Fourth Generation Inclusive

Historical Documents of Genealogical Interest to Researchers of North Carolina's Free People of Color

Tag: Henderson

September 15, 2016

Particulars for the funeral.

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Funeral bill for Anna Henderson Simmons, who died in Logansport, Cass County, Indiana, on 16 June 1906.

Anna H. Simmons was a native of Wayne County, North Carolina. Contrary to information shown in this document, her parents were James Henderson and Eliza Armwood Henderson. Anna’s husband Montraville Simmons was born in Duplin or Wayne County, North Carolina, in 1839 to John Calvin Simmons and Hepsie Whitley Simmons. The family migrated to Ontario, Canada, in the 1850s.

In the 1850 census of South Side of Neuse, Wayne County, North Carolina: farmer Calvin Simmons, 42, wife Hepsey, 46, and children Harriet, 13, Susan, 11, Montrival, 9, Jno. R., 7, Margaret, 5, Dixon, 3, and Geo. W., 1, plus Robt. Aldridge, 26, who worked as a hireling. 

In the 1860 census of Westbrooks, Sampson County, North Carolina: James Henderson, mulatto carpenter; wife Eliza; and four children, Anna J., Susan, Hepsie, and Alexander. 

Copy of funeral bill courtesy of Kroeger Funeral Home, Logansport, Indiana.

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February 8, 2016

His razors are of the first quality.

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Fayetteville Weekly Observer, 10 January 1827.

New Barber Shop.

“Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”

HORACE HENDERSON respectfully informs the gentlemen of Fayetteville, and the public generally, that he has taken the shop on Gillespie street formerly occupied by D. Ochiltree, Esq. and nearly opposite the State Bank, where the above business will be carried on in all its various branches. He flatters himself that from the circumstance of his having been born and raised in Fayetteville, his known habits of industry and sobriety, to merit and receive a liberal share of patronage. His Razors and other materials are of the first quality and shall always be kept int he best order.

Fayetteville, January 10, 1827.

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Horace Henderson was enslaved, though he lived much like a free man. His wife Lovedy Henderson  petitioned the North Carolina General Assembly for his freedom in 1832.

Hat tip to Gabby Faith for the clipping.

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September 30, 2013

Made good.

“Colter’s entire life has consisted of challenges accepted and made good on. He was born on January 8, 1910, in Noblesville, Indiana, a small farming town about forty miles east of Indianapolis. On both side of the family his ancestors were free blacks who had settled in Indiana several years before the Civil War. Colter possesses a ledger tracing his mother’s family back to Britton Bassett, the son of a black man and a white woman in North Carolina, who was granted his freedom in 1797 when he was twenty-one and given a horse, bridle and saddle, and one hundred dollars. In the 1830s Bassett moved his wife and children to Indiana, traveling by night and hiding by day in order to elude slave hunters.”

— from the introduction to Cyrus Colter‘s The Rivers of Eros (1991).

[Sidenote: Britton Bassett, as the son of a white woman, was born free, not set free. Perhaps 1797 marked the end of his involuntary apprenticeship. He had a son Britton, who also had a son Britton and another named Daniel. Britton and Daniel married daughters of Montreville and Anna J. Henderson Simmons, who were born free in North Carolina and migrated to Indiana by way of Ontario, Canada.]

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July 22, 2013

The peculiar circumstances: the husband might become a slave of his children.

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]

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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 20, 2013

Edward J. & Susan Henderson Wynn.

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EDWARD JAMES WINN (1838-1922) was the son of Gray Winn and Sarah “Sallie” Greenfield Winn.  His wife, SUSAN HENDERSON WYNN (1854-1907), was the daughter of James Henderson and Louisa Armwood Henderson. They are buried in a small family cemetery near Dudley in southern Wayne County.

Photograph by Lisa Y. Henderson, March 2013.

In the 1850 census of South Side of the Neuse, Wayne County: Sally Winn, 30, and children Betsey, 14, Edw’d J., 12, Eliza, 10, Penny, 6, Ally, 4, and Washington, 1.

In the 1860 census of Westbrooks, Sampson County: James Henderson, 52, wife Eliza, 25, and children Anna J., 8, Susan, 6, Hepsie, 4, and Alexander, 1.

[Sidenote: Edward Winn’s brother, Washington Francis “Frank,” married Susan Henderson’s sister Hepsie. — LYH]

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February 4, 2013

Surname swap, no. 3.

In the 1850 census of Upper Richlands, Onslow County: brothers Lewis Skipp, 16, and James Skipp, 10, both mulatto, in the household of white farmer Stephen Humphrey.

In the 1860 census of Westbrooks, Sampson County: Lewis Henderson, 25, wife Margaret, 26, and children Lewis S., 4, James L., 3, and Isabella J., 4 months.  Also, James Henderson, 22, in the household of white farmer Lewis C. King. 

Lewis Henderson and James Henderson were the oldest sons of James Henderson, born about 1815 in Onslow County.  Skipp may have been their mother’s surname.

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February 3, 2013

Onslow County Apprentices, 1823-24.

James Henderson and Bryan Henderson were bound to Jason Gregory at February term, 1823.

Betsy Henderson was bound to James Glenn Jr. at February term, 1823.

Betsy, Nancy and Appie [no surnames] were bound to David Mashborn in 1823.

Miranda Henderson, James Henderson, Martha Henderson and Bryant Henderson were bound to James Glenn at February term, 1824.

Miranda Henderson was bound to Elizabeth Williams at August term, 1824.

William Henderson was bound to Lemuel Williams at May term, 1824.

James Henderson and Bryan Henderson, “the baseborn children of Patsey Henderson,” were bound to James Glenn Sr. at August term, 1824.

James Jarman, son of Charlotte Jarman, was born to 1824.

Amos Pittman, son of Sally Pittman, was bound to Edward Erwin in 1824.

Betsy Henderson and Gatsey Henderson, daughters of Nancy Henderson, were bound to Lewis Mills at August term, 1824.

Gatsy Pittman, daughter of Sucky Pittman, was bound to Jesse Humphrey in 1824.

In the 1860 census of Half Moon, Onslow County: Edmund Marshall, 25, cooper, and wife Martha, 20, “serving,” Gatsey Pittman, 45, domestic, and D.R. Ambrose, 23, merchant.

Needham Potter, son of Alice Potter, was bound to Charles Cox in 1824.

Patsy Henderson was bound to Amos Askew at November term, 1824.

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

[Sidenote: All these Hendersons are my kin.  My great-great-great-great-grandfather James Henderson and his brother Bryan/Bryant were sons of Patsey Henderson.  Miranda and Martha “Patsey” Henderson probably were their sisters.  I believe Nancy Henderson was Patsey Henderson the elder’s sister, and her children above were Betsy, Gatsey and, possibly, William.  Apprentice records show a dozen or so free colored Henderson children in Onslow County in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.  It seems likely that they were from one extended family, but proof is thin. — LYH]

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December 10, 2012

John and Sarah Simmons Henderson.

ImageJOHN HENRY HENDERSON and wife SARAH ELIZABETH SIMMONS HENDERSON.  John was born in 1860 in Sampson County to James and Eliza Armwood Henderson.  Sarah was born about 1868 to Bryant and Elizabeth Wynn Simmons. Both died near Dudley, Wayne County.

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December 7, 2012

Free-Issue Death Certificates: HENDERSON.

Marguriet Henderson.  Died 17 July 1915, Brogden, Wayne County. Black. Age 82. Born Sampson County to an unknown father and Margaret Bowkin.  Informant, Lucian Henderson.

In the 1860 census of Westbrooks, Sampson County: Lewis Henderson, 25, mulatto, turpentine laborer, wife Margaret, 26, and children Lewis T., 4, James L., 3, and Isabella J., 4 mos. [James L. is Lucian Henderson, “Lution,” below. Lewis and Margaret were my great-great-great-grandparents. — LYH.]

Alex’r Henderson.  Died 13 June 1916, Goldsboro, Wayne County. Colored. Married. Age 56. Born Wayne County to Stephen Henderson and unknown mother. Buried Elmwood cemetery.  Informant, Mary Henderson.

In the 1860 census of Westbrooks, Sampson County, James Henderson, mulatto, carpenter, wife Eliza and children Anna J., Susan, Hepsie, and Alexander. [Alex Henderson’s father was James, not Stephen, Henderson. His mother was Eliza (or Louisa) Armwood. — LYH]

Lution Henderson.  Died 22 June 1934, Brogden, Wayne County. Colored. Married to Susan Henderson. Age 75 years, 3 months. Farmer. Born Wayne County to Louis Henderson of Wayne County and Maggie Hill of Sampson County.  Informant, Jonnie Carter, Dudley.

John Henderson.  Died 8 August 1924, Goldsboro, Wayne County.  Colored.  Married.  Age 63. Farmer. Born Sampson County to James Henderson of Onslow County and [blank] Armwood of Sampson County.  Buried Dudley NC. Informant, Sarrah Henderson.

In the 1870 census of Faisons, Duplin County, James Henderson, 52, farmer, wife Eliza and children Ann, 17, Susan, 16, Hepsey, 14, Aleck, 13, John H., 11, Nancy, 6, and Betty, 3, plus son James Henderson, 27, and boarders James Ammons and Thomas Cox.  [John and Alex Henderson were brothers, and Lewis Henderson (Margaret’s husband) was their half-brother.]

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