Fourth Generation Inclusive

Historical Documents of Genealogical Interest to Researchers of North Carolina's Free People of Color

Category: Miscegenation

April 20, 2014

Her mulatto child was nursed by a negro woman.

The Petition of John Chambers of Haywood County Humbly Sureth Your Honerable Body that about the first day of February, that a certain Theophilus Oneal who emigrated from Johnson County in this State to this Haywood County. And that after some acquaintance with the family of Mr. Theophilus Oneal Your Petitioner Maried his daughter Riney. But in Abouts two Weeks after marriage your petitioners Wife was charged With having been delivered of a Molatto Child which was Nused by a Negro Woman of the said Theophilus Oneals the Father inlaw of the Petitioner. After being Charged with the above crime, the family has since the Mariage Confessed the fact. After which time your Petitioner carried his wife Riney to her father and has never lived with her since. Your Petitioner is a poor young Man but Wish to Conduct him self in such a manner so as to render himself Respectable, as this petition May Want form, Gramar, and eloquence yet there is one thing he feels himself weel assured of that is the correctness of his Narative he therefore wish your honerable Body to take his case into serious consideration and pass a law to annul the Marriage of your unfortunate Petitioner, And in duty bound he Will ever pray, your petitioner think it needless to have paper crowded with Names he therefore Contents himself with having a few of the respectable part of his neighbours or county men placed on the petition.

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The Committee on Divorce & Alimony to whom was before the Petition of John Chambers of Haywood County, have had the same under consideration and ask him to report; Your committe find that the said John Chambers intermarried with Riney ONeal the daughter of Theophilus ONeal, who was emigrated from the County of Johnson to the County of Haywood three or four years since, and that some short time afterward, the said Chambers discovered, and it appears to your committee in proof likewise, that it was the common talk previous to their removal from the County fo Johnson, and has been, subsequently acknowledged by the family that the said Riney (previously to her removal) had been delivered of a mulatto child; And it appears further to your Committe that as soon as the Petioner the said John Cahmbers had ascertained this fact, he returned or carried his wife to her parents, & with whom and himself  there has been no fellowship since __ Your Committe aware of the importance of rendering indi[illegible]ible teh marriage contract, and of that demoralizing tendency which a seperation under any circumstances produces, are yet of an opinion, that the prayer of the Petitioner in this Case should be granted, and therefore recommended the passage of the accompaning bill. All which is respectfully submitted.  /s/ J.G.A. Williamson, Ch. of the Com.

General Assembly Session Records, November 1825-January 1826, Box 4, North Carolina State Archives.

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July 30, 2013

She has been delivered of a colored child.

To the Honorable the General Assembly of North Carolina Now in Session,

The Humble Petition of Jacob Johnson Sheweth, That my wife Hannah has violated the marriage Vow, distinguished herself as an abandoned woman in point of Morals and Chastity, by having been delivered of a coloured child on the 4th day of January 1822, Since which time our conjugal embraces have entirely ceased. The which base action causes me your humble petitioner to Solicit your kind interference in giving me a final discharge from said Hannah.

Your Humble Petitioner further Sheweth that misfortunes in life has rendered me Unable to Apply for a divorcement in the way heretofore prescribed by an act of the General Assembly – That Honorable body who now alone is able to give Me redress. And your Humble Petitioner will ever Pray &c 27th Nov’r 1823. /s/ Jacob Johnson

We the under signed believe the above Stated grievances to be Undisputed facts and from long acquaintance know your Petitioner to have Supported a good Moral character.  /s/ Oscar Alston, Elisha Siler, Joshua Adcock, R. Freeman, Jesse, Bray, Henry Dorsett, Duty Dorsett

[Granted.]

General Assembly Session Records, November 1823-January 1824, Box 1, North Carolina State Archives.

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July 2, 2013

The predicament.

As we have already noted, according to the laws of the colonial period, illegitimate children acquired the status of the mother, and this ruling explains the predicament of John Oggs’ children. Oggs was a bachelor whose housekeeper and cook was his slave, a Negro woman named Hester. By her he fathered four offspring, two males and two females. To “my gairl Alley (Alice)” and “my boy Jesse” he devised an equal interest in the plantation whereon he lived. To “my gairl Prudence” and “my boy Charles” he bequeathed the “land on the Island.” The total acreage of his real estate was between two and three hundred acres. He had failed, however, to provide for the manumission of either the mother or her children and since the law prohibited a slave from owning real property, the complications produced by the will became immediately evident. Here were properties clearly intended for individuals who were unable to exercise the privileges of ownership.

This peculiar state of affairs continued for a period of eighteen years, the boy Jesse having died in the meantime, when John Hamilton solved the problem by sponsoring a special legislative enactment, doubtless at the behest of interested persons in Camden and in Pasquotank. Following are quoted pertinent passages from the act finally passed by the State Legislature: “And whereas, the within mentioned Hester, and her children Charles, Alley and Prudence Oggs, are recommended to this General Assembly by several very respectable inhabitants of Camden and Pasquotank, as worthy of being manumitted and set free agreeable to the intentions of their father John Oggs. . . . Be it therefore enacted, that the said Negro woman Hester, and her children Charles, Alley and Prudence Oggs, are hereby manumitted and set free to all intents and purposes, and to possess all rights and privileges as if they had been born free.”

Exercising their long-delayed rights of ownership, for a few years the Oggs heirs sold and bought real estate. The father had owned one tract located in a neighborhood now known as Wickham, and the other was on Indian Island. Prudence finally purchased fifty acres on Indian Island, where she apparently spent her last days. Hester and the other two children later assumed the surname of Dixon. Eventually they sold all their possessions and departed for parts unknown.

Excerpt from Jesse F. Pugh, Three Hundred Years Along the Pasquotank (1957).

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June 24, 2013

She was delivered of a colored child.

To the Hon’bl the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina –

The memorial and petition of John Fugate of the County of Wilkes respectfully represents that he intermarried with one Patsey Johnson on the 8th day of May 1823, and that on the 8th day of the ensuing July the said Patsey was delivered of a coloured child – That at the time of the intermarriage of your petitioner, he had no knowledge of the pregnancy of the said Patsey, and that as soon as the facts came to his knowledge, and the child was discovered to be a coloured one, he immediately abandoned the said Patsey, and has had no kind of connection with her since – Your Petitioner further represents that he is extremely poor and not able to make application to the Superior Court for relief, even if his case was cognizable by that authority, of which he is informed there are some doubts – He therefore prays that your Honorable Body will take his case into consideration and pass an act absolving him from the bonds of matrimony with the said Patsey, and he as in duty bound will ever pray.   /s/ John Fugate Dec’r 20th 1826

[A supporting affidavit signed by 14 friends and neighbors is attached.]

General Assembly Session Records, December 1826-February 1827, Box 4, North Carolina State Archives.

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June 4, 2013

His sunshine gleam of felicity was evanescent.

To the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina

The Petition of Lewis Tombereau most humbly sheweth

That your Petitioner is a native of France and a shoemaker by trade and that being from his youth attached to a government founded on Just and liberal principles such as guarantees the enjoyment of rational liberty, and an equal participation in the administration of its laws to every citizen however humble. He emigrated to the United States, and settled himself therein, near Williamston in Martin County in this state, where without a care beyond his lap stone, he worked at his trade with such assiduity and industry as to have been considered eminently useful in his line in that neighbourhood, so that he was enabled to make both ends meet with comfort, which he still hopes to do and thereby to his last, eat the bread of independence.

That to lighten the cares, and sweeten the toils of life, and make his share of its burthens sit easy, He intermarried with a young woman of the neighbourhood, named Nancy Jolly of whom he became enamoured of, to whom he was determined to stick as close as wax; and to exert the powers given to him by God, and nature, to satisfy her desire, supply her wants, administer to her necessities, and provide for her support in a manner befitting his humble, but independent sphere in life.

That with the most pungent and heart felt sorrow, your Petitioner feels himself compelled to state, that his sunshine gleam of felicity was evanescent; and he too soon with heart rending horror found, that in his indulging in the best passion incident to humanity, he linked his fortunes with, and intrusted his happiness to, one of the most frail, lewd, and depraved, daughters of Eve, for without either cause or provocation she shortly after her said marriage withdrew herself from your Petitioner, and from the discharge of her conjugal duties, and forsook both his board and bed, to cohabit with a certain mulatto Barber named Roland Colanche then living in Williamston by whom she had a coloured child, and became, and continues to be, a public and notorious prostitute in the most unlimited sense of that word. She indulging in an unreserved, and promiscuous intercourse with men of every colour, age, class and description she meets, sufficiently dissolute, licentious, and sensual, to gratify their passions, and her lust, and desire of variety.

That your Petitioners hopes of happiness being thus early blasted, in a way, and by persons whose abject stations in life, precludes his obtaining any redress for the injuries this done him, without making him obnoxious to that portion of ridicule, that most inconsistently follows matters of this nature, because the butt of such ridicule, is more an object for the balm of pity, than for the gall of unfeeling mirth, to avoid which, he moved from thence, and is now seated in Raleigh in Wake County, where his demeanour has been such, he feels himself authorized to say, as to gain for him the good will of his neighbours notwithstanding his poverty.

That from his imperfect knowledge of the English language, he being a foreigner, and the consequent difficulty of making himself understood, as well as from a reluctance to make public, what without any fault of his own might by mean and illiberal minds be thought disgraceful to him, he has hitherto brooded over his wrongs in agonising silence, and his poverty precluding the possibility of his engaging a lawyer to file a petition for a divorce in a court of law, or if he has found a lawyer kind enough to befriend him therein, he was, and is, unable to give the security for the accruing costs which is require by act of assembly: which costs he would be compelled to pay, tho successful in the suit, as neither the unhappy woman complained against, not her paramour, have any visible means of paying them: and as your Petitioner is able to substantiate the facts herein set forth, as well as by several members of your Body, as by other respectable witnesses; and being advised, that the acting upon it, so as to release him from the unhallowed bonds he in an evil hour entered into, is a matter wholly within the discretion of your Body.

He earnestly prays that you will take his case into consideration that he is a foreigner, and poor, and the woman complained against, an open and notorious prostitute, and that you will either divorce him from the said woman, or make such order as to your collective wisdom shall seem commensurate with the affording him adequate relief in the premises and He will ever gratefully pray &c.   /s/ L Tombereau

Raleigh Wake County November 19th A.D. 1824   }

General Assembly Session Records, November 1824, North Carolina State Archives.

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May 26, 2013

Being in a slow state of health.

In the Name God Amen

I Tamsey Gandy of the County Wayne and State of North Carolina being in slow State of Health but of Sound mind and memory blessed be god for the Same Calling to mind the certainty of death, I make & publish this my last will and Testament in manner and form following Viz I give and bequeath unto my Son Henderson Gandy my bed bedstead and necessary furniture, and Red chest and all my clothes and Spun Cotton. I leave the rest of my property to be Sold by my Executor and money arising there from I leave to my Son Anderson Gandy.

I leave my Worthy friend Robert Williams my Executor to this my last will and Testament revoaking all other Wills by me made. April 28th in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty two whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal    Tansey X Gandy

Signed sealed and published in the presence of William Lewis

The will was proved at May Term 1842. Recording Docket Book 8, p. 309. Office of Clerk of Superior Court, Wayne County Courthouse, Goldsboro.

Tamsey Gandy’s estate was sold on 15 August 1842 and brought in $41.33 ¼.  Purchasers included Theo. Seaberry and Offie Seaberry (probably the same man, Theophilus Seaberry), but were primarily white neighbors. Though she could not write (or, presumably, read), Tamsey’s estate included “1 Lot Books.” Recording Docket Book 8, p. 355-356. Office of Clerk of Superior Court, Wayne County Courthouse, Goldsboro.

Edward Gandy named his daughter Tamsey Gandy as a beneficiary in his 23 July 1823 will filed in Nash County. Will Book 1, page 291, Office of the Clerk of Superior Court, Nash County Courthouse, Nashville. In 1809, the surname of Tamsey Whiddon and her siblings Griffin, Brinkley and Elizabeth was changed to Gandy, and they were “legitimated.” North Carolina General Assembly, 1809 Session Laws, Chapter CXXVIII, page 40.

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May 10, 2013

Father a slave.

At page 14 of Chi Chi Mills, “Descendants of William Mills Sr. of Onslow County,” www.ncgenweb-data.com/onslow/family, Eliza Ann Mills is listed as the daughter of William Mills and Nancy Whaley. Eliza Ann Mills’ son was William Kelly Mills, born 1836, who married first Anna Maria Simms, then Alvina Reeves. Eliza married Lewis Turner, but William Kelly Mills’ name carries the notation “father a slave.”

In the 1850 census of Lawrence County, Illinois: Eliza Turner, 30, born North Carolina; Kelly Turner, 13, born North Carolina; Nancy Turner, 11, born Illinois; and Mary Turner, 8, born Illinois; all were described as white.

In the 1860 census of Christy, Lawrence County, Illinois: Eliza Turner, 40, born NC; Alex, 25, NC; Kelley, 20, born NC; Nancy, 20, born Illinois; and Mary Turner, 4, born Illinois; all white.

In the 1870 census of Christy, Lawrence County, Illinois: Eliza Turner, 51, born NC; Charlotte Turner, 14, born Illinois; and William Mills, 33, born NC; all white.

In the 1880 census of Sumner, Lawrence County, Illinois: Kelley T. Mills, 43, plasterer, born NC; wife Alvina E., 30, born Illinois; and children Eliza A., 7, Laura M., 6, and Elura B., 2. Alvina was described as white; Kelley and the children as mulatto.

In the 1900, 1910 and 1920 censuses of Christy, Lawrence County, William “W.K.” Mills, NC-born plasterer, is described as mulatto. He died in Lawrenceville, Illinois, on 1 April 1927. Wm. Kelley Mills’ death certificate noted that he was born 25 August 1836 in New Bern NC to Eliza Mills.

[Sidenote: Eliza Mills Turner’s cousin, Nancy Mills Parker, and brother John Mills testified in 1860 to the free status of Nancy Henderson Dove, my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Patsey Henderson‘s sister. Their mother was a white woman. – LYH]

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May 3, 2013

Her freedom has never been disputed.

State of North Carolina Onslow County

To all persons whom it may concern we the under Signed being called on to State what we Know concernning the Freedom of Nancy dove formerly Nancy Henderson do certify that Nancy Ann Henderson the Mother of the said Nancy Dove was a Free born white Woman and that the Freedom of the said Nancy Dove never has been disputed given under our hands this 3rd March 1860  /s/ John Mills {seal} Nancy Parker {seal}

Test J.W. Thompson X

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March Term 1860

Then was the above certificate proven in open Court by J.W. Thompson  /s/ Harvey(?) Cox

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State of North Carolina Onslow County   } Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions March Term 1860

Then was the foregoing Certificate of John Mills and Nancy Parker duly proved in open Court by the Oath of Jonathan W. Thompson and Ordered to be registered  /s/ Jasper Etheridge

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State of North Carolina, Onslow County   } Registered in due form of law, April 14th 1860 – Book No 29, Folio 48.  /s/ Z.M. Coston Regr

Slave Records, Onslow County Records, North Carolina State Archives.

[Sidenote: Nancy Henderson, also known as Nancy Dove, was the sister of my great-great-great-great-grandmother, Patsey Henderson.  –LYH]

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March 26, 2013

Horrible murder.

HORRIBLE MURDER. – Mrs. Abe Rhodes, wife of B.C. Rhodes, was found dead in Lumber river on Monday last, with her throat cut and head crushed. She had a few days previous eloped with a free mulatto by name of Shad Williams, taking with them $2,500 in money. Williams has been arrested and lodged in jail at Lumberton to await his trial. – Fayetteville (N.C.) Carolinian.

Baltimore Sun, 16 June 1860.

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March 20, 2013

Horrible outrage.

OUTRAGES IN NORTH CAROLINA.

Three Radicals Murder a Negro, His Wife and Four Children in Their Own Home.

The House Burned to Conceal the Crime – A Mother’s Devotion – The Woman Alarms Neighbors and Secures the Arrest of the Murderers.

RALEIGH, N.C., May 2, 1871.

The Sentinel of to-day has a correspondence from Rutherford Court House, which give the details of one of THE MOST HORRIBLE OUTRAGES that has ever shocked human ears. The perpetrators of the deed are radicals, though it partakes of the nature of Ku Klux Klan outrages. Six souls were, without a word of warning, ushered into eternity, and their slaughtered bodies afterwards consumed in the flames of their burning home. The outrage occurred in Morgan township, on the border of McDowell county, and is as follows:

Silas Weston, a free negro before the war, has for many years been living with Polly Steadman, a white woman of loose character. Polly has or had four children, white, the oldest about fourteen, the youngest nearly two years of age.

SILAS AND POLLY lived peaceably together, and were in better circumstances than most of their class. Some time ago three notorious characters – Govan and Columbus Adair and M. Bernard – were charged with the theft of a quantity of brandy and bound over at McDowell County Court. Silas had seen the thieves carrying off the booty, and was subpoenaed as the principal witness for the prosecution. The Adairs threatened his life if he peached but Silas expressed a determination to bring the rogues to justice. What we now proceed to tell is THE SWORN DEPOSITION of the woman Polly Steadman: — On Wednesday evening, April 26, shortly after nightfall, while the family were preparing to retire to peaceful repose, the dog began to bark violently. Polly, looking through chinks between the logs, received a pistol bullet in the eye. With a wild scream she sprang back, and at that instant the door was broken down and in rushed Govan Adair, Columbus Adair and Bernard FIRING AS THEY CAME. Silas fell dead, with two balls in the head. One of the assassins stood over the children as they lay upon the floor, shooting them through the head like so many pigs. Polly stopped to creep under the bed, but was flung back. Then she began to fight like a tigress. One of the butchers attacked her with a knife. Finally, with five deep cuts on the body, with her throat deeply gashed and a pistol shot through the eye, this poor creature sank to the floor and was kicked into a pile of broom straw preparatory to THE GRAND AUTO DA FE.  Meanwhile every voice in the family had been stilled. Six lifeless bodies lay on the bloody floor – the old man on the hearth, the mother haggled in pieces on the straw, and the children in their night clothes, lying where they fell – all had been jostled by rude feet. The fiends contemplated their work, to make sure it had been done thoroughly, and prepared to hide their tracks. Piling up clothing, straw and other combustible matter they applied the match, and then, with an ineffaceable stain on their souls, fled away into the darkness.

A MOTHER’S DEVOTION. And now occurred what may well sound marvelous. Polly Steadman, scorched by the flames, arouses herself, seizes her youngest child, who gives signs of life, and, crawling towards the door, tries to drag out another child, but nature fails, and the body lies just outside the threshold; then, with supernatural strength, Polly staggers the distance of half a mile to the residence of Mrs. Williams, and gives THE ALARM. It is too late. Three bleached skeletons grin from the ashes,, and a blistered corpse lay without the door.  As soon as possible messengers were dispatched for Sheriff Walker and for medical assistance; but before either arrived, Polly, supposing herself in the last agony of death, solemnly testified against the murderers. She knew them well; they were her near neighbors, and were not disguised. Her testimony was so clear and positive it carried conviction to all who heard it. Accordingly Squire Hanes promptly issued a warrant for THE ARREST of the suspected parties. They were found at home, one of them in bed, though late in the day. Sheriff Walker arrived shortly afterward and conveyed the prisoners to this place, where they are closely confined. Commenting on this horrible affair, it is proper to state with emphasis that all the parties are of the lowest order of society, and that all of them, the slain and the slayers, are radicals of the deepest dye. The Adairs for years have attended the polls for no other purpose than to insult and intimidate conservative voters. So “trooly loil” were they that even with murder in their hearts they sought to make the deed redound for the benefit of the party.

Reading Eagle, Reading, Pennsylvania, 4 May 1871.

In the 1860 census of Catheys Creek, Rutherford County: Cinthia Weston, 41, (described as “idiotic”), Elizabeth, 32, Stephen, 21, and Silas Weston, 20. In the 1870 census of Morgan, Rutherford County: Silus Western 50, farmer, wife Mary, 25, and children Harberd, 10, Docia, 6, David, 4, and Mary, 7 months. Silus, Harberd and baby Mary were described as mulatto; Mary, Docia, and David as white. Nearby, the large household of James H. and Arminta Adair, which included sons Columbus, 26, and Govan, 24.

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