Biography | Fourth Generation Inclusive

January 30, 2013

James Boon.

“James Boon (1808-1850s or later) was a free black carpenter active in North Carolina from the 1820s through the 1850s. As historian John Hope Franklin relates, the rare if not unique survival of the personal papers of this free black artisan provides an important window into the ‘common experiences, the fortunes, both good and ill, which all free Negroes had.’ Boon was evidently born to a free mother and was apprenticed at 18 to Franklin County carpenter William Jones until the age of 21. In 1829, he received a paper that served as a pass, stating ‘James Boon, a boy of colour who was bound to William Jones by this court’ was ‘ordered to be liberated and set free.’

“Boon led a mobile life and carried with him passes and letters of reference from employers and prominent citizens to affirm his free status and good work. He worked first around Louisburg in construction and furniture making. In the mid-1830s, he went to Raleigh, possibly to help build the Duncan Cameron House (1835-1836). He traveled to Littleton in 1839 and to rural Halifax County in 1842. A reference to ‘Boon’ in Skinner family correspondence suggests that he worked on the Greek Revival style plantation house Linden Hall (1841-1844) near Littleton for Charles and Susan Little Skinner; there are also references to ‘Mr. Bragg’ (probably Thomas Bragg, Sr.) and ‘Jones’ (possibly Albert Gamaliel Jones). One of his employers, R. H. Mosby, affirmed in 1842 that Boon was ‘an orderly and well behaved man, and attentive to his business. His work is executed better and with more taste than any persons within my knowledge in this section of country.’ In 1848, James Boon joined his brothers and a friend seeking work in Wilmington. He then went to Raleigh in 1849, where he was employed by the prominent builder Dabney Cosby on various projects. There he hired other workmen to help on ‘Mr. D. Cosby’s work.’ On October 27, 1850, Cosby wrote him a reference stating that ‘Jim Boon’ had been in his employ ‘for some time’ and was ‘a good workman.’

“Boon sometimes worked alone but also hired as many as nine workmen, including whites, slaves, and free blacks. He charged $1.25 a day for his own time and $0.50 cents to $1.00 for his employees. He owned one slave, Lewis, and land in Franklin County, which he occasionally mortgaged. Boon did not learn to read and write, but William Jones, who remained a friend, helped him in business matters. Various receipts note payment for such jobs as ‘Mill House 30 by 36, Ten feet pitch, Two stories, three floors, 12 windows and ten doors, weatherboarding dressed plain strong work,’ or for a more finished project, ‘24 lights glass, 12 x 15, Pilasters rose blocks–inside double architraves.’

“James Boon’s family included a brother, Carter Evans. Boon’s first wife was Sarah, a literate slave who belonged to Maria Stallings. They had a son who went to Raleigh with his father in 1849. (James Boon does not appear in the 1850 census.) In 1854, Boon married Mahaly Buffalo in Raleigh. His last record was in 1857; his death date is unknown.”

Author: Catherine W. Bishir. Published 2009.

As published in North Carolina Architects and Builders: A Biographical Dictionary, http://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu (All rights retained.) This web site is a growing reference work that contains brief biographical accounts, building lists, and bibliographical information about architects, builders, and other artisans who planned and built North Carolina’s architecture.

January 27, 2013

Donum Montford.

“Donum Montford (Mumford) (1771-1838), New Bern brickmason, plasterer, and brickmaker, was prominent among the city’s early 19th century builders and became one of the wealthiest of the city’s free people of color. Memoirist Stephen Miller recalled that he was ‘copper-colored, and carried on the bricklaying and plastering business with slaves, a number of whom he owned. Whenever a job was to be done expeditiously, he was apt to be employed, as he could always throw upon it a force sufficient for its rapid execution.’

“Born a slave, Montford was owned by the prominent Richard Cogdell family until 1804. During his more than 30 years as a slave, he mastered the related trades of bricklaying, plastering, and brickmaking. He gained his freedom in 1804, when the widow Lydia Cogdell and her daughter Lydia Cogdell Badger sold him to the wealthy free man of color John C. Stanly, who emancipated him the next day, doubtless carrying out a strategy planned by all parties. As a free man, Montford promptly established his shop and began acquiring property. Although he was illiterate, signing documents with his mark, he was successful in his business. In 1806 his former owner, Lydia Cogdell, gave him a young slave, Abram Moody Russell, to train as an apprentice, then to emancipate upon his maturity; Abram Moody Russell Allen, as he was later known, was identified by Montford as his nephew and also became his heir and executor. In 1807 Montford took the first of many free apprentices to his trade. In 1809 he married Hannah Bowers. By 1811 he was purchasing real estate, and he eventually owned several town lots and houses, plus a farm. By 1820, according to the United States Census, Montford was head of a large household of free people of color, and had twenty-two slaves in his employ; whether he owned all of these is not certain. In 1827 Montford petitioned to emancipate his only child, Nelson, a plasterer who had worked with Montford until he attained his majority.

“Both Hannah and Donum Montford were members of Christ Episcopal Church in New Bern, and their burial services were recorded in the parish register noting them each as a ‘colored communicant.’ Montford’s stature in the community was indicated by his appointment to a committee, along with the leading white brickmasons in town, Bennett Flanner and Joshua Mitchell, to inspect repairs to Christ Church in 1832. He was regularly employed to work on public buildings. Along with taking free apprentices to his trade, he also trained slave artisans, such as Ulysses, ‘a plasterer by trade, who served his time with Donum Mumford, in the town of New Bern afterwards worked at his business upwards of four years, in Hyde County,’ and who could ‘read and write tolerably well.’ Ulysses had run away from William S. Sparrow, who advertised for his return in 1818.

“Despite his long and active career, few of Montford’s projects have been identified. For the Craven County Jail (1821-1825), a handsome and formal civic building, detailed construction records show his versatility. Montford supplied 100,000 of the roughly 400,000 bricks, at $5 per thousand, and he and his workers accomplished the lathing and plastering, including laborers (probably slaves) Charles, Edmond, and Romey at 5 shillings a day, and skilled workers Tony and Lawson at $1 a day. He typically charged 12 shillings and sixpence per day for his own work and a few other skilled men in his shop. Montford also supplied many of the bricks for the John R. Donnell House (1816-1818), which was among the finest of the city’s Federal style, brick townhouses, where Wallace Moore was the chief brickmason and Asa King was the lead carpenter. Montford also did some work beyond New Bern, including an unnamed project for Tyrrell County planter Ebenezer Pettigrew, who paid him in 1819 for delivering bricks and lime, building the foundation for a smokehouse, and mending plaster.

“At his death in 1838 Montford had a considerable estate in land, slaves, and personal possessions. Illustrating accounts of the prosperity and gentility of New Bern’s leading people of color, he left to his wife, Hannah, such household furnishings as a secretary, a sofa, a mahogany candle stand, a dining table, and a breakfast table; numerous serving pieces, including two dozen plates of Liverpool ware, silver teaspoons and tablespoons, decanters and wine glasses, and two oyster dishes; and two pictures, one of Napoleon, and one of Christ on the Cross. Among the many items sold from his estate were a musket and a shotgun, window sash, brick moulds, shad nets, and farm implements. His estate also included slaves Bob, Dick, Jim Carney, Dinah, Alexander, and plasterer-bricklayer Isaac Rue (Rew). Montford stated in his will that Isaac was to be freed after Hannah’s death; Isaac Rue continued to practice his trade for many years as a free man and a property owner.”

Author: Catherine W. Bishir. Published 2009.

January 21, 2013

Thomas Sheridan.

“Thomas Sheridan (ca. 1787-1864) was an emancipated mulatto carpenter active in Bladen County during the antebellum period, whose only documented building is the Brown Marsh Presbyterian Church (1828) in that county.

“Thomas Sheridan’s family background illustrates the complexities of race and status in his era. Probably born in Bladen County, he may have been the son of Nancy Sheridan (a woman of color who was emancipated after his birth) and Joseph R. Gautier, a wealthy Bladen County planter and merchant of French Huguenot background. Gautier, who was frequently listed among the leading men of the Cape Fear region, was a political figure in Elizabethtown, a state senator (1791), and an early supporter of the University of North Carolina noted for having left his library of some 100 volumes (mostly in French) to the university’s library. Gautier was the owner of several slaves, including Thomas Sheridan and his brother Louis Sheridan, and probably Nancy Sheridan. Circumstantial evidence also indicates that Joseph Gautier and Nancy Sheridan had a long-term domestic relationship: many white men who had such relationships with their enslaved women often freed their enslaved family members and provided for them (although emancipation became increasingly difficult in the early and mid-19th century).

“In 1799, Joseph Gautier of Elizabethtown petitioned the North Carolina General Assembly to emancipate “two mulatto boys belonging to him.” Gautier explained that, “as their childhood would render fruitless a recourse to the county court, he prays the aid at the Legislature to establish by a law the freedom of said boys.” (Laws governing emancipation by county courts required demonstration of meritorious service, which a child could not have earned; thus Gautier appealed to the legislature. No matter what the status of the father, a child born to an enslaved mother was born a slave.) Gautier’s petition succeeded, and the legislature enacted a law that “the said mulatto boys be emancipated and set free from slavery, and henceforward be called and known by the names of Thomas Sheridan and Louis Sheridan.” In 1799, Thomas was about twelve years of age and Louis was about six. In the 1800 census of Bladen County, J. R. Gautier was listed as head of household with one white male, three “other” free persons–probably Nancy, Thomas, and Louis–and seven slaves. His will of 1800 left his plantation “at the marsh,” his household and plantation utensils, and five slaves to Nancy Sheridan, “my emancipated black woman” (suggesting that he himself had freed her, though no record has been found). He left three slaves to “her child” Louis Sheridan, a small amount of property to his (presumably white) nephew, Joseph Gautier, Jr., and £500 to Thomas Sheridan, no relationship specified. The terms of the will make it uncertain as to whether Thomas as well as Louis Sheridan was the son of Nancy Sheridan: Thomas might have been the son of Gautier with another woman, or even of Nancy and another father. In any case, Gautier freed and provided for young Thomas. Gautier died in 1807.

“Louis Sheridan (ca. 1793-1844), probably Thomas’s brother or half-brother, gained a good education and became an important merchant and large property owner in Elizabethtown with business connections throughout the state and even the nation. He owned as many as sixteen slaves. He also acquired many town lots in Elizabethtown, including those he sold as sites for the courthouse and for the Presbyterian and Methodist churches. Probably because of his father’s position and connections, Sheridan was aided by former governor John Owen and other leading men of the region and traveled widely for business to Philadelphia, New York, and elsewhere. Although he had initially opposed colonization, after the state placed tighter restrictions on free people of color in the 1830s, Louis Sheridan joined the Liberian colonization movement. He sold his slaves and moved with his family to Liberia in 1837, where he found a situation far less rosy than he anticipated and wrote (often negative) reports back to the United States. He remained there nevertheless and died there in 1844.

“Thomas Sheridan pursued the carpentry trade and remained in Bladen County. Although he doubtless built other structures, he is remembered chiefly as builder of Brown Marsh Presbyterian Church. The plainly finished, weatherboarded building is one of the few intact examples still standing of the state’s once numerous simple frame churches. A board in the church ceiling retains the chalked signature, “Thos. Sheridan,” and the date, probably 1828, possibly 1818. Within several years, in 1834, the Presbyterians in the county seat of Elizabethtown built a more substantial church on land deeded to the congregation by Louis Sheridan. Possibly the congregation employed Thomas Sheridan to build it, but this is not documented.

“According to the United States census of 1850, unlike his brother Thomas Sheridan did not become wealthy. He was listed as a mulatto carpenter, aged 62, with $30 worth of real estate. He headed a household that included his wife Agnes and their adult daughter, Martha. They lived in a rural neighborhood among primarily white farmers, plus a few other free artisans of color. In 1851 Sheridan remarried, to Lucy Oxendine of Robeson County, of a large Native American family. In 1860, Thomas Sheridan was listed as a farmer with a farm worth $200 and personal property worth $170, with his wife Lucy, aged 55. In his will of 1863 (probated in 1864), Sheridan left his farm, livestock, and household goods to his wife, then to his daughter Martha. He specified that his gun (for which in most areas a man of color had to obtain a special license) and his carpentry tools should be sold to pay for his funeral; and he left the lumber in his shop “to make my coffin.”

Author: Catherine W. Bishir. Published 2009.

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January 20, 2013

Eliza Simmons Bryant.

ELIZA SIMMONS BRYANT (1827–1907) founded a home in Cleveland, Ohio, for elderly African-Americans, many, freed slaves. The Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People, now known as Eliza Bryant Village, continues to serve some of Cleveland’s most vulnerable residents.

Eliza Bryant’s official biography asserts that she “was born in North Carolina to Polly Simmons, a slave, and her master. She was raised on a plantation in Wayne County. In 1848, Polly Simmons was freed, and moved with her family to Cleveland, Ohio, where she purchased a home, with funds from her master.” In fact, Eliza was born free to Polly Simmons, who was part of a large family whose freedom dated from at least the mid-18^th century. Her father may have been white, and may have employed her mother, but was not her master. (Eliza turned 21 in about 1848 — was a release from an indenture the “freedom” attributed to her mother in her bio?) The 1850 census of the South Side of the Neuse, Wayne County, shows: Polly Simmons, 47, her children Eliza, 23, Buckner, 21, and George, 18; plus Nancy A., 17, and Willie Grice, 15, and Rufus Daniel, 14; all described as mulatto. They are listed among a cluster of Simmonses, including 84 year-old Phereby Simmons, who may have been Polly’s mother.

Photo courtesy of http://www.elizabryant.org. Wikipedia; US Federal Population Schedule.

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January 17, 2013

Edward Richardson.

“Edward Richardson was born about 1830, part of families long established in New Bern and Craven County. He was the son of Simon Richardson and Sarah Rue (Rew), free people of color, who were married in Craven County in February 1830. His father’s family, the Richardsons, had been free people in Craven County for many years; several of them, including Simon Richardson, were engaged in the calker’s trade, which was essential in building and maintaining wooden boats and ships. On his mother’s side, Edward was the grandson of bricklayer and plasterer Isaac Rue (ca. 1787-1880). Isaac Rue had been emancipated by the will of the noted New Bern artisan Donum Montford, who was also an emancipated brickmason and plasterer. Edward Richardson probably learned his trade from his grandfather, along with his younger brother, Isaac Richardson, who was also a bricklayer.

“In 1860 and 1870, the bricklayer Edward Richardson owned real estate and personal property, and he and his wife Maria and their family were living next door to his grandfather Rue. At Rue’s death, the local New Bernian of January 17, 1880, reported that the elderly Isaac Rue had ‘acquired a considerable amount of property in real estate which is left to his grandson, E. A. Richardson, a faithful and obliging Clerk in our Post Office.’

“Although Richardson worked for most of his life as a bricklayer and plasterer, no specific projects have been attributed to him. Both before and after the Civil War, New Bernians constructed many brick buildings, as well as brick chimneys and foundations, and doubtless many of these showed Richardson’s handiwork.

“From the 1860s onward, Richardson was engaged in local political and civic life. In 1865 he was a delegate to the Freedmen’s Convention in Raleigh. Locally, he served on the local board of education, as justice of the peace, and as a founder and officer of a fire company and other civic organizations. By 1880 he was employed as clerk in the local post office, and in 1884-1885 held the important office of postmaster, an appointment made by Republican Congressman James O’Hara, whom Richardson had supported. At his death on February 26, 1896, the New Bern Weekly Journal reported, “E.A. Richardson, a prominent colored man died yesterday. The funeral will take place from St. Peter’s church this afternoon at two o’clock. He was well known to many of our city owing to his public position as postmaster and ‘bore a good name as far as we ever heard.'”

Author: Catherine W. Bishir. Contributor: John B. Green. Published 2009.

As published in North Carolina Architects and Builders: A Biographical Dictionary, http://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu (All rights retained.) This web site is a growing reference work that contains brief biographical accounts, building lists, and bibliographical information about architects, builders, and other artisans who planned and built North Carolina’s architecture.

The 1850 census of New Berne, Craven County, shows Simon Richardson, 40, calker; wife Sarah, 38; and children Edward, 19, and Miles, 18, both plasterers; Eliza, 15; Isaac, 12; and Ann, 3; all described as black. In the 1860 census of New Bern, Edward Richardson, 30, brickmason, heads his own household, which includes wife Mariah, 41, and children Samuel, 4, and Benie, 3. They are listed next door to the household of Isaac T. Rue, 70, brickmason, his wife Phillis, 63, and probable grandson James Rue, 14.

January 10, 2013

Solomon W. Nash.

“Solomon Waddell Nash, Sr. (1779-June 25, 1846) was an African-American carpenter in antebellum Wilmington before and after he was emancipated in 1827. During his career as a builder, especially in the 1830s, Nash worked and spent time in both Wilmington and Fayetteville, port cities linked by trade along the Cape Fear River, both known for their many free people of color.

“Born a slave in 1779, Nash worked as an enslaved artisan during much of his life and gained his freedom in middle age. On July 26, 1827, members of the prominent white Waddell family (John, Francis, and John, Jr.) posted a bond for the emancipation of “a certain negro slave named Solomon Nash.” Nash’s surname recalled another leading white family in the state with ties to the Waddells. His parents’ names are not known. At the time of his emancipation, Nash must have had his business well established, for in March 1828 he took three orphaned boys of color — Robert Bryan, James Jacobs, and James Allen — as apprentices to the carpenter’s trade in New Hanover County. In Cumberland County he took William Revels, aged 16 in 1832, and Robert Wesley, aged 11 in 1834, as carpenter’s apprentices, and in New Hanover County in 1838 he apprenticed Joshua Jacobs and Charles Cochran, both 16. Nash also acquired real estate in Wilmington, owning lots with a total purchase price of about $3,200. His carpenter’s shop was located on his lot on Front Street between Chestnut Street and Mulberry (Grace) Streets. He also owned at least five slaves at his death and may have owned others.

“Like other emancipated individuals, Nash worked to gain the freedom of his family members. His first wife was an enslaved woman, and thus his children with her were also enslaved. In 1835-1836, as a resident of Fayetteville, he obtained a special act of the legislature to emancipate his children, Lucy, Ann, Emiline, and Priscilla. In the meantime, Nash had remarried in 1833, his second wife being a free woman, Celia A. Bryant. According to family accounts, the couple had two sons, Solomon Nash, Jr., and John Nash, born in about 1836 and 1841.

“Despite Nash’s long career in his trade, little is known of specific buildings he constructed. According to Nicholas Schenck’s memoir of antebellum Wilmington, the “Jas. Anderson” house (the Hogg-Anderson House) was “built by Solomon Nash.” This is a 2 1/2-story, Federal style frame dwelling with side-passage plan and transitional Federal-Greek Revival finish. Indicative of his trade practices, after Nash’s death, the Wilmington Commercial newspaper advertised for sale “a part of a House Frame on the lot of S. W. Nash’s late residence, 1 Lot of Window Blinds, 1 Lot about 3,000 ft. Lumber opposite Mrs. Owen’s residence, and about 10,000 ft. seasoned 1 1/4 inch boards.” The advertisement indicates that Nash had his workshop and his residence at the same address.

“In 1846, Nash was working on a project for brick contractor Robert B. Wood (see Wood Brothers). Wood’s son, Thomas F. Wood, remembered that when Wood was “putting up a building on Front Street between Market and Dock, “a mulatto carpenter by the name of Solomon Nash fell from the scaffolding and was killed.” The Wilmington Chronicle of July 1, 1846, reported that the scaffolding had collapsed, sending three white workers, two slaves, and the free carpenter Nash tumbling to the ground. All survived but Nash. The slaves, identified as Ben Berry and Ephraim Bettencourt, may have belonged to Nash. A few months later, the Chronicle of September 23, 1846, carried an advertisement offering for hire for the rest of the year “two carpenters, one woman, and two children, belonging to the estate of Solomon Nash, deceased.”

“At his death, Nash left to his wife Celia a house and lot on Winslow Street in Fayetteville. He also left a female slave, Venice, to his daughters, with the condition that she be freed ten years after his death. His executor was Matthew N. Leary, one of Fayetteville’s leading free men of color. By 1850, the two Nash sons, Solomon, Jr., and John, were living in Fayetteville in the household of Nelson and Elizabeth Henderson. Solomon, Jr., also entered the carpentry business in Wilmington and for a time had his shop at his father’s old location on Front Street. After the Civil War he became active in political and civic affairs, serving as county jailer, a founder of Pine Forest Cemetery (ca. 1869), and in leadership positions at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and Giblem Masonic Lodge. Several years after his death, the senior Nash’s remains were moved to the Pine Forest Cemetery, where handsome carved stone markers were erected, probably by Solomon Nash, Jr., to mark the graves of Solomon, Sr., and Priscilla Nash Burney (d. 1855).”

Author: Nancy Beeler. Update: Catherine W. Bishir. Published 2010.

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January 6, 2013

E.E. Smith.

This North Carolina Highway Historical Marker, located northeast of Faison in Duplin County, commemorates Ezekiel Ezra Smith, educator, minister of the gospel, and United States minister to Liberia. Smith’s first wife was William Ann Burnett. For more on his life, see History of the American Negro and his Institutions, Volume 4, Arthur Bunyan Caldwell, ed.; and Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Volume 5, William S. Powell.

In the 1860 census of North Division, Duplin County: Cassy Smith, 45; her children Charlott, 25, Dorcas, 19, Rebecca, 16, Richard, 14, Mary G., 12, Ezekiel, 8, Theus, 4, and an infant, 2 months; plus Calvin Brock, 10, and Samuel Perlie, 35.

In the 1860 census of Goldsboro, Wayne County, Wm Burnett, 49, barber, and wife Cuzzy, 50. Next door: Dolly Burnett with daughters Polly, 12, Betsy, 5, and William An, 3. Next door to them: Solomon Finch, 28, barkeeper, wife Eliza [née Burnett], 27, seamstress, and children Georgianna, 10, and Thomas Russell Finch, 2.

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Category: Biography