 20.  On 3 March 1871, in Duplin County, Montville Simmons, son of Calvin Simmons and Hepsey Whitley, married Anna Henderson (1852-1906), daughter of James Henderson and Louisa Armwood.

By 1881, Montreville Simmons (40, farmer), wife Annie (29) and children Elizabeth (8), Doctor T. (7), Susan M. (4) and Montreville (2) are listed in the census of Chatham, Kent, Ontario. All were born in the US except Doctor and Montreville jr., who were born in Ontario, and all were Baptist.  By 1900, the family was back in the United States, and are found in the census of Eel, Cass County, Indiana:  on Park Avenue in Logansport, farmer Montville Simmons (Apr 1850), wife Anna (Mar 1861) and children James R. (Dec 1879), Montville (Jun 1881), and Dock (Dec 1879).  Montville and Anna were born in NC; their sons in Canada.  Montville and Anna had been married 28 years and reported 5 of 5 children living.

Marriage Registers, Kent County, Ontario, Canada; Canada census records; marriage register, Register of Deeds, Duplin County NC; US population schedules.

 
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November 12, 2012

Carrying Nat Turner in their little carts.

To the Honbl the General Assemby of N. Carolina

Your memorialists respectfully shew unto your Honorable Body: That the County of Lenoir has been for many years regularly visited on all public occasions, by free negroes & slaves hiring their time, from the adjoining Counties, & particularly from the Town of Newbern.  The ostensible object of these persons has been to retail cakes, tobacco & spiritous liquors.  The good citizens of the County have always believed that the [illegible] and within the last five years have been firmly convinced, that the visits of such characters, have not only produced serious loss & inconvenience by the temptations which are thus held out to their slaves, to steal lambs, pigs & poultry to barter with them, but is calculated to do a far more serious and incalculable injury by the facilities offered for the [illegible] among their slaves.  Enjoying the privilege of travelling in their little carts from one County town to another, these black pedlars have it within their power to distribute, without suspicion, in any nook & corner of the Country, the pamphlets of [illegible] as well as communicate verbally the murderous plans of a Nat Turner. The acquaintances your memorialists have with these characters, completely satisfies them that they are fit instruments for such purposes.

An application has heretofore been made to your Honourable Body for relief on the subject & a remedial act had been passed which your memorialists to believe was intended to meet this case, but which unfortunately was so farmed as to prove entirely nugatory.

That act authorized the slaves & free negroes of Newbern to trade on Lenoir County, under a license taken out in Craven.  As the tax imposed by the late law does not amount to a prohibition, its chief consequence is to enlarge the revenue of Craven  without affording any relief to to Lenoir.  In tender consideration of the previous, Your memorialists to earnestly request of your Honourable Body, that you will further legislate on this matter, and authorise the County of Lenoir to exclude all coloured retailers of cakes, spirits &c. from its limits, but such as may be licensed by the Court of Pleas & Quarter Sessions, or impose a prohibitory tax & if [illegible] of these modes of restraint shall seem fit, that you will adopt some measure which will annihilate the grievance.  /s/ Matthew H. Carr, John B. Kennady [and others]

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November 12, 2012

Chapter 111. An Act Concerning Slaves and Free People of Color.

Section 50.  All negroes, Indians, mulattoes, and all persons of mixed blood, descended from negro and Indian ancestors, to the fourth generation inclusive, (though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person) whether bond or free, shall be deemed and taken to be incapable in law to be witnesses in any case whatsoever, except against each other.  In all pleas of the State, except where the defendant may be a negro, Indian or mulatto, or person of mixed blood, descended from negro or Indian ancestors, to the fourth generation inclusive, (though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person,) whether such defendant be bond or free, the evidence of a negro or negroes, Indian or Indians, mulatto or mulattoes, and of all persons of mixed blood, descended from negro or Indian ancestors, to the fourth generation inclusive,) though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person,) whether the person or persons, whose evidence is offered be bond or free, shall be admissible and the witnesses competent, subject nevertheless to be excluded upon any other grounds of incompetency which may exist.

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November 12, 2012

“Negro stealer”?

William Edgar, a free mulatto and negro stealer, was shot in North Carolina on the 8th ult. while engaged in his avocation. 

The Ohio Repository (Canton, Oh.), 15 April 1824.

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November 12, 2012

Confederate cousins.

Solomon Oxendine filed claim #21329 with the Southern Claims Commission.  He was 40 years old and lived in Robeson County.  He owned 154 acres, 30 of which were cultivated.

“I had several cousins in the Confederate army they went in from South Carolina.”

Neill Revels, 44, cousin Hugh Oxendine, 42, and daughter Margaret Oxendine, 19, testified for him.

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November 11, 2012

Surnames: Rowan County, 1850.

BENNETT, BENSON, BULLARD, BURKET, CALVIN, CANADA, CAUSEY, CLINE, CORRIHER, COWAN, DUNIN, DUSTAN, ELIOTT, EVANS, FOLK, FREEMAN, GARETT, GRAHAM, HAGLAR, HARDEE, HESS, HICKMAN, HITMAN, HODGERS, HOLTSHOUSER, HOSLER, JEANS, KINDER, KLUTTS, LEERS, McCANN, McDANIEL, MITCHEL, MURDAH, NESS, NOBLE, PHILIPS, PORTER, RIMER, SANDERS, SAWYERS, SCOTT, SEERS, SMITH, SPOFFORD, STEEL, TWOPENCE,  VALENTINE/VOLENTINE, WADE, WILHELM and WORTH.

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November 11, 2012

Where are they now? No. 15.

R.R. was born in Wilson NC in the early 1960s.  He is descended from:

(1) Vicey Artis [ca1805-ca1868, Greene/Wilson County] via Zilpha Artis [1828-ca1885, Greene/Wayne County]

(2) Benjamin Hagans

(3) Nancy Hall via Mozana Hall [ca1829-1914, Wayne County]

(4) Rhoda Reid [ca1795-ca1865, Wayne County] via John Reid [ca1826-ca1890, Wayne County] via William Reid [1851-1926, Wayne County]

(5) John Wilson [1821-ca1890, Wayne County] via Elizabeth Wilson [1864-1947, Wayne County]

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November 11, 2012

There are many worthy of confidence.

The State v. Ephraim Lane, 30 NC 256 (1848).

Ephraim Lane, a free man of color, was indicted for keeping and carrying a pistol without a license.  Lane resided in Perquimans County, but at the time of the indictment was working for a white man named Barker “getting shingles” in Pasquotank County.  Lane carried the pistol at Barker’s behest.

Per the Supreme Court, “[d]egraded as are these individuals, as a class, by their social position, it is certain, that among them are many, worthy of all confidence, and into whose hands these weapons can be safely trusted, either for their own portection, or for the protection of the property of others confided to them.” Lane did carry a weapon, but it was not unlawfully carried.

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November 11, 2012

Your petitioners feels themselves Americans.

A petition from William Smith & others – free person of colour, praying to be colonized in some of the territory of the United States

Jan 14th 1851 — To the Honourable Assembly of the State of North Carolina.

The time has come where a portion of your people deem it necessary and prudent to cast themselves at your feet.  This portion is the free coloured people in the State of North Carolina.  Who in judging the future by the past do Humbly unite in praying and in petitioning this Honourable Assembly to [illegible] Congress in their behalf, to grant them a portion of the western Territory as a colony.  Your petitioners feel themselves much at a loss for proper words and language to express their feelings and apprehensions.  But their motive being pure they hope to find favor and clemency in your honourable wisdom.

Your petitioners are well aware of the importance of this petition, But the point they are activated by is reciprocal.  Many of your petitioners are the off springs of those who yielded their all in the revolutionary struggle But the blessings of which from political policy are withheld from them.

Your petitioners feels themselves Americans knowing no other clime nor soil and that pride has made it difficult for them to Beg abroad when they can ask at home.  While it is equilly hard to alienate their feelings.  Altho state policy may induce them to ask for a separation.  Should this meet your favor your petitioners hope to carry in their Bosoms parental and filial regard.

The law requires that your petitioners shall live alone praise the punish. But when success ennurns labour the public feelings pays, that the pressing influence has an injurious and gives a false stimulus to an other class.  Under this sense of fear, your petitioners have been constrained to be very vigilant in inactivity until that virtue has become a vice and now a source of public complaint.  Thus your petitioners find themselves in the condition of duress and punished for not labouring.  Your petitioners are no Aggressors on states rights nor policy.  Yet they regreat to see that they used as the whip in hand to flush the offenders into [illegible]; still the knel is constant on the public Ear – that your petitioners are the Eating cancers and the morbid incubus on the public purce. Your petitioners feel and behold with regreat the strong and painfull effort now making which  [illegible] them in the spirit of peace to ask for a Separation in the name and meaning of a colony.

Your petitioners are some what aware of the magnitude of the subject but fully persuaded of the good resulting will compensate for the hardships they may encounter.  Were your petitioners strangers they would hesitate to express a choice in this matter.  But being children of the American soil and traind to mechanical and farming arts they would dare that choice and if this should meet with favor in your wisdom they pray that your kindness will urge a salubrious clime and a productive soil, that the milk flowing there from may redound to the glory of the giver.  Like the infant sucking at its mothers Breast which every suction it makes draws from the springs of affection.

Your petitioners think they feel and see in this their prayer much Balm to heal the growing malidy and a spirit that may give peace and happiness to themselves and country.  The free people of this state numbers about 35,000 — some of the southern states more and some less.  Should your Wisdom decide in favor of a state or a general colony.  Your petitioners disdains to mention any theory but facts known better by your honours than themselves On presenting this petition they deem is unnecessary to say that they are proscribed.  This fact is known to your honours.  They now affix their names to this prayer in the presence of Each other and by proxy for many But all in the presence of God.

/s/ William Smith, James Dunn, Oscar Halston, Marcus L. Gervis, Branch Hughes, Thomas Roe, Henry J. Patterson, John Malone, Wyatt Copland, A. Payne, Lewis S. Leary, Lewis S. Chester, John E. Patterson, M. N. Leary 

Legislative Papers for 1851-1852, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh.

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November 11, 2012

Mary Eliza Balkcum Aldridge.

ImageMARY ELIZA BALKCUM ALDRIDGE was born in 1829 in Duplin County.  Her mother was probably Nancy Balkcum (ca1800-1854), a white woman, and her father was likely a black or mixed-race man.  Around 1855, she married Robert Aldridge (1819-1899). They settled first in northern Sampson County, but by 1870 had a large farm near Dudley, Wayne County.

[Eliza B. Aldridge was my great-great-great-grandmother. –LYH]

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