Friday, 30th.
Mr. Morris presented the petition of sundry citizens of Anson, praying the passage of an act to permit Ralph Freeman, a free man of color, to exercise the functions of a Preacher. Referred.
North-Carolina Free Press (Halifax), 11 December 1832.
… And the bills to enable Daniel Skeene to emancipate his wife and daughter, and to emancipate Lewis Williams, and James G. Hostler, were each read a third time and passed.
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The North-Carolinian (Fayetteville), 23 December 1848.
In the 1850 census of Lenoir County: Daniel Skein, 50, Lottie Skein, 49, and Holton Skein, 8, all mulatto, with Harriet Pate, 23, white, and Luther Hughes, 10. Next door, a household headed by Bethia Skein, 34, white. (This Daniel Skeene appears in the 1860 and 1870 censuses of Lexington, Stark County, Ohio.)
Wants to Return.
We find in the Kinston Advocate, the annexed letter from a colored man formerly a slave in Wayne County, but who was emancipated some years since by the Legislature, and went to the Northern land of promise where negroes are as good as white people, and every body loved them so much – out of their sight.
The letter is addressed to Wm. T. Dortch, Esq., a member elect from Wayne County to the next Legislature. It will itself explain the objects and wishes of the writer, however defective it may be in spelling and composition: —
State of New York, Brooklyn L.I. }
september 1st 1860 }
Mr W.T. Doch sir I writ to you to let you no that I am well hoping these few lines may find you the same. I have written to you because I no you are a man I can depend on. I want to no if I pertition to come back to N.C. and be a slave again if you are a member elected this year if you will advocate it the general assembly & if you will be after gitting the consent of wayn county of her leading men you will please to writ to me & let me no what the prospect would be. Your obedient servant, D.B. Williams.
this was my old name david Bulls Williams
If this letter is agreeable I will writ again & let you no my reason for writing at all
Direct your letter to Brooklyn L.I. Nancy St No. 152
Wilmington Journal, 27 September 1860.
The Edenton Gazette states, upon information received from an undoubted source, that there have been killed in Southampton county upwards of one hundred negroes, consequent upon the late insurrection in that county. Fourteen of the thoughtless, savage wretches have been tried, of whom, thirteen were convicted, and are to be hung during the present week — there are thirty more now in the jail at Jerusalem yet to be tried, besides others in jail at Bellfield.
We understand that about twenty-one negroes have been committed to jail in Edenton, on a charge of having been concerned in concerting a project of rebellion. A slave has also been arrested and imprisoned in Duplin county, upon a similar allegation. He had communicated his knowledge of the scheme in agitation to a free man of color, who gave immediate information to the whites. Serious reports in relation to a revolt of the slaves in Wilmington and Sampson county, reached this city, by the way of Smithfield, on Monday night and Tuesday morning last. On Tuesday evening, certain intelligence from various sources reached us of an insurrection having occurred on Sunday night last in a part of Sampson and Duplin counties. Its extent or the damage done is unknown to us. But, as the militia have been called out in the adjacent counties, we flatter ourselves that it will be speedily suppressed, and that the deluded wretches who are concerned in the diabolical attempt will be made to suffer severely for their temerity.…
The miserable deluded and fiendish band in Southampton have paid dearly for their stupidity and atrocious wickedness; and such will inevitably be the late of all who may ever be so silly and depraved as to intimate their example. But there are some, it seems, reckless enough to attempt it. Vigilance, therefore, becomes necessary for perfect security.
North Carolina Star (Raleigh), 15 September 1831.
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General Assembly.
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The resolution in favor of Leavin Armwood, was read the second and third time and ordered to be engrossed. [This Resolution votes $250 to the individual named, a free man of color, as a reward for his having disclosed the meditated conspiracy amongst the slaves of Duplin and Sampson.]
North Carolina Free Press (Halifax), 10 January 1832.
… a bill to allow Leah White, a free negress, to enslave herself to Morris McDaniel of Jones County; … a bill for the relief of James Moore, a free negro – allows him to enslave himself; …
The Raleigh Register, 27 February 1861.
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Mr. Cheek introduced a bill for the relief of Sythia Chavis, a free colored woman. (Allows her to sell herself into slavery.)
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Weekly Raleigh Register, 19 December 1860.
Legislature of North Carolina. SENATE.
Monday, Dec. 12. — …
…The bill to emancipate Isaac, a slave, finally passed, 65-to-46, and was ordered to be engrossed.
…
North Carolina Sentinel, New Bern, 21 December 1836.
To the Honorable the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina now in Session – The Petition of Lovedy Henderson a free woman of color, respectfully represents that your Petitioner intermarried some years since with a certain man of color by the name of Horace, then a slave, but with the consent of his owner. That since their marriage by care and industry, she has been enabled to purchase her said husband at the price of Eight Hundred & Seventy dollars of Hugh and John G. McLaurin Executors of Duncan McLaurin deceased. That she has paid the purchase money & has a Bill of Sale duly executed by the said Executors. That your Petitioner now has two children by her said Husband & as by possibility her husband might become the slave of her children, your petitioner is induced to ask the interference of your honorable body, as the only tribunal authorized to grant the relief prayed for. Your Petitioner would not presume to ask this indulgence in her favour, in contravention to the policy of the Laws of the Land, but from the peculiar circumstances of her case & the belief that she will be enabled to establish for her Husband such a Character as to entitle him to the favourable notice of your honorable body. For this, she relied on the certificates of highly respectable gentlemen both in Fayetteville & the City of Raleigh, where they have lived since their intermarriage. Your Petitioner therefore prays the passage of an Act, emancipating her said husband Horace Henderson, and she in duty bound will ever pray &c. /s/ Lovdy Ann Henderson
We Hugh McLaurin & John C. McLaurin Executors of Duncan McLaurin dec’d unite in soliciting the passage of an Act for the emancipation of Horace Henderson as prayed for by his wife and we are free to say that we have long known said Horace who is a Barber and a boy of unexceptionable good character and of industrious & moral habits. /s/ H. MacLaurin for himself and John C. MacLaurin
We the undersigned citizens of Fayetteville freely unite in soliciting the General Assembly to pass an Act emancipating the negro man Horace, that we have known said Horace as a Barber & a Boy of good character, industrious habits and as we believe of the strictest integrity. /s/ J.H. Hooper, John MacRae, John Kelly, Thos. L. Hybart, [illegible] Cochran, John Lippitt, D.A. Saltmarsh, Chas. B. Jones, [illegible] Hawley, William S. Latta, Jas. Huske, Duncan Smith, Henry W. Ayer
We the undersigned citizens of Raleigh freely unite in soliciting the General Assembly to pas an Act emancipating the negro man Horace, that he has lived in the place for the last three or four years as a Barber, and has conducted himself with the utmost propriety, that in his deportment he is humble & polite, free as we believe from any improper intercourse with slaves, industrious & honest. /s/ M. Stokes, R.M. Saunders, Jo. Gales, B.W. Daniel, Geo. Simpson, J. Brown, John Primrose, Hazlett Wyle, Richard Smith, S. Birdsall, Jno. G. Marshall, A. Williams, Fabius J. Haywood, Robert Staniroy
General Assembly Session Records, November 1832-January 1833, Box 5, North Carolina State Archives.
In the 1850 census of Greensboro, Guilford County: Horace H. Henderson, 40, barber, and wife Love, 39, both born in Fayetteville; children James, 18, farmer, Mary Ann, 17, and Timothy, 14, born in Raleigh; and Albert, 10, Sarah, 8, Thomas, 4, and Alexander, 3, born in Greensboro; all mulatto.
[Sidenote: Ninety years after this petition, a Horace Henderson was born into my extended family, but I know no connection between my Hendersons, originally of Onslow County, and Lovedy Ann Henderson. — LYH]
The following are the Titles of the Acts passed at the Session of the General Assembly of the State of North-Carolina, held at the city of Raleigh, on the 1st of November, 1795.
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To emancipate a mulatto boy by the name of Gustavus Adolphus Johnston, in the county of Chowan; and also a mulatto girl by the name of Amy Philips, in the county of Brunswick.
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North-Carolina Journal, Halifax, 12 December 1795.
An Act to emancipate Ned Hyman, a slave
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That Ned Hyman, a slave belonging to Elizabeth Hagans, of Martin county, is hereby with the consent and at the request of his said owner, emancipated and set free; and by the name of Ned Hyman, shall hereafter possess and exercise all the rights and privileges which are enjoyed by other free persons of color within this State: Provided, nevertheless, that before such slave shall be emancipated, the petitioner shall give bond and good security to the Governor and his successors in office, in the County Court of Martin county, that the said slave shall honestly and correctly demean himself as long as he shall remain in the State, and shall not become a parish charge; which bond may be sued upon in the name of the Governor for the time being, to the use of the parish and of any person injured by the malconduct of such slave.
Chapter CIX, Public and Private Laws of North Carolina, 1833-34, North Carolina State Library.
Fourth Generation Inclusive 