Using Deeds to Discover Your Enslaved Ancestors Part One

From an excerpt of the 1963 Confederate Field map by Lieut. Koerner.  Here you can see the Pender, Robbins and Thorn families mentioned in the deeds.

It can be Sisyphean task (real dang hard) to find information about an ancestor that was enslaved.  The very institution was designed to strip the person of their identity, culture and humanity, so finding their traces in documents is never easy.

That being said, I have had some luck  researching deed records for enslaved individuals because the buying and selling of slaves and in this case, the gifting of slaves to family members, was often recorded in deed books along with their names.

Case in point, a man in New Jersey called and asked me to find the parents of a Bryant Pender who was his grandmother’s grandfather.  His grandmother thought she heard that Bryant’s mother was named Mariah.  The man said that his family believed Bryant was owned by General William Dorsey Pender (1834-1863) and his grandmother heard that he would work at two different plantations during the year. The first thing I did was look at the 1863 Confederate field map and I did see that William Dorsey’s father, James,  had a plantation not far from the General’s older brother’s, Robert  Henry ‘Bob’ Pender, plantation at Pender’s Crossroads.   I then searched Wilson and Edgecombe County wills and didn’t have any luck (also a good resource for finding enslaved people).  Then I turned to deeds. The abstracts that we have of Edgecombe County deeds, Kinfolks of Edgecombe County, North Carolina, 1788-1855 (1969), by Watson, Joseph W.,  does not list slave names.  This is a very unfortunate over-site, but perhaps a product of its non-inclusive time. Luckily, this site, Edgecombe County, NC GenWeb Archives, has more detailed transcriptions.  Although there is no index, the text is searchable and, unfortunately for the dramatic buildup, I found information on Mathiah (Mariah) and Bryan(t) very quickly in three deeds.  It also uncovered Bryant’s sister, Rhoda.

The first deed (1827) is a gift of Mathiah (Mariah) from Obedience Robbins to her sister, Elizabeth Pender, the mother of James Pender.  When I saw that she was listed as mulatto I immediately thought that  maybe Obedience was trying to get rid of her because she may have been the child of one of the Robbins family, maybe even her husband.  But that is only conjecture on my part.

Edge. County Db 19, page 10, date of deed 31 Jan, 1827, date recorded
Feb Ct. 1827, Obedience Robbins, Edge. co. to Elizabeth Pender, Edge.
for “love and affection” for my sister, Elizabeth Pender, and moving,
one mulatto girl, named Mathiah, signed Obedience Robbins (X), wit.
Thomas Anderson (+), W.B. Barnes. FHC film # 0370237. 11-5-99

The next two deeds (1842) describe the sort of perpetual leasing of Mathiah and her two children Bryan and Rhoda between James and his two brothers, Andrew and Joseph J. Which may have been a reason why the folk memory exists that they moved between plantations during the year.

Edge. Co Db 23, page 33, date of deed 7 Jun 1841, date recorded Feb Ct. 1842, Andrew J. Pender, Edge. Co. to Joseph J. Pender and James Pender; Andrew has a deed of gift from “my mother Elizabeth Pender now Thorn, bearing date of 18 May 1835 conveying to me one Negro girl, Mathiah which said deed is recorded in the Register of Deeds of said county, since which time said girl has been delivered of two children, the first named Bryan & the other named Rhoda and whereas my mother Elizabeth being some in debt  and for the consideration that my brothers Joseph Jno. Pender and James Pender having agreed to pay their proportional part of said debts and give to my mother annually a certain sum which is named in another instrument I hereby convey to them jointly two thirds of the said Negro girl Mathiah and her children Bryan and Rhoda and any other which she may have, the intention of this instrument is that the said Negro girl, Mathiah and all her increase are to be equally divided between myself and my brothers, Joseph, John and James, or our heirs, signed Andrew J. Pender, wit. W.D. Petway.

Abstracted 2-5-02, NC State Archives film C.037.40018, CTC.

Edge. Co Db 23, page 33, date of deed 7 Jun 1841, date recorded Feb
Ct. 1842, Martin Thorn and wife, Elizabeth Thorn, formerly Pender, to
said Joseph Jno., James and Andrew Pender for ten dollars paid annually
to the said Elizabeth during her natural life by Joseph Jno. Pender,
James Pender and Andrew J. Pender, the sons of said Elizabeth do convey
and relinquish our right title and interest to a certain mulatto girl
named Mathiah & her two children, Bryan and Rhoda, signed Martin Thorn,
Elizabeth Thorn (X), wit. W.D. Petway. NOTE: BOOK OR PAGE MAY BE WRONG.
Abstracted 2-5-02, NC State Archives film C.037.40018, CTC.

1880 Census record showing Bryant Pender and my patron’s grandmother-Bessie Pender

It doesn’t appear that Mathiah and her children were owned specifically By General William Dorsey Pender, but they were certainly in his family.  This genealogy inquiry led to a great pairing of family oral history and archival records in finding enslaved ancestors, which is something that unfortunately doesn’t come along too often.

 

The Singing Stream, Tuesday, August 16th

I’m excited to be showing The Singing Stream at our library in August.  This new edition of the classic 1985 film has 54 minutes of new material filmed in 2015 of the surviving members of the Landis family.

From the back of the DVD a review of A Singing Stream: A Black Family Chronicle by Frye Gaillard in the Charlotte Observer:

“With their roots running deep into the rich tobacco flatlands for eastern North Carolina, the Landises made their way from tenant farming to landowner status in the hard years of the Depression and WWII.  They survived- with their sense of kinship and identity intact- the dispersal of the family members for jobs in the north and the rapid racial changes of the civil rights movement…[On] any list of the ingredients of black progress in America there is probably none more important than the historic strength of the extended black family.  A little epic…positive…uplifting.”

African American Doctors of World War I

 

I was just sitting at my desk and up came an amazing couple, W. Douglas Fisher and Joann H. Buckley, bearing me a gift.  That gift was their new book, African American Doctors of World War I: The Lives of 104 Volunteers (2016).  And on the top right of the cover was Wilson’s own Maj. Joseph Henry Ward (1872-1956).  Also included in  the book is a doctor who practiced in Wilson, Dr. Thomas Clinton Tinsley.  Doug and Joann split their time between Washington DC and Florida and Wilson is right on their route, so they wanted to stop by.

And not only did they give me a book, they also want to do a program on WWI in November on their return trip to Florida!

Wilson County Jeopardy!

Happy National Bookmobile Day!

It really is National Bookmobile Day, which is nestled right in the middle of National Library Week.  I unfortunately do not know who the people in these photos are, but it is sometime after or during 1973.  I discerned the date by looking up the book that is featured on the wall of the bookmobile, The Home Run Trick,  which was first published in 1973.  Also, the clothes are screaming 1970’s.

Rev. Owen L.W. Smith, US Minister to Liberia

Rev. Owen Lun West Smith (1851-1926)

Adora Estelle Oden Smith (1870-1906) of Beaufort, NC. Adora was Rev. Smith’s second wife. His first wife, Lucy Ann Jackson, was  murdered by his insane sister,Millie, on July 6, 1891. Adora and Owen had three children that died young. Rev. Smith’s third wife was Cynthia Ann King Isler (1868-1921) of Grifton, NC. She had four children from a previous marriage. (gleaned from the unpublished  writings of Hugh B. Johnston)

Today I stumbled upon a trove of materials about the the trailblazing Rev. Owen L.W. Smith (1851-1926).  Rev. Smith was born into slavery in Giddenville, Sampson County, NC to Ollen Smith and Maria Hicks and  was a servant in the Confederate army but escaped to become a soldier in the US army and fought  at the Battle of Bentonville.  He later rose to prominence in Wilson as the pastor of the the St. John AME Zion Church and Presiding Elder of the New Bern District of the North Carolina Conference.  Rev. Smith caught the eye of some prominent elected officials and was appointed by President William McKinley as Minister and Consul General to Liberia. You can find lovely post about him over at Black-Wide Awake.

Below are some of his letters printed in the Star of Zion, a Charlotte, NC based newspaper of the AME Zion Church.  You can find more on our Flickr page.

I like his description of first seeing Ireland as he sailed into Queenstown (now Cork). This was the first sight I ever saw of Ireland as I sailed into Cork on an overnight ferry from Swansea, Wales.

Financial Ledger for the Wilson County Negro Library now Online

Page from July, 1953

A stark reminder of the segregation era in North Carolina, the Wilson County Negro Library ledger can now be perused online at DigitalNC.  It is an informative window into the  sometimes separate economy that existed during that period.

Here is what it contains (as listed in the metadata):

Categories include checks, bank (deposits and checks), general ledger, salaries, income tax, social security, N.C. Department of Revenue, books, periodicals, binding, audio visuals, library supplies, furniture & equipment, rent & building maintenance, insurance, bookmobile operation, travel, postage, miscellaneous, book processing charge, and cast surplus.

Wilson Veteran and Casualty of the Vietnam War now gets his Image on the Virtual Wall of Faces

Pvt. Walter Harris

Last week I was contacted by a representative from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund who was looking for information and especially a picture of Wilson native, Pvt. Walter Harris.  Pvt. Harris was killed in 1966 by small arms fire during the Vietnam War.  Luckily, I was able to find his obituary in the Wilson Daily Times, which included a photograph.  Although the photo had a couple of smudges on it, I cleaned it up in Photoshop.

Pvt. Harris was a born in Nash County and graduated from Springfield High School in Wilson County and is now buried at Resthaven Cemetery in Wilson, NC

The photo and a bio of Pvt. Harris will be included in the Virtual Wall of Faces, joining another Wilson County soldier that I helped find information on, Marvin Bullock, who was killed in Vietnam in 1968.

 

The History of Black Business in Eastern North Carolina

This was sent to me from Barton College:

“The History of Black Business in Eastern NC ”  

featuring Laurel Sneed

Thursday, January 28, 6-7:30 p.m.

Barton College, Hackney Library

Wilson, NC

 

Join us for an evening with history educator, researcher, and media producer Laurel Sneed for a lecture and discussion of the African-American business tradition during the era of slavery and in the decades afterward. After viewing video clips of an interview with historian Dr. Juliet E.K. Walker, author of The History of Black Business in America, Ms. Sneed will briefly discuss black business activity in Eastern NC during and after slavery and will review three outstanding examples of the 19th century African–American business tradition in our state: Lunsford Lane, an enslaved tobacconist from Raleigh; Thomas Day, a free black furniture maker from Milton; and John Merrick, a brick mason, barber shop owner and co-founder of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. Merrick was born into slavery in Clinton and after Emancipation he moved to Durham where he became a highly successful business man. Early twentieth century photographs of the thriving business district on East Nash Street will be on display, courtesy of the Freeman Round House Museum of African American History. There will be time for questions, comments, discussion, and sharing of memories.

 

Join us for an evening with educator, researcher, and media producer/film-maker Laurel Sneed for a lecture and discussion on the history of black-owned businesses in eastern North Carolina, with a focus on Wilson. Ms. Sneed’s presentation will include her own original research, and video clips of an interview with historian Dr. Juliet E.K. Walker, author of The History of Black Business in America. Early twentieth century photographs of the thriving business district on East Nash Street will be on display, courtesy of the Freeman Round House Museum of African American History. There will be ample time for questions, comments, discussion, and sharing of memories.

 

Co-sponsors so far include: the Barton College Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the Minority Student Association, the Oliver Nestus Freeman Round House Museum, the Wilson Chamber of Commerce, the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church/ Living the Word, Barton College School of Business, Larry and Carroll Gaissert, and Hackney Library. It includes a catered reception, and is open to the public.

 

Laurel Sneed is an educator, researcher,  and media producer/film-maker based in Durham, North Carolina. In 1995 she led the research effort that discovered Thomas Day’s origins and parentage  in southern Virginia. Since then she has produced  a broad range of materials and media on Thomas Day, as well as on other African American historical topics. In addition, she has been director of the Crafting Freedom teacher workshops which have brought over 400 teachers to North Carolina to study black artisans, entrepreneurs and abolitionists who contributed to the making of North Carolina and our country. Sneed makes presentations throughout the United States  on Thomas Day and a broad variety of subjects mostly related to American history and improving the teaching of it.

Jazz Film and Discussion Series at WCPL