White | Fourth Generation Inclusive

December 5, 2015

Highland County, Ohio, Register of Blacks.

Perquimans County, North Carolina. I, David White of the said county one of the Trustees of the yearly meeting of Friends of North Carolina by power vested in me by Sampson Lawrence of same county , have removed to Highland County , Ohio a negro man named Smith White, dark complexion, middle size, about 27 years of age and his wife, Louisa and her child Elizabeth, all who belonged to Sampson Lawrence above named, Louisa about 20 years of age. That these persons ave been manumitted to manage themselves. 12th day, 10th month, 1825. /s/ David White. Wit: Nathan Hunt. Rec. 7-15-1836, Highland Co., Ohio.

In the 1840 census of Fairfield, Highland County, Ohio: Smith White is head of a household that includes one male aged 24-35, one male under 10, one female aged 55-100, one female aged 24-25 and three females under 10; all free persons of color. Per findagrave.com, Smith White died 26 April 1849 and is buried in Fairfield Quaker cemetery, Leesburg, Highland County.

Jane White, Perquimans County, North Carolina. I, David White of said county and state as agent or trustee for the yearly meeting of Friends of North Carolina and by authority vested in me, manumit and set free a negro woman, Jane, dark complexion, about 49 years of age and her daughter, Louisa about same colour, aged 20 years, and her son, Bartlet about 10 years old. Also Louisa’s John. That they are now in Highland County, Ohio having left this county in 1834 under control of Thaddeus White and William Nixon, dated 13th day, 10th month, 1835. /s/ David White. Wit: Nathan hunt. Recorded 7-15-1836 Highland Co., Ohio.

Perquimans County, North Carolina. I, David White of said county and state, agent or trustee for the yearly meeting of Friends of North Carolina by authority vested in me, do manumit and set free a woman of colour named Winney Lamb and her three children: Elizabeth, Thomas and Louisa; also, Theophelus Winslow now in Wayne County, Indiana, he is about 27 years old, 6 feet high, tolerably dark complexion and is the son of Betty Winslow of Highland County, Ohio. Said Winney Lamb is a low woman of yellow complexion about 42 years old and with her children are now in Highland County, Ohio. That they left this state in 1834 under the care of Thaddeus White and William Nixon, dated 13th of 10th month, 1835. /s/ David White. Wit: Nathan Hunt. Recorded 7-15-1836 Highand Co., Ohio.

In the 1840 census of Washington, Wayne County, Indiana, Theophilus Winslow headed a household of two persons of color. On 20 August 1838, he received a land grant of 80 acres in Wayne County, Indiana. On 4 November 1838, he married Milly Anderson in Wayne County. Records show that he was a member of Milford Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends. In the 1850 census of Washington, Wayne County, Indiana: 40 year-old North Carolina-born farm Theophilus Winslow, wife Milly, 40, and daughter Lydia, 6. In the 1880 census of Dublin, Wayne County, Indiana: Theophilus Winslow, 72, wife Martha, 64, and “friend” Harriet Wallace, 70.

Perquimans County, North Carolina. I, David White of said county and state, as agent or trustee of the North Carolina Friends Yearly Meeting and by power as their agent, have removed to Highland County, Ohio, a negro woman, Edith Rutcliff, aged about 40 years and her son, Amzel, commonly called Amzel Watkins aged 20 years, middle size swings himself greatly when he walks, have manumitted these persons with full liberty to do for themselves. 12th of 10th month, 1835. /s/ David White. Wit: Nathan hunt. Rec. 7-15-1836.

Possibly, Amzel Watkins, 1113 Ohio, who is listed in the 1865 edition of Gopsill’s Pennsylvania State Business Directory as a variety store owner in Philadelphia.

Perquimans County, North Carolina. I, David White of said county and state as agent or trustee for the yearly meeting of Friends of North Carolina by power as their agent manumit and set free the following people of colour now in Highland County, Ohio, namely: Betty Winslow aged about 50 years, her sons: Joseph Winslow, Robinson, Henry, Alfred and John and daughter Mary Ann, they having left this state in 1834 under the care of Thaddeus White and Wm Nixon. Said Joseph is about 24 years, very dark in colour, middle size. Robinson is of middle size, of dark complexion and 22 years old. Henry is tall, then and yellow complexion, about 20 years of age. Alfred is about 15 years of age. John is about 8 years old and Mary Ann is about 14 years old. Dated this 13th day of 10th month 1835. /s/ David White. Wit: Nathan hunt. Rec. 7-14-1836.

Perquimans County, North Carolina. I, David White of said county and state as agent and trustee for the yearly meeting of Friends of North Carolina by power as their agent have removed to Highland County, Ohio, a certain negro woman named Patience the wife of Daniel White and their five children — Nancy, Wiley, Smith, Peter and Mary; also, the above named Daniel White whom I bought of Jonathan White of Perquimans Co., North Carolina and do manumit all said persons from slavery. Daniel White is aged about 35 years, yellow complexion and a stout make; his wife, Patience, is about 30 years of age and a shade darker than her husband, 12th of 10th month, 1835. /s/ David White. Wit: Nathan Hunt. Rec. 7-15-1836.

That Robert Peele and Thomas I. Outland of Northampton County, North Carolina being legally authorized and empowered by trustees of the yearly meeting of the Society of Friends of North Carolina take charge and convey to the State of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, Turner Peele together with a number of other colored people held by said trustees, said Robert Peele and Thomas I. Outland having removed and placed said Turner Peele together with a number of others in Highland County, Ohio and that said Turner Peele is a free man, dated this 1st day of 12th month, 1836. Recorded 8-11-1837.

In the 1850 census of Fairfield, Highland County, Ohio: 37 year-old North Carolina-born Turner Peal and wife Julia A. Peal, 27. In the 1870 census of same: Turner Peal, 57, wife Julia A., 45, and children Minover, 22, and Edward P., 16, plus James Hays, 10, and Laura West, 3.

Perquimans County, North Carolina. Before me, Jonah Perry one of the Justices of the Peace for said county came Nathan Winslow and deposeth that he knew Harrison Winslow a man of color of said county to be free born about 21 years of age, rather of a dark complexion, 5 feet 6 inches high with a small scar over the right eye. Dated 10th January 1838. Recorded 1-2-1842.

Highland County, Ohio. Personally appeared before me Augustus Brown a Justice of the Peace for said county, John Bolt who saith that he was well acquainted with Jerry Oldham and Asa, his son, both men of color in the state of North Carolina and that they were the property of his father, Charles Bolt, and that they gave him their freedom and they have been set free from Nov. 28, 1826 as by certificate, dated Jan. 17, 1840. Certificate: This is to certify that I have the negroes Jerry and Asa Oldham liberty to go with my son, William, to Ohio, dated Nov. 28, 1826. /s/ Charles Bolt. Rec. 2-28-1840.

Jeremiah Oldham is listed as a head of household in the 1830 and 1840 censuses of Fairfield, Highland County, Ohio. In the 1850 census of Wayne, Clinton County, Ohio: Virginia-born Asa Oldham, 30, with children Elizabeth J., 5, and Andrew, 2. In the 1900 census of Van Buren, Shelby County, Ohio: 80 year-old widower Asa Oldham and boarder John Powell, 41.

Highland County, Ohio. Leesburgh. That Samuel White and Ormond White by power of attorney executed to them by David White of Perquimans County, North Carolina and Joseph Parker of Pasquotank County, North Carolina trustees of the yearly meeting of the Society of Friends, brought and set at liberty, Luke Wislow and Levina his wife to enjoy freedom of the state of Ohio as may appear more fully by records of Henry County, Indiana, where the power of attorney is recorded, dated this 12th day, 10th month, 1841.

——

Register of Blacks, Highland County, Ohio, Office of Clerk of Court, Hillsboro, Highland County, Ohio; federal population schedules; U.S. General Land Office Records, 1796-1907 [database on-line], ancestry.com; Men’s Minutes, 1845-1864, Indiana Yearly Meeting Minutes Collection, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana (U.S. Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935 [database on-line], ancestry.com)

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June 14, 2014

Blows inflicted.

CORONER’S INQUEST.

Coroner H.R. Perkin held an inquest yesterday (Sunday) morning, at the Restaurant of Mr Morrell on Front Street, over the body of a free boy named James White who died very suddenly after a fight with another negro named George Holden. From the evidence brought before the Jury it appears that White was in the employ of Mr. Morrell, and that on Saturday evening about 6 ½ o’clock, whilst he was passing a door in the rear of the Restaurant, leading into a side alley, the negro boy Geo. Holden came up and was ordered off by the deceased; some words passed between them, when George struck White, and a scuffle then took place in the alley. They parted, and White returned to the door from whence the fight commenced, (George running off down the alley towards the river,) took his seat on a pair of steps and in a few moments fell forward and died in about fifteen minutes. A small bruised place being observed on the left side, a post mortem examination was made by Dr. A. R. Medway, assisted by several other Surgeons, when it was found that White’s spleen was enlarged to such an extent that when the blow was given by George, the spleen ruptured thereby producing death.

In consideration with above fact, the verdict of the Jury was that the deceased came to his death from blows inflicted by George Holden.

George made his escape immediately after giving the blow, and is still at large. George is a slave, and belongs to Mr. Thos. Holden, of this town. White was a free boy, and is said came from Kittrell’s Springs. It may not be improper to say that there was an old grudge between the two boys, which led to the fight on Saturday night. – Daily Journal, 26^th inst.

North Carolina Argus (Wadesboro), 29 October 1863.

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May 22, 2014

Bills to allow them to enslave themselves.

… 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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March 21, 2013

George Henry White.

GEORGE HENRY WHITE (December 18, 1852 – December 28, 1918) was an attorney, the Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina between 1897 and 1901, and a banker. He is considered the last African-American Congressman of the Jim Crow era, one of twenty to be elected in the late nineteenth century from the South.

White was born in Rosindale, Bladen County, North Carolina, where his natural mother may have been a slave. His father Wiley Franklin White was a free person of color of Scots-Irish and African ancestry, who was a laborer in a turpentine camp. George had an older brother, John, and their father may have purchased their freedom. In 1857 Wiley White married Mary Anna Spaulding, a granddaughter of Benjamin Spaulding. Born into slavery as the son of a white plantation owner, Spaulding had been freed as a young man and worked to acquire more than 2300 acres of pine woods, which he apportioned to his own large family.

White studied at Howard University. He graduated in 1877 and was hired as a principal at a school in New Bern. He studied law in the city as an apprentice under former Superior Court Judge William J. Clarke and was admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1879.

In 1880 White ran as a Republican candidate from New Bern and was elected to a single term in the North Carolina House of Representatives. He returned to politics in 1884, winning election to the North Carolina Senate from Craven County. In 1886, he was elected solicitor and prosecuting attorney for the second judicial district of North Carolina, a post he held for eight years. Though he considered running for Congress, he deferred to his brother-in-law Henry Plummer Cheatham, who was elected to the US House in 1890.

White was a delegate to the 1896 and 1900 Republican National Conventions. In 1896 he was elected to the U.S. Congress representing the predominantly black Second District from his residence in Tarboro, defeating white Democratic incumbent Frederick A. Woodard of Wilson. In 1898 White was re-elected in a three-way race. In a period of increasing disfranchisement of blacks in the South, he was the last of five African Americans in Congress during the Jim Crow era.

On January 20, 1900, White introduced the first bill in Congress to make lynching a federal crime to be prosecuted by federal courts; it died in committee. A month later, as the House was debating issues of territorial expansion, White defended his bill by giving examples of crimes in the South. Arguing that conditions in the region had to “provoke questions about …national and international policy,” he said, “Should not a nation be just to all her citizens, protect them alike in all their rights, on every foot of her soil, in a word, show herself capable of governing all within her domain before she undertakes to exercise sovereign authority over those of a foreign land—with foreign notions and habits not at all in harmony with our American system of government? Or, to be more explicit, should not charity first begin at home?”

White delivered his final speech in the House on January 29, 1901: “This is perhaps the Negroes’ temporary farewell to the American Congress, but let me say, Phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again. These parting words are in behalf of an outraged, heart-broken, bruised and bleeding, but God-fearing people; faithful, industrious, loyal, rising people – full of potential force.”

After White left office, no other black American would serve in Congress until Oscar De Priest was elected in 1928. No African-American was elected to Congress from North Carolina until 1992.

Adapted from Wikipedia. Photo courtesy of http://www.lib.unc.edu.

In the 1860 census of Columbus County: Willey F. White, 39, farmer, born Pitt County; wife M.A., 20, and children John W., 14, and W.F., 7, plus W.T. Freeman, 7.

[Sidenotes: (1) George H. White’s secretary during his Washington years was William S. Hagans, son of Napoleon Hagans and nephew of my great-great-grandmother Louvicey Artis Aldridge. (2) My junior high school in Wilson NC was named after Frederick A. Woodard. — LYH]

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October 31, 2012

It is her wish and desire that her children should leave the state.

State of North Carolina, Onslow County }

Court of Pleas & Quarter Sessions, March Term 1860

To the Worshipful, the Justices of Said Court: The petition of Omar White, humbly complaining, showeth unto your Worships that she is a free woman of color: that her Mother, Elizabeth White was born a free person of color in the County of Pitt of the State of aforesaid and removed to this the county and state aforesaid when your petitioner was born, raised and has always resided. Your petitioner further showeth to your Worships that she is now about sixty years, is at present residing where she has resided with her family, which is numerous, for the last twelve years on the premises of of Basil M. Barry, Esquire, and with his permission: that she is the mother of thirteen children and has [blank] grandchildren, all of whom, under the age of twenty-one years, respectively. Your petitioner further showeth that, after her said children shall have attained the age of twenty one aforesaid and shall have fulfilled all the requirements of the law in such cases made and provided for Apprentices, it is her wish and desire that they shall remove from the state aforesaid and settle in a free state. Your petitioner further showeth unto your worships that the facts set forth in this her petition are in the knowledge of many persons now living and such knowledge is the only evidence of her freedom: that she is growing old and her witnesses are also much advanced in years: that by the time he said children shall have reached the age of twenty one aforesaid, when they shall be free to emigrate from the state aforesaid, it may not be in their power to show the facts herein set forth.

To the end therefore that such testimony may be perpetuated and become a part of the record of this Worshipful Court, your petitioner humbly prays your Worships for permission for a rule to take such depositions as may be necessary to sustain the allegations set forth in this her petition. And your petitioner humbly begs your Worships for further and such other relief as your Worships may deem necessary and proper.

And your petitioner as in duty bound shall ever humbly pray etc. L.W. Humphrey, Attorney for Pet.

Elizabeth “Betsey” Whitehurst’s children were apprenticed extensively in Onslow County — Omy [Naomi, also called Oma, and the petitioner here] in 1806, 1811, 1818, 1819; Joshua in 1806, twice in 1811, 1816, 1818 ; Elijah in 1811; Esther in 1813 and 1830; Ann, Bill and Edward in 1817 and 1827; and Morris in 1827. Their last name appeared as White, Whiters and Whitehurst. See Apprentice Records, Wayne County, North Carolina State Archives. She is probably the “Betsey Free” listed in the 1820 census of South Richlands district, Onslow County, with a household comprising four people of color. In the 1830 census of Onslow County, she is Betsey Whitehurst with a household of seven. In the 1850 census, she is listed in her son Edward White’s household in Cypress Creek, Jones County.

Omy White’s children also cycled through Onslow County Court as apprentices — Betsy Jane in 1827, 1835, 1839; Nancy in 1827; Sarah in 1834; Lindey in 1834; Elijah in 1835; Linda and Jack in 1844; Edward “Ned,” Esther and Robert “Bob” in 1844 and 1849; Naomi in 1844; and Alfred in 1849. In the 1850 census of Half Moon district, Onslow County, Omy “Ward” and four children are listed in one household (headed by B.M. Barry, a lawyer) and son Jack is in another.

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October 29, 2012

Where are they now? No. 10 and 11.

L.D. was born in the mid-1960s in Kinston NC. She is descended from:

(1) William Dove? [ca1748-??, Craven County] via Simon Dove [??-ca1820, Craven/Onslow County] via Durant Dove [1810-ca1890, Onslow County] via Lewis J. Dove [1831-ca1905, Onslow/Lenoir County]

(2) Nancy Henderson [ca1790-ca1875, Onslow County]

(3) Elizabeth Whitehurst [ca1780-??, Pitt/Onslow/Jones] via Ann Whitehurst [Onslow County]

R.B. was born in the early 1960s in Tarboro NC. He is descended from:

(1) James E. O’Hara [1844-1905, NY/Wayne/Edgecombe/Halifax/Craven]

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October 28, 2012

Threatened me with punishment if I done so again.

Daniel Manuel filed claim #5535 with the Southern Claims Commission. He was 54 years old and had lived 10 miles west of Fayetteville for the previous 5 years. Sometime during the war, he moved about 30 miles from Bladen County, where he was free-born, to a place about 6 miles west of Fayetteville. Before the war, he lived in Sampson County. He was a farmer and cooper, but only farmed during the war.

He worked for 4 months at the Confederate arsenal in Fayetteville “very much against my wish.” He was “on the union side all the time but could not say anything being a col’d man not entitled to a vote or allowed to talk.”

He named Hardy West, Arch’d Buie and John Buie, all white men, as witnesses to his loyalty, but all refused to testify. “So,” he said, “I have to call on my own col. for that proof.”

“While I was at work at the arsenal I was arrested and taken before the com’d officer and examined on the charge of talking in favour of the union cause with some of my own col. I confessed that I had expressed myself in that way the officer threatened me with punishment if I done so again. He turned me loose and I went back to work” in the blacksmith shop. His nephew George Manuel was also forced to work at the arsenal.

Marshal White, aged about 47, lived about 5 miles west of Fayetteville and worked as a cooper. For the last two years he had lived on the the same plantation as Daniel.

Peter Owen, aged about 40, had lived 8 miles west of Fayetteville for 4 years. Before that, he lived at 3 different places. During the war, he lived with William Owen and farmed. He had known Daniel since he was a small boy and lived on the same plantation as Daniel about 2 years before the war.

Richard Lovitt, 51, had lived in Beaver Creek, about 6 miles west of Fayetteville for over 19 years. He farmed and distilled turpentine. He had known Daniel since 1861.

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