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.

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.

Enslaved People, Maternal Kin, North Carolina

Where did they go?, no. 2.

Jacob, age 65, $450. Abraham, age 45, $1100. Charles, age 25, $1500. George, age 24, $1500. Douglas, age 21, $1500. John, age 2, $150. Cephas, age 1, $100. Edwin, age 1, $100. Willy, infant, $100. Hagar, age 70, age $100. Margaret, age 42, $850. Caroline, age 23, $1200. Lucianna, age 20, $1200. Eliza, age 17, $1200. Mary Ann, age 13, $1000. Grace, age 10, $500. Martha, age 7, $350. Angeline, age 7, $350. Mag, age 3, $200.

These are the enslaved people — total value, $13,450 — that John M. McConnaughey reported to a Confederate tax assessor canvassing Rowan County, North Carolina, in 1863. Who were these 19 people? What were their links to one another?

Let’s start with the women. Hagar, at age 70, could have been the mother (or grandmother) of any or all of the McConnaughey slaves except Jacob. She was enumerated with McConnaughey in the 1850 slave schedule — 58 year-old mulatto female — and 1860 federal slave schedule — 68 year-old mulatto female. However, as detailed below, the composition of McConnaughey’s slaves changed extensively in the 1850s, and her relationship to others cannot be determined. In 1866, Hagar McConnaughey and David Litaker registered their 13-year cohabitation at the Rowan County courthouse, but she is not found in the 1870 census. Litaker appears as a single man, living in a household of white Litakers, and we can safely assume that Hagar had passed away. In 1867, when Benjamin McConnaughey married Adaline Gilliam, he listed his parents as March and Hagar McConnaughey. Here, perhaps, was Hagar’s first husband. Was he also owned by John M. McConnaughey?

Margaret was the mother or grandmother of at least six of McConnaughey’s slaves — George, Caroline, Mary Ann, Grace, Martha, Angeline and John — comprising a single extended family. Where was her husband? Among the small units of slaves like John McConnaughey’s (and the majority of other North Carolina slaveholders), husbands and wives rarely belonged to the same master or lived on the same farm. Death certificates and marriage records for several of Margaret’s children name Edward Miller as their father. (John’s father, however, is reputed to have been John McConnaughey himself.) The couple did not file their cohabitation, and Edward may have died before Emancipation. He probably had belonged to and lived on one of several neighboring farms owned by white Millers.

There are two other young women, “Lucianna” and Eliza, who were of an age to have been Margaret’s children. Were they? When Louisiana McConnaughey and Hezekiah Mitchell registered their six-year cohabitation in Rowan County in 1866, Louisiana noted that John McConnaughey had been her master. Three year-old Mag may have been Louisiana and Hezekiah’s child. If so, was she named for Margaret, possibly her grandmother? I haven’t found Louisiana, Hezekiah or Mag in the 1870 census or elsewhere, and have no evidence of their kinship to Margaret.

An Eliza McConnaughey appears in 1870 in the crazy-quilt household of John McConnaughey. McConnaughey never married and the only other white person reported under his roof was his nephew, Dr. Joseph L. McConnaughey, 34. The remainder of the household consisted of Peggy Ferran, 70 and blind; domestic servant/cook Eliza McConnaughey, 25, with her probable daughters, Alice, 7, and Rena, 4; 14 year-old Henry Ellis, a schoolboy; farm laborer Ed McConnaughey, 45; Dallas McConnaughey, 14; Harriet Barr, 40, also a domestic servant; and farm laborer-cum-schoolgirl (and my great-great-grandmother), Martha Miller, 14. Nearly all, it appears, were the former slaves of John McConnaughey (Martha and possibly Eliza) or of Joseph, who inherited them after his father James C. McConnaughey’s death in 1864 (Ed, Dallas, possibly Harriet, and possibly Eliza and her daughter Alice.)

Jacob did not register a cohabitation in Rowan County and does not appear under the surname McConnaughey in the 1870 census of the county.

In 1866 in Rowan County, Abram McConnaughey (the “Abraham” above) registered his six-year cohabitation with Eliza Barger. The family appears in the 1870 census of Mount Ulla, Rowan County: A. McConnaughey, 57, Eliza, 45, Peggy, 30, Francis, 14, Mitchel, 10, George, 4, and Charlotte McConnaughey, 1. (They are listed next door to Margaret McConnaughey, her granddaughter Angeline and son John.) In 1872, Abram married Phillis Cowan in Rowan County, and the license lists his parents as James Kerr and Esther McConnaughey. In 1893, he married again, to Jennie Rosebro, and gave his parents as James Kerr and Hester Ann Robinson. It is not clear who the parents are of the children listed in the household, and it seems possible that both Eliza and Peggy were, if not Abram’s wives, women by whom he had children. Two of Abram’s sons married in Rowan. William Giles McConnaughey, who married in 1867, listed his parents as Abram and Vina McConnaughey. The following year, James McConnaughey listed his parents as Abram and Phillis Lavina McConnaughey. In 1889, when Charlotte McConnaughey married Charles Brown in Rowan County, she listed her parents as Abram McConnaughey and Peggy Barber. (Is this the Peggy above?)

There are two Charles McConnaugheys in the 1870 census of Rowan County. One is a 36 year-old listed in the household of John Barger. Abram and Eliza McConnaughey’s cohabitation registration reveals that Eliza have been owned by John Barger (and her children with her.) If the Charles in Barger’s household was a son of Abraham and Eliza, he would not have been the Charles listed above. The other is a Charles McConnaughey, 40, listed with wife Phillis and ten children in Atwell township. This Charles is a little old to be the same as the one listed in 1863 and may instead have been the Charles owned by James C. McConnaughey.

Margaret McConnaughey’s son George is found in all post-Emancipation records as “George Miller,” having adopted his father’s surname. I have assumed that his wife, Eliza Kerr, and oldest child, Baldy Alexander Miller, born 1858, had a different owner. However, the cohabitation registration for George Washington Miller and Eliza Catherine Kerr seems to indicate that both were the former slaves of John M. McConnaughey. There was in Eliza of the right age in the 1863 list, but no young Baldy or Alex.

In 1870, the McDowell County censustaker enumerated a railroad laborer named Douglas McConaughy in a camp in Old Fort township. [He appears to have been working on the Mountain Division of the Western Railroad, a project that extended the railroad over the continental divide and connected both ends of the state.] Though his age is off by about six years, this may have been the Douglas listed among John M. McConnaughey’s slaves. Was Douglas also Margaret’s son? By age he could have been, but there is no evidence to prove so. (Of note, however: Mary Ann McConnaughey Miller named one of her sons James Douglas. For his uncle, perhaps?)

John McConnaughey was Margaret’s youngest son and is supposed to have been the son of John M. McConnaughey. He appears twice in the 1870 census, once with his mother and again in his sister Mary Ann Miller’s household.

Cephas, Edwin and Willy have not been found post-Emancipation.

Margaret McConnaughey’s six known children were born in 1835, 1840, 1847, 1853, 1855 and 1861. Given the gaps in their birth years, it is reasonable to assume that she bore additional children, perhaps Douglas (1842), Louisiana (1843) and Eliza (1846). (Though, of course, if Eliza were George Miller’s wife, she would not have been his sister.) Unfortunately, the available evidence is insufficient to establish these relationships or others among McConnaughey’s slaves.

Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Oral History

Carrie, formally.

Me: Well, I wonder where she got her name from?

My grandmother: Who?

Me: Your mama. Your mother. Caroline Mary Martha –

My grandmother: Yeah. Who ever heard tell of such as that?

Me: Fisher Valentine McNeely. Well, I know where the Martha came from, ‘cause that was her mother’s name.

My grandmother: Yeah.

Actually, it was Caroline MARTHA MARY Fisher Valentine McNeely. And “Caroline” was the name of her aunt, Caroline McConnaughey, Martha Miller McNeely’s sister. But Mary and Fisher and Valentine?

——

Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Photographs

One of those McNeely girls.

This is a surely a McNeely sister, but which one?

My grandmother wasn’t sure, but knew it wasn’t her mother Carrie, or Aunt Emma, or Aunts Minnie or Janie. Nor, she thought, was it Aunt Lizzie or Aunt Elethea. Which leaves Addie, but she nixed her, too. Not to second-guess my grandmother — or, well, to second-guess her, but in the most respectful way — I’d put my money on Addie, who died when my grandmother was about 9 years old.

Photograph in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina

The belle of her set.

IN THE “MOVIES.”

Colored Girl is Said to be Playing Part in Large Moving Picture Company.

Kittie Reeves, a mulatto girl who possesses more than the usual amount of good looks, lived in this city several years ago, but now is said to be a leading woman in a well-known motion picture company. Kitty Reeves lived here from her early childhood. Her name was Kitty Smith before she married Charles Reeves, a highly respected negro, a son of Fletcher Reeves, the veteran hearse driver of the old Wadsworth Livery Stables for numbers of years. Kitty was always said to have been the belle of her set. She was a bright and accomplished young negress, but the lure of the stage was always within her, and when Black Patti came through here in 1910, Kitty Reeves applied for a place in the chorus. Immediately upon signing the contract, her name became Katherine Reeves. The tour was a success, but during the between-season lay-off, Katherine secured a place in a well-known manicuring establishment in Philadelphia.

The girl was possessed of fair skin with coloring. Her hair was long, but black with many freckles on her face. After learning the secrets of the manicurists’ art, Katherine underwent treatment for some time. When she ceased working on her face and hair, a great transformation had taken place. No longer was the hair black, but it had been turned to a dull auburn. The freckles had departed from her face, and she bore all of the appearances of a white person.

After leaving Philadelphia, Katherine became connected with a well-known motion picture firm in the State of New York. Many of her colored friends in the city claim to have recognized her a number of times playing leading parts in the film plays. So far as is known, this is the only person from Charlotte who has ever appeared upon the screens as an actress for motion pictures.

Charlotte Observer, 29 December 1912.

Ten years before this article appeared, twenty-one year-old Frank Reeves applied for a marriage license for himself and Kate Smith, 18. Both lived in Mecklenburg County. Frank (called Charles, above) was the son of Fletcher and Angeline McConnaughey Reeves. Kate’s parents were listed as Thomas and Mary Smith. S.H. Hilton, justice of the peace, married the young couple on 1 Aug 1902 at the county courthouse.

The marriage did not prosper. When the censustaker reached their neighborhood in 1910, he found Frank and Kate’s only child, 7 year-old Wilbur, living with his paternal grandparents. Charles (or Frank) and Kate (or Kittie or Katherine) do not appear together in that census or any other. (She had gone off with Black Patti by that time and, presumably, was pursuing her career as a star of the silent screen.)

Births Deaths Marriages, Enslaved People, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Oral History

Millers & McConnaugheys.

Me: Did you know any of your grandmother Martha’s people? The Millers?

My grandmother: No, I didn’t.

Me: Did you know any of his people? Henry’s?

Grandmother: No.

Me: It was a lot of them in Rowan — it was a lot of Millers anyway. In Rowan County.

Grandmother: Rowan County? I know they all came from there.

——

In the valuation of Rowan County slaves made by a Confederate tax assessor in 1863, John M. McConnaughey listed 19 slaves. Among them were: George, 24, $1500; John, 2, $150; Edwin, 1, $100; Margaret, 42, $850; Caroline, 23, $1200; Mary Ann, 13, $1000; Grace, 10, $500; Martha, 7, $250; and Angeline, 7, $250.

Here is the case for these seven people as the family of my great-great-grandmother, Martha Miller McNeely:

1. George Miller described John McConnaughey as his half-brother in the 1880 census of Rowan County. George’s death certificate lists his parents as Edward Miller and Margaret Miller.

2. Caroline McConnaughey is listed in the household of her mother Margaret McConnaughey in the 1870 census of Rowan County.

3. Adeline Miller is listed with her eight month-old son George in the household of Mary [McConnaughey] Miller in the 1870 census of Rowan County. Her marriage license lists her parents as Edward Miller and Margaret Miller. She gave her three children – George, Margaret and Mary Caroline – family names. In the 1880 and 1900 censuses, she and her family are listed next door to Mary Ann Miller and family. In 1888, she witnessed the marriage of John McConnaughey. Her death certificate lists her parents as Ed. and Marg. Miller.

4. In the 1870 Rowan County census, the household of Mary Ann [McConnaughey] Miller and her husband Ransom Miller included Adeline Miller and John McConnaughey. Mary Anna Miller’s death certificate lists her father as Edward McConaughey, mother unknown.

5. Martha Miller is listed in the household of her former owner, John Miller McConnaughey, in the 1870 census of Rowan County. (She is a farm laborer, but she also attends school.) Martha’s 1872 marriage license lists her parents as Edwin Miller and Margaret Miller. Her middle name was Margaret. She named her oldest daughter Margaret, her youngest son Edward, and two daughters Caroline (as a first and then a middle name.)

6. John McConnaughey is listed twice in the 1870 census of Rowan County. First, with Margaret McConnaughey and Angeline McConnaughey. Then, with Mary Miller. John married four times. Each license listed one parent, Margaret McConnaughey. “John McConeyhead” was a witness to the marriage of Adeline Miller Miller’s daughter Mary C. Miller in 1876. His death certificate lists his parents as Henry McConnaughey and Margaret McConnaughey.

7. Edwin Miller (or McConnaughey) has not been found outside the 1863 tax list. I include him because of the similarity of his first name to that of Edward/Edwin Miller, father of the above, but there’s no real evidence that he was one of Margaret’s children.

Margaret McConnaughey appears in only one census, 1870, where she is listed as 55 years old. Edward or Edwin Miller has not been found, and the two did not register a cohabitation. Their children:

George W. Miller, born about 1836. He married Eliza Catherine Kerr, probably around 1857. They had three children, Baldy Alexander Miller (1858-1942), Maria Miller (1868-1925) and Onie Jane Miller Johnson (1879-1970). In 1868, George registered to vote with his brothers-in-law Ransom Miller, Green Miller and Henry McNeely. He died 15 March 1915.

Caroline McConnaughey, born about 1842. Her daughter Angeline was born in 1858. The child’s father was Robert Locke McConnaughey, nephew of Caroline’s former owner, John M. McConnaughey. Caroline apparently died before the 1870 census was taken. She is listed as Caroline McConnaughey (and noted as deceased) on Angeline McConnaughey Reeves’ 1875 marriage license.

Mary Anna McConnaughey, born about 1847. She married Ransom Miller, son of Edmund and Malissa Miller in Rowan County on 27 December 1866. Their children were James Douglas Miller, Florence A. Miller, Ida L. Miller, Margaret E. Miller, Spencer Miller, Lina Miller, Hattie A. Miller, Thomas E. Miller, Richmond Miller. In 1910, the family lived on Sherrills Ford Road in Steele township. Mary Anna died Christmas Eve 1940 in Boydens Quarters, Rowan County.

Grace Adeline Miller, born 25 June 1853. Her first child, George, was born in 1869. She married Green Miller, son of Edward and Melissa Miller, in 1871, and their children included Margaret Miller and Mary Caroline Miller Brown. She died 30 July 1918.

Martha Margaret Miller, born about 1857. She married Henry W. McNeely in 1872. Their children were Elizabeth McNeely Kilpatrick Long, John McNeely, William Luther McNeely, Emma McNeely Houser, Caroline McNeely Colvert, Addie McNeely Smith, Elethea McNeely Weaver, Minnie McNeely, Edward M. McNeely and Janie McNeely Taylor Manley. Martha and her family moved to Statesville, Iredell County before 1900. In the late 1920s, she moved to Bayonne NJ, where she died 16 June 1934.

John B. McConnaughey was born about 1861. His father likely was not Edward, but a white man. John married Minnie Barr, Romie Harris, Nora Barber and Jane Foster. He died 21 August 1931.

Land, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Oral History

Land along the railroad.

Me: What did, why did Grandpa Henry come to Statesville? Was he a farmer? What did he do?

My grandmother: I don’t know. I really don’t know.

Me: He was from Rowan County.

My grandmother: He certainly didn’t have no farm in Statesville. It seems to me he had a big, big lot of land where they had this house. Where they built this house. But it was near a railroad, and trains — cinders from the trains fell on the house and burnt it.

——

On 21 Dec 1903, G.M. Austin and wife J.A. Austin sold H.W. McNeely of Iredell County a parcel bounded as follows: “Beginning at a stake 300 feet from Bettie Van Pelts S.E. corner and 50 feet from the center of Rail Road, and running N. 10 degrees E. 200 feet to a stake then S. 11 W. 200 feet to a stake 50 feet N of the center of the Rail Road, then N 79 degrees W. 100 feet to the beginning also 1/2 acres adjoining the above lot, and known as the J.V. Houston land it being same land sold for taxes by M.A. White by deed from T.Y. Cowper.” McNeely paid $164.

Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Rights

Julius weathers Reconstruction and maintains his political life.

County Affairs.

The County Commissioners met, as usual, on first Monday in the month. The usual routine business was transacted. $45.50 was allowed to the out-door paupers of the county. The keeper of the poor reported an average of 17 paupers for the month of August – 8 white and 9 negroes. An itemized statement of expense for said month amounted to $39.08. A number of accounts were ordered to be paid, for various expenditures. D.E. Leonard, of Lexington, was granted to sell liquor at C.E. Mill’s old stand.

…

JUDGES OF ELECTION.

…

Oak Dale: Jno K Goodman, A E Sherrill, Jno T Goodman, Julius McNeely, (col).

The Carolina Watchman, 9 September 1886.

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

Jule McNeely leaves a toehold.

I did not doubt that Henry and Julius McNeely were brothers, but here is proof-positive: Julius died widowed, childless and intestate, and his sole heirs were Henry’s children.“Jule” McNeely’s thin estate file, opened in 1913 in Rowan County Superior Court, is devoted to the distribution of his tiny plot of farmland to John, Luther, Emma, Addie, Carrie, Ed, Litha, Janie, Lizzie and Minnie McNeely as tenants in common. When Addie died in the middle of matters, a guardian was appointed for her children, “Ardenia” [actually, Ardeanur], 14, and James Smith, 9. At issue: “Beginning at a stone on D.S. Cowan’s line, and runs S. two degrees W 7.10 chains to a stone thence; N. 85 degrees W. 3.50 chains to a stone, thence; N. 2 degrees E. 6.50 chains to a stone on Cowan’s line, thence; E. to the beginning, containing two and a half acres more or less.” “The above land is the old Jule McNeely place, lying just east of Mount Ulla in Rowan County, and” — despite its tininess — “is a very desirable lot.” The heirs’ attorney petitioned for the sale of the lot, noting that it was too small to be advantageously divided or to justify continued possession by so many heirs, all of whom lived in Iredell County except Emma and her husband Ervin Houser of Bayonne, New Jersey. The petition was granted, and at auction on April 21, 1917, Carrie’s husband Lon W. Colvert placed the highest bid at $80.

[Sidenote: Before I found this file, I did not know that (1) Lizzie McNeely was first married to Watt Kilpatrick; (2) when Addie McNeely Smith died; or (3) Lon Colvert owned property in Rowan County, much less property that had belonged to his wife’s late uncle.]

Scuffalong: Genealogy.

Tag Archives: Rowan County