Fourth Generation Inclusive

Historical Documents of Genealogical Interest to Researchers of North Carolina's Free People of Color

Tag: Guy

February 23, 2015

Always free?

 TESTIMONY OF WILEY LOWEREY.

WILEY LOWEREY, sworn and examined, duly testified:

Q. Where do you live?  A. In Kinston, Lenoir County, North Carolina.

Q. What is your business at home?  A. Well, sir, I run drays on the street, and I have been drayer there for two or three years. I keep store besides.

Q. In the town of Kinston?  A. Yes, sir.

Q. Have you held any public office in the county?  A. I have been county commissioner.

Q. How long?  A. About eight years.

Q. Are you county commissioner now?  A: No, sir.

…

Q. Were you formerly a slave?  A. No, sir.

Q. You were a freeman before the war?  A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do you own property?  A. Yes, sir.

Q. How much, and what does it consist of?  A. Town property principally.

Q. Real estate?  A. Yes, sir.

Q. Have you made it since the war?  A. Yes, sir; most of it.

…

Q. Do you own a house and lot?  A. Yes, sir; I own a right smart of houses. My renters pay me between four and five hundred dollars a year.

…

By SENATOR BLAIR:

Q. How far is Lenoir County from Warren?  A. I think 180 miles.

Q. How long was it after you left there before you moved to the one where you are now?  A. I was raised there.

Q. You always lived there before you came to Lenoir?  A. Yes, sir.

Q. And you were always free?  A. Yes, sir.

Q. Always free? A. Yes, sir.

Q. What is your age now?  A. I am forty-seven years old.

Q. Were you always free?  A. Yes, sir.

Q. You were born free?  A. Yes, sir.

Q. Were your parents ever slaves?  A. No, they never was. My old grandfather was a hundred and five when he died, and was always free.

Q. Neither you or any of your ancestors were ever slaves in this country?  A. No, sir.

Q. What were your opportunities for education before the war?  A. I do not know, sir. Before the war, I did not know much; but the free colored people had a school going on in Raleigh.

Q. You said you were a county commissioner; where did you find such an education such as you found necessary in that position?  A. I just picked it up. I never went to school a day in my life.

Q. You found time to study and pick up a little arithmetic?  A. Yes, sir; I can read and write.

…

Wiley Lowery testified before a Senate Select Committee investigating the migration of hundreds of “colored people” from the South to Indiana in the late 1870s.

Senate Report 693, 2nd Session, 46th Congress: Proceedings of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States, Washington DC, beginning Tuesday, 9 March 1880.

Willie Lowery married Winnie Tann in Warren County on 16 January 1860. Matthew Guy was bondsman, John W. White was witness, and N.A. Purefoy, Minister of the Gospel, performed the service. 

Matthew Guy married Surbina Lowery on 10 December 1850 in Warren County. In the 1860 census of Warrenton, Warren County: #84, M. Guy and family; #85, P. Lowery, 65, mulatto, washerwoman; #86, N.A. Purefoy, white, clergyman, and family; #98, W. Lowery, 24, black, stonemason, born in Warren County, W. Lowery, 22, mulatto, seamstress, born in Northampton County; and M. Mitchell, 25, black, washerwoman, born in Halifax County.

Index to Marriage Bonds Filed in the North Carolina State Archives, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh; federal census schedules.

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March 10, 2013

He was a soldier of the Revolution.

State of North Carolina

Granville County

On this 8th day of November 18 Hundred and Fortytwo (1842) personally appeared before James Cozart — one of the acting Magistrates and a member of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for said County & State — Abigail Guy the widow of William Guy, a resident of said County & State, aged Eighty years, who having first sworn according to Law, doth on her oath make the following declaration, in order to obtain the benefit of the provision made by the act of Congress passed July 4th, 1836.

That she is the widow of William Guy, who was a Pensioner, that lived in the county of Granville NC, at the rate of Forty Dollars per annum & who was a soldier of the Revolution that served in the Virginia Continental Line that was placed on the pension roll in May 1833.

She further declares that she was married to the said Wm. Guy on the 12th day of June, 17 Hundred and Eighty, and that her husband the aforesaid Wm. Guy died on the 30th day of January 1837.  And that she has remained a widow ever since that Period as will more fully appear above to the proofs here unto annexed.

Sworn and Subscribed before me the day and date first above written before —   Abigail X Guy

James C. Cozart (seal)

The said Abigail Guy is a woman of truth and by old age & and bodily infirmity is unable to attend court to make her Declaration.  James C. Cozart

From the file of William Guy, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, National Archives and Records Administration.

In the 1830 census of South Regiment, Granville County: William Guy, head of a household consisting of one free man of color.  Listed separately, “Mrs. Guy,” head of a household consisting of one 60-70 year-old white woman.

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October 7, 2012

1 grubing hoe, 1 irone Square, 1 saw & drawing knife

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]

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