Pittsburgh Courier, 7 December 1929.
Wardenur Houser Jones wasn’t the only talented cousin in north Jersey. In 1929, Ardeanur Smith performed at Jersey City’s Saint Mark’s AME Zion Church before Oscar DePriest, United States Congressman from Illinois from 1929 to 1935.
For all I malign the inadequacies of Ancestry DNA, it has yielded up distant-relative matches in a way that 23andme has yet to touch. I did a search for “Nicholson” among my matches, and J.W.B. popped up. As I scanned his family tree, the name that snagged my eye first was “Jehu Idol.” I knew that name. I LOVED that name. So economical. So Biblical. So 18th century. And the husband of Hannah Nicholson, sister of John Stockton Nicholson Jr. and half-sister of James Nicholson. J.W.B. and I are 5th cousins, twice removed.
The bird’s-eye view map of Statesville, North Carolina, drawn in 1907, reveals a number of features in Lon W. Colvert‘s landscape (click for a closer look):
At #1: near the intersection of Centre Street, 109 East Broad Street, early site of Colvert’s barbershop. At #2: Center Street AME Zion Church. At #3: Southern Railway station, built in 1906. Colvert had an earlier shop in the Depot Hill area near the depot. At #4: the railroad. The Colverts’ house was adjacent to the railroad in Wallacetown, southeast of the station, as was that of his in-laws, Henry and Martha McNeely.
Below, the current tenant at 109 East Broad:
Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, December 2013.
Adam T. Artis, near Eureka NC – carpenter, 1850s-circa 1900.
Adam T. Artis Jr., Washington DC – hod carrier, circa 1910.
Isham Smith, Goldsboro NC – husband of Nancy Henderson Smith, blacksmith, 1880s?-1914.
Junius Allen, Newport News VA – carpenter, circa 1917.
Prince A. Aldridge, Wilson NC – plasterer, circa 1940.
Van Smith – husband of Mattie Taylor Smith; bricklayer, Pool & Whitehead, Smithfield NC, 1917; Wilson NC, circa 1920.
Jesse Artis, Norfolk VA – laborer, house builder, circa 1920.
Dock Simmons, Logansport IN – owned and operated hauling and excavating company, circa 1924.
John C. Allen Jr., Newport News VA – carpenter, construction contractor, 1920s-1948.
Benjamin A. Harris, Wilson NC – husband of Pauline Artis Harris; brickmason, 1930s-1950s.
Daniel Simmons, Philadelphia PA – construction laborer, circa 1930.
Johnnie Smith, Goldsboro NC – carpenter, circa 1930.
Eugene Stockton, Statesville NC – husband of Ida Colvert Stockton; brickmason, circa 1930.
Ira Henderson, Mount Olive NC – carpenter, circa 1940.
Ned Barnes, Wilson NC — building carpenter, circa 1930.
Richard G. Wynn, Wilmington NC – brickmason, 1950s.
The eleventh in an occasional series exploring the ways in which my kinfolk made their livings in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Iredell County, North Carolina, was settled in the mid-eighteenth century largely by Scots-Irish and German immigrants pushing down the spine of the Shenandoah Valley from the mid-Atlantic colonies. Interspersed among them, of course, were the omnipresent English, but also here and there a Dutch family. Such were the Van Pools, who settled first in Maryland before heading south in the mid-18th century.
Ancestry DNA estimates D.F.M. as my 5th-8th cousin. I would not have noticed her name among my hundreds of distant matches, but Shared Ancestor Hint — a comparison of family trees, and Ancestry’s best feature — brought her into sharp focus. To be precise, we are fifth cousins, once removed, both descendants of John Van Pool and his wife, Elizabeth Peyster Van Pool. I am descended from daughter Nancy Van Pool, who married Samuel McNeely, and D.F.M. from son David Van Pool. Nancy and Samuel McNeely’s son John W. McNeely fathered Henry W. McNeely, my maternal grandmother’s maternal grandfather.
Ancestry also estimates L.B. as my 5th-8th cousin, and I found him, too, via Shared Ancestor Hint. We are in fact 7th cousins, descended an equal number of generations from Jacob Van Pool and Elizabeth Hampton via sons John Van Pool and Henry Van Pool.
Remembering my mother’s elder sister, my aunt, the Reverend Marion Allen Christian (2 June 1932-13 February 2011).
She gripped a balled handkerchief, or a tissue, in that hand almost always. You’d only notice that little finger, crooked up above the rest, when she made certain gestures, like smoothing her dress across her lap. It was a source of endless fascination when I was a child, and she would obliging turn her hand this way and that so we could get a closer look. Her pinkie finger, it was, curled permanently into a C-shape.
Here’s how it happened:
My grandmother: Ooo, I had a lot of friends. We had a lot of friends. We could not visit people all in the neighborhood. We could not go, the children came to our house. You know, to play and all that kind of – to play ball. We’d play ball in the evening, and they’d put me in the field because I couldn’t catch no ball on account of my finger. [Laughs.] I always had to go in the field. Louise and Launie Mae were whizzes. Louise was a terrible bad ball — I mean, she could play some ball. But Launie Mae was good, too. But, honey, they’d put me out there way out there in the field where didn’t no – just as soon as I’d reach up to catch that ball that thing would knock it out.
Me: Right. How did you hurt your finger?
My grandmother: Ah, you know, they had windows that you’d put a stick under.
Me: To prop them up?
My mother’s cousin: Didn’t have a sash.
My grandmother: Yeah. And I was in there playing and took that stick out there, and it broke something. But anyway, Mama said she had gone to town. That’s what they say when they went into Statesville. And she said when she came back, Golar came out meeting her with me in her arms, and said she had on a little dress, and said she turned the dress up and blood was coming through the dress off me, you know, my finger and everything. It scared her to death. So they carried, she carried me to the doctor’s, and they put splints on to get it – it was broken, you know. He put splints on. But, see, I would pick ‘em off.
Me: Just take it right off.
My grandmother: Take ‘em off. And take ‘em off. And hold my hand like that. [Balling her hand into a fist.]
Me: Okay. So that’s how it healed. It healed closed. How old were you then? Real little?
My grandmother: I guess I was little. I don’t know how old I was. Two, three. I don’t know whether Launie Mae was there or not. I know Louise was, but I don’t know ‘bout all of ‘em. But, anyway, I was just big enough to crawl up to the window and pull the stick out.
I have many favored photos of my grandmother, and this is one of the last:
At home, in her easy chair, just back from church, with that little finger.
Remembering Margaret Colvert Allen (2 August 1908-11 February 2010).
She was the oldest of the McNeely grandchildren.
I can’t find the photo right now. The one I took at the last family reunion she attended in, perhaps, the mid-1980s. She was lovely. “Pulled,” as my friends say, with flawless caramel skin, steel grey hair swept in a neat chignon,* stately bosom encased in a champagne-colored lace sheath dress. Cousin Ardeanur Smith Hart, born one hundred twelve years ago today.
Ardeanur, circa 1928, Bayonne NJ.
Ardeanur; her aunt Minnie McNeely, who reared her after her mother’s death; her cousin Louise Colvert; a Murphy; and her uncle Lon Colvert’s sister, Bertha Hart. Statesville, mid-1920s.
Ardeanur Smith Hart (8 February 1902-14 January 1996).
*I found it. And I misremembered. Not a chignon, but a neat cap of curls.
Simon, 57, $200 (rheumatism). Ceasar, 54, $400 (“crip.”). Perry, 45, $300 (“bad rupt.”). Isaac, 36, $1400. Charles, 32, $1450. Nelson, 32, $1450. Edward, 32, $1450. George, 31, $1450. Ellick, 26, $1500. Henry, 17, $1500. Thom, 14, $1200. Giles, 14, $1200. Dallas, 7, $400. Alfred, 4, $300. John, 25, $1500. Juber, 24, $1500. Nancy, 36, $1000. Ritta, 32, $1100. Harried, 23, $1200. Liza, 23, $1200. Laura, 11, $650. Louisa, 8, $400. Jennie, 4, $250. Ellen, 5 mo., $100. Allice, 3 mo., $200.
As did his brother John M. McConnaughey, James C. McConnaughey was required to pay taxes on the slaves enumerated by a Confederate tax assessor canvassing Rowan County, North Carolina, in 1863. James reported owning the 25 people listed above, whose total value was just over $23,000. What were their links to one another? What were their links to John M. McConnaughey’s slaves?
Cohabitation records shed some light. In 1866, North Carolina afforded freedmen the right to legalize marriages made during slavery by appearing before county justices of the peace to register their relationships. Rowan County cohabitation registers not only record the names of the parties and the length of their marriage, but the former owners of each party. Listed below are registrants who named one of the McConnaugheys (John, James, or James’ son Joseph) as an owner:
George Hall (Dr. Joseph McConnaughey) and Mary Cowan (N.N. Nixon). 3 years.
Simon Hall (James C. McConnaughey) and Nancy McConnaughey (James C. McConnaughey). 20 years.
David Litaker (Elizabeth Litaker) and Hagar McConnaughey (John M. McConnaughey). 13 years.
Abram McConnaughey (John M. McConnaughey) and Eliza Barger (John Barger). 6 years.
Charles McConnaughey (James C. McConnaughey) and Lucinda Kerr (Dr. [illegible] Kerr). 15 years.
Edward McConnaughey (James C. McConnaughey) and Loretta McConnaughey (James C. McConnaughey). 4 years.
Nelson McConnaughey (James C. McConnaughey) and Martha Graham (James C. McConnaughey). 11 years.
Isaac McCorkle (Dr. Joseph McConnaughey) and Ann Kerr (George C. Barnes). 14 years.
George Washington Miller (John M. McConnaughey) and Eliza Catherine Kerr (John M. McConnaughey). 9 years.
Hezekiah Mitchell (Lueco Mitchell) and Louisiana McConnaughey (John M. McConnaughey). 6 years.
Except Martha Graham, the seven freedmen and women who named James C. McConnaughey as their former master are readily identifiable in his 1863 tax assessment. The two who named Joseph (George Hall and Isaac McCorkle) also appear to have been listed with James’ slaves in 1863. (There was no tax listing for Joseph McConnaughey, who did not inherit slaves from his father until 1864.)
Later Rowan County marriage records also disclose family relationships among McConnaughey’s bondsmen. These documents reveal that Simon Hall (who also used the name McConnaughey) and Nancy McConnaughey’s children included the 17 year-old Henry, 14 year-old Giles, 8 year-old Louisa, and probably 4 year-old Jennie listed in 1863. Further, when Jupiter “Juber” McConnaughey married in 1870, he listed his parents as Simon Hall and Cynthia McConnaughey. The age gap between Simon and Nancy suggests that she was his second wife, and Cynthia McConnaughey may have been first.
Perry McConnaughey was named on a marriage license as the father of Thomas McConnaughey, perhaps 14 year-old Thom above. If so, where was Thomas’ mother Rockey, who was also named as the mother of Alexander “Ellick” McConnaughey on an 1883 marriage license? (Alexander gave his father as Toby McConnaughey.) Perry himself named his parents as John Henderson and Pricilla McConnaughey when he married in 1867. Alex and his first wife Judy share a household — no children — in the 1870 census of Atwell township, Rowan County.
Isaac appears twice in the 1870 census — once as Isaac McConeehugh, age 45, with wife Ann, 35, and sons Thomas, 4, and Edmon, 2, then a few households later as Isaac McCorcle, 45, with wife Ann, 42, and son Thomas, 4. (A reminder of the vagaries of the United States federal census.) Neither boy was born at the time of the 1863 tax list. Isaac and Ann married about 1852. Were there older children? Are they among those name in the tax list?
Both John M. McConnaughey and James C. McConnaughey owned slaves named Charles. The whereabouts of the Charles McConnaughey who formerly belonged to John are discussed here. The Charles in the 1863 list above would appear to be the Charles McConnaughey, 40, listed with wife Phillis and ten children in the 1870 census. Who, then, is the Charles who reported a 15-year marriage to Lucinda Kerr in 1866? Is Phillis Lucinda? If so, I have not found any other reference to her by that name, though there are plenty of references to “Phillis.”
Dallas McConnaughey named Edward and Ritta McConnaughey as his parents when he married in 1876, ten years after they registered their cohabitation. Sadly, Loretta “Ritta” may not have enjoyed freedom long. She does not appear with her husband and son in the 1870 census, when they are listed in the household of John M. McConnaughey in Mount Ulla, Rowan County.
Though Nelson and Martha McConnaughey’s cohabitation certificate seems to indicate that both were enslaved by James C. McConnaughey, evidence suggests that in fact, Martha and their children had a different owner. Neither Martha nor their oldest children David, born about 1859, and Maria, born about 1861, are listed among James’ human property. (As an aside: Abram McConnaughey presided over the marriage of Nelson and Martha’s son David McConnaughey in 1879. Was he a relative?)
Harriet McConnaughey appears in the 1870 census of Locke township, Rowan County, with R. McConnaughey, a 55 year-old male, Mary McConnaughey, 35, and Hiram McConnaughey, 4. Harriet’s age is consistent with the “Harried” listed in 1863, but the other adults do not appear on that list, and relationships among them are indeterminate.
There’s a seven year-old Alice McConnaughey listed in John M. McConnaughey’s household in the 1870 census among an assortment of his and James’ former slaves. She is listed under Eliza McConnaughey’s name, as if her daughter. (This Eliza appears, at 23, too young to be the Eliza listed above, but in 1880 is listed as 39, so….)
In summary: in 1863, James C. McConnaughey’s 25 enslaved laborers comprised at least two intact families (Simon, his wife Nancy, their children, and his son; Edward and Ritta and their son); a father and son (Perry and Thom); at least three men married to women who were enslaved elsewhere (Isaac, Charles, Nelson); two apparently unmarried women (Harriet and Eliza); three possibly unmarried men (Caesar, George and John); and three or four children whose relationship to the others cannot be determined (Alfred, Laura, Ellen and Alice.)
Happy 91st birthday to cousin Carrie Jo Augusta James Fane!
Scuffalong: Genealogy. 