13 Nov 1771. Ordered that Dick a base born child born of the body of Lucy Jones a negro be bound to Joseph Norris untill he attain to a Lawful Age being born the 15th of June Last his said master to learn him the business of a planter.
Minutes, November Term 1771, Bute County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions.
Absolum Martin
Sutton Gibbons
Absalom Martin
Samuel Martin
Rose Carter
Polly Cuff
Thabetha Norwood
Cavanaugh Windsor
Mary Windsor
William Braddock
James Ellison
Nancy Ellison
Tabitha Ellison
Dinah Bell
The “Account of the Sale of the property of Ablassom [sic] Artis decest Sold by Jesse Hollowell Admr for Confederate money this March 9th 1864” chronicled the disposal of Absalom Artis‘ possessions. His estate included household goods, farm implements, carpenter’s tools, a cow and calf, and 5 “chickings.” Most of the buyers were Absalom’s free colored neighbors and kin: Green Simmons, Jacob Artis, Patrick Artis, Joseph Artis, John Artis, Edwin Artis, Oliver Guy, Edmond Artis, Charity Hagans and Levi Winn.
Records of Wills and Estates, Wayne County Records, North Carolina State Archives.
[Sidenote: The Civil War is raging. Absalom Artis has died of old age. Folk gather at the sale of his estate, hoping for a good deal on a harness or maybe a hammer. The crowd, standing shoulder to shoulder to peer at each item, is unusually mixed. Of the 21 buyers listed in the account, only ten were white. The others, 10 men and a woman, were members of Wayne County’s resilient little free colored community. Most were desperately poor, clinging to their precarious toehold on liberty. Others, like Absalom Artis and many of his kin, had managed to achieve a measure of comfort (material, anyway) that equalled or bested that of their white neighbors. They stepped up and laid down their Confederate dollars like the next man.
I am an Artis, but not descended from Absalom. The connection between him and my Artis forebear is lost to time, but the Artises collectively comprised one of the largest free colored families in antebellum North Carolina. They had been freed generations before in southside Virginia. — LYH]
On motion it is ordered that the sheriff of this county be directed to bring into Court at the next term the bodies of Lavinia Hagans & Rebecca Hagans coloured children of Eliza Hagans and notify said Eliza Hagans to show cause, if any she has, why the said children should not be bound out to service.
$25 REWARD. RAN AWAY from the subscriber in February last, my Negro man BOB, commonly called Amason hopping Bob, well known in the neighborhood of Stantonsburg. He has a free woman for his wife, one of old Stephen Mitchell‘s daughters.
She and old Mitchell live in the neighborhood of Theophilus Eason, in the edge of Greene county, where it is supposed Bob is lurking about. All persons are forewarned employing, harboring or giving him aid, or countenancing him in any way, under penalty of the law. I will give the above reward of $25, and all reasonable expenses paid, to have him confined in any jail so that I can get him again — or delivered to Mr. William Barnes, on White Oak, in Edgecombe County. JOSEPH J.M. BARNES.
Tarboro Press, 1 Feb 1840.
Ing’s Mills Dec’r 13th 1844
F.M. Taylor Clerk &c Sir
James Jones a free man of colour will apply to you for licence to Marry Jesse Boon and Elizabeth Jones, both free persons of colour, __ should you have any scruples in regard to granting them ,__ I can inform you that I am acquainted with the parties and wou’d not suppose them any liability on your part as they are of contracting ages &c &c Yrs sincerely
Jacob Ing
Records of Slaves and Free People of Color, Nash County Records, NC State Archives
August Term 1841.
Notice issued to Margaret Carroll, residing at Mrs. Sally Grice’s plantation, to bring in her children Garry, Feriba, Elvina and Mary Carroll.
Minutes, Johnston County Court of Pleas & Quarter Sessions.
In the 1850 census of Johnston County, Margaret Carroll and her children Mary, Raiford, Patsey, Mary and William appear in the household if farmer John M. Grice.
On 25 Mar 1875, 70 year-old Everett Hays filed a claim with the Southern Claims Commission (#3663). He had lived in Wayne County’s Pikeville township for 25-30 years and worked as a farm laborer. Hays was born in Greene County, “close by Pikeville,” and testified:
“I was whipped by Jim Combs and Council Radford and said it was because I was a d–n’d radical.”
The Union “was my pluck always.”
“I was compelled, like a great many of my color, to go in to the service as a cook.”
“Colored folks had always to get passes.”
“During the war, John Sykes and a party looking for deserters came to my house, and questioned me about deserters, and because I could give them no satisfactory information they took me out and whipped me, and carried off from my house a quantity of sausages.”
“It was our good luck that the Rebs would not take in colored men as soldiers.”
“I never heard of a colored man who did not rejoice at the defeat of the Rebs.”
Laurence Reid was deposed in support of Hays’ claim. He was 58 years old “as near as I can come to it,” lived in Pikeville “near to Everett Hays.” He had known Hays for 30 years, but was not related to him, and asserted, “We were both shoved off to do slave’s duty tho’ we were both free-born men …”
Others mentioned were Hays’ wife Millie Hays, his sons Burkett and Lafayette Hays, daughter Biddy Hays, and Elbert Artis and Beedie Artis, both of Pikeville. Lafayette, a farmer, was about 26 years old and lived at Lagrange in Lenoir County. Burkett was about 30 years old and also lived at Lagrange, where he worked as a blacksmith’s helper.
Hays asserted that Union troops had taken 3 barrels of corn, 400 pounds of bacon, 5 pounds of lard, a half bushel of meal, a pound of tobacco and cooking utensils valued at $122.00. The Commission allowed $75.00 of his claim.
In the 1850 census of Edgecombe County: Everett Hays, 40, wife Milly, 40, and children Beady, 11, Burkett, 6, and Lafayette Hays, 2.
An act of Congress, approved March 3, 1871, provided that the President nominate three commissioners of claims (otherwise known as the Southern Claims Commission) to receive, examine, and consider the claims of “those citizens who remained loyal adherents to the cause and the Government of the United States during the war, for stores or supplies taken or furnished during the rebellion for the use of the Army of the United States in States proclaimed as in insurrection against the United States.” The commissioners were to satisfy themselves of the loyalty of each claimant; certify the amount, nature, and value of the property taken or furnished; report their judgment on each claim in writing to the House of Representatives at the beginning of each session of Congress, hold their sessions in Washington; and keep a journal of their proceedings and a register of all claims brought before them. The act provided further that of the claims within its provisions only those presented to the commissioners could be prosecuted, and that all others were to be barred.
State of North Carolina Wayne County
I Zilley Hagans of the Same county having some Ennemys having Raised a Report that my Childrain is Runing about in the neighborhood for the purpose of giting Something to Eate & that they were likely to Suffer & that they are living in idleness this Report having bean Raised for the purpose of takeing my Children and having them bound out But I the sd Zilley Hagans will Certify to you By the Signature of my neighbours to the Revurse that they are Cleare from the Charge that is Reported against them I umbly Beg of the Court without Some Cause or proof of the Charge not to take my Children from me that is able to work and leave me with a parcell of Small Children not able to help them Selves this July the 25th 1824.
Jonathan Pike
Josiah Musgrave
William Garriss
Samuel Perkins
Mark Pike
Benjamin Boswell
William Musgrave
William Jackson
Nathan Pike
Isaac Cork
James Buntin
Box 3, Apprentice Bonds and Records, Wayne County Records, North Carolina State Archives.
[Sidenote: Druzilla “Zilley” Hagans was called into court to show cause why her children should be bound as apprentices. To aid her quest to keep her children, she sought support from eleven white neighbors, who averred that charges against her were untrue. Most free colored families were painfully poor. A small and prosperous few worked as artisans or farmed their own land. Others eked out tolerable livings as farmhands or tenant farmers. However, opportunities for women’s paid work were few. Free women of color competed with slave and poor white women for the little washing or sewing that took place outside households. These women depended on the contributions of all family members who could work. A mother hwose children were bound could console herself with the expectation that her children would be fed, clothed and sheltered during the terms of their indenture. However, the loss of the labor of older children could imperil a family’s survival. As Hagans’ petition poignantly illustrates, children most useful as apprentices were also those most useful to their parents. Hagans’ petition was unsuccessful. Her children Vina, 16, Eli, 18, and Sherard Hagans, 9, were bound to Robert Hooks during the court term. The indentures of successive children left Hagans’ family in worse straits. In 1833, she approached the court with an arrangement with a neighbor that worked to the advantage of each. — LYH]
Harriet Owens v. Jasper Chaplain, 48 NC 323 (1856).
Currituck County Court bound free colored girl Polly Gordon to Frederick Owens, a free man of color, at August Term, 1851. In October 1854, Owens sailed for the West Indies and was not heard from again, leaving Gordon with his wife, Harriet Owens. Jasper Chaplain took Gordon from Harriet Owens’ custody, and Currituck County Court Court rebound her to him without notifying Harriet Owens and without the girl’s presence. Reversing the lower court, North Carolina Supreme Court held that, because Owens was derelict in his duty towards Gordon, Currituck had the authority to rebind her without notice to the wife (who “had no interest in the question”) and without the girl.
Frederick Owens married Harriet Owens (her maiden name) on 13 July 1850 in Tyrrell County. The couple appear in Frederick’s mother Mary Owens‘ household in the 1850 census of Poplar Branch, Currituck County. They are not found in the 1860 census.
In the 1860 federal census of Powells Point township, Currituck County, 53 year-old farmer Jasper Chaplin and his wife share a household with six free colored children, Sidney (17) and Lydia Patterson (15), Joseph Case (14), and Polly (13), Aaron (9) and Pater Gordon (5).
Sarah Wesley’s death certificate reveals that Polly Gordon married her fellow apprentice, Joseph Case. Wesley was born 7 July 1874 in Jarvisburg NC and died 29 May 1925 in Poplar Branch. Polly and Joseph are listed as her parents, and they appear together in the 1870, 1880 and 1900 federal censuses of Currituck County.
Fourth Generation Inclusive 