Births Deaths Marriages, Free People of Color, North Carolina, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Family cemeteries, no. 4: the Exums.

Solomon Williams and Vicey Artis‘ youngest daughter, Delilah Williams, married Simon Exum around 1870. The couple settled on a farm near both of their families and reared seven children: Ora Exum Artis (1871-1933), Patrick Exum (1873-??), Mollie (1875-??), Alice Exum Finlayson (1877-1961), Alice Exum (1879-??), Loumiza Exum (1879), William Exum (1881-??), and Simon Exum Jr. (1884-1963).

Last summer, I drove up and down Highway 222 searching unsuccessfully for this family’s graveyard, which should have been just up the road from both Delilah’s brother Adam Artis’ grave and the larger Exum cemetery containing the remains of Simon’s parents, John and Sophronia Exum. Later, using GPS coordinates, I found it in the backyard, more or less, of a house whose occupants erected a six-foot fence to block the view. I returned yesterday and, across a plowed-under field, immediately spotted several stones, including:

Delilah Williams Exum (1851-1939), and

Simon Exum (1842-1915).

Other kin buried in this cemetery: grandson John Brogdus Artis (1903-1979), son of Ora Exum Artis; Emma E. Exum (1884-1978), wife of son Simon Exum Jr.; Estelle Exum (1910-1988), daughter of son Simon Jr.; Simon Exum Jr. (1884-1963); and daughter Alice Finlayson (1875-1961).

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P.S. After posting this, I found this obituary in the 10 July 2009 edition of the Goldsboro News-Argus:

WASHINGTON D.C. — Simon Devon Exum, 59, formerly of Wayne County, died Tuesday at Washington Center Hospital.

His life will be celebrated Saturday at 11 a.m. at St. James Christian Church in Fremont, with minister James Earl Bunch officiating. His mortal remains will be laid to rest in the historic John C. Exum I Cemetery in Eureka.

Warm memories are cherished by his siblings, Larry Exum and Timothy Exum of Upper Marlboro, Md., Ray Exum and Brenda Mills of Goldsboro, Diane Exum of Chicago, Carol Packer of Eureka, Sherla Exum of Fremont and Gloria Exum of Wilson.

He will lie in state Saturday from 10:15 a.m. until the funeral hour at the church.

The family will receive friends at the home place, 3073 NC 222 East in Stantonsburg, where they will also assemble in preparation for the funeral procession.

John C. Exum was Simon Exum Sr.’s father. John and “Fraunie” Exum’s gravestones note that they were born free, but I’ve found no evidence of either pre-Civil War. 3073 NC 222 East is directly across the street from the house in front of the Simon Exum cemetery (which is probably now closed to burials,) and Simon Devon Exum was a son of M.R. Cornell Exum, son of Simon Exum Jr. 3073 caught my attention as I pulled my car off the road; it has recently been reduced to a pile of rubble.

DNA, North Carolina

DNAnigma, no. 11: Herring?

I have one certain Herring ancestor and an unexplained link to another Herring.

Ancestry.com pegs O.M. and me as 4th to 6th cousins, and L.P. and me as 5th to 8th. O.M., who is in her 80s, discovered her African ancestry (estimated at about 35%) only after receiving her DNA results. Apparently, this inheritance came entirely entirely from her father, whose identity her mother did not disclose. O.M.’s daughter B.C. and L.P. have deduced that their connection lies in an mixed-race African-American Herring family from Sampson County that I haven’t been able to connect to either Margaret Herring Price or Hillary Herring. Still, is that my link, too?

Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Photographs

Family cemeteries, no. 3: Boyden Quarters.

I doubled back through Iredell County on I-77 and exited on US-70. I crossed into Rowan County on backroads, cresting rolling hills on my search for the lands on which my McNeelys and Millers lived and worked. I came out just east of Mount Ulla, the hamlet that gave its name to the entire district. Finding nothing much to see, I headed toward Bear Poplar and Salisbury on NC-801, also known as Sherrills Ford Road. From the corner of my eye, I spied a cluster of church signs pointing up a side road. “Thyatira Presbyterian” I recognized from histories of early Scots-Irish in Rowan County. And “Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, Boyden Quarters” — Boyden Quarters!!! That’s the area that many of my Miller-McConnaughey kin lived in in the early 20th century. I’d thought they were AME Zions, but decided to have a look anyway. And there they were:

Mary Emma McNeely Leazer, daughter of Joseph Archy McNeely and Ella Alexander McNeely. This stone faces into, and has been overgrown by, a cedar.

Right next to it is a double stone for Mary McNeely Leazer and her husband George H. Leazer.

Addie Brown Sifford was the daughter of William C. and Mary Caroline Miller Brown. Her grandmother was Grace Adeline Miller Miller.

Sarah Ellis Sifford was the daughter of Callie McNeely Ellis and granddaughter of Joseph Archy McNeely.

James W. McConnaughey was the son of James R. McConnaughey and Mary Leazer McConnaughey (sister of George H. Leazer, above) and grandson of John B. McConnaughey.

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

A final account.

Lula Mae Aldridge died 16 November 1919 in a state hospital after a battle with mental illness. She was 37 years old. Lula had a few hundred dollars, probably inherited from her father, John W. Aldridge, and her brother John J. Aldridge was appointed administrator of her estate.

Lula was the oldest of John and Vicey Artis Aldridge‘s daughters, and the second to die that month. (Amanda Aldridge Newsome has succumbed to influenza ten days earlier.) Her family spared no expense for her funeral — $140.00 paid to undertaker L.T. Lightner and $80 to Goldsboro Marble & Granite Works for her marker.

Lula’s gravestone, Henderson-Aldridge Cemetery, Dudley NC

This, despite the considerable debt against her estate, primarily in the form of a $277 judgment against her by William Mozingo. (What in the world?!? I’ll have to look this up.) Lula’s brothers John and James Thomas Aldridge and her mother Vicey contributed $337.95 (about $4600 today) to settle her affairs, and the estate closed in 1923.

North Carolina, Paternal Kin, Photographs

A welcoming stop.

I broke my drive home for the holidays with a stop near Greensboro, North Carolina. It rained much of the day, I was exhausted, and I sank gratefully onto the couch at Sister’s. At 88, she’s one of two surviving daughters of my great-aunt, Mamie Henderson Holt (1907-2000). She was the only girl to migrate North and that, plus her enduring beauty, gave her an alluring aura. Here’s one of my favorite photos of her:

Enslaved People, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Other Documents

Allie’s children.

Two of Lucinda McNeely‘s sons are accounted for, but what of her older children, John and Alice?

The record for Alice is frustratingly scant. I have found her exactly twice. Once, in the deed filed by Mary Kilpatrick when she sold Alice, Lucinda and John to Samuel and John McNeely in 1834. The McNeely’s slaves seem to have comprised a single extended family — Lucinda, her children, and grandchildren, and the grandchildren probably were all Alice’s. The four listed in the 1863 Rowan County tax assessment above are Archy, Mary, Stanhope and Sandy. Alice is not listed and is presumably dead. (Though, possibly, of course, sold away.)

Alice’s son Joseph Archy McNeely was born about 1849. In the 1870 census of Atwell township, Rowan County, 22 year-old farm laborer Joseph A. McNeely is listed in a household with Lucinda McNeely, 54 year-old domestic servant, Henry McNeely, 29, schoolteacher, and Elizabeth McNeely, 13. Three years later, Joseph Archy McNeely applied for a license to marry Ella Alexander and listed his parents as Henry Courtney and Aley McNeely. (This is the second known reference to Alice.) Over the next 22 years, the couple had at least eight children: Octavia J. (1874), Lucinda (1876), Ann J. (1879), Callie B. (1885), Julius L.A. (1891), Mary E. (1893) and Joseph Oliver (1896).

I have not been able to locate Alice’s daughter Mary after 1863, but in the 1870 census, her sons Sandy and Stanhope appear in their uncle Julius McNeely‘s household as Alexr. and John S. This is the last record I have of either.

Some years ago I decided that Lucinda’s son John was John Rufus McNeely, generally called Rufus, who died 1870-1880 in Rowan County. He married Emeline Atwell about 1855 and was father of five children: Mary, Betty, Charley, Henry and Rufus Alexander McNeely. John’s absence from the 1863 list mystifies me, though, and I’m not sure how I came to this conclusion. For now, I’m withholding sanction.

UPDATE, 26 January 2014: John Rufus McNeely’s 1866 cohabitation registration noted that he was the former slave of John W. McNeely. As the rest of J.W.’s slaves comprised a single family, I renew my conclusion that John Rufus was Lucinda McNeely’s son.

Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Photographs

Remembering Launie Mae Colvert Jones.

Grandma: Launie Mae was a mama’s baby.

Me: Aunt Launie Mae was a mama’s baby?

Grandma: Yes, Lord. [I laugh.] With all her soul.

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My mother: I thought Aunt Launie Mae looked more like Grandma Carrie than anybody. She looked the most like of her all the sisters.

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Remembering my great-aunt LAUNIE MAE COLVERT JONES (1910-1997) on her birthday.

Land, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Other Documents

Where we lived: colored settlements.

Me: And where was the area that was called Wallacetown?

My grandmother: Mm-hmm. That was just out near where we lived. We lived out there. And then there was like a stream or a branch or something where you crossed that thing, that was called Rabbittown.

Me: Okay.

Grandma: We lived in Wallacetown.

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From the 1916 city directory of Statesville, North Carolina:

Popular Branch — a colored settlement southeast of Wallacetown [actually, it was “Poplar” Branch]

Rabbittown — a colored settlement southeast of Wallacetown

Wallacetown — a colored settlement southeast of the railway station

Rankinsville — a colored settlement to the right of the north end of Centre Street

Births Deaths Marriages, Land, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

The house and the lot on which they now live.

Buck Martin never married. At the end of his life, he and his bachelor brother Alfred lived together in the “home place,” perhaps the house they had grown up in, which Buck owned. Just down the road lived another unmarried brother, Dortch, and their widowed sister, Virginia “Jenny” Martin Herring.

A few months before his death, Buck drew up a will that insured that Alfred would keep a roof over his head and that, more importantly, his younger children and their mother, Sarah Barfield, would not be dispossessed of the house and acre of land upon which they lived. By its terms, the will provided that the Barfields could remain on the property for the duration of their lifetimes and those of their survivors, after which it would revert to his brothers or their heirs. In fact, they did not stay quite so long. Sarah Barfield died in 1942, and the property reverted to Buck’s brother Ira’s children. Lillie Barfield Holmes bought the house from them, but it later burned down.

[Sidenote: Buck Martin died 18 June 1928 of sarcoma of the right thigh. His brother Ira died of heart failure exactly ten days later.]

Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Oral History, Photographs

Remembering Grandma Carrie.

Me: In her pictures she always looked stern.

My mother: Grandma?

Me: Carrie.

Ma: Grandma Carrie? I know it. But she was funny. She was funny to me. She could say some of the, she could say some funny stuff. I know that’s where Mama gets it from. The little sayings.

Statesville Landmark, 20 December 1957.

My grandmother didn’t think much of Charles V. Taylor:

Course she met this guy and married him that she had known him when she was a child. Taylor. And went to New Jersey. She came back home, and Mama had high blood pressure, you know. But she kept, her doctors kept it in check. But he hadn’t let her go to the doctor for two times, and she had a stroke and died. Oooo. I could have killed that man. I was so mad with that man I didn’t know what to do. And when we went down there, Mama just got worse and worse. She went to the hospital, and they did everything they could at the hospital, and then they let her come home. And I went down there to see her one time, while she was at home, you know, and she couldn’t talk. She couldn’t talk, I mean. And she would try her best to tell me something. And I just cried and cried and cried and cried and cried. And I didn’t know what she was trying to tell me. So my sister lived not far from her. And she was a cafeteria manager, but she would come to see Mama between the meals. You know, in the morning breakfast and lunch, and then after dinner she’d come. She really did take care of Mama when she was living with that Thing. And she went to the hospital and stayed awhile, and he wouldn’t pay the hospital bill. And I took a note out at the bank, and Louise paid her doctor’s bill and everything, and when she died, he tried to make us pay all the burial expenses. And his brother came over there and told us, said, “Don’t you pay a penny. ‘Cause he’s got money, and he’s supposed to use it for that.” And said, “Don’t you do it. Don’t you give it to him.” And that man and the undertaker got together and planned all that stuff against us, you know. The three of us. It was terrible. And Mama had a lot of beautiful clothes, you know, because this man bought her things. And they were all in there looking at them. I said, “I don’t want a thing. I don’t want not one thing.” I think I got a coat. It was just like a spring coat. It was lined. And I think Louise insisted that I take it, but that was the only thing that I took.

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Remembering Caroline Martha Mary Fisher Valentine McNeely Colvert Taylor, who died 56 years ago today.

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Scuffalong: Genealogy.

Category Archives: North Carolina