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THE RANDOLPH SLAVE SAGA: COMMUNITIES IN COLLISION

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University

By Ross Frederick Bagby, M.A. (University of Chicago), M.A. (Ohio State University)

*****

The Ohio State University 1998

Dissertation Committee: Appr^ed by Dr. Randolph Roth, Adviser J I Dr. Michael Benedict ____ 1 L Dr. Stephanie Shaw A dviser n Department of History UMI Number: 9900794

Copyright 199 8 by Bagby, Ross Frederick

All rights reserved.

UMI Microform 9900794 Copyright 1998, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.

This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by-

Ross Frederick Bagby

/99& ABSTRACT

In 1846 Virginia courts freed 383 slaves of Roanoke plantation by ruling which will of John Randolph of Roanoke's was valid. Sent to found a free black colony in Mercer County. Ohio, these "Randolph Slaves" were refused entry by a mob of Mercer County whites. The freed people instead dispersed throughout western Ohio. In the 1880’s, the Randolph Slaves and their descendants explored legal action, culminating in the 1903 lawsuit MOTON VS. RESSENS. This demanded Mercer County farmers surrender properties on which the Randolphs would have settled. Behind the drama of these lawsuits, migrations, and mob threats is a saga of communities forming and interacting. How those 383 blacks came to be the slaves of Randolph of Roanoke begins with economic pressures creating Virginia piedmont tobacco plantations such as Roanoke. Family quarrels and tragedies left the slaves property of the possibly insane John Randolph, whose inspirations included his older brother Richard founding the Virginia free black community of Israel Hill. Examining Roanoke's plantation records with methodologies from genealogy to statistical analysis enables reconstruction of how Randolph's slaves lived ; how master, slaves, and overseers interacted : and who constituted the 383 people manumitted. Mercer County, Ohio, seemed ideal for the Randolph Slaves because of an existing black community assisted by abolitionist Augustus Wattles. However, Mercer County had not only racial tensions but conflicts within the white community over religion, ethnicity, and politics. Vigilante practices had already produced a mob against a local dam. After repulsing the Randolph Slave resettlement, antiblack leaders attempted expelling all local blacks, failing when Augustus Wattles petitioned Ohio's governor. Mercer County continued to have a history marred by violence and mobs throughout the 19th century. The Randolph Slaves dispersed throughout more hospitable counties, remaining distinct within local black populations. They did not forget the thwarted plan. Lawsuits in the 1900's again confronted Mercer County farmers with Randolph Slaves. In judging their claims, courts weighed the original legal disputes over Randolph's wills, plus what

11 defined a Randolph Slave". Though the Randolphs lost, they demonstrated a persistent community.

Ill ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my gratitude to Prof. Frank F. Mathias of the University of Dayton, whose professional courtesy freed me to begin researching this topic. Joyce Alig of the Mercer County Historical Society not only helped me with information but loaned me her copy of the Brief of the Defendant in Error in the 1907-1917 lawsuits. Of my fellow librarians. Minor Weisiger of the Virginia State Library and Margaret Cook of the College of William and Mary's Earl Gregg Swem Library distinguished themselves to me not only for their aid with the archival materials but for their continued services regarding minor matters in the mailed photocopies. The Herculean achievement of Mercer County Courthouse secretary Jill E. Snyder in photocopying for my use the over 1,000 page typescript of MOTON v. KESSENS amidst the other demands on her time here at last receives its just due. My parents made this entire enterprise possible through their financial support and willingness to chaffeur me. Dr. Merton Dillon patiently listened to me as this work evolved from seminar paper to Master's thesis, and often saved me from despair. Dr. Randolph Roth first acted as second reader to that thesis , then took on the more daunting role of principal advisor as master's thesis evolved into doctoral dissertation. OSU faculty members economist Dr. Richard Steckel and medical historian Dr. John C. Burnham provided crucial help when consulted in their specialties. Randolph Slave descendant Janet C. Martin shared much valuable information with me.

1 V VITA

August 12, 1958 ...... Born - Columbus, Ohio

1980 ...... B.A., Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

1985 ...... M.A., Graduate Library School, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

1988 ...... M.A. in History, Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio

PUBLICATIONS

A Study of Consistency Between Directorv Entries Compiled From Returned Ouestionnaires and the Implications for Reference Practice. Unpublished M.A. thesis. The University of Chicago, 1985.

The Randolph Slave Resettlement: A Virginia Manumission and An Ohio Mob in Historical Context. Unpublished MA thesis, OSU, 1988.

FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field ; History American Historv. 1787-1860

VI TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pa&e A bstract ...... ii Acknowledgments ...... iv V ita...... V List of Figures ...... viii

Chapters: 1. Prologue : Beyond Irony ...... I 2. Paths to the Piedmont ...... 10 3. Bizarre T im es...... 26

4. "Plain Jack" And His "Famous Man John" ...... 50 5. Plantation And People ...... 65 6. Trials And Tribulations ...... 88 7. Numbers And Exodus ...... 104 8. The Promised Land ...... 142

9. D iaspora ...... 180

10. Unity Through Opposition ...... 216

11. Judges...... 246

12. Epilogue : Common Prayer ...... 265

V 1 Appendices:

A. 9 March 1801 List of Roanoke Negroes by Major Scott for John

R andolph ...... 268

B. November 1810 : Slaves Alloted to John Randolph After

Lawsuit with Judith Randolph ...... 271

C Christmas 1810 List by John Randolph ...... 276

D. Undated Slave List by John Randolph ...... 280 E Undated List of Negroes ...... 283

F. Undated Slave Supply List ...... 285

G John Randolph - Nancy Morris Correspondence 1814/1815 289

H. 1846 Manumission Register With Biographical Notes 313 I. African Jackson Cemetery Register ...... 367

Bibliography ...... 372

Vll LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page 3.1 ISRAEL HILL HOUSEHOLD TYPES 40 3.2 HOUSEHOLD TYPES OF ISRAEL HILL 42 7.1 MEDIAN AGES BY GENDER 1 1 2 7.2 HEIGHT IN INCHES BY GENDER 1 13 7.3 HEIGHT IN INCHES FOR GENERAL POPULATION 1 1 3 7.4 HEIGHT IN INCFIES FOR MEN 1 14 7.5 HEIGHT IN INCHES FOR WOMEN 1 15 7.6 MALE HEIGHT IN INCHES 1 15 7.7 FEMALE HEIGHT IN INCHES 1 15 7.8 MALE AGES, 1 1 6 7.9 FEMALE AGES 1 1 6 7.10 HEIGHTS MATHEMATICALLY TRANSFORMED, 1 17 7.11 AGES ALSO TRANSFORMED 1 1 8 7.12 AVERAGE STATURE BY AGE OF RANDOLPH SLAVES 1 1 9 7.13 COMPARISON OF FEMALE AVERAGE HEIGHT WITH COMMUNITY AVERAGE 1 20 7.14 COMPARISON OF MALE AVERAGE HEIGHT WITH COMMUNITY AVERAGE 1 2 1 7.15 MALE AND FEMALE AVERAGE HEIGHTS COMPARED 122 7.16 RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS COMPARED TO MODERN AVERAGE HEIGHTS 123 7.17 RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS COMPARED TO MODERN AVERAGE HEIGHTS (FEMALE) 1 24 7.18 RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS COMPARED TO MODERN AVERAGE HEIGHTS: MALE 125 7.19 (ADJUSTED) RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS COMPARED TO MODERN AVERAGES : MALE 1 26

Vlll 7.20 (ADJUSTED) RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS COMPARED TO MODERN AVERAGES : FEMALE I 2 7 7.21 COMPARISON OF (ADJUSTED) MALE AND FEMALE RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS 12 8 7.22 RANDOLPH SLAVE AND MODERN GROWTH COMPARISON : MALE I 2 9 7.23 RANDOLPH SLAVE AND MODERN GROWTH COMPARISON ; FEMALE 1 3 0 7.24 RANDOLPH SLAVE (SMOOTHED) AND MODERN GROWTH COMPARISON : MALE I 3 1 7.25 RANDOLPH SLAVE (SMOOTHED) AND MODERN GROWTH COMPARISON : FEMALE I 3 2 7.26 RANDOLPH SLAVE MALE AND FEMALE GROWTH COMPARISON (SMOOTHED) 1 3 3 7.27 RANDOLPH SLAVE MODERN POPULATION PERCENTILES (MALE AND FEMALE) I 3 4 7.28 COMPARISON OF RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS TO GENERAL SLAVE HEIGHTS: MALE I 3 5 7.29 COMPARISON OF RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS TO GENERAL SLAVE HEIGHTS: FEMALE I 3 6 8.1 MERCER COUNTY BLACKS 1840-1920 175 8.2 BLACKS AS PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL MERCER COUNTY POPULATION 1 7 6 8.3 MERCER COUNTY TOTAL POPULATION. 1840-1920 177 8.4 COMPARING TRENDS FOR WHITE AND BLACK POPULATIONS IN MERCER COUNTY 1 7 8 9.1 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1850 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES 1 9 7 9.2 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1860 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES 1 9 8 9.3 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1870 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES 1 9 9 9.4 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1880 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES 200

IX 9.5 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1890 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES 20 1 9.6 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1900 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES 202 9.7 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1910 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES 203 9.8 TOTAL BLACK POPULATION IN MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTY TOWNSHIPS 2 04 9.9 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1850 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES 205 9.10 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN I860 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES 206 9.11 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1870 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES 207 9.12 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1880 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES 208 9.13 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1900 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES 209 9.14 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1910 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES 210 9.15 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1920 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES 211 9.16 ORIGINAL RANDOLPH SLAVE MIGRANTSIN 1850 CENSUS 212 9.17 ORIGINAL RANDOLPH SLAVE MIGRANTSIN 1860 CENSUS 213 9.18 ORIGINAL RANDOLPH SLAVE MIGRANTSIN 1870 CENSUS 214 9.19 ORIGINAL RANDOLPH SLAVE MIGRANTSIN 1880 CENSUS 215 10.1 ASSAULT CASES IN MERCER COUNTY, 1820-1850 2 19 10.2 ASSAULT CASES IN MERCER COUNTY, 1820-1850 (SMOOTHED) 2 2 0 10.3 ASSAULT CASES IN MERCER COUNTY, 1820-1850 (ROUGH) 221 10.4 PERCENTAGES OF VOTES GOING DEMOCRATIC. 1852-1880 223 (this figure takes two pages) 10.5 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS : 1850 WHITE POPULATION 236 10.6 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS; 1850 BLACK POPULATION 2 3 7 10.7 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS; 1860 WHITE POPULATION 2 3 8 10.8 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS; 1860 BLACK POPULATION 2 3 9 10.9 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS; 1870 WHITE POPULATION 240 10.10 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS; 1870 BLACK POPULATION 2 4 1 10.11 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS; 1863 VALLANDIGHAM VOTE 242 10.12 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS; 1863 BROUGH VOTE 243

X 10.13 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS : 1864 McCLELLAN VOTE 244 10.14 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS: 1864 LINCOLN VOTE 245

XI This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns. In him the start of popolous states and rich republics. Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries? (Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?) — Walt Whitman LEAVES OF GRASS, "Children of Adam". 7 (about a slave being auctioned) van Wert OHIO Mercer

Miami West Virginia

MIAMI CANAL REGION

Virginia

V ' ■ ■ V / CHAPTER 1

PROLOGUE : BEYOND IRONY

"The case is rich in historical incidents attending the period immediately prior to the Civil War, and affords abundant data for a narrative which should not be lost. The hope is here expressed that some of the eminent counsel who have so ably presented the case, may find time and realize the duty to give to mankind the many interesting and romantic details in the form of a story, which would at once take deserved rank with the noteworthy productions which have recently adorned American literature." — Judge Crow, Opinion of [Mercer County] Court of Appeals, MOTON VS. KESSENS, 1916>

This is an American saga. That means it involves race, the perennial issue which as black slavery divided this nation until erupting into full scale civil war, and which as discrimination and prejudice still continues to haunt us. Yet it also involves land as claimed by Virginia aristocrats, German immigrants, and black freedmen each seeking their own American Dream ; it involves politics from the rise of Jefferson to the downfall of the Civil War Copperheads ; it involves family, from feuds among the elite to the lowly struggling to attain stable domesticity. Such is the weave of this tapestry that a mad deaf-mute and the author of our national

'Moton V. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker. n.d.) pp. 9-10. anthem are found linked by the same lawsuit, a man born in 18th century Africa dies alongside a 19th century Ohio canal, and a black attorney and a white lawyer join in court to benefit one community of blacks in part by dispossessing another black family. These are only a few of the ironies found on first examination of this tale. But the appearance of irony is usually a signal that a broader context has not been perceived. The Randolph slave saga has until now mainly been written about by amateur local historians of western Ohio and biographers of John Randolph of Roanoke, with an occasional scholarly article on the 1846 resettlement and the early 20th century lawsuit. These three types of attention have meant large areas were not explored by previous historians, and many seemingly obvious connections and contrasts were never made. William Cabell Bruce, whose encyclopedic 1922 life of John Randolph remains authoritative, was content to close his own discussion of the Randolph slaves by repeating an ironic account of the Ohio mob that greeted the Virginia freedmen.- It was a surprise to him to learn from an Ohio attorney that the Randolph slaves had a further history in the Northern state, which had climaxed only five years before in a major legal effort to regain title to their Mercer County lands.^ Bruce's blind spot regarding the further fate of Roanoke's slave community was probably due to his own racial politics — brother of white supremacist Philip Alexander Bruce and brother-in-law of equally outspoken racist Thomas Nelson Page, Bruce himself had once written a pamphlet arguing segregation was an inadequate means of preserving white control of blacks.^ But that such a historian and

-William Cabell Bruce. John Randolph of Roanoke. 1773-1833 : A Biography Based Largely On New Material. 2 vols. (New York: G. Putnam & Sons, 1922.), II 60. ^Milton Ailes to William Cabell Bruce, 30 April and 30 July 1924. Bruce- Randolph Papers, Virginia State Library, Richmond, Va.. ■^George M. Fredrickson. The Black Image in the White Mind : the debate on Afro-American character and destiny. 1817-1914. (Middletown, CT : Wesleyan University Press, 1971), pp. 260, 268. lawyer could fail to notice the six year tumult of the MOTON v. KESSENS case is symptomatic of the parochial spirit that has hitherto prevented the full sweep of this saga from being appreciated. Several key sources such as the surviving letters of Judge William Leigh. Randolph's business manager who secured the manumission of the slaves and attempted their resettlement, and Mercer County abolitionist Augustus Wattles's presentation to the governor of Ohio on the race troubles of 1846 seem unknown to previous writers on the subject. We begin by examining the background of both the masters and the slaves of Roanoke plantation — how they came to be at that site, and what those beginnings implied for the eventual dissolution of the estate. The Randolphs and Tuckers were a prominent family during times of revolution and social change, compelling them to adapt in ways ranging from geographic shift to advantageous marriages. These tactics could strain both the individual and the family, resulting in feuds and scandals which affected theirslave labor force as much as they did the white masters. (Appendix G reproduces the letters exchanged between John Randolph of Roanoke and Nancy Randolph Morris, giving their respective accounts of the tragedies and scandals plaguing their family.) Next this work will explore how John Randolph of Roanoke influenced — and failed to influence — the racial interactions on his plantation of Roanoke in his role as master. This includes both why he manumitted his slaves and why his bizarre reputation created problems for that manumission. It is easier to find biographical material on Randolph the master than on his slaves, yet records exist that allow us to sketch certain slaves as definite individuals, and to paint the whole community of Roanoke. The first six appendices recreate as authentically as possible primary documents on the Randolph slave community in Virginia. These show the amount of evidence available on the blacks and their lives. The plantation slave counts which form Appendices A and C. and the notes on bloodlines (Appendix E) and family groups (Appendix D), are from Randolph's own Commonplace Book, owned by the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg. Appendix F is from Powhatan Bouldin's reproduction in his own book of an original manuscript he found. Appendix B, the inventory of slaves whose title by Randolph was established in an 1810 lawsuit with his sister in law, is from a copy in William Cabell Bruce's papers. The register of manumissions, here Appendix G, exists in several places ; this version is based on Miami County's official copy now held by Wright State University at Dayton. Appendix I reproduces the cemetery register of an Ohio community which was one of the freed Randolph Slave centers. When in the spring of 1846 the 383 slaves of Roanoke plantation were registered as freedmen in Charlotte County, Virginia, it may have been the largest manumission in United States history. As these "Randolph Slaves" began their trek to western Ohio, many observers realized this event was a rehearsal for any future national emancipation. That their fate was to encounter violence and endure dispersal was thus an ill omen for the land. The following chapter will demonstrate why Mercer County seemed an excellent site for the relocated Randolph freedmen community, due to the activities of white abolitionist Augustus Wattles, and why that expectation proved mistaken. The New Bremen mob will be put in context by examining Mercer County's race relations and traditions of vigilantism. It is significant that the response of Mercer County's racists was to raise a mob. a tactic they had learned from local precedent and current ideologies. This mob then shaped events in the summer of 1846 by forcing the dispersal of the Randolph slaves and by creating further racial tension within Mercer County. Augustus Wattles’s own account of the race crisis in Mercer County, apparently unknown to previous writers, is reproduced in full. It will be shown that the 1846 anti-black mob was acting not merely from simple racism (if there is such a thing), but because of political and economic fears that already divided the local white community. The persecutions following the anti-Randolph mob in the summer of 1846 fell on whites as well as blacks. On one level this was a collision between migration and immigration — a group displaced within the nation because of their race being perceived as a threat by both foreign-born settlers trying to secure their own place in a new country where language and religion made them outsiders, and by ambitious leaders fearing change in their communities. The importance of the 1846 New Bremen mob as the key event in determining the Randolph Slaves's fortunes in freedom — the reason why the freedmen had to disperse through several counties instead of settle together as one community — has not before been critically explored, but only seen as an interesting event which caused the later lawsuits. Local historians of Mercer, Miami, and Shelby Counties have focused more on anecdote than on analysis in treating the motivations of the Mercer County mob of July 4. 1846, and the fate of the Randolph slaves subsequently dispersed in the region of the Miami & Erie Canal. To examine why Mercer County refused to accept the Randolph slave resettlements is as of much importance in the saga as to know where the 383 Randolph freedmen came from and where they settled, but the Mercer County mob has usually been portrayed only as an ironic display of Northern hypocrisy. The most succinct form of this convention is given by Russell Kirk in his work on Randolph of Roanoke : "... the people of an abolitionist state met them with violence and drove them from the farms the southern champion had purchased for them. This ironic view depended, however, on assumptions already protested in 1846 by two quite different Ohio Congressmen, Mercer County's own representative, William Sawyer, and the antislavery spokesman Joshua Giddings. Sawyer, a bitter racist who had been a guiding spirit of the mob, objected to the stereotype that all Ohioans

^Russell Kirk. Randolph of Roanoke: A Study in Conservative Thought. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1951.), p. 133. were abolitionists. This idea attributed views to his white constituents which they had publicly condemned. Giddings, the antislavery Whig whose censure and re-election in 1844 had ended the gag rule on Congressional slave debates, in this rare instance concurred with Sawyer. The acts of a racist mob in another part of his state weakened his own antislavery position by implying bad faith in the North. To Sawyer, the mob was a justified act of community self-defense^; to Giddings, the mob illustrated the lawlessness of racists in Ohio and elsewhere in the North.^ To both men. Southern claims that the mob's members were hypocrites betrayed profound ignorance. Irony oversimplifies. Russell Kirk's portraying the collision of 1846 as the reaction of a white community to the posthumous work of a single white man ignores, among others, the blacks themselves. It is true that legally what permitted the manumission and relocation of the Randolph slave community was the accident of ownership by a single white man, John Randolph of Roanoke, at the time of his death in 1833. But the "Randolph Slaves" had been a community for over half a century, and even after the dispersal of 1846 retained a sense of group identity and of shared injustice. This common history would lead to reunions and to explorations of legal redress ultimately taking form in the decision to sue the Mercer County farmers residing on the lands the Randolph Slaves had been en route to when turned back by the New Bremen mob. So next we will sketch the later histories of both communities, from what the 1850 Census reveals about the freed Randolph slaves to their heirs's own collision with Mercer County in lawsuits over half a century after the New Bremen mob had dispersed them. Tracing the history of the Randolph Slaves in rural western Ohio from their arrival to the present is in many ways more daunting than reconstructing their plantation years. It is still only too possible to

^Congressional Globe. Appendix to 30th Congress, 1st Session, p. 727. ^Congressional Globe. 30th Congress 1st Session, p. 612. concur with Mercer County local historian Edmund Binsfield's lament in 1959 on the futility of his bibliographic search for any scholarship on a major free black settlement in his region :

Nothing of Carthagena, its Negro colony and Wattles’ school nor of the cemetery can be found in any of the following: Emilius O. Randall and Daniel J. Ryan, HISTORY OF OHIO, (New York: The Century History Co., 1912), 5v.: Charles B. Galbreath, HISTORY OF OHIO, (Chicago: The American Historical Society, Inc., 1925), 5v.; Charles Jay Wilson, "The Negro in Early Ohio," THE OHIO STATE ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, XXXIX (1930), pp. 717-768 ; Leo Alilinas, "Fugitive Slave Cases in Ohio Prior to 1850," OSAHQ, XXXIX (1940) pp. 160-184; THE OHIO GUIDE, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1940) ; THE HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO, ed. by Carl Wittkte, (Columbus: Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society, 1941-1944), 6v. ; THE BULLETIN OF THE HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF OHIO. (1943-1957), vols. 1-15 ; Frank Seidel, THE OHIO STORY. (Cleveland: The World Publishing Co.. 1950); Eugene H. Roseboom and Francis P. Weisenburger, A HISTORY OF OHIO (Columbus: Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society, 1953) ; Samual Harlan Stille, OHIO BUILDS A NATION, (New York: The Arlendale Book House, 1953), 4th ed. ; James H. Rodabaugh, "The Negro in Ohio." THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY. X X xf (January, 1946), pp. 9-29 ; J. Reuben Sheeler. "The Struggle of the Negro in Ohio for Freedom," THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY. XXXI (April, 1946), pp. 208-226.*

Mercer County meanwhile demonstrated that the 1846 mob was part of an ongoing tradition of violence which no more ended with the Randolph Slave expulsion than it began with it The lawsuit MOTON VS KESSENS once again pit American blacks marginalized by race against farmers marginalized by immigrant origins and ethnic

* Edmund L. Binsfield (C.P.P.S.) "The Negro Cemetery at Carthagena”. Northwest Ohio Quarterly 32 (Winter 1959-60) : 36-37. footnote 12. heritage. Yet here too oversimplification is hazardous — the Randolph Slaves had to use lawyers who were as much a part of the Mercer County power structure as were their courtroom opponents, and the Randolph case threatened to dispossess some black as well as white farmers in Mercer. This lawsuit once again brought the whites of Mercer County into collision with the Randolph slaves, indicating that the New Bremen's mob merely represented the opening shot in a longer struggle between them. The turn of the century lawsuits were bound to the earlier chapters of the Randolph slave saga by arguments on such issues as the character of Randolph’s executor Judge William Leigh, and the earlier litigation in antebellum Virginia over Randolph’s conflicting wills. Not merely a land title dispute, what were really on trial were as much issues of history as of property. The litigants in the turn of the century suits MOTON vs. RESSENS realized that the reputation of Judge Leigh was crucial in trying to determine whether Randolph’s intentions were fulfilled, since it was Leigh who actually secured the manumissions and chose Mercer County as the freedmen’s destination. Previous historians, however, paid no real attention to Leigh’s personality and background. The legal representatives for the Mercer County farmers also raised the question of what constituted the Randolph Slave community, and who defined it. Among the arguments in MOTON v RESSENS are whether even the Randolph blacks could identify all the families of 1846. and forced admissions that many genealogical "Randolphs" had become lost to the conscious Randolph Slave community by moving away.^ This pragmatic courtroom argument anticipates such modern historical debates as Peter Rolchin’s

^For instance, Moton v. Kessens. Deposition of William Getz ( 5-18-1910). p. 897. on whether an Ed Johnson is a Randolph Slave or not. and the Deposition of George E. Lee (4-23-1913), p. 992, on having to ask local blacks whether they were of "the Randolph party." Moton v. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-6-1914), p75, is one discussion of Randolph Slaves moving out of touch with the Miami Canal region community.

8 argument that American slaves did not really have "a sense of community," but only a weaker "common identification. This work points the way to answers by leading us beyond the often misleading surface appearances — beyond irony, into the complexities which are truth's domain.

'®Peter Kolchin. American Slavery 1619-1877. (New York : Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1993), pp. 152-153. In pages 165-166 Kolchin argues that the American slave was individualistic, with a broad identification for his race but weak ties to any locality. Thus he sees a "slave community" on specific plantations as mostly mythical. CHAPTER 2

PATHS TO THE PIEDMONT

When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them; and they were in great fear. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord ; and they said to Moses. "Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us. in bringing us out of Egypt?" — EXODUS 14: 10-11 (Revised Standard Version)

St. George Tucker decided his family must flee. In January 1781 American turncoat Benedict Arnold led British troops in attacking colonial centers in Virginia. Arnold in his latest Revolutionary War campaign was now heading towards Petersburg, only two miles away from the plantation home of Tucker's family. Mataox. The family that Tucker sought to lead to safety was a mixed and large one. St. George Tucker, a rising lawyer from Bermuda, had improved his fortunes among the Virginia elite through the common method of marrying a wealthy widow,' Frances Bland Randolph. The daughter of one of Virginia's "First Families", Frances and her first husband, John Randolph, had been second cousins, a degree of interrelationship tar from unusual in what has been called Virginia's ’cousinocracy." The saying went "only a Randolph is good enough for

'Edmund S. Morgan. American Slavery. American Freedom : The Ordgal—Of Colonial Virginia. (New York : Norton. 1975), pp. 166-171.

1 0 a Randolph." Among John Randolph's illustrious ancestors was Virginia's fabled Indian princess Pocahantas.- The very plantation this John Randolph created, "Mataox", used the original Indian name for this famous ancestress.^ Almost a century later, a namesake, John Randolph Tucker, would proudly identify himself as a "descendant of Pocahontas. Indian blood was a consequence of racial mixing the Virginia colonial elite thought quite different from any union with their African labor force. Thomas Jefferson approved of Indian-white intermarriage and even thought it should be encouraged as official policy,^ and was happy that his own two daughters married some of the descendants of Pocahontas.^ Frances had born her first husband John Randolph three sons - - Richard, Theodorick, and a second John, who would eventually add

-Bruce. R an d olp h , p. I : 22 (for both second cousins & Pocahantas); Robert S. Tilton. Pocahontas : The Evolution of an American Narrative. (New York ; Cambridge University Press. 1994) pp. 28-29. ^Richard L. Morton, Colonial Virginia. 2 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1960), 2 : 560 ; Tilton, P o ca h o n ta s, pp. 91-92. ■^Stephen Hess, .America's Political Dvnasties : From Adams to Kennedy. (Garden City, NY : Doubleday & Co., 1966), p. 387. ^Robert McColley, Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia . (Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2nd. Ed. 1973), pp. 138-139. ^Tilton, P ocah on tas, p. 11. In this interesting book Tilton portrays Jefferson as "the last to speak of an amalgamation of the races as a real possibility” (p. 24), an alternative to military conquest as a means to obtain Indian lands. However, the change in popularly identifying Pocahontas from the matriarch of actual Virginia leaders to the "rescuer" of Capt. John Smith reflects America's growing intolerance of intermarriage, her historical marriage being displaced by an unconsummated, possibly mythical relationship (p. 26.) Virginia's 1924 anti­ miscegenation statute had to resort to rather torturous language to avoid classifying the Randolphs, Bollings, and other such elite families as nonwhite (pp. 29-30.) Still, the idea of Pocahontas's legacy as "an alternative aristocracy" persisted into Revolutionary American and Confederate Southern nationalism. It is also noteworthy that historian Henry Adams, who was to write one of the most hostile biographies of Randolph of Roanoke, chose as the subject of "his first important essay " an attack on John Smith's account of being rescued by Pocahontas. In an 1862 letter from Britain, Adams portrayed this as his own contribution to the ongoing Civil War: "a flank, or rather a rear attack on the Virginia aristocracy . . . I can imagine to myself the shade of John Randolph tum[ing] green ..." (pp. 173-174)

I 1 the suffix "of Roanoke" to his name. Three years younger than Richard and two younger than Theodorick, this Randolph of Roanoke was born 2 June 1773 at Cawsons, his maternal grandfather's plantation in Prince George County, Virginia.^. The last of Frances's children by her first husband, a daughter named Jane, died in infancy.* A widow of three years when she married Tucker in 1778, Frances began having children by him in turn — a daughter, Fanny, and a son. Henry St. George Tucker, the latter born only five days before the clan at Mataox had to relocate for fear of Arnold's army. Tucker felt he must protect his wife, daughter, son and stepsons by fleeing Benedict Arnold's invasion. Among the caravan of refugees were those whom the Randolphs and Tuckers would have described as their "people," the black slaves who served St. George and Frances in both house and field. Two chattels stood out in white recollections : the house slave Essex White, who had been the personal servant of Frances Bland Randolph Tucker's first husband and who now supervised the three older boys Richard, Theodorick. and John ; and another servant of the late John Randolph, "Daddy" Syphax, who drove the carriage in which Mrs. Tucker and her infant son Henry rode.^ The visibility of these two slaves reflected how intertwined their lives and families were with the white masters. Essex's own son John White would become the servant of Randolph of Roanoke, reflecting the growing trend in the revolutionary era to make household slave status hereditary, potentially alienating the domestic servants from the field hands.’o Prior to this time servants were

^Kirk, Randolph oF Roanoke, p. 20. *Hugh A. Garland. The Life of John Randolph of Roanoke. 2 vols. (New York and Philadelphia: D. Appleton & Co. . 1851), 1 : 5. ^Bruce. Randolph, p. I : 43. *®Winthrop D. Jordan. White Over Black : American Attitudes Toward the Negro. 1550-1812. (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books. 1969), p. 405. The question of whether elite' slaves were in fact alienated from the rest of the slave community is a much discussed issue. Focusing on field overseers rather than

1 2 generally selected on their individual qualities from the general slave population.'* While Essex and Syphax were important enough to their masters that their first names survived in memory, it would have never occurred to the Tuckers and Randolphs to address Essex by his surname of White, and no certain record of what Syphax's surname was remains (though it was probably either Davis or Brown).'- African slaves had adopted Western-style surnames partly to show symbolically their equality with the Euro-American masters, who refused to record or use socially such black family names. To their masters, though, the majority of slaves were an anonymous mass — no Tucker or Randolph considered it worth recording how many slaves were left at Mataox, and how many accompanied the elite fugitives to their place of sanctuary. Tucker, riding at the forefront of his family and "people" , led them to their destination — another of his stepfamily's properties, the Southside plantation Bizarre in Virginia's piedmont region, almost a hundred miles upstream the Appomattox River from imperiled Mataox. This haven from war was created by the westward migration of the Virginia population into what might be called the tobacco frontier.

house servants, for instance. William L. Van Deburg in The Slave Drivers : Black Agricultural Labor Supervisors in the Antebellum South (Westport, CT; Greenwood Press. 1979) concludes that black overseers generally saw themselves as members of the slave community, and were often instrumental in securing autonomy for the field workers from direct white control. He notes this conclusion is in contrast to the stereotype of the black overseer being even more brutal than the white slavedriver. an idea which suited white patriarchy, black accommodation, and abolitionist propaganda for a time. ''Gerald W. Mullin, Flight and Rebellion : Slave Resistance in Eighteenth- Centurv Virginia. (New York : Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 72-75. '-An "S. Davis" is listed among the slaves of Roanoke in Major Scott's 1801 list. Though this may not have been Syphax himself, the recurrence of the first name "Syphax" among Roanoke's slave community over the next forty years suggests kinship. However, a "Syfax Brown " and his son of the same name are found among the freemen of Israel Hill, the manumitted slaves of Richard Randolph. Which is the bloodline of the Revolutionary War's Syphax is not easily ascertained.

1 3 Primarily a tobacco colony since English settlers had taken root there, Virginia's life and culture centered around the staple. Tobacco is an eighteen-month plant ; the crop sown on January of one year would be sold on June of the following year, only a month after the next crop had been transplanted in May.'^ One consequence was that both slave and master were constantly absorbed by the tasks necessary to keep this crop cycle in motion. Frederick Siegel has argued that this very labor intensity was why Virginia planters resisted both crop diversification and black emancipation — there was simply not time enough to experiment to find new staples suitable to Virginia's problematic soil, and it was unthinkable to set free any hand that could be turned to the all-absorbing plant.'-* Another consequence was that the planter never knew what price the crop he seeded each winter might bring by the time it was brought to market over a year later — much of the problem in tobacco sales came from the inability to adjust crops to market gluts with any rapidity.Tobacco is also notorious for exhausting the soil. Since some parts of Virginia's Atlantic coastal "Tidewater" region had been subjected to individual tobacco cultivation for almost a century by the time of the American Revolution, many Virginians great and humble were seeking new ground beyond the "fall line" (where the tidal surges end) in the hilly, inland "Piedmont" region'^ by the 1730's. They did not realize that the soils of the Piedmont were even poorer to begin with than the old settlements, and that the semi-

• ^Joseph Clarke Robert, The Tobacco Kingdom : Plantation. Market, and Factory in Virginia and North Carolina. 1800-1860. (1938 ; reprint ed. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1965), p. 135; Frederick F. Siegel, The Roots of Southern Distinctiveness : Tobacco and Society in Danville. Virginia. 1780- 1865. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987). p. 62. '■*Siegel, Roots of Southern Distinctiveness, pp. 62. 64. '^Robert, Tobacco Kingdom, p. 135. . [T]he Piedmont is clearly defined by the fall line to the east and the Blue Ridge mountains to the west. . . Southside Virginia is the southern extension of the Piedmont south of the James River." W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Lynching in the New South : Georgia and Virginia. 1880-1930. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. 1993). p. 285. (Appendix B: Regions of Virginia and Georgia.)

1 4 tropical climate would make later crop diversification all but impossible. When the colonial governor William Gooch took charge of Virginia in 1728, only one county west of the Tidewater had been organized. By 1735 there were four such counties. In the mid-18th century it became typical for planters to have not only a Tidewater home plantation but several small up-country properties tended by a dozen or so slaves. Indeed, one of the recommendations for this pattern of ownership was that by dispersing the slaves it made controlling them easierjs Already one of the most important families in the Old Dominion, the Randolphs had been leaders in this process of Piedmont settlement by turning lands up the Appomattox, Little Roanoke, and Staunton Rivers into valuable properties through surveys and development.'*^ A key part of the process was "patenting" land, securing an official grant of title from the government to property already being explored or used. It is known that the Randolph family employed a local pioneer, Joseph "Little Joe" Morton, to seek lands on this agricultural frontier for them to patent ; at the time Morton himself was said to have no white neighbor nearer than 30 miles to his own family's log cabin.-'' A William Randolph patented 3800 acres of Appomatax River land in 1733, and Richard Randolph of Curies (John Randolph of Roanoke's grandfather) began patenting lands in the region two years later.-' When Richard Randolph died in 1748, his will had dealt with many properties in piedmont Lunenberg County. His executors were

'^Siegel. Roots of Southern Distinctiveness, pp. 69-71. '^Kolchin, American Slavery , p. 33. Both Jefferson and Washington are cited as examples of this type of multiple plantation development. '^Morton, Colonial Virginia. 2 : 560. -"Bruce, Randolph, p. II : 141; Henry Clarence Bradshaw, History of Prince Edward Countv. Virginia, from its earliest settlements through its establishment in 1754 to its bicentennial vear. (Richmond : The Dietz Press. 1955), p. 9. -'Bradshaw. Prince Edward Countv. p. 9.

1 5 directed on what terms to conclude deals already in progress for the sales of Randolph property, the price being sought to differ between properties located but unpatented and properties not yet located. Randolph of Curies left his own two sons property in Lunenberg County. To his elder son Ryland went lands on both sides of the Appomatox River, which as a plantation would come to be known as "Bizarre" from the looks of a house which stood there for a time,-- and to his son John (the father of Randolph of Roanoke) land on both sides of the Staunton River. The land on the north bank of the Staunton would come to be called "Roanoke."-^ Ryland Randolph was either a black sheep or an unfortunate in financial matters, since his younger brother John Randolph of Mataox had to contract to repay Ryland's creditors.--^ This debt (in the form of a mortgage to the English firm of Hansbury's) would be both a recurring problem for the Randolph family and a recurring source of sorrows for their slaves. Randolph of Mataox himself went to unusual lengths to leave record of his opinion that his brother Ryland had been shortchanged in at least one Piedmont land transaction, forbidding his sons in his will to sell any of their inherited land to Judge Paul Carrington of the neighboring "Mulberry Hill" plantation on the grounds Carrington had cheated Ryland in a transaction for some lowlands on the other side of the Little Roanoke River.-^ (This

--Jonathan Daniels. The Randolphs of Virginia. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co.. 1972). p. 108. --^Bruce. R and olp h , pp. I : 17-18. -■^Bruce. R and olp h ., p. I : 104; The 'black sheep' interpretation served Ryland's nephews in coping psychologically with their own life choices — in Richard Randolph’s case in particular, holding Ryland wholly at fault for this debt due to a desire "to gratify pride andpamper sensuality" (Ibid.. p. 105) permitted Richard to admire his own father John’s handling of the ensuing "just debt" (Ibid.. p. 103) and to rationalize his own slavekeeping while alive as due to Ryland’s faults rather than to his own. Although the same will of Richard Randolph expressing this judgment goes on to name Ryland as one of Richard’s executors, Ryland is only one of six such executors named. This seeming contradiction may then just reflect the fact that by this time Ryland would have also been seen as a family elder, and worthy of a nominal if practically meaningless token of respect. (Ibid.. p. 104) -^Bruce. R an d olp h ., p. I ; 20.

1 6 kind of posthumous spite would appear even more dramatically in the various wills of Randolph of Roanoke.) It would appear the price for Randolph of Mataox's fraternal intervention was Ryland's own share in the piedmont developments, since by the time of the senior John Randolph's own death in 1775 Bizarre belonged to him. Outliving his brother, Ryland would be a familiar (if not too striking) figure in the lives of his nephews for some twenty more years. In his own will, this John Randolph left Mataox to his wife for her lifetime. Bizarre to his own eldest son Richard, a tract which lacked a name to his second son Theodorick, and Roanoke to his youngest son and namesake John.-^ This testament thus reflected the trend of sons taking up residence on the piedmont plantations which their fathers had owned as absentees,-^ just as Mataox had been a step both generationally and geographically from the Tidewater patrimony towards the west for the Randolphs.-* A more ominous, if not terribly unusual, legacy of John Randolph Sr.'s (not unrelated to his belligerence about brother Ryland's misfortunes) was the previously mentioned British debt — the senior John had mortgaged his entire property, including his slaves, to the London firm of Hansbury's. The only possession of John Randolph's not in potential danger of liquidation was Syphax, the very servant who was to accompany the family in its Revolutionary flight to Roanoke, and who was specifically excepted from Randolph's mortgage.-^ This confirms Syphax as one of the first of those slaves that the white Randolphs considered as special cases ; that such preference was not an unmixed blessing to the individual slave will be demonstrated by the later example of John White.

-^Bruce, R andolph, p. I : 19. -^Alan Kulikoff. Tobacco and Slaves : The Development of Southern Culture in the Chesapeake. 1680-1800. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1986). p. 153. -*Morton. Colonial Virginia. 2 : 560. -^Daniels, Randolphs of Virginia, p. 119.

1 7 These Randolph speculations, passed from generation to generation in the upper Appomattox region, barely preceded large scale migration. Between 1740 and the onset of the Revolution occurred a general wave of settlement. The piedmont had been three-quarters patented by 1770.^0 In the 1760's the Virginia legislature had created four new counties — including Charlotte in 1765 — from the southwest portions of Lunenberg County in recognition of all this settlement.^' The poor whites who migrated to these new lands usually set up their own households, instead of working for the planters first as they had in the Tidewater. Planters developing farms in the piedmont therefore had to rely almost exclusively on slave labor, a development encouraged by a demographic increase in working age blacks in the old tobacco regions. The Randolphs may have just transferred slaves from their older plantations to their newer properties, but Alan Kulikoff outlines the broader picture : "As soon as trade routes were established, large planters from adjacent tidewater counties started slave quarters, and residents used their farms as collateral to purchase slaves from tidewater p la n te r s .T h u s this tobacco migration was primarily a black resettlement — in 1755 it has been estimated that 64% of the piedmont’s labor force was b l a c k . gy the time St. George Tucker led his stepfamily to safety the Roanoke plantation was entirely settled by black slaves, and Bizarre had a black majority population. We know not what disruptions the move to Roanoke produced among its first black slaves — what families were separated, what homes never seen again. We can only guess that grief was part of their migration.

^^Kulikoff. Tobacco and Slaves, p. 141. ^'Kulikoff. Tobacco and Slaves, p.143; Bradshaw, Prince Edward Countv. p. 51. ^-Kulikoff. Tobacco and Slaves, pp. 74-75. ^^Ibid., p. 74 footnote 54. 3^The life cycle of plantations is one of the main themes of Ann Patton Malone, albeit she deals primarily with 19th century plantations, in Sweet Chariot : Slave Family and Household Structure in Nineteenth-Centurv Louisiana. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992). She shows that since

1 8 Whether these Randolph slaves had been purchased from others or transferred from existing Randolph properties, Roanoke would not have been their first stop. Even the African-born "new Negroes" among their population would have been seasoned' by previous training in Virginia or the Caribbean, and the increasing Afro-Colonial population would have grown up knowing they were to follow their parents into the fields. Eighteenth century Virginia was the first British colony in the Western Hemisphere where the slave population became self-reproducing, thus causing a shift from constant African importation to home-grown labor that would be key to the "Americanization" of black slaves.^5 This in turn encouraged slave owner paternalism, since it was easier to consider as one of "our people" a slave born and raised alongside the master’s own family, or even one purchased but already familiar with white culture, than an unassimilated "savage" A frican.A nother effect of indigenous slave population growth was the rise of the slave artisan, as plantation owners encouraged skills such as blacksmithing and shoemaking among their chattels as an alternative to outside m anufactures.37 When Roanoke's slaves came to be counted following the Revolution, at least six artisans were among its population. This migration first of the Randolph black slaves, followed later by the family of their owners, was typical of trends in general Virginia society. Mullin, contemplating the geography of slavery in Virginia of the late Colonial and early Republic periods, notes that the "black belt" encompassed "piedmont and tidewater counties lying below and along the fall-line. . . slaves represented slightly more than 50 per cent of the population in the piedmont counties of King the first slaves sent to a new plantation were usually young men. this plus the disruption of previous family and social life meant it often took decades for new stable families to appear among the slaves. Thirty years of settlement would have been time enough for new ties to develop and create a community on Roanoke or Bizarre, though. That the white masters deemed it a potential retreat supports the idea it had matured in more than an economic sense. 33Kolchin. American Slavery . p. 39. 3^Ibid.. p. 50. 37lbid.. pp. 52-53. 108-109.

1 9 George, Spotsylvania, Louisa, Goochland, Cumberland, Amelia. Nottoway, and Brunswick, That Bizarre was the refuge from war for the Tucker-Randolph family indicates both that it had developed enough after over 30 years in the Randolph family to house an elite family with five children, yet that it was also as distant from the theater of war —the heartland of established Virginia — as Tucker and his wife could get. As they sought sanctuary in the still rough region, did any of the family guess that this hinterland would be where the sons of Frances and John Randolph would find not only their livelihood but where two of them would find their deaths? His family out of harm's way at Bizarre, St. George Tucker left to join the fighting as a militia officer. At one point during this exile Mrs. Tucker and her children went for an extended visit to that other family property only forty miles from Bizarre. Roanoke.Y oung John reported in a letter to his stepfather that there, to protect her family from both the ague and the war which had already dislocated them, Frances Tucker had hung up an Abracadabra charm.-*^ The protective Frances Bland Randolph Tucker also figures in another tale of this first visit which Randolph himself always told, of his mother adjuring him that to sell land was the beginning of ruin.-*' To what was young John Randolph thus introduced under the joint protection of mother love and white magic? Since when Roanoke's slave population was first given any thorough recording in 1801 it was approximately one hundred blacks, it can be assumed that twenty years earlier it was no greater and probably less. (The 1787 Census in fact gives the slave population as 88, but it is hazardous to assume that this omitted no one.) The number of these early slaves may seem small, particularly in comparison to the population of nearly 400 Roanoke alone would have at the time of

^^Mullin, Flight and Rebellion, p. 126. -*^Bruce. Randolph, p. I : 128. ■*'*Bruce. Randolph, p. I : 47. ■*• Bruce. Randolph, p. II : 334 ; Garland. Life of John Randolph. 1:18.

20 John Randolph's death in the following century. The problem of slave supervision made this a typical ratio for slave laborer to tillable land in 18th century Virginia, though. Ten slaves to one overseer was one slaveowner's considered judgment of the proper ratio. Much larger plantations than the combined Bizarre-Roanoke lands often had as few as 3 or 4 working slaves in some quarters.-*- Randolph's own father had thought twenty working hands and four plow-boys a sufficient legacy to his wife (out of a larger slave population) for her to maintain the Mataox plantation.-*^ Since tobacco cultivation was generally held to require the high ratio of one slave (under close white supervision) to every three or four acres -*-*, it is probable that Roanoke and even Bizarre at this time were actually more engaged in raising food for their own residents than in producing tobacco for export. (The credit side to tobacco cultivation was that it was easy enough so planters could routinely assign women and young children to much of the task, meaning a few slaves could produce a lot of the staple crop.)-*5 When the war passed in Virginia, St. George Tucker and family returned from their piedmont haven to live at Mataox until Frances's death in 1788. Tucker then moved to Williamsburg, beginning an illustrious career as a Judge and law professor.-*^ Ironically American independence meant a new British threat to St. George Tucker, who feared that the old mortgage contracted by John Randolph of Mataox would allow British creditors to seize all the Randolph assets.-*'^ Two years after his mother's death John Randolph went to Philadelphia to read law under the supervision of yet another cousin — Edmund Randolph, the first Attorney General of the newly formed Federal

■*-Mullin, Flight and Rebellion, pp. 48-49. -*^Bruce, R andolph, p. I : 35. -*-*Robert. Tobacco Kingdom, p. 18. -*5lbid., p. 20. -*®Bruce. R andolph, p. I : 67. St. George Tucker would remarry in 1791, yet again to a wealthy widow - this time the relic of one of the Carter family. (Hess, America's Political Dvnasties, p. 372.) -*^Daniels, Randolphs of Virginia. , p. 119.

2 1 government/* Six years later Mataox was sold. John Randolph (of Roanoke) having come of age and finding no other way to pay off "overseers' and blacksmiths' and sheriffs’ claims of several years standing"/^ Randolph of Roanoke began residing again at Bizarre, now the home of his older brother Richard.^o A year after their mother's death Richard had married Judith Randolph (yet another cousin) and begun his own family at that piedmont site.5' The geographic shift of the Randolphs from the Tidewater to the Piedmont was now permanent. Not only had the whites thus shifted. Richard had inherited the slave servant Syphax, who was his personal attendant at the time Richard met his future wife Judith.52 Essex White apparently went to John, since it is in his service we find Essex and his family thereafter, particularly Essex's son John White, who went to Philadelphia as Randolph's personal servant. It is one of the central paradoxes of Randolph's life that, although even a student of Virginia politics such as Alison Freehling describes him as a "Tidewater conservative"^^, in reality his livelihood and permanent residence were as a Piedmont Virginian. Randolph thus from the start championed a way of life largely known to him as a nostalgic fantasy. This disjunction, encapsulated in Nancy Randolph Morris's pithy contrast between the pretensions

■**Bruce. Randolph, p. I : 74-5. ■^^Bruce. R andolph, p. I : 127 ; this may have included the sale of slaves which later political opponents of John Randolph accused him of arranging so as to discourage actual slave purchases, or that charge may refer to a later sale of Randolph's own slaves (Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser. 23 April 1799). It would definitely have been at this time that St. George Tucker took control of certain slaves of Frances's that Randolph was to later assert should have been inherited by him. 50Bruce. R andolph, p. I ; 129. ^ 'Mary Haldane Coleman. St. George Tucker : Citizen of No Mean City. (Richmond ; The Dietz Press, 1938), p. 110. ^^Daniels. Randolphs of Virginia. . p. 124. ^^Alison Goodyear Freehling. Drift Toward Dissolution : The Virginia Slavery Debate of 1831-1832. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 1982.). p. 64.

22 of "John Randolph of Roanoke" and the real "plain Jack" who ran a farm, explain much of the quixotism of his politics and attitudes. His public persona has led some to identify Randolph as the real life prototype of the "doomed aristocrat" of Southern fiction.^-: His speeches are full of roll calls of bankrupted and abandoned plantations, of aristocratic resistance to popular leveling. In one of his favorite dark prophecies, the plantation economy is in such decline that "slaves will have to advertise for runaway masters!" Especially as he lost faith in Jeffersonian policies, Randolph increasingly portrayed himself as defending a past Golden Age being overwhelmed by an unworthy present. The "doomed aristocrat" grew out of the disillusioned democrat. In the 1790's Randolph like many other Virginia politicians made public displays of French Revolutionary-style radicalism, such as using the French reformed calendar and the term 'Citizen' in correspondence. His political alienation began when he and other "Old Republicans " accused President Jefferson of abandoning the very principles candidate Jefferson had espoused^») This rejection of pragmatic politics in favor of ideological purity and the ensuing estrangement from the "Virginia dynasty" of Presidents following Jefferson's path encouraged Randolph into increasingly conservative positions, such as criticizing the disestablishment of the Anglican church in Virginia and the abolition of primogeniture in inheritance law. By the 1829 Virginia Constitutional Convention Randolph would see dangers to what he thought of as civilized life in the very terms "equality" and "democracy".

^•^Robert P. Sutton, "Nostalgia. Pessimism, and Malaise : The Doomed Aristocrat in Late-Jeffersonian Virginia", Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 76 (1968) : 41-55. S^lThis factional breakdown among Jefferson's followers is discussed in Noble E. Cunningham Jr., The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power : Party Operations. 1801 -1809. (Chapel Hill; University of North Carolina Press, 1963) and Norman K. Risjord, The Old Republicans : Southern Conservatism in the Age of Jefferson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965).

23 Economie facts justified this feeling among those like Randolph of Roanoke that their piedmont lives were but the last shadows of a once glorious culture now lost. By 1800 the piedmont region shared by Virginia and North Carolina had become the major tobacco producing portion of those states, a situation which would remain true until the Civil War.^6 The economic havoc of the War of 1812 did more than even actual military depredations to kill tobacco growing in the old Tidewater r e g io n s .^ ^ One effect of this agricultural shift was that by the time of Randolph of Roanoke's own death in 1833. the "southside" piedmont was the center not only of Virginia's tobacco plantation economy but also of its slave population. Charlotte County (which grew out of Lunenberg County) had a black majority of 61.8% when Randolph died.58 Even on the eve of the Civil War. the agricultural census showed that Charlotte County's typical tobacco plantation was larger than those in any of the other six Virginia tobacco counties. And while the median production in those other counties was 3,558 pounds of tobacco, Charlotte's median was the astoundingly larger 19.901 pounds.5^ Adding to Randolph's fatalism was his consciousness that the same cycle that had eclipsed the Tidewater was already at work in the piedmont. The westward drive caused by the combination of tobacco's soil exhaustion and the land hunger of poorer whites meant that by 1800 "nearly all piedmont land had been planted at least once with t o b a c c o . The true settlement frontier had already shifted even further west to Kentucky and the Ohio regions. Randolph's disenchantment with American westward expansion reflected a growing awareness among planters that the piedmont's own tobacco

^^Robert. Tobacco Kingdom,p. 16. s^bid.. p. 140. ^^Freehling. Drift Toward Dissolution, pp. 18, 267. ^^Robert. Tobacco Kingdom, p. 245 (Appendix). ^'^Kulikoff. Tobacco and Slaves, p. 77.

24 economy was being undermined by new Western tobacco regions.^' His outrage at the unsavory Yazoo land speculations in the region that became Alabama and his physically violent quarrels with Henry Clay, the spokesman of this rising "West", grew from this fear of eclipse. Randolph knew that what made him a knight ofghosts and shadows was the continuing expansion of America. In 1843. ten years after Randolph's death, another Charlotte County tobacco planter articulated the heretical thought that making Missouri a slave state had been a catastrophe for Old Virginia, since its tobacco now competed with Virginia's.^- If Randolph of Roanoke seems a "doomed aristocrat" of fiction, in part this is because of the tragic cycle that took place at Bizarre — events that by the time John Randolph became a national figure had left him the only living son of Frances and John Randolph of Mataox.

6 'Robert. Tobacco Kingdom, p. 143. 6-Ibid.. p. 150.

25 CHAPTER 3

BIZARRE TIMES

"On the bark of this beautiful beech-tree the letters J. R.. are cut, and John Randolph of Roanoke is said to have cut them with his own hand. The tradition may be apocryphal, but yonder is 'Bizarre', where Randolph lived for some years after his brother Richard's death — by the way, you know that Dick was a better man than Jack Randolph, just as Bobus was greater than Sidney Smith — the same may be said of the almost unknown brothers of many eminent men ..." ""My Uncle Flatback's Plantation", George Bagby'

For sixteen years, from 1794 to 1810, John Randolph resided primarily with his brother Richard's family on the Bizarre plantation. The wrenching tragedies this family endured had already freed one set of their slaves by the time of John's permanent move to Roanoke, while setting the stage for the eventual manumission of Roanoke's own slave community. The Randolph family's melodramatic travails even had a suitably Gothic climax : the only survivor of this line was John Randolph's insane, deaf-mute nephew -- a figure who sounds more like he belongs in a romance by Monk Lewis or LeFanu than historical fact.-

‘George Bagby, The Old Virginia Gentleman and other sketches. With an introduction bv Thomas Nelson Page. (New York ; Charles Scribner's Sons. 1910), p. 95. -Indeed, this piece of family history has been the basis of a melodramatic

26 When John Randolph took up residence at Bizarre in 1794 (after the sale of Mataox). he was only one member of Bizarre s household. Just as he was there as Richard's brother, so one of Judith Randolph’s sisters. Ann Cary "Nancy" Randolph, had been living there since at least a year after John and Judith's marriage. Nancy had apparently left the home of her birth to escape domestic tensions with a new stepmother which had also led a third sister. Virginia, to move into Thomas Jefferson's household.^ Many other friends and relations resided at Bizarre for long periods, such as a Mrs. Guilford Dudley.-^ It was the presence of Nancy Randolph, though, which would haunt Richard and his heirs. The cycle of tragedy began with a passing. Returning to his eldest brother's home deathly ill, Theodorick died of tuberculosis at Bizarre on February 14, 1792.^ The question of just how ill and inactive Theodorick was on his deathbed would come to be a crucial issue in the controversies that would pit Randolph against Randolph over the next 20 years. Soon after this Judith gave birth to her first son, St. George Randolph. The boy was soon discovered to be both deaf and mute. But — was his the only birth being then anticipated in that household? Meanwhile, the most personal tragedy of John Randolph's life, and the most mysterious, may have also taken place in this period. By the time Randolph began public life, his beardlessness and high voice gave rise to gossip and whispers that he was a eunuch. Virginia historian William Cabell Bruce, surveying the issue with his usual thoroughness, if also with amusing Victorian delicacy, doubted Randolph's sexlessness was congenital. Citing Randolph's many historical novel. Jay Walz and Audrey Walz, The Bizarre Sisters (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce. 1950); nothing illustrates the weakness of historical work on these issues like the presence of this title in many otherwise solid bibliographies. ^Daniels, Randolphs of Virginia. . pp. 133-134. ■*Bruce. R an d olp h , p. I : 129. ^Daniels, Randolphs of Virginia. , p. 138.

27 romantic involvements as a young man, Bruce observed that none of Randolph's boyhood companions or early servants mention signs of any "sexual deformity" and noted references in Randolph's letters to shaving during his Philadelphia period.*^ Bruce concluded that Randolph was rendered impotent by "mumps or some other wasting disease."7 Gerald Johnson, largely a popularizer of Bruce's more scholarly biography, makes his own major contribution to Randolph studies in suggesting a specific attack of scarlet fever in the spring of 1792 as the moment Randolph was effectively emasculated.* Following Bruce's lead, modern Randolph biographer William Ewart Stokes argued for mere impotence. Stokes suggested Randolph's main troubles with women actually stemmed from a secret marriage.^ Did this physical tragedy set in motion another tragedy, a mental one? Given that Randolph was in poor health the remainder of his life, a medical biography of this 'political fantastic' would be very valuable ; one specific question is, did the same physiological failures that rendered Randolph impotent eventually cause his insanity? In researching his life of Randolph's half-brother Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, though, Beverly D. Tucker found that two modern Tuckers who were physicians had each independently diagnosed Randolph of Roanoke's eventual dementia as a case of pernicious anemia. While not final, this hypothesis must be regarded as the one any other suggestion must refute.

^Bruce. R andolph, pp. II ; 318-331. 7Bruce. R andolph, p. II : 322. * Gerald W. Johnson, Randolph of Roanoke : A Political Fantastic. (New York: Minton, Batch, & Co., 1929), pp. 71-74. ‘^William Ewart Stokes Jr., "The Early Life of John Randolph of Roanoke, 1773- 1794" (M.A. thesis. University of Virginia, 1950), pp. 10-12. '^Beverley D. Tucker, Nathaniel Beverlv Tucker : Prophet of the Confederacy. 1784-1851. Based in Part on the Research of the Late Percy Winfield Turrentine. Ph.D. (Tokyo: Nan'Un-Do, 1979), p. 245 footnote 1. John C. Burnham, OSU professor in the history of medicine, though, suggests that both Randolph's physical and mental problems derived from the same endocrine disorder (begun perhaps with the 1792 fever.) Interview with Prof. John C. Burnham, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 5 April 1996.

28 In October 1792 Richard, his wife Judith, and his sister-in-law Nancy stayed at the plantation of an R. Harrison along with several other guests (including one would-be suitor to Nancy who was yet another Randolph cousin). When slaves found the body of a white child under a pile of shingles, some guests began to remember one night hearing first screams which they had been told were Nancy's in a fit of hysteria, then the sounds of someone whom they thought to be Richard going outside and returning. Harrison, the host, perhaps exercising discretion, did not personally examine the infant’s body. (The black slaves — including two women who had been present in Nancy's bedroom the night of the screaming'* —were legally barred from testifying.) Months before a grand jury indicted Richard in April 1793. rumor and gossip accused him of fathering a child with Nancy and then disposing of it. In the ensuing trial, some witnesses came forward voicing suspicions that Richard and Nancy had been lovers, others such as John Randolph himself testified to domestic harmony in the Bizarre household in the months following the night in question. Randolph also testified that he had attributed Nancy's fits of hysterics in this year to grief for Theodoric, to whom she had been informally engaged. Nothing but circumstantial evidence (barring slave testimony) linked the body in the shingles to Nancy's screams in the night. Moreover, there was no way to know whether the question was infanticide or miscarriage — once again, since the slaves could not testify as to what they had found in those shingles, there was no official way to determine if it was a fetus or a full-term child, and

''Bruce, Randolph, p. I : 108.

29 then whether stillborn or stifled.*- Accordingly Richard was found not guilty of murder and adultery on April 29, 1793, and released.*3 Acknowledging that while this "acquittal is sufficient for every legal purpose . . . the public mind is not always convinced by the decisions of a court of law," St. George Tucker had a sheet printed reproducing letters from Judith Randolph dated April 1793 denying that Nancy had been pregnant or that Richard could have possibly left the house that n ig h t.F u e lin g later arguments was that Nancy Randolph remained a resident of Bizarre for over twelve more years, not departing until 1805*5 — nine years past the death of Richard himself. On the night of June 12, 1796, architect Benjamin Latrobe sought refuge from a storm at Bizarre only to find that Richard Randolph was dying of fever. The visitor uncomfortably found himself part of the death watch as Judith and Nancy tended Richard's sickbed.*^ John was away — and had himself been ill with fever that May,*^ so that one chronicler suggests Richard caught the fatal fever while visiting his ailing sibling.** The circumstances of Richard's death would also become a matter of heated dispute. (A lesser mystery of this time is that while Richard and Judith's second son Theodorick Tudor Randolph was born in 1796, there is no record of his birthdate — and thus no way of knowing whether he came into the world before or after his father left it. Although known as Tudor.

*-Bruce, R an d olp h , pp. I ; 106-112. The issue of how developed was the object under the shingles is also crucial as to the paternity of the child — if it were Theodoric’s, it would have had to have been at least near full-term, but if Richard's it could well have been conceived much later. (Daniels, R andolphs of Virginia, p. 147.) *5copy of verdict, Bruce-Randolph Papers, Virginia State Library. *•* St. George Tucker, "To The Public", typed copy in the Bruce-Randolph Papers. *5Bruce, R an d olp h , p. I : 134. * ^Daniels, Randolphs of Virginia, pp. 107-109. *^Bruce, R an d olp h , p. II ; 296. **Daniels, Randolphs of Virginia, p. 107.

30 the lad's life would be unfortunately similar to that of his namesake uncle Theodoric. One effect of the death of Richard Randolph of Bizarre was the first large manumission of Randolph plantation slaves. Richard's will (18 February 1796) asked Judith to free all his slaves (approximately 200) and to settle them on 400 acres of land.-o Its preamble blamed Richard's failure to manumit in life on debts, specifically the mortgage his father Randolph of Mataox had contracted with the English firm Hansbury's to pay Ryland's debts. Richard declared slavery incompatible with both good conscience and the Virginia Declaration of Rights. He named several executors besides Judith, including St. George Tucker, John Randolph, Creed Taylor, and "next to my father-in-law, my greatest benefactor, George Wythe, Chancellor of Virginia".-' Such provisions for the freedmen were not unusual in manumissions by Revolutionary Era slave holders — Carter Landon, for instance, not only awarded property lots to his former slaves but set up an elaborate system of free labor management, while George Washington in his own posthumous manumission of his slaves arranged apprenticeships for the young and pensions for the old.-- In her hostile portrait of Randolph of Roanoke, Nancy Randolph Morris

'^Ibid., p. 109. -^Bruce, R andolph, p. I ; 104. While the figure of 200 slaves would fit with the later assertions that 100 were sold and somewhere around 72 or 73 liberated, my own work with listings of slaves makes me suspicious the smaller number recorded as liberated might be due to the records ignoring minor children among the freedmen families. (An additional source of confusion is that some of the Israelites did not register their freedom papers till long after the manumission, one individual as late as 1861.) -*'W. P. D.', "The Negro Question", 24 January 1889, a typed copy in Bruce- Randolph Papers. (This appears to be either anewspaper article or letter to the editor, but there is not sufficient identification of either the author or whether it was actually published.) --Ira Berlin, Slaves Without Masters : The Free Negro in the Antebellum South. (New York: Random House, 1974), p. 59.

3 1 noted that he had boasted he would not only free his own slaves but provide them with tutors. Like his younger brother's later manumission, Richard's fits Ira Berlin's model of the "large, ideologically motivated emancipation of the post-Revolutionary years" which "liberated blacks as well as browns, untutored field hands along with literate slave artisans Mullins sees the post-Re volutionary period's unique boom in manumissions ("more than 10,000 slaves were freed") as a sign of a rare era of good feeling between the races, due to the slave population having become sufficiently acculturated from their original African ways to a Virginian life. Whites felt them less alien than before or, after thecoming cycle of slave revolts, would feel again.-5 Another incentive was a weak market for tobacco after the War of Independence, making large slave populations seem a burdensome surplus to many owners.-^ In May 1782 the Virginia legislature had passed an act permitting any slaveholder to manumit any slave under 45 through any written document, including wills and testaments. Not only did this trigger the major era of manumission in Virginia, this statute inspired similar liberal laws throughout the Upper South.Reaction, though, set in — in 1806 Virginia law required freed blacks to leave Virginia within a year of manumission or be re-enslaved unless receiving special permission to remain (which however was almost always granted)-* ; this law remained a Virginia statute through the Civil War.-") Amendments in 1815 and 1837 coped with constantly increasing numbers of free black petitions for continued residence by designating the county courts (rather than the Virginia legislature) as the bodies able to

-^Bruce, R andolph, p. II : 286. -■^Berlin. Slaves Without Masters, p. 150. -^Mullin, Flight and Rebellion, p. 127; Kolchin. American Slavery , p. 74-75. -^Kolchin. American Slavery . p. 74. -^Freehling, Drift Toward Dissolution, p. 89. -*Berlin. Slaves Without Masters, p. 102. -^Ibid., p. 139.

32 grant exemptions ; this had the effect of rendering this statute nearly moot, since the local court almost always granted permission for the freedman to remain (for economic as often as for humanitarian reasons. Manumission, however, still faced an immediate obstacle. Since John Randolph Sr. had pledged his own slaves as collateral to his British loan, his son Richard's slaves were still to be considered property until this two-generation old debt could be settled. After Richard's death several slaves, possibly over a hundred individuals, were sold in an attempt to pay off the British loans. It is certain that John Randolph himself did at least once sell some slaves to pay off the British debts he had inherited. In his vicious exchange of insults and accusations by letter with Nancy Randolph, whom he came to blame for the disgrace and death of his idolized older brother Richard, one of her sharpest digs was to cite this sale as proof of Randolph's own hypocrisy.^- The sale is indirectly confirmed by Bruce^s and directly by Powhatan Bouldin.^-^ Political opponents in 1799 alleged that Randolph had arranged the sale in such a way as to discourage buyers, proof he was an abolitionist.35

30[bid.. pp. 146-147. Luther Porter Jackson. Free Negro Labor and Property Holding in Virginia. 1830-1860. (New York : D. Appleton-Century Company. 1942) vividly chronicles how inextricably white expulsionists found the free blacks to be involved with Virginia's economy and society. 3'F. N. Watkins. "The Randolph Emancipated Slaves". DeBow's Review 24(4); 287. See a previous note for a meditation on exactly how many slaves were thus sold. The British debt inherited from their father John Randolph Sr. became less of a crisis (if no less of a burden) to the white Randolphs when John Wickham, a New York lawyer who represented British creditors in Virginia, arranged more comfortable terms of payment (Daniels, Randolphs of Virginia. . p. 137). Wickham was St. George Tucker’s next door neighbor in 1790's Williamsburg. (Tucker, Nathaniel Beverlv Tucker, p. 46.) 33Bruce, R an d olp h , p. II : 287. 33Bruce, R an d olp h , p. II : 358. 3-^Powhatan Bouldin, Home Reminiscences of John Randolph of Roanoke. (Richmond: By The Author, printed by Clemmitt & Jones, 1877.), p. 23. 35Virgir.ia Gazette and General Advertiser. 23 April 1799.

33 The Virginia expulsion law of 1806 did not apply to Richard's "people" because technically they had been freed prior to its passage. However, probably because of the debts against Richard's estate they remained in his widow Judith's service until 1810 or 1811. (The 1810 Census for Prince Edward County reports Judith's household consisted of 14 slaves, though these may have only been the house s e r v a n t s .F i n a l ly , the Bizarre freedmen were allowed to create the free black colony of Israel Hill near Lynchburg, only two to three mile^ west of Farmville.^^ That not all of Bizarre's slaves had become Israelites is shown by F. N. Watkins's mention of two unnamed Negro blacksmiths who set up business in Farmville it s e lf . Racist charges that Israel Hill was "a nest of lazzaroni" (i.e. thieves and beggars) were constant, and to some extent probably self-fulfilling.^9 Little scholarly work has been done on Israel Hill's history. There are for instance conflicting reports as to the original size of the colony —Luther Porter Jackson says there were 75 slaves^o which is close to F. N. Watkins’s report of 72.-*' But a hostile account written in 1836 states that about 100 of Richard Randolph's slaves were settled as families on parcels of land, ranging from ten to twenty-five acres in size,-*- which fits the later report of 1860 census taker F. Bell Robert. Since the 1790 Census for Prince Edward County shows only 32 free blacks, compared to 3986 slaves, -*^ Israel Hill was the most obvious sign of what many slaveowners would see as an alarming surge in the free black population in the county.

^^1810 Census, p. 584 ^^Watkins, "The Randolph Emancipated Slaves" ; Bradshaw, Prince Edward Countv. , p. 278. ^^Watkins, "The Randolph Emancipated Slaves." ^^Jackson, Free Negro Labor, p. 125. ■***Ibid. ■**Watkins. "The Randolph Emancipated Slaves"" ■*-James Madison, Farmer s Register 4 (22 March 1836) : 3-4, cited by Bradshaw, Prince Edward Countv, pp. 278-279. ~*^Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790 : Records of the State Enumerations: 1782 to 1785. Virginia. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1986.), p. 9.

34 Proslavery critics of this community, arguing blacks thrived only in bondage, always cited Israel Hill’s low population as a sign of misfortune and predicted its imminent disappearance — the joke being this extinction was seen as "imminent" in 1854-^-^. 1870*5. and 18 89H6 From the prejudiced sources available, its members ("the Israelites") seemed to have lived in a shantytown and earned their living primarily as fishermen, boatmen carrying produce to and from Petershurg.-*"^ and occasional laborers for the neighboring whites. The fact that the elder of Israel Hill was a Sam White suggests that the slaves of the Bizarre and Roanoke plantations were as interrelated as their masters were.-** However, the Israelites also included surnames unknown in Roanoke such as Booker and Ballou.-*** Booker at least probably derived from another prominent family in the Farmville area.50 The fullest picture of Israel Hill comes from the 1860 Census, because Assistant Marshal F. Bell Robert, who enumerated Prince Edward County in that year, took the opportunity to write what amounts to a local guidebook. He noted everything of interest in his district from the birthplace of a Governor of Kentucky to "a nest of sheep stealers" run out of the county by vigilantes. Naturally such a man could not leave Israel Hill unremarked. Robert produced the following marginalia;

-*-*Watkins, "The Randolph Emancipated Slaves”, p. 288. Watkins was a prominent attorney in the region. After the Civil War. F. N. Watkins was to become a force in the Redemption of Prince Edward County in the 1870's and one of its Ku Klux Klan leaders (Bradshaw, Prince Edward Countv. pp. 422-423. 427.) -*5Bagby. Old Virginia Gentleman, p. 101. •*6'W. P. D.'. "The Negro Question". 24 January 1889. a typed copy in Bruce- Randoiph Papers. -*^Watkins. "The Randolph Emancipated Slaves", p. 288; Bradshaw, P rin ce Edward County. , p. 294. -**Watkins, "The Randolph EmancipatedSlaves", pp. 285-286. -*^Bradshaw. Prince Edward County. . p. 294. 50lbid.. p. 299.

35 "This settlement of free negroes is quite an interesting one, as an experiment made under most favorable circumstances by their owner, and it would appear to demonstrate that the 'free negro' is only nominally free in a free white community and that under the most fortunate circumstances there will be degeneracy, and degradation. The old negroes informed me that that the number liberated in 1811 was upwards of 100, with about an equal division of sexes. The number now, all total, in Israel Hill and in Farmville and elsewhere does not exceed 150. F. Bell Robert — Assistant Marshal (I860)" S' "The farm in which these people live, consists of 350 acres, the land left them by the late Richard Randolph; some heads of families were given 80 acres and some 25; the land has since been divided and subdivided into small parcels, from 50 to 10 acres. "S-

F. Bell Robert's census count shows that Israel Hill proper consisted of 118 individuals in thirty-one households. If we trust Roberts's figure of 150 for the total Israelite community, then, only 32 at most would be among Farmville's 106 free blacks or elsewhere. Roberts's own Farmville note is "These negroes live principally on one street in Farmville in rented houses. Many of them are the descendants of the Israel Hill n e g r o e s .T h e number of entries in the Occupation column declaring the individual "Works her patch" (6). "Works on her farm" (2), or "Tends truck patch" (1) show that the Israelites were subsistence farmers. (Note also the gender of the patch-tenders — Roberts found 71 females and only 47 males in Israel Hill, though the fact he found only 2 boatmen resident at the time raises the possibility he may have simply come at a time when many men were off working on the river.) The major surnames are Carter (34 individuals). White (27), Johnson (13), and Gibbs (11).

5'1860 Census. Roll 1371, marginalia written in Column 14. p963 5-1860 Census. Roll 1371, marginalia written in Column 8, p. 962 551860 Census, Roll 1371, marginalia written in Column 8, p. 901

36 Comparing Roberts’s notes to the earlier, less informative census of 1850 (whose enumerator for instance only made note of the occupations of men), we find Israel Hill then too consisted of thirty households housing 139 people. At least 18 of these households are recognizably the same as in the census a decade later. This census taker found 24 boatmen, and 65 males as well as 78 females, thus suggesting the possibility discussed above of a male undercount by Roberts.^-: Sixty eight individuals counted in 1850 can be identified in F. Bell Roberts’s list, showing Israel Hill to be stable and persistent, whatever its problems. Stepping back further to the 1830 census (the 1840 enumeration of Prince Edward County was alphabetized by surname, and thus useless for showing geographical proximity) shows Israel Hill then to be 127 people in about 23 households. Many modern historians of slavery now argue that the true distinction of American slavery from the varieties practiced in Latin America and the Caribbean is that American black slaves never controlled their own subsistence, even garden patches on plantations being subject to the master’s decisions rather than a true right of the s l a v e . 55 The "Israelites" had gone from this "proto-peasant" stage to something at least potentially closer to true peasant autonomy, in that even in the terms of a hostile marketplace their labor and their produce were now "theirs The hostility of Israel Hill’s critics came from awareness that these blacks had thus escaped direct white control, as shown by the twin recurring fantasies of Israelite extinction or re-subjugation to white mastery. The 1850 and 1860 Censuses also allow an examination of Israel Hill’s family structure, using the Cambridge Group typology for demographic analysis.56 Solitaires are solitary individuals, perhaps

5^1850 Census, pp.. 32-35. 55Kolchin, American Slavery , pp. 109, 152-154 ; Michael Mullin. Africa In America : Slave Acculturation and Resistance in the American South and the British Caribbean. 1736-1831 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. 1992). 5&Ann Patton Malone. Sweet Chariot : Slave Family and Household Structure in

37 part of some kinship group but apparently living alone. The simple family subdivides into married couples without children (though they may have had children who now live apart), the "standard nuclear family" of married couples living with children, and single­ parent families. (Single parent families are a tricky category in slave demography because the seemingly lone parent may in fact be a broadwife or off-plantation husband, as well as the survivor of a relationship ended by either death or distance.)57 Non-nuclear families are made up of those related in some way other than the couple or the parent ; a common form in slave plantations is co­ resident siblings. Extended family households can be "upward" (a nuclear family incorporating a parent of one of the spouses), "lateral" (a nuclear family with a brother-in-law or sister-in-law), or "downward" (grandparents raising grandchildren without the intervening child/parent generation.) The most common type of multiple family is a nuclear family incorporating a daughter with children of her own (a secondary family.') Since the Census data is by residence, we face the troubling distinction between houseful and household . Without more genealogical data, it frequently comes down to a shrewd guess in deciding whether to consider some households as siblings living together, unrelated people sharing a home, or childless couples with resident in-laws. In 1850 simple nuclear families form over half the population of Israel Hill (73 individuals), with the standard nuclear family unit of a couple with children embracing 41.7% of the Israelites. Multiple families, while only four units, include 40 individuals to become the second largest category at 28.7% of the population. Apparent

Nineteenth-Century Louisiana. (Chapel Hill; University of North Carolina Press, 1992), pp. 7-9. 5^0n feminist grounds Ann Malone attacks the assumption that most apparently single mothers were actually broadwives in Malone. Sweet Chariot, pp. 261-263. While this caution is duly noted, by her own admission the records are usually too few for real certainty : one must simply note the problem and use the evidence with great care.

38 extended families are those of a nuclear family including in-laws rather than a parent, or grandparents raising grandchildren. Only two people are solitaires, both elderly women. A similar analysis of the 1860 data suggests a generational shift. For instance, while 1860 has three women solitaires as 1850 had two, the women of 1860 are all much younger than the previous count's, one being a mere 25 years old. Similarly, while the "simple" family is still the majority (57 individuals in 17 households), it does not command quite as strongly as in the 1850 Census (only 48.3% in 1860 in contrast to over 50% in the previous count). Table 3.2 shows between 1850 and 1860 the appearance of the extended family type where a parent lives with the nuclear family of their children, indicating a previous generation dying off and leaving many widows and widowers. While the multiple family incorporating a daughter with children of her own remains the second largest type of household, the number of individuals involved drops by nearly half from forty in 1850 to twenty-five in 1860. Similarly, the rise in marriages without children (more than doubling between 1850 and 1860) points to grown children forming their own households, simultaneously leaving their parents alone while not yet having their own offspring. In general, the contrasts evident in Table 3.1 show that Israel Hill was still a community going through cycles of change and adaption.

39 Table 3.1

ISRAEL HILL HOUSEHOLD TYPES

Israel Hill 1850 CENSUS (population 1860 CENSUS (population 139) 118) Types Total Units M edian %Popu Total Units Median %Popu 1- 1- ation ation

SOLITAIRES 2 2 1 1.4 3 3 1 2.5 NON­ 1 1 3 7.9 4 — — --- 3.3 NUCLEAR Co-Resident 7 1 — — 5.0 4 1 - — 3.3 Siblings Unrelated 4 2 2 2.8 Co-Residents SIMPLE 7 3 - - - - 5 2 57 - - - “ 48.3 Couples 6 3 2 4.3 1 4 7 2 1 1.8 Without Children Couples With 5 8 1 1 5 41.7 26 5 5 22.0 Children Single With 9 3 3 6.4 1 7 5 2 14.4 Children

40 Table 3.1

ISRAEL HILL HOUSEHOLD TYPES (com.)

EXTENDED 1 2 - - — — 8.6 29 - - - — 24.5 Nuclear With 1 9 4 4 16.1 Parent

Grandparent 2 I - - 1.6 Raisins Grandchildre n Nuclear With 1 2 4 3 8.6 8 2 4 6.7 In-Laws

MULTIPLE 40 - - - - 28.7 25 - - - - 21.1 Nuclear with 40 4 1 0 28.7 25 3 8 21.1 Daughter & Her Children

4 I Table 3.2

HOUSEHOLD TYPES OF ISRAEL HILL

1850 CENSUS I860 CENSUS HOUSEHOLD Population % HOUSEHOLD Population % TYPES TYPES Couples With 41.7 Couples With 22.0 Children Children Nuclear With 28.7 Nuclear With 21.1 Daughter & Her Daughter & Her Children Children Nuclear With 8.6 Nuclear With 16.1 In-Laws Parents Single With 6.4 Single With 14.4 Children Children Co-Resident 5.0 Couples 11.8 Siblings W ithout Children Couples 4.3 Nuclear With 6.7 Without In-Laws Children Unrelated Co- 2.8 Co-Resident 3.3 Residents Siblings Solitaires 1.4 Solitaires 2.5 Grandparent 1.6 Raising Grandchild

42 F. N. Watkins mentions a "Sam White" as an exemplary member of the Israel Hill community.^* Virginia humorist George Bagby's fictionalized account of Israel Hill. "My Uncle Flatback's Plantation", identifies "the patriarch of the Hill" in 1862 as "old Uncle Sam

White", a centenarian servant of Richard Randolph^’ (though here George Bagby claimed his own supposed "Uncle Flatback" bore the title "Governor Flatback — he is called governor in compliment to his real or fancied authority over his nearest neighbors, the sable residents of Israel Hill"^° ; 'Uncle Flatback' is presumably a composite of some of George Bagby's actual Evans family kin who lived in the Farmville area, and who gave him a strong sentimental attachment to Prince Edward County.^')- It is highly probable that this Sam White is kin to Essex and John White, and like John White was favored by such racist commentators as Watkins and George Bagby for knowing how to play to their expectations. In his chatty 1860 Census, F. Bell Roberts lists Samuel White as 104 years old and notes "This negro was the oldest liberated by Richard Randolph in 1811."62 (Like most 'centenarians', though, his age was probably inflated by himself or others — the 1850 census lists him as only 80 years old.)63 The 1820 and 1830 Censuses list "Samuel White" as heading a household of 17 people (though different breakdowns by sex — e.g. only 5 males in 1 8206-* but 10 by 183065 indicate these were not the same seventeen people.) By 1840 his dwelling's population had shrunk to

6 people (probably adult sons had moved their own families out).66

5*Watkins. "The Randolph Emancipated Slaves", p. 288. 5^Bagby, Old Virginia Gentleman, p. 101. 6^Ibid., p. 102. That racist Thomas Nelson Page wrote the introduction to George Bagby's book indicates his identification with hardline white supremacists in Jim Crow Virginia. 6'Bradshaw. Prince Edward County. . p. 661. 6-1860 Census, Roll 1371, p. 961. 651850 Census, p. 35 6^1820 Census, p. 161 A. 651830 Census p. 127 661840 Census p236

43 The freeing of the "Israelites" did not mean the Randolphs of Bizarre suddenly eschewed black labor. Either Judith kept on the now freed house servants after 18II or else bought new slaves, since John Randolph himself wrote in passing of blacks present at Bizarre after Israel Hill's creation.^^ By the time of Israel Hill's founding and Bizarre's freedmen resettling there, another cycle in the strange melodrama of the Randolph masters had begun. In the spring of 1805 Nancy Randolph left Bizarre. The circumstances of her departure and subsequent activities are as disputed as the rest of her life, but she definitely afterwards lived in financially distressed circumstances. In 1808 her fortunes rose. While staying in New York City, she had been visited by family friend Gouverneur Morris who offered her the position of housekeeper in his estate of Morrisiania. On Christmas 1809 this position improved dramatically when Nancy and the older Morris were wed.^^ Nancy Randolph Morris's son Gouverner Morris Jr. was born four years later on February 9, 1813.^^ Despite the spectacular family quarrel about to erupt around his mother, this youth later followed his maternal kin's pattern and married another first cousin. Patsey Jefferson Cary. (She was the daughter of another sister of both Nancy and Judith named Virginia, who had become such a part of Jefferson's household at Monticello that she was married there. Tudor Randolph, probably already suffering the consumption' that was to kill him in 1815, came to stay with this new family of his aunt's at Morrisiana and remained as an invalid, being visited by both his mother and by Randolph of Roanoke. What this family gathering triggered, after Tudor's departure, was an exchange of accusatory letters which soon became infamous as "the most copied documents since the invention of print." Since this poison pen

^^Daniels. Randolphs of Virginia. , p. 174. 68lbid., p. 234-235. 69lbid. . p. 236. ^^Daniels, Randolphs of Virginia. . p. 240.

44 exchange manages to exhume every family skeleton and air every piece of dirty laundry, it is an invaluable aid to understanding the Randolphs in their private lives. Randolph fired the opening volley with a letter dated October 31. 1814, addressed nominally to Nancy, although sent to Gouvernor Morris to ensure he'd read it. Herein Randolph accused Nancy of having duped Richard into helping her conceal her pregnancy and infanticide by claiming that the child was Theodorick's, that she had murdered Richard through poison three years later, that she had had an affair with a black slave at Bizarre,^' and that on being turned out of Bizarre she engaged in prostitution in Richmond. He further accused her of joining Morris's household under false pretenses, and of now plotting the murder of her husband and perhaps her child. He stated that Tudor had come to the same conclusions from his stay at Morrisiana, and that Judith, though not a party to Richard's actions, admitted knowing her sister was unchaste and sinister. Nancy's reply was an even longer letter, dated January 16. 1815, which is an exercise in acidic irony. Jeering at plain "Jack Randolph" for now grandly styling himself "John Randolph of Roanoke", Nancy pointed out that what he now claimed were long-standing suspicions had prevented neither Tudor nor Randolph from availing themselves of her hospitality. Since Randolph had not scrupled to show his "private" letter to several other people before sending it to the Morrises, Nancy in her turn openly invited public scrutiny, declaring that Randolph's lifelong history of hypocrisy would lead the reputable to trust her word over his. Picking apart Randolph's flurry of charges. Nancy pointed out Randolph in his fury had been led to "assert things which, had they existed, you could not know", such as private conversations between her and Richard. Turning Randolph's claims of devotion to his brother upside down, Nancy accused him of sometime

^’Randolph specifically names this alleged slave lover as one Billy Ellis. This is probably the same Billy Ellis who appears as a free black in Farmville in the 1820 through 1840 Censuses.

45 murderous sibling rivalry which had once led him to throw a knife at Richard. He had also tried to prevent her own engagement to Theodorick by telling her "base calumnies" against his own unfortunate brother. Nancy admitted to sexual relations with Theodorick. and obliquely conceded a pregnancy in the year following. Admitting that Tudor supported his uncle's accusations, she portrayed the youth as a sullen, criminal wastrel. Nancy rejected Randolph's claims that Judith also suspected her of wrongdoing, saying she had had a friendly letter from her sister two months after Randolph's accusing letter. Painting Randolph as a hypocrite in both public and private life, among his abrupt changes in opinion Nancy cited not only the failure to manumit his own slaves as he had once promised, but public denials from Randolph that he had ever contemplated such a project. These were but the first and most well known of letters deliberately circulated among the elite of both New York and Virginia by the sudden antagonists. Nancy came eventually to the conclusion that both Tudor and John Randolph were dupes of David Ogden, mentioned in both letters — a nephew of Gouvernor Morris's whose hopes of being the man's principal heir were demolished by Nancy's marriage and the birth of her son. and who therefore had the strongest motive to blacken her character.^- What made Randolph susceptible to such insinuations, besides his own temper and ill health, may well have been envious resentment that the poor relation of Bizarre had suddenly become the wealthy mistress of Morrisiana and mother of its heir, just when the fates seemed determined to erase Richard Randolph's home and family from the face of the Earth. Richard's firstborn St. George had gone abroad to deaf-mute schools, accompanied by John Randolph's slave Jupiter.?^ Returning to Virginia, he was considered fit enough that Randolph himself hoped

^-Bruce. R andolph, pp. II : 297-8. ^^Bruce, R andolph, p. II : 495 .(Jupiter, by the way. is a case of known homonymie naming — among blacks he was Juba.)

46 to matchmake him with Sally Dudley, a cousin also suggested as a possible wife for TudorWhen St. George began showing signs of insanity (notably both exireme excitement and nonsensical writing) in 1813, Randolph explained it to friends like Francis Scott Key as due to disappointment in love.^^ Possibly because part of his insanity was violent alienation from his mother (though a letter from Judith to Randolph suggests it was because Randolph's plantation was more isolated than hers)^^. he was confined at Roanoke rather than Bizarre^^; eventually he was put into insane asylums at Philadelphia and Baltimore.^* After John Randolph's death he was eventually brought to Charlotte County Courthouse by his legal guardian. Wyatt Cardwell, and lived there until the eve of the Civil War. Though subject to delusions of persecution, St. George functioned well enough to read books in English, French, and Latin, and had his own riding horse^s Does the insanity of the nephew tell us anything about the insanity of the uncle, which became apparent only five or so years after his? While Randolph of Roanoke always remained more functional than St. George, who at times would tear up any papers he could lay hands on, the coincidence of the related maniacs is striking. Was St. George's complete retreat from reality simply exacerbated by his existing handicap? Did the strain of this case amid the final round of tragedies cause Randolph of Roanoke himself to break down? Historian of medicine John C. Burnham points out that St. George fits the classic pattern for schizophrenia — early violence and paranoia, "burning out" into a sedate if still unbalanced old age. Since Randolph

^■*Bruce, R a n d o lp h , p. II ; 781. ^^Bruce, R a n d o lp h , p. II : 497. ^^Ibid.. pp. II ; 499-500. 77lbid., p. II : 498. Maryland (presumably Baltimore) is stated to be where St. George is confined in a lunatic asylum at the time of the will litigation in Coalter E.x'or v. Bryan. 1 Grattan (Va.) 21, Plaintiffs Complaint , cited in Moton v. Kessens. p. 406. ^^Bruce, R a n d o lp h , p. II ; 501.

47 of Roanoke's madness followed a different trajectory, the blood relation of the two cases is thus probably unfortunate chance^o The plantation house at Bizarre burned down in March 21. 1813.81 and the fire prevented Randolph from attending an election meeting in Cumberland County. Randolph blamed this for his loss that year to longtime local rival John Eppes in the Congressional election, since Cumberland gave Eppes his plurality.82 This fire and its ensuing privation probably explains a bond from Randolph to Judith, owing her $10,000 dollars 27 December 1815, payments to be made 1 July 1817 ($5000), 1 July 1818 ($5000), witnessed by William Leigh.82 Judith and her deaf-mute son St. George had to live for some time at Roanoke due to the fire.8-* On July 31. 1814, when writing Francis Scott Key, Randolph summed up the doom of his kin. Tudor had contracted fatal "pulmonary consumption" and was returning to Virginia : "What a scene awaits him there! His birthplace in ashes; his mother worn to a skeleton with disease and grief; his brother cut off from all that distinguishes man to his advantage from the brute beast."85 Tudor eventually went to England in futile hope of a rest cure, and was buried there.8^ After Tudor's death Judith resided primarily in the home of her Presbyterian minister, Dr. Johnathan Rice, until her own death on

80lnterview with Prof. John C. Burnham. Ohio State University. Columbus, Ohio. 5 April 1996. In this light it is significant that Randolph of Roanoke himself cited as St. George's most striking symptom that while the youth's "memory of persons, things, words, and events is not impaired . . . he has no pbwer of combination, and is entirely incoherent." (Bruce, R an d olp h ., pp. II : 497-8.) 8'Robert Dawidoff, The Education of John Randolph. (New York; W. W. Norton 6 Co.. 1979). p. 205 ; Bruce, R andolph, p. II : 272. 82Bradshaw, Prince Edward Countv. , p. 179. 82Bond of John Randolph to Judith Randolph, 27 December 1815. ms. 2R 1554a 19. Virginia Historical Society. Richmond. Virginia. 8^Bruce, R andolph, p. II : 497. 85lbid.. p. II : 499. 86lbid.. p. II : 610.

48 March 10. 1816.8'^ The Randolphs of Bizarre were effectively extinct. Only Randolph of Roanoke remained.

87ibid.. p. II ; 508.

49 CHAPTER 4

"PLAIN JACK" AND HIS "FAMOUS MAN JOHN"

And when the old and wearied man Lay down for his last sleeping. And at his side, a slave no more. His brother-man stood weeping. His latest thought, his latest breath. To Freedom's duty giving. With failing tongue and trembling hand The dying blest the living. — "Randolph of Roanoke". John Greenleaf Whittier

That John Randolph remained living at Bizarre in 1800' and 1805- speaks as much to the primitivism of his own nearby plantation of Roanoke (even his horses were stabled at Bizarre in 1804)^ as to his sense of family duty. Randolph did not become a permanent resident of Roanoke until 1810. While said to be only inhabited by blacks until then, this seems to just reflect that white overseers were proverbially transient.-* That same year he made his move a part of his identity by beginning to sign himself as "John Randolph of Roanoke.Thus. "Randolph of Roanoke" existed as name and as fact for slightly over 20 years. One consequence of John

'Bruce, R andolph, p. I ; 670. -Ibid., p. I : 671. ^Bradshaw, Prince Edward Countv. . p. 343. •*Bruce. R andolph., pp. I ; 45-6. ^William Cabell Bruce thought John Randolph first used the suffix "of Roanoke" in a letter of January 24. 1810. Ibid.. p. II ; 737.

50 Randolph's separating himself from the Bizarre household was a formal division of the Randolph family patrimony between he and (receiving Richard's share) St. George and Tudor. Judith felt that Randolph "of Roanoke" got somewhat the better of this deal.^ This change of residence compelled closer attention to the lives and presence of the slaves of Roanoke, though this had really begun during his last years at Bizarre. A sign of this is the writing of his earliest will, dated the 17th of November 1800, which is of great interest as the only testament written before Virginia law forbade freed blacks from remaining in the state. It includes the uncomplicated provisions that the slaves are to be freed and provided with a trust fund — there is, however, no specific provision for land for the freed slaves. Among the slaves, Randolph's butler Essex White is recommended to Randolph's half-brother Henry St. George Tucker as a servant.? John Randolph also began emerging as a figure in the civic affairs of his locality while still at Bizarre. In 1798 "John Randolph Jr." is listed as one of the trustees of the nearby town of Farmville in a town charter.* It was from Bizarre that John Randolph launched his national career by running for Congress in 1799 at the proposal of local magnate Creed Taylor.^ The politics that John Randolph both preached and practiced were the agrarian democratic views associated then and now with Thomas Jefferson, himself yet another Randolph cousin.Randolph's positions were radical for his time : he used the French Revolutionary calendar in correspondence until about 1800,' ' and

G[bid.. p. II : 507. ?Will of John Randolph of Roanoke, 17 November 1800. Tucker-Coleman Papers, Manuscripts Department. Gregg Swem Library, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va. ^Bradshaw. Prince Edward Countv. . p. 694 (Appendix 12). sibid. , p. 178. "^Morton, Colonial Virginia. 2 ; 552. ''Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, "Hugh Garland's Life of John Randolph". Southern Quarterly Review New Series. 4 (July 1851) : 46. (Reprint ed.. New York: Ams Press, 1965)

5 1 there are letters by both John and Richard using the French address "Citizen".'- Deism was part of this early radicalism — in discussing the burning of Bizarre he noted his own principal loss was a library of such "infidelity" as Diderot's Encyclopedia and collections of Voltaire. Rousseau, and Hume.'^ It demonstrates the tenor of Randolph’s views at the time that his opponents in this first Congressional race accused of him of abolitionism. Certainly Randolph like other politicians of this period used slavery rhetorically as a standard of humiliation. He went in one speech from warning of slave revolt to the common Virginia position that "Debt is slavery".'-* Traveling abroad, he once wrote President Jackson that he had seen worse floggings for sailors than ever of slaves, and that his own well treated servants were stunned by the harsh punishments of the men by their o f f i c e r s .Similarly in Ireland he compared the plight of the peasants to slaves and pronounced the slaves better off. citing his servant John White's reactions as confirmation.'& Supporting Jefferson, he became the acknowledged legislative spokesman for the administration. He successfully steered the Louisiana Purchase through Congress. Randolph split publicly with the President during Jefferson's second term over quiet efforts to reimburse the investors in the scandalous Yazoo land speculations in Georgia, which Randolph considered a shocking incident of corruption.'^ After this Randolph became the leader of the "Old Republicans" who accused Jefferson of abandoning his own former

'-Bradshaw. Prince Edward County. . p366 '-Garland, Life of John Randolph. 2 : 10. Randolph pondered his youthful anti-Christianity, including "an absurd prejudice in favor of Mahomedanism ", in an 1818 letter Garland reproduced at 2 : 101-103. ‘•*Bruce, R a n d o lp h ., pp. I : 476-477. 'Sibid.. p. II: 231. '6lbid., p. II ; 501. '^This affair in which a spectacularly corrupt Georgia legislature attempted to sell the entire region that is now Alabama to a few speculators is described in C. Peter Magrath, Yazoo : Law and Politics in the New Republic. (Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1966.) Magrath emphasizes how this affair increasingly became an early North-South sectional dispute. Yazoo is also briefly discussed in Risjord, The Old Republicans, pp. 41-43.

52 principles.'* He tried unsuccessfully to prevent Madison’s election, and regarded Monroe, who had been his choice as an anti-Madison candidate, as "Judas" for accepting a Cabinet post. Randolph became increasingly alienated from the trends towards democracy and centralization in political activity. He lost his congressional seat to an Administration-backed candidate for opposing the War of 1812. In 1815 he was reelected as his constituents concluded that his dark prophecies of the ill-effects the war would have on Virginia had largely proven correct. Randolph remained in Congress for much of the remainder of his life. Randolph became an early spokesman for Southern sectionalism, attempting in the critical words of Henry Adams "to maintain the slave power by a union of slave-holders behind the bulwark of states' rights".His main political antagonist in this era . once to the point of dueling, was the master of compromise Henry Clay. By the time of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829, Randolph had become a major conservative leader who unsuccessfully opposed lowering the property qualification for white men to extend the franchise. As part of his growing conservatism he became a devout Anglican who lamented the disestablishment of the Church in Virginia. Randolph saw new hope in the election of Andrew Jackson, and accepted an appointment as Minister to Russia. In this diplomatic role he toured Europe for a year before resigning due to ill health. The Nullification Crisis, however, disillusioned him about the latest President. Randolph decided to return to Europe (where he had frequently traveled), but en route died in Philadelphia in 1833. His public life had several immediate implications for Randolph's relations with his own slaves. Virginians of his class chose either public service or personal management of their plantations. Public service usually meant comparative poverty, since

'*This faction is described in Risjord, The Old Republicans ; in particular pp. 2- 10 discuss Randolph of Roanoke as a typical Old Republican. '^Henry Adams, John Randolph. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin. & Co., 1882) p. 304.

5 3 salaries were low.-o Furthermore, it meant absentee ownership and slave management by a succession of overseers. Randolph's general business affairs were first managed by Major Joseph Scott and then by Judge William Leigh, who continued in that role after Randolph's death. Between Congressional business and travels abroad, Randolph's principal contacts with his slaves would be primarily with his personal servants, such as his manservant Essex White and Essex's son John, rather than with plantation hands. The fact that he did not take up permanent residence at Roanoke till after already dedicating himself to political activity also distanced him from direct management. Usually John Randolph dealt with his slaves as a group. For instance. Randolph was known to preach personally to his slaves when at Roanoke.-' However, one white witness to such a sermon was startled when Randolph devoted nearly as much time to swearing at a field hand named Phil for stealing from him as to expounding Scripture. That this was no unusual thing is suggested by the indignant surprise Randolph showed when the guest remonstrated with him for such a profanation of the Sabbath.-- (Randolph at least once had his slaves work in the fields on a Sunday, and resorted to legal hairsplitting in defending himself in court on a resulting charge of Sabbath-breaking. The Judge in this case was none other than William Leigh, who let him off on a technicality.)-3 Another witness in the wills litigation cited almost nightly prayers with the house servants in 1820 as evidence of insanity.--* Two of the three trustees who represented Randolph's slaves in the will litigation were prominent Episcopalians, Bishop William Meade and Francis Scott Key. the latter having been dissuaded from entering the clergy by Randolph. Shifting from

-®McColley, Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia . pp. 28-29. -'Ibid. , p. 63. --Bruce, R andolph, pp. II : 664-666. -^Bouldin, Home Reminiscences, pp. 31-32 -•*Bruce, R andolph., p. II : 335.

54 youthful Deism to mature (if still sometimes eccentric) piety reflects not merely Randolph's own aging, but the birth of a Southern conservatism which rejected reason for tradition. If paternalistic piety was one aspect of Randolph the slaveholder, the other side of life amidst a black majority was fear of slave rebellion, which Randolph invoked repeatedly in public and private life. From the famous anecdote of warning a Southern woman expressing sympathy for the Greek rebellion that "The Greeks, madam, are at your door!" while pointing to a nearby group of slave children.-^ to a speech in the Virginia Constitutional Convention warning that interference with the property qualification for voting might encourage black assertions of equality, slave rebellion haunted him. This anxiety, never rare of course for slaveowners, becomes even more understandable when it is pointed out that Randolph’s lifespan included the three most famous slave insurrection incidents in American history, two British wartime attempts to encourage slaves to turn against their American masters, and the Haitian revolution. Growing up in the days of Lord Dunmore's Proclamation which offered freedom to slaves who joined the British side in the American Revolution, Randolph correctly predicted that the British would again avail themselves of their potential "sable allies" in the South during the War of 18ll.-"^ Robert McColley's study of Jeffersonian slaveowners points out that the only time Randolph did not accuse Jefferson of toadying to Napoleon in foreign policy was when the President proposed an act to prohibit trading with the black rebels of Santo Domingo ; Randolph not only abstained from voting on the bill, but more unusually for him, didn't even speak!-* Outside threats to slavery were an issue beyond political rivalries.

-^Kolchin, American Slavery , p. 86-87. -^Dawidoff, Education of John Randolph, pp. 63-64. -^Bruce, R andolph., p. I : 425. "*McColIey, Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia .p . 113.

55 Most alarming of all to Virginians was Gabriel's Conspiracy to seize Richmond in 1800. Randolph himself interviewed many of the imprisoned slave plotters and found to his distress "The accused have exhibited a spirit, which , if it becomes general, must deluge the Southern country in blood.(St. George Tucker also studied this plot, and saw it as indicating slaves now saw freedom as "a right", not merely "a good" as had the Revolutionary War runaways who had accepted Lord Dunmore's Proclamation.)^" When in the 1820's the Denmark Vesey plot led South Carolina to institute the controversial Negro Seaman's Act, requiring mandatory imprisonment of any black sailor in Charleston while his ship was in port, Randolph defended the action in Congress.^’ And only two years before his death Randolph's Virginia experienced the legendary terror of the Nat Turner incident, which Randolph in one of his last public speeches held up to his listeners as the fulfillment of his darkest prophecies. Potentially even more of a threat to Virginia slavery than actual slave insurrection was the growing antislavery movement. Randolph's own stepfather St. George Tucker had studied with interest Massachusetts's judicial emancipation,^^ and in 1799 had proposed for Virginia the type of gradual emancipation scheme eventually adopted in New York and New Jersey.^^ Though Judge Tucker remained almost alone in that public stance among Virginians, Randolph could observe in his lifetime the erosion of slavery in the North as humanitarian and Revolutionary feelings increasingly created the free states and thus an implicit sectional division in the matter of slavery. Much of his later reputation comes

-^Bruce, R ando 1 ph.. p. I : 250. ^"Mullin, Africa In America, p. 239. ^'.\dams, John Randolph, pp. 80-81. 3-Bruce. R a n d o lp h , pp. I : 249-250. ^^A. Leon Higginbotham, In The Matter Of Color : Race and the American Legal Process. The Colonial Period. (Oxford University Press, 1978). pp. 91, 97-98. ^■^McColley, Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia, pp. 132-135 : Tucker, Nathaniel Beverlv Tucker, pp. 64-65.

56 from his arguing that this split had dangerous implications of conflict and eventual civil war.^5 one of his earliest Congressional actions. Randolph spoke against considering a petition for emancipation sent to Congress by a group of free blacks. Randolph argued that such persons had no legal s t a n d i n g . ^6 Randolph's defense of slavery but support of manumission is one of the most controversial points among his biographers. Russell Kirk portrays this as an eternal conservative position that public evils can only be cured through private actions, thus that the remedy for slavery was not general emancipation but individual manumission.^'^ In riposte to what he considers Kirk's anachronisms. Robert Dawidoff presents slavery as one of many areas where Randolph was unable to resolve conflicting intellectual traditions, and presents Randolph himself as divided on the issues,^* echoing William Cabell Bruce who conceded "a lack of coherence" in Randolph's public views about slavery.^^ Much of this dispute arises because Randolph never offered any clear program, either positive or negative, for slavery's future in Virginia. Rather he idealized the status quo or, more often, the past. In justifying to a friend his refusal to put a colonizationist petition before Congress. Randolph declared "That true humanity to the slave was to make him work, and to treat him with all the kindness compatible with his subordination. By that means, the master could afford to clothe and feed him well, and take care of him in sickness and old age ; while the morbid sentimentalist could not do this."-^" Randolph never faced the question whether all slaveowners would live up to such a compact. Whereas both St. George Tucker and his son Henry outlined gradual emancipation schemes, and Beverly

^^Adams. John Randolph, p. 304. ^^McColley, Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia . pp. 120-121. ^^Kirk, Randolph of Roanoke, p. 128-130. ^^Dawidoff. Education of John Randolph, pp. 46-50. ^^Bruce, R andolph, p. II : 251. -^^Garland. Life of John Randolph. 2 : 266.

57 Tucker would propose a colonization project at the Nashville Convention of 1850/' Randolph at most delivered jeremiads on the decline of the white gentry and the growing impudence of the blacks. This is of a piece with his orientation to the past instead of the future — to him the supposed Golden Age of Old Virginia was more important than whatever was succeeding it. He opposed the debates over gradual emancipation in the 1832 Virginia General Assembly, declaring in one of the last of his own public speeches that he felt that those raising the issue should have been "prosecuted by the State's attorney.But again this obstructionism did not result in any proposal of his own to deal with the linked crises of Nat Turner's slave revolt and West Virginia’s underrepresentation in state government which together had started the emancipation debates to begin with. If gradual emancipation within Virginia had come to seem treasonous to him, national emancipation was a long-dreaded prospect. He was constantly suspicious that any national involvement in slavery, be it a Federal registry of slaves^] or limitations on the interstate slave trade,-'-^ would "at a future period . . . be made the pretext of universal emancipation."•'5 He was grimly sure that if such a pretext were ever sought then somewhere in the Constitution it would be found, once correctly guessing that the war-making power might so serve.-*^ This arose as much from Randolph's suspicion of central government as from defense of slavery. What would evolve into the doctrine of states' rights was for him the simple truth that the state and not the Union was due allegiance. "When I speak of my country." Randolph once wrote a friend, "1 mean the Commonwealth of

■^'Freehling. Drift Toward Dissolution, p. 200. ■^-Bruce, R andolph, p. II ; 249-250. ■^^Kirk, Randolph of Roanoke, p. 140. ■^■^Bruce, R andolph, p. II : 295. ■'Sibid., p. II : 295. ■^^Kirk, Randolph of Roanoke, p. 143.

58 Virginia.That the United States had an identity transcending the component states was heresy to him, as witness his naive belief the Union would be dissolved should the Southern states ever refuse to send Representatives and Senators to the Congress.^* But he never regarded such dissolution as a desirable goal. The Nullification crisis caused him to even embrace Henry Clay’s talent for compromise as the only hope for preserving the Union, and thus an alternative to civil war/9 Like most other Jeffersonian manumitters that McColley studies. Randolph thought only of posthumous manumission ; more distinctive is that when Randolph did intend liberty he always provided not only for the freedom but for the support of his former slaves.50 But this same belief in property that made Randolph see land as a necessity for his slaves if freed after his death made him see them as valuable while he lived. In one famous incident when a visitor to Roanoke asked the price of a house slave, Randolph threw him off the grounds.^' Sometimes, though, this same principle could work against humanitarianism, as when he once refused to sell a slave woman to the owner of her husband on another farm.5- And while refusal to sell was Randolph's principle, he did not follow it completely — on at least one occasion he declared his intention to sell a thieving slave to the Deep South. He did not do so, however, and later forgave the man.55 Despite this celebrated opposition to selling his slaves. Randolph vigorously defended his own title to slaves. An incident Randolph held against his stepfather St. George Tucker was that Tucker had allegedly fraudulently taken title to several slaves of Randolph's mother from the Mataox plantation, a charge Randolph

•^^Garland. Life of John Randolph. 2 : 103. •^^Dawidoff. Education of John Randolph, pp. 31-32. ■*^Gar!and. Life of John Randolph. 2 : 362. 5f>McColiey, Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia . pp. 141-162. 5■Bruce. R and olp h , p. II : 257. 55john Randolph to Walter Cole. 11 June 1821. John Randolph Papers. Alderman Library. The University of Virginia. Charlottesville. Va.. 55Bruce. R andolph, p. II : 693.

59 bitterly repeated in his will of I821.5-* In another incident, slaves Randolph had given his half-brother Nathaniel Beverly Tucker before Tucker moved to Missouri were taken to the frontier and eventually sold, a transaction which Randolph once again blamed on St. George Tucker.55 This zeal to retain his personal property seems to have been part of his public obstructionism to emancipation as an assault to property. He supported the admission of Missouri as a slave state on the grounds interfering with its slave property would endanger the peculiar institution everywhere.^^ Similarly he objected to a Congressional proposal to limit the interstate slave trade on the grounds "it assumed a prerogative to interfere with the right of

property between the master and his s l a v e . "57 Yet the slave trade was less sacrosanct than slavery itself. Randolph once demanded a ban on slave markets within the District of Columbia.58 He raised no objections to Congressional discussions of banning the importation of African slaves, though rising to protest when it was proposed to also limit the interstate slave trade.5^ In discussing the appeal of Napoleon during the Hundred Days before Waterloo, Randolph cited as an instance of the Emperor's superficial moral superiority to the Ancien Regime that "The Bourbons refused to abolish the slave trade. Bonaparte . . . has made it the first act after his restoration!"^" His own slave lists make clear that Randolph viewed some slaves as more his "personal" property than most. The slave most

5-^Bruce. R andolph, p. II : 271: Coaiter Ex’or v. Brvan. I Grattan (Va.) 21. cited in Moton V. Kessens. p. 21. 55Bruce. R and olp h , p. II : 523; The 1821 will of Randolph at issue in Coaiter Ex'or V. Bryan. 1 Grattan (Va.) 21, cited in Moton v. Kessens. . p. 270. alludes to this: "I confirm to my brother Beverly the slaves which I gave him and for which I have a reconveyance." 5^Bruce, R an d olp h , pp. I : 446-452. 57lbid.. p. I : 438. 58lbid., p. I : 437-440. 59lbid., pp. I : 293-295. ^"Garland, Life of John Randolph. 1 : 71.

60 important to Randolph himself and most visible to other whites received a rare concession to dignity from Randolph. In his 1831 codicil to the 1821 will. Randolph speaks of . . my faithful servant John, sometimes called John White . . . The life of this slave who won his master's acknowledgment of a surname illustrates the high and low points possible for a Randolph slave. John White was the son of the house servants Essex White, who preceded him as Randolph's butler, and Hetty White, and was himself put in Randolph's personal service in 1791 when he was eight years old. When John Randolph took the younger White with him to the big cities, however, John White developed what struck his master as bad habits of drunkenness and insubordination. John's father Essex was also accused of heavy drinking — these judgments reflected the double standard, since Randolph himself had a notorious fondness for Madeira. Gerald W. Mullin in his study of slavery in colonial and Revolutionary Virginia argues that house slaves were particularly susceptible to alcoholism because of the tensions in their roles and the constant need to dissemble before masters, drink allowing them an outlet for impudence. (House slaves and personal slaves also of course had access to the same liquors as their masters.) John White's later actions do indicate he was one of the most independent of the Randolph slaves, willing to make decisions which isolated him from the rest of the community, and that he knew how to manipulate white expectations.^-

Bruce, R and olp h , pp. I ; 45-46. ^-Mullin, Flight and Rebellion p. 100. In his later discussion of slave alcoholism in the Chesapeake in Africa In America.. Mullin notes "Heavy drinkers were . . . unusually acculturated, and more likely in the Chesapeake Bay region than elsewhere to be subjects of an uncommonly individualized portrait" by their white masters, and sees this as "symptoms of an assimilation that demeaned" (p. 233). The "complex relationship" of Jefferson and a heavy- drinking slave shoemaker, Sandy, is one of Mullin s examples of how such drunkenness and impudence resulted from "the interpenetration of the two communities" (p. 233).

6 1 Randolph disciplined White by sending him back to Roanoke as a field hand. John White predictably found tobacco harvesting uncongenial work, and after quarreling with the current overseer ran away. When captured, he claimed that he had been seeking Randolph to plead to be returned to his personal service, an explanation which Randolph at the time disbelieved but later came to credit. Randolph left John White in jail for three months with no communication. This evidently chastened White to his satisfaction, since on being released John White was considered reliable enough to be allowed to return to Roanoke alone. After what amounted to a sentence of three years in the tobacco fields, John White was reinstated as Randolph's personal servant and attended him with model deference and fidelity for the remainder of his master's life. Accompanying Randolph on his travels (frequently with his own father Essex also along). John White became celebrated in consequence of his master's reliance on him , as when Charles Napoleon inquired of Randolph "is this your famous man John?"^^ The historian Herbert Gutman's point about the problem of deducing slave mores from slave behavior, though, is illustrated by a charge made in the Randolph wills litigation that during Randolph's periods of insanity John resumed drinking, stole money, and gambled.^-^ Though this assertion was almost certainly colored by the heat of a lawsuit, it does imply that like most slaveowners Randolph overestimated the influence he had on "his people". It also shows that John White's prominence was as much curse as favor. For even as close a relationship to Randolph as John White's did not make him immune to the hazards of his condition. One piece of testimony about Randolph's insanity was that he had ordered John whipped by an overseer for supposed gross insubordination.^^ /\nd

^^Dawidoff, Education of John Randolph, p. 53 ; similarly. John White was also pointed out to gawking Ohioans during the Randolph Slave exodus up the Miami Canal (Davton Journal and Advocate. 7 July 1846) G^Bruce. R an d olp h ., p. II : 786. 65lbid.. p. II : 10.

62 another time Randolph sent White, with all the other house servants, to the fields, temporarily replacing them with other slaves of Roanoke^G This incident points to the ambiguity of 'favored' slave status, and the questions it poses of what to John White himself and the larger Roanoke slave community were truly his high and low points, as well as what John White's relationship to the other slaves really was. While Randolph at times treated the White family as a special caste, to have a unique status even in his posthumous manumission, they lacked the stable autonomy of a truly hereditary order. That John White found himself at least twice working in the fields, while a field hand named Moses once found himself waiting on Randolph, underlines historian Peter Kolchin's point that all slave status was temporary and arbitraryWith a master admittedly suffering moments of insanity such as Randolph of Roanoke, to be prominent in his thoughts was particularly precarious. John White being as liable to be whipped on an irrational impulse as to be praised before foreign nobilityWhile we know little of John White's personal relationships with other slaves of Randolph, at a key time his own children would choose to share the fate of the majority rather than seek a special status that White felt himself entitled to. The importance of John White in his master's life is reflected in the special attention he and his family receive in many of Randolph's wills. Thus, in the 1821 will John White, his parents, and his sister were not only freed with the other slaves but given special bequests. By 1826 John White had married another slave, Betsy^*^. and Randolph's codicil of that year contained the plea to the Virginia

^^Garland, Life of John Randolph. , 2 : 347-348. ^^Kolchin. American Slavery , p. 108. ^^Ibid., p. 53. Kolchin here discusses the problems of slave servants ; "Because they were more noticeable than most slaves, and more was expected of them, they were more likely to arouse the ire of their masters or other authorities.” G^This match is mentioned in John Randolph’s undated slave list (Appendix D), which means it may in fact have taken place as early as the mid-1810's. John White and Betsy had had a child by 1820, but since neither its name or sex is given it is difficult to be sure whether it lived.

63 legislature that the law against resident free blacks be waived for the White family, a plea repeated in the 1831 codicil. When the relocation of the Randolph slaves was attempted, John White and his family were however included because the court did not accept the validity of these codicils. John White was at the bedside of his master when Randolph of Roanoke died, and in his deathbed declarations of freedom for all his slaves Randolph specifically pointed to John White and told the white witnesses "Especially this man!""^» Despite this dramatic scene, though. John White's freedom would come only with that of the other slaves of Randolph. Nor, despite his own efforts, would John White find a life outside their communities.

^^Bruce, R andolph, pp. II : 41-45.

64 CHAPTER 5

PLANTATION AND PEOPLE

For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he was born to live and labour for another : in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavours to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. —NOTES ON VIRGINIA, Thomas Jefferson

Roanoke, like other plantations, was an ecological system in which the master, the overseers, and the slaves lived distinct but constantly interacting lives. As master, John Randolph was the dominant figure at Roanoke and responsible for its unusual characteristics. It would be a mistake, however, to ignore the ways slaves shaped their own destinies. How slaves and overseers coped with such an extraordinary master is as revealing about Roanoke as are Randolph's own actions Roanoke was not Randolph’s only slave plantation. Randolph purchased "Bushy Forest" after his Russian mission, when he had finally paid off the English debts.' Set up by a Col. Clement Read about the time that the Randolphs had first patented Bizarre and Roanoke, this estate lay only four miles south of Charlotte County

Bouldin, Home Reminiscences, p. 70.

65 Court House.- At least one of the slaves manumitted in 1846 was identified as the son of a "Bushy Forest John." Randolph also owned "the Micheaux place", a 400 acre farm in Cumberland County but in 1816 Randolph had to sell it.^ However. Randolph considered Roanoke home, and due to him that plantation's slaves gained a unique destiny. The livelihood of the Roanoke slave community depended on its master's luck in the tobacco market. Randolph often noted that bad times for tobacco meant bad times for his field workers. Randolph managed not only to avoid the indebtedness that plagued Jefferson but to leave an estate which at the time of probate was valued at almost a million dollars (a circumstance which may reflect on Judge Leigh's skills as much as on Randolph’s.) This freedom from debt helped the manumission of the Randolph slaves, since it meant there were not the complications encountered with Richard's creditors in founding Israel Hill. Roanoke was about eight thousand acres in extent.-* It was divided into the Ferry Quarter, bounded by Staunton River on the south ; Middle Quarter ; and Lower Quarter, which was physically separated from the other two by another plantation.^ This geography accounts for the annoying tendency in some slave lists to lump "Middle & Ferry Quarter " together as one category, opposed to "Lower Quarter". The 1820 Census, by separating Randolph's estate under the names of three other white men — known overseer Major Cumby, Crawford Hughes, and Edmund Morgan — confirms that each Quarter had a separate overseer.^ Randolph also kept a park for deer

-Morton, Colonial Virginia, p. 2 : 561. ^Bruce. Randolph., pp. I : 668-9. ■*Tucker. Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, p. I 14. ^Bruce, Randolph, p. II ; 669 ; the seeming paradox of only 3 "Quarters" is due to it being a standard term for plantation divisions rather than a strict arithmetic term. (Albert G. Evans in his 1891 article on the manumission says the separated Quarter was also known as the "Huntley Quarter" — Albert G. Evans. "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", New England Magazine. New Series. V(4) [December 1891] : 443.) ^1820 Census. Charlotte Co. VA. Roll 136 Micro 33. p. 25A.

66 in the English style in part of the estate.^ Like most plantations Roanoke was relatively isolated, the town of Charlotte County Court House being 12 or 13 miles away.* His brother's plantation. Bizarre, was forty miles away. Randolph's own two dwellings were in the Middle Quarter.*^ A contemporary described Randolph's abode ; "His dwelling was at that time a single-story wood building with two good rooms downstairs, and the roof also had two."‘° A letter from Randolph to a Dr. Brockenbraugh, 15 November 1831, demonstrates how little might materially separate the homes of master and slaves. John Randolph, accusing a Negro head man of theft, described the suspect's slave cabin as evidence of wrongdoing: "... a log house of the finest class, with two good rooms below, and lofts above; a barrel half full of meal (but two days to a fresh supply); steel shovel and tongs better than I have seen in any other house, my own excepted; a good bed, filled with hay; another, not so good, for his children; eight blankets; a large iron pot, and Dutch-oven; frying-pan; a large fat hog, finer than any in my pen; a stock of large pumpkins, cabbages, & c., secured for the winter. His house had a porch, or shed, to it, like my own."” By contrast, George W. McDaniel argues that slave houses usually "consisted of one room down and a loft above."'- confirming any porch of more than rudimentary nature would be quite a luxury. >3 He also notes , as does the rueful Randolph, the similarities of slave cabins to the homes of the rural poor and of small

^Bouldin, Home Rem iniscences, p. 120. *Bruce, R andolph, p. I : 670. ‘^Ibid.. p. I ; 669; Coaiter Ex'or v. Brvan. 1 Grattan (Va.) 21, cited in Moton v. K essens. p. 270. '"Bouldin, Home Rem iniscences, p. 22. ' ' Bruce. R andolph, p. I : 693 ; Garland, Life of John Randolph, 2 : 347. '-George W. McDaniel, Hearth And Home : Preserving a People’s Culture. (Philadelphia; Temple University Press, 1982), p. 47. '^Ibid., pp. 67-68.

67 landowners.'-^ Whether Randolph was right to believe that only criminal income could explain the disturbing equality of his own home and this slave’s, he made one other admission of how modest his own house was. When persuading his half-brother Beverly Tucker to move his family to Roanoke in 1809, he built them a much more suitable clapboard house. Randolph’s isolation among his black slaves, his overseers and their families being the only other whites in Roanoke, was merely an extreme form of an increasingly typical condition. One year before Major Scott’s listing of the Roanoke slave community, the 1800 census showed the following composition for Randolph’s Congressional District (which combined Charlotte, Prince Edward. Buckingham, and Cumberland counties)'^ : 24, 251 slaves 21.253 whites 598 free blacks' By the 1830 census, the last before Randolph's death in 1833. these categories now numbered — 36.264 slaves 21.853 whites 1,283 free blacks'^

'■*Ibid.. p. 53. '^Tucker. Nathaniel Beverlv Tucker, pp. 123. 142. Randolph offered an even grander house in the Middle Quarter to Beverly when his half-brother decided to leave Roanoke in 1811 (pp. 146-147.) It amuses me that one of the first writers on the Randolph Slave settlements in Ohio, Albert G. Evans, betrays his picture of their Virginia past as deriving from nostalgic fantasy rather than actual research by waxing poetically how Randolph's "old mansion house reared its ample proportions, and with its offices and spreading wings was . . . representative of the baronial style" — Evans, "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", p. 443. '^Bruce, R an d olp h , p. II ; 103. '^Ibid.,, p. I : 111. '^Ibid., p. I : 111. Partly because of the free black colony of Israel Hill created by Richard Randolph's manumitting will. Prince Edward County had the largest free black population of any county in Virginia. (Bradshaw, P rin ce Edward Countv. , p. 770 footnote 56); consequently many of its records of free black life are much more detailed than the Virginia norm, because local

68 However, neither white nor black population was concentrated in any urban center — Bizarre and Roanoke stood in completely rural settings. The largest town in Charlotte County, Farmville. was a village adjacent to Bizarre*^ which did not incorporate until 1832 (a year before Randolph's death). In 1836 it had only 800 residents.-® Farmville did. however, have five tobacco establishments which were major employers of free blacks.-' By 1860 it was one of ten Virginian cities where free blacks owned significant amounts of urban land.-- Charlotte County Courthouse, where the freed Randolph slaves registered in a three day period, had only 475 residents. The 382 slaves would thus have almost doubled its population during their manumission roll call.-) Black majority is even clearer when we consider the 1830 census for Charlotte County only: 9,433 Slaves 5.583 Whites 236 Free Blacks This meant the white plantation slaveholder such as Randolph, a minority even within the white community, lived in a population 61.8% enslaved.)-* This black majority situation created two extreme attitudes within slaveholders — a complacent view that control of so many souls proved the slaveowner's own elite status and a justified paranoia about a possible day of racial retribution. John Randolph manifested both attitudes, viewing himself as the benevolent patriarch of his "people" while simultaneously fearing that slave revolt would someday "deluge this Southern country with blood."))

officials were much more aware of distinctions within that population than usual. (Jackson, Free Negro Labor, p. 78.) *®Bruce. R andolph, p. I : 670. )®Ibid., p. II : 159. ) ' Jackson. Free Negro Labor, p. 95. ))lbid., p. 137. ))Bruce. Randolph, p. II : 159. )-*Freehling. Drift Toward Dissolution, p. 267. ))Bruce. Randolph, p. I : 250.

69 Removed from the day to day business of getting them to work, Randolph chose to play the aloof but kindly patriarch, encouraging a humane policy in managing his own blacks. Productive slaves were allowed to build their own cabins with wooden floors and furniture in Roanoke.-^ Randolph was so lenient in ordering physical punishments that the will litigation cited an increase in whippings after his return from Russia as part of a new violence in his actions, evidence of insanity. (One of the manumitted Randolph Slaves would later pointedly define freedom as "didn't get no cow-hiding on the back anyhow after that . . . I got some myself; I ought to know about that."):? Significantly, once when a contemplated retirement encouraged Randolph to more immediate interest in Roanoke's management he tightened its discipline. His overseers had tolerated trade between a poor white woman and his bondpeople, which Randolph felt had "corrupted" the slaves.:* If not the magnolia paradise of pro-slavery fable, neither should Roanoke be denied its own particular pleasures for those bound to its soil. In giving his deposition for the MOTON v. KESSENS case in 1910, an Ohio white named G. B. Correy would recall being fascinated as a boy by freedman Michael Coles's stories of the "possum roasts and coon hunts" of Roanoke, its "dances and weddings".:*^ and of "a butchering scrape" when 'Mike' Cole had helped in a hog killing. Randolph's sentimental view of the slaves as "my people" was encouraged by the fact that the majority of his human contacts were with slaves whenever he stayed at Roanoke for long periods, such as

:^McColIey, Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia , p. 62.

:?Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914), pp. 130-131. Actually this may well refer to the period of hired-out slavery during the Randolph will litigation rather than to Roanoke practice, but the point remains true. :*Garland, Life of John Randolph. 2 : 308-309.

:^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of G. B. Correy (5-27-1910), pp. 770. 771.

:°Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of G. B. Correy (5-27-1910), p. 777.

70 after his retirement from Congress. The blacks themselves encouraged such a patriarchal attitude. One visitor accompanying Randolph to Roanoke noted that the slaves waited en masse to greet the master's homecoming and wept tears of joy as he spoke to them.^' Randolph's mix of anxiety and sentimentality was the luxury of someone removed from the day to day management of his "people". Randolph like most plantation owners held those who directly supervised Roanoke's slaves — white overseers— in snobbish contempt. To him the prospect of the Virginia aristocracy marrying "overseer's sons and daughters" was only slightly less horrifying than miscegenation.^- Like most planters, he ran through many overseers during his lifetime, seldom satisfied with their performance. One overseer, John Pentecost, was fired after Randolph discovered that he had fathered children by two slave women.He tended personally to another overseer, William Curd, as the man died of a fever, and wrote a letter praising him as a paragon of character. But in the same paragraph he noted that many of the slaves were also ill and discussed their cases, suggesting that to him Curd was nearer to their level than to his own.^-^ However, in Powhatan Bouldin's book of local stories about Randolph whose portrait of an aloof, sarcastic John Randolph brought protests from

^'Bruce, R andolph, p. II ; 691. A similar welcome is described as occurring for Jefferson at Monticello on his return from France in John Chester Miller. The Wolf Bv The Ears : Thomas Jefferson and Slavery. (New York : The Free Press. 1977), pp. 105-106. Mullin, Africa In America, p. 104, discusses similar examples of "demonstrative welcome" for 18th century Jamaican absentee plantation owner "Monk" Lewis and for famous antebellum Georgia plantation wife and diarist Fanny Kemble, both of whom saw these as performances intended to win the slaves "benefits" from the flattered owners. ^-Garland, Life of John Randolph. 1 : 19. 33Bruce, R andolph, p. II : 453. While it is probably impossible to certainly identify the children of Pentecost, the possibilities include two "mulattoes" Syphax Brown (certificate 497) born circa 1816 and Sally (certificate 221) born about 1818, the "Bright" hued Patience (certificate 253) born about 1820, the "Very Bright" children of the Nancy who died before 1820 , and "Brown" woman Fanny (certificate 264) born 1817. 3-^Ibid., pp. II ; 453-4.

7 1 the Randolph family, Bouldin nevertheless emphasized that Randolph of Roanoke always removed his hat while talking with an overseer.35 Judging by the contract of the unfortunate Curd, who died only a month after signing on for a second year, the overseers of Roanoke were hired year by year.36 Some like Pentecost, whose stormy departure resulted in a minor lawsuit.^"? lived at Roanoke with their own families and slaves. Randolph eyed most overseers suspiciously, but others impressed him. The overseer Cumby, one of the three managers of Roanoke named in the 1820 census, demonstrated such resourcefulness that Randolph came to say "Cumby can do anything."38 Patterns in overseeing probably changed with the growth of the slave population. In the 1790's it was claimed there were no resident whites at Roanoke ; it appears to have been managed from Richard Randolph's neighboring estate of Bizarre.'^ A 1787 tax list, however, shows two white overseers at Roanoke^o The apparent contradiction may simply reflect that overseers were not considered "residents". It also points, however, to an increase in overseers as the slave population grew. For insight into Roanoke's slave community, several sources exist. Enumeration of individuals within Roanoke's black community began with a list made by Randolph's manager Major Scott in 1801.-*'

3-Bouldin. Home Reminiscences, pp. 73, 103. 3^Contraci between William Curd and John Randolph of Roanoke. 23 August 1811. Virginia Historical Society. Richmond, Va. 3^Writ in John Randolph of Roanoke vs. John Pentecost, 4 July 1818. Copy in Bruce-Randolph Papers. Virginia State Library. (Probably to facilitate Pentecost's departure, about this time Randolph bought one of Pentecost's slaves, one Moses.) 38Bouldin, Home Reminiscences, p. 102 3^Bruce, R and olp h , p. II : 53. ■’‘^Netti Schreiner-Yantis and Florence Speakman Love, comps.. The 1787 Census of Virginia.(Springfield. VA: Genealogical Books in Print. 1987), p. I : 326 (reproducing Charlotte County — Tax List "B ", District of Thomas Spencer, Commissioner. ) ■*'"Major Scott's List of Negroes at Roanoke Mar. 9, 1801", Commonplace Book, 1803-1832. Tucker-Coleman Papers. (Reproduced here as Appendix A.)

72 In November 1810 a court clerk listed 151 slaves whom Randolph had established title to in dividing property with Judith Randolph/- and Randolph himself made a count of slaves on the plantation on Christmas of that year.-*^ Several administrative lists survive — those who were to get new bedding and clothes/-^ new slave children born

in a particular y e a r ,-^5 notes on bloodlines/^ Finally in 1 8 4 6 four days were spent registering each of the Randolph slaves manumitted at the Charlotte County Courthouse, each slave being inspected for identifying marks These lists vary in how much they reveal about the community. The legal slave counts of the 1810 court decision and the 1846 manumission register are naturally the most revealing, since their goal was precise identification of each person (though the November 1810 count does lump some families together). The counts of Major Scott and Randolph were primarily concerned with the population of working adults (the omission of children will be explored in a moment.) Genealogy is also minimal. The main interest is the mother because of the matrilineal nature of slave status, though fathers are named when it gave the slave a distinct identity. (There is no known cabin list for Roanoke, which would enable us to see if there were distinctions between families and the actual "housefuls" living together.)-** Used together, however, these various lists create a fairly thorough picture of the Roanoke slave community.

"Report of Commissioners of division of slaves confirmed ". November 1810. Copy in Bruce Randolph Papers. (Reproduced here as Appendix B.) ■*^"My Own List of Negroes Xmas 1810". Commonplace Book. 1803-1832. Tucker- Coleman Papers. (Reproduced here as Appendix C.) ■*-*Bouldin, Home Reminiscences, pp. 71-72. (Reproduced here as Appendix F.) 45"Negro Children Born This Year 1819". Commonplace Book. 1803-1832. Tucker-Coleman Papers. 46"Negroes" {November 1809} , Commonplace Book. 1803- 1832. Tucker-Coleman Papers. (Reproduced here as Appendix E.) ■*^Register of Free Blacks and Mulattoes. Miami County. Archives, Wright State University. Dayton, Ohio. (Reproduced here as Appendix F.) ■**Malone. Sweet Chariot, pp. 128-131.

73 Although giving us no information on individuals, a 1787 tax list records "John Randolph (Estate)" as owning 88 blacks (36 above the age of sixteen, 52 younger than that) in the same dry count as 24 horses and 167 cattle. Randolph is listed as responsible for the taxes of two whites, Philip and Reuben Johnston, indicating they were his overseers.-*’ On March 9, 1801. Randolph's manager Major Scott made a list of Roanoke’s sla v e s.T h is gives us our first real look at this slave community as whole, though it is far from comprehensive — since Scott's concern is with working adults, he notes no one younger than 12 years old. A comparison with the 1846 manumission registers shows this meant Scott did not list at least a dozen children under the age of 12, and this omission points to a group of children similarly uncounted in 1801 and (due to early mortality or like circumstance) never counted in any of the later enumerations. Since some estimates argue that up to 25% of slave children died before the age of 15, the impact of this omitted class on the true numbers of Roanoke slaves may have been very significant.5 > The presence of only one Essex in Major Scott's roll call (most likely Essex Brown) and of only one John suggests that Randolph's personal servants were also uncounted, presumably because like their master they did not yet permanently reside at the plantation. (This omission was Randolph's own practice in most later slave lists.) Scott notes which of the 3 quarters of the plantation (Lower. Middle, or Ferry) the listed slave is in. and gives an age (though not necessarily an accurate one) for the working young ages 12-16. Those slaves Major Scott did count come to 61 working adults. 18 working youths in the twelve-through-sixteen age range, and no less than 8 free blacks^- (six out of these eight being women!) Adding

-*’Schreiner-Yantis and Love, 1787 Census of Virginia, p. I : 326 (reproducing Charlotte County — Tax List "B ", District of Thomas Spencer, Commissioner.) 50"Major Scott’s List of Negroes at Roanoke Mar. 9, ISO!", Commonplace Book, 1803-1832. Tucker-Coleman Papers. (Reproduced here as Appendix A.) 5'Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves, p. 73. ^-It was not unusual for free blacks to reside on plantations. Frequently there

74 in the 13 known omissions mentioned above gives a minimum black population for Roanoke of 100 people. In distribution the majority were in the Lower Quarter, 36 of the adults and 10 of the youths living there; while exact counts for the other two quarters are elusive because Major Scott lumped together the remaining 8 working youths as "Middle & Ferry Quarters". 17 of the adults were in the Middle Quarter and a mere 8 in the Ferry Quarter — while it would be reckless to assume these proportions held perfectly for the working youths, the indication is that the Ferry Quarter was the least populous of Roanoke's three divisions.^) (Scott gives no indication in which quarters the free blacks were living.) Attempting to identify specific individuals from Scott's list points up many problems of working with white records of black lives. In the matter of ages alone, for instance, "Little Quashee" (the nephew of an African-born Quasha) appears in both the 1801 plantation list and the 1846 manumission register, but the latter source assigns him an age 3 years younger than Scott's estimate. At the other extreme, a strong case can be made that the Amos living in Lower Quarter in Scott's list is the Amos Lee of 1846, who however was then recorded as some seven years older. Having suggested that white recorders poorly estimated black ages, it then becomes a Solomonic dilemma whether the error lies with Major Scott or with the county clerks of 1846 — or whether both may not have erred. Clear cases favor Scott over the functionaries --while the 1846 manumission registrars would indicate Essex Brown's future wife Caty to be a mere five year old in 1801 whom Scott would not have counted, she is to the contrary definitely the fourteen year old Caty

were genealogical or marital ties to some of the slaves, and the safety in numbers of living among fellow blacks who were a white master's protected property. Once the Black Code began requiring posted bonds for free blacks, elite whites like Randolph might become the patron who put up the money. (Berlin. Slaves Without Masters, pp. 146, 175, 251-252.) ^^Indirect evidence for this is a white neighbor of the Randolph freedmen in Ohio heard them speak mostly of the Lower and "Upper" quarters —Moton v. Kessens. Deposition of Samuel P. Miles (5-27-1910), p, 800.

75 of the Middle or Ferry Quarters. Slaves with a lessdistinctive name are easily lost in the multitude, though. White inability to correctly estimate Negro ages is manifest in nearly all the Roanoke plantation lists. Anaca Jones, listed in the 1846 manumission register as of an age which would mean she was born in 1811, is found already alive in the court-ordered November 1810 list. By contrast. Amos Lee’s age in 1846 was underestimated by at least two to five years, since he is listed as an adult rather than a working child in the various 1810 lists. The more one examines the age question, the more speculative it becomes — should the ages Major Scott and Randolph himself assign in their lists be considered more accurate than the estimates of the 1846 clerks, or Just as arbitrary? This maddening uncertainty has made it impossible to precisely date one slave list Randolph made in his Commonplace Book since the ages Randolph gives within it for such slaves as Shadrach White do not quite fit any other data, though its most probable range is somewhere between 1816 and 1820. Another problem of identification lies in the popularity of many first names. It is known from the 1846 records that those counted in 1801 include Old Milly Jones, Billy Dickinson, and Phil White — it is hazardous without further material to identify which of the two Milly's (Lower or Middle Quarter), the two Billy's (Lower Quarter or Middle Quarter), or the two Phil’s (both teenagers in the 12-16 group) is that exact individual. The easy identifications — such as that the couple living in the Ferry Quarter in Scott’s time. Geoffrey and Phoebe, are the "Jeffrey" and Phoebe given freedom certificates numbers 376 and 377 in 1846 — are unfortunately the exception rather than the rule. Of the 151 slaves in the 1810 price list, over a third had a name shared by two or more other slaves. (The percentage remained the same in 1846 manumission records, though the distribution of names changed.) John led the male name counts. Phil historically ranking second. Women’s names were slightly more diverse, Nancy the most common, Fanny displacing Jenny as the second most

76 frequent by 1846. Frequent names for women do not include any Classical references, and as possible Bible references only the ambiguous Mary and Hannah . If we choose to regard John as an common English name rather than a Biblical reference, then secular English names were on record more often than Christian ones, the 1810 price list for instance showing only Isaac and Moses as designating more than two men (three each.) By 1846 Abraham and Solomon had also multiplied, but definitely Biblical names remain less common than standard English ones. On the other hand, names with Classical or literary significance never had more than two slaves sharing them. But were those names listed by whites the names actually used by the slaves in daily life? The origins of slave names is an area of constant discussion among students of American slavery. Were Roanoke's Jern-Boy and Waggoner Jemmy really how Randolph and Major Scott heard the African Qiiame , an African day-name for Saturday? Were the 2 Phyllis 's Major Scott lists really Fili 's. Mandingo for "one lost"?^-* That Jupiter . the manservant who accompanied St. George Randolph to England and Randolph himself to Russia, was Juba among fellow blacks even Randolph mentioned. The sister of Old Quasha the African is sometimes listed as Chloe . sometimes as Cleo — the probability is the name she used was something intermediate which could strike the white ear as either. This question of evidence is key to those arguments that slave names reflect an increasing Americanization of the slave population^: ; that Ohioans report the death and burial of Old Joshua might be misread as a fine example of Biblical naming if we did not know from Roanoke records that this man was in fact the African-born O ld Quasha. Another name problem is a name in daily use completely different from the 'given' name — Othello Bazell's son is listed as "Johnny" in the November 1810 price list but appears as "Little

^•^Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves, p. 326 :^Kolchin. American Slavery , pp. 45-46. Kolchin does admit the potential problem of "Americanized versions of African names, such as 'Joe' for 'Cudjo'."

77 Othello" in the 1846 manumission register. The fact an Ohio census taker in 1850 lists him again as "John" hints that to himself he was always John Bazell, but that to the whites of Charlotte County he was better known as "Little Othello". John Bazell also shows the problems of ambiguity in common names — John was always the most common male first name on Roanoke, but to what extent did this reflect common English usage, the first name of Randolph of Roanoke himself56, the Apostle in the Bible, or commemoration of earlier slaves named John? We know the lists made up by Major Scott and later by Randolph himself aim at identifying every head of family individually — but does this mean, as some argue, that the master himself named the slaves for the purpose of immediate identification? If there is dispute over the first names of slaves which were recorded, imagine the confusion over their surnames which slaveholders almost never noted. We have seen that Randolph of Roanoke himself acknowledged that his manservant John used the name John White ; similarly our finding that the brothers Gabriel, Meshack, and Shadrach all use the surname White in the 1850 census indicates they were Gabriel White, Meshack White, and Shadrach White even in the fields of Roanoke. This in turn means Essex, the father of John, and York, the father of Gabriel, Meshack, and Shadrach were themselves Essex White and York White. This conclusion contradicts such historians as Joel Williamson who argue that surnames were adopted only when freed.^? All this fuzziness conceded, many of the family lines present in free Ohio can already be discerned here. Whichever Milly in 1801 was the "Old" Milly Jones of the manumission register, through her half dozen children and their own offspring she counted for 19 of the

^^Whatever the significance of "John" as a Roanoke slave name, it would challenge the idea of a "widespread practice of avoiding the first name of one’s owner" claimed by Kolchin, American Slavery , p. 46. ^^Joel Williamson, After Slavery : The Negro in South Carolina During R econstruction. (Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, 1965). pp. 309-311

78 383 Randolph Slaves certified free in 1846. Her male counterpart in fecundity would be Peter Johnson, whose family when freed already comprised 13 individuals and three generations. Sampson Ryal, in 1801 a twenty year old living in the Lower Quarter, would with his wife Lucinda (a mere infant in the time of Scott's list) father six children freed in 1846 and would be accompanied to Ohio by four freed grandchildren. The couple of William "Roger Billy" Young and his wife Christian (similar to the Ryal's in that their 20 year age difference means he was counted by Major Scott but she ignored as a mere 2 year old) had four children in 1846 and by William's death in 1865 saw six Ohio-born grandchildren. (For the slave husband to be almost twice as old as his wife is common enough on Roanoke that apparent exceptions are always suspect.) Philip White, a mere adolescent in 1801, by the time of liberty had fathered 7 children. Most of all. the previously mentioned Essex and Caty Brown (who each were married at least once before to others before they paired) by 1846 had children, grandchildren, and even a great-grandchild with them on the trek to Ohio for a total of sixteen. Add in such lesser patriarchs as Othello Bazell (listed in 1801 with his first wife Isabel who was dead by 1810), Amos Lee, and a John White distinct from the house servant, and we find that 84 of the 383 freedmenof 1846 can be traced back to a mere 9 people in the 1801 listing. Turning from persistence to disappearance, those who appear in Major Scott's list but not in later ones number (depending on which later list is being studied) some twenty or thirty. Some of these are known to have died, like the above mentioned Isabel Bazell, or the twelve year old girl Patience who was married to a Hercules by 1810, but dead by the early 1820's. While death probably took most of the rest who vanish from record, the possibility they were sold cannot be ruled out. Leaving for the moment the varying numbers of those missed by each list, we find Roanoke always had a minimum working population of around eighty slaves.

79 Whether a slave appears in one listing but not another also depended on what form of property he or she was perceived as. Randolph's personal servants Essex White and his son John are not included in Major Scott's 1801 list or in the 1810 Christmas list, presumably because they were considered Randolph's personal property rather than part of the plantation. (This also hinges on the purpose of the list — Essex White's family is usually omitted from supply lists because Randolph would have directly seen to his house servants, though John White's wife Betty does often appear in them.) Nor does the fact that Major Scott's list has 87 slaves while the November 1810 court-ordered list has 151 mean there is merely a discrepancy of 64 people between them. Careful comparisons of all the Roanoke slave lists shows that while most of the discrepancies concern children (recorded in a thorough census such as the 1810 price list, but lumped with their parents by Scott or Randolph in counting working families), there is a baffling residue of individuals mentioned in some lists but not in others. Some may have been "broadwives" or husbands living on other plantations, a class usually identified with a qualifier such as "Mr. Cocke's Isham" or "Daniel's Toney". Broadwives point to another issue — while the later records of Roanoke allow us to perceive the family lines within the 1801 list. Major Scott's concerns do not give us much evidence for solid conclusions about the family structures of Roanoke in 1801. Thus while he records 11 couples, only two did he note as having children, and the 29 names he presents as solitary individuals may well overrepresent that class by ignoring marriages Scott did not acknowledge. The year 1810 was a significant one for the records of Roanoke's slave population. In November 1810 a court clerk listed 151 slaves whom Randolph had established title to in this division of property with Judith R a n d o l p h . 58 The appraised total value of these slaves

58"Report of Commissioners of division of slaves confirmed", November 1810.

80 came to 10.115 English pounds — those valued highest were the skilled artisans such as Carpenter Phil (£180), Peter Johnson the blacksmith (£180). or Johnny the waggoner (£140). This list in fact shows the slaves to have included two carpenters, two blacksmiths, a waggoner and a shoemaker. At the other extreme four people are priced at "£0" (Caesar, Milly, Anna, and Sampson’s mother Jenny.) The 1810 price list allows us to make the first thorough examination of slave family structure at Roanoke, using the Cambridge Group typology for demographic analysis already applied to Israel Hill.s? To reiterate : Solitaires are solitary individuals, perhaps part of some kinship group but apparently living alone. The simple family subdivides into married couples without children (though they may have had children who now live apart), the "standard nuclear family" of married couples living with their children, and single-parent families. (Single parent families are a tricky category in slave demography because the seemingly lone parent may in fact be a broadwife or off-plantation husband, as well as the survivor of a relationship ended by either death or Non-nuclear families are made up of those related in some way other than the couple or the parent ; a common form in slave plantations is co-resident siblings. Extended family households can be "upward" (a nuclear family incorporating a parent of one of the spouses), "lateral" (a nuclear family with a brother-in-law or sister-in-law), or "downward" (grandparents raising grandchildren without the intervening child/parent generation.) The most common type of multiple family is a nuclear family incorporating a daughter with children of her own (a 'secondary family').

Copy in Bruce-Randolph Papers. (Reproduced here as Appendix B.) 5‘^Malone. Sweet Chariot, pp. 7-9. ^°0n feminist grounds Ann Malone attacks the assumption that most apparently single mothers were actually broadwives in Malone. Sweet Chariot, pp. 261-263. While this caution is duly noted, by her own admission the records are usually too few for real certainty ; one must simply note the problem and use the evidence with great care.

8 1 Twenty five people are listed as solitary individuals, divided almost evenly by gender (II men and 14 women.) While age is not part of this record, price can be used as a rough indicator — the women divide about equally between 8 valued low (and thus probably elderly) and 6 priced high (presumably young woman who had not yet started their own families.) The male solitaires, on the other hand, are almost all expensive (9 priced high to only 2 valued low), and include most of Roanoke's slave artisans. While the 1846 manumission register records nearly the same number of solitaires (24), their composition has changed dramatically — only 3 are women (and two of these elderly), while the dominant group is now 17 young men. Simple family units are the largest group in the price list both in number of units (18) and number of individuals within these families (88 people, coming to 58.2% of the total list.) "Standard nuclear families" of couples with children make up the bulk of this group (10 families with 62 members total). The median number of children was 6.5 for this group. Five families with only one parent in the list embrace another 20 individuals ; only one of these is headed by a male (widower Othello Bazell.) Only three couples without children are recorded, and these may have actually had children who had now matured. In her analysis of Louisiana slave families, though, Ann Malone points out that while the standard nuclear family was usually the largest category of slave household, rarely was even half of a plantation’s population living in it at any time. (Thus at Roanoke the 1810 price list shows only 41% and the 1846 manumission register 48% of the listed in such households.) The evidence that a married couple with children was the preferred form of plantation life has led too many historians of slavery to assume it was the actual majority condition, with the further implication that "the large majority of American slaves (adults as well as children) lived in the

82 cozy American family unit of mom, dad, and the kids/'^i Malone, while sympathizing with the search for a stable and respectable past behind this fantasy, argues to the contrary "that the real strength of the slave community was its multiplicity of forms, its tolerance for a variety of families and households, its adaptability, and its acceptance of all types of families and households as functional and contributing."6- While admitting that "the two-parent nuclear family was the societal ideal"^^ Malone sees actual experience of the standard nuclear family as at most only one phase of a life cycle which might well include periods as a solitaire and as a dependent member in an extended or multiple family household. Two families in 1810 had an extended structure, married with children plus a sibling of one of the spouses. Only one "multiple family", a nuclear family including a daughter with a child of her own, was recorded. Rivaling the single parent families in number were families of co-resident siblings, five such groups comprising 20 people. This indicates a stable, mature community in which family units have been allowed to form and comparatively few individuals are without some kin group. (Even the solitaires are largely in transition from a parental family to a family of their own. as the young women would be.) Randolph himself used Christmas 1810 to make an enumeration of his Roanoke slaves (though omitting his personal servants like John White), noting 108 individuals. Marks besides some names suggest this may have been a supply list of some kind. The distinction which mainly concerned him was gender, the list being divided between 62 males (including three ""Small Boys"") and 46 women. The men are roughly divided by quarter and then by family (though with many exceptions). Designations like ""Bizarre

6 1 Ibid.. p. 255. 62lbid.. p258. 63lbid.

83 Hannah" show the interconnectedness of these slaves with Richard Randolph's chattels who were about to become the Israel Hill colony. Our best information for Roanoke's makeup between Randolph's own list of December 1810 and the 1846 manumission is the 1820 census, since as previously mentioned this chose to report "John Randolph's Estate" under the names of his three white overseers Cumby, Hughes, and Morgan. If we trust that the comparative slave populations of the quarters remained in proportion to Major Scott's 1801 list. Cumby (supervising 131 total blacks) oversaw the Lower Quarter^-*, Hughes (overseeing 73 slaves) the Middle, and Morgan (who had a mere 30 blacks under him) the Ferry. All of the overseers were themselves married family men. all having two or more sons under age 10 (though Cumby and Hughes also had daughters, unlike Morgan.) While identifying no individual slaves, this Census reports Roanoke's total bound population as 234. The Lower Quarter was the only one in which females outnumbered males (71 to 60) and where slaves under age 14 equaled working adults (both groups tallying at 44) — in the Ferry and Middle Quarters small children slightly outnumber teenagers. Unsurprisingly "Agriculture" is the dominant activity. 111 slaves being listed as engaged in it to a mere 17 considered in "Manufacturing" (presumably, again, the slave artisans.) This probably underestimates the mobilization of the plantation community for large scale agricultural activities such as the harvest, since it places 'agricultural' slaves at under half of Roanoke's population (Another possible skew is that the Ferry Quarter may have been less cultivated than the others — it is the only one of the three divisions where Agriculture' is the activity of under half its slave population.)

^■*However there is evidence in the Bruce-Randolph Papers that in 1813-1814 Cumby oversaw the Middle Quarter. While this underlines that the discussion following is partly speculative, it is fact that Cumby was managing SOME Quarter.

84 Roanoke’s large group of slave elders is indicated by 42 slaves being over 45 years old, almost one sixth of the total count.^^ All cautions taken, these many slave enumerations from 1787 through 1820 are still revealing. The first characteristic they show is stability — because of Randolph's reluctance to sell slaves, theslaves could count on living their entire lives at Roanoke, growing old among their families. (In one famous incident when a visitor to Roanoke asked the price of a house slave, Randolph threw him off the grounds.66 while this was Randolph’s principle, he did not follow it completely — on at least one occasion he declared his intention to sell a thieving slave to the Deep South. He did not do so, however, and later forgave the man.^"^) At least 27 of the slaves Major Scott counted in 1801 lived to be freed in 1846, often with up to four generations of their descendants. Furthermore, the stability of this community was reflected in marriage, as the same couples recur in list after list until death (not distance, as on some other plantations) did them part. (Though marriage outside the plantation - - "broadwives" and husbands — are noted in the undated list of slaves Randolph made.) However, that in hindsight Roanoke appears remarkably stable does not mean its slaves were free from the anxiety that the erratic Randolph or his heirs might not at any time sell them all apart. The element of tradition a large number of elderly makes possible for a community would at Roanoke have included comparatively recent memories of freedom. One list shows that of the 1801 slaves five were first-generation imported Africans, such as Quasha and Cleo, and Scott’s count shows that eisht free blacks were

1820 Census. Charlotte Co. VA, Roll 136 Micro 33, pp. 6A (Cumby) and 12A (Hughes) and ISA (Morgan) — the splitting of the estate's count is indicated under Randolph's name at page 25A. Edmund Morgan was one of the three witnesses to an 1828 codicil to the 1821 will of Randolph of Roanoke, making it probable the other two witnesses, Joseph M. Daniel and Robert Carrington, were also Roanoke overseers — Coalter Ex'or v. Brvan. 1 Grattan (Va.) 28, cited in Moton v. Kessens. , p. 277. 6&Bruce, R a n d olp h , p. II ; 257. 67Jbid.. p. II : 693.

85 living among the Randolph slaves. Some of these free blacks were women whose children were among the Randolph slave population, and thus these children could have claimed their own freedom through descent. (Their not doing so may have been the price for allowing their parents to live there undisturbed.) For some, then, direct knowledge of freedom would only require having lived some forty odd years before the general manumission of Randolph’s will gave all of them the experience. Another indicator of tradition, naming patterns, is the key to much of what is known about Roanoke's slave community. The naming of a child after its aunt or uncle, such as "Little Quashee" for his African-born uncle Quasha, was common. So were other lineal names, such as parent/child or grandchild for grandparent. The growth in population from at least 100 in 1801 (adding known omissions to Major Scott's count) to the 393 free blacks of 1846 reflects a slave community losing and replacing its members almost entirely through deaths and births, not sales and purchases. The comment of one Ohio observer that the Randolph slaves were "one family is true in the sense of interrelationships, particularly since as Roanoke became more populous marriages among residents of different Quarters seem to have displaced the custom of broadwives. By 1846 the majority of marriages were within the slave community, giving another source of stability to the lives of the slaves. This may have been another side effect of Randolph's property attitudes — since he once refused to sell a slave woman to the owner of her husband on another farm,^^ marriage out of Roanoke may have been viewed as more difficult than among the resident blacks. Some slaveowners like Jefferson had encouraged same-plantation marriages among slaves in order to tighten their own controls, by reducing the incentives for casual absenteeism and the influence outside planters could have on another's slave

^^"Randolph Negroes”, Piqua Register 25 July 1846 G^John Randolph to Walter Cole. 11 June 1821. John Randolph Papers. Alderman Library. The University of Virginia. Charlottesville. Va.

86 community. That the Roanoke slave Caty, who in the 1810's had had two daughters by "Daniel's Toney" (almost certainly a slave from another plantation), by 1846 had remarried Roanoke's own Essex Brown demonstrates this trend. The vast majority of the Randolph slaves were dark black, fitting the Upper South's profile of typical manumissions freeing largely pure African lines. (The 1846 manumission register lists 239 individuals as simply "Black" in color, almost two thirds of those freed.) Admixture was not unknown though. The slave children of the overseer Pentecost have already been mentioned. Another white man, one Jerry Griffith, was openly known to be the father of the slave Louisa Giffon.^i While the evidence of those classed by whites as "Mulattos" (29 individuals) or "Light" (another 21) in the 1846 list is highly debatable, one whole family of eight children were listed as "Very Bright" (one child further noted as "Nearly White"), and two other families contributed 4 of the 5 "Bright" colored entries. This indicates an amount of miscegenation equal to, perhaps even slightly higher than, the Southern norm.^- Still, those considered "Brown" (52), "Dark" (10), and "Dark Brown" (15) nearly equal those judged to "Mulatto", "Light", or "Bright". This then was the community of slaves owned by John Randolph of Roanoke at the time of his death in Philadelphia.

^°Berlin, Slaves Without Masters, p. 150.

^'Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Louise Butler (5-6-1914). p. 167. ^-Malone. Sweet Chariot, p. 219.

87 CHAPTER 6

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

And Abram said, "Behold, thou hast given me no offspring ; and a slave born in my house shall be my heir." — GENESIS 15:3 (Revised Standard Version)

The death of the master had little immediate effect on the Roanoke slave community. In 1836, three years after Randolph's death and at the beginning of the lawsuits, diarist Eliza Barksdale visited Roanoke with her family and friends and reported it still managed as a plantation by a white overseer, the slaves still in the fields, and even Randolph's park for deer still being maintained.’ Henry St. George Tucker, visiting Roanoke a year later, evidently found no changes worth speaking of but did note that the slaves assured him they were looking forward to a new master.- The 1840 Census records the "Estate of John Randolph" as inhabited by 325 slaves, of whom 119 were involved in "Agriculture" and 14. probably the plantation's artisans, were categorized as in "Manufacturing and Trade.As the lawsuits dragged on, however.

’ Diary of Eliza Barksdale, 2 September 1836. Virginia Historical Society. (Randolph had left his riding gear and a choice of one mare to William Barksdale in his 1821 will —Coalter Ex'or v. Bryan. 1 Grattan (Va.) 24, cited in Moton V. Kessens. , p. 274.) -Henry St. George Tucker to Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, 13 May 1837. Tucker- Coleman Papers. 21840 Census, Roll 554 Micro M704, p i65.

88 the usual practice of hiring out the slaves of a disputed property year to year for a fixed sum paid to Judge Leigh, presumably in his role as business manager was evidently followed.^ When writer Henry Howe visited the plantation in 1843 he found only a few slaves still living there.s Randolph had viewed his family's misfortunes as a bitter manifestation of the social decay he constantly observed around him and as proof that the Virginia aristocracy could not survive. Through his mother’s remarriage to St. George Tucker, however, Randolph had two half-brothers and a half-sister in the Tucker line. This was galling, since Randolph as part of his property mystique held firm views on inheritance. He condemned Jefferson's abolition of primogeniture in Virginia as the act of a man who had no sons, an odd criticism from a completely childless man. Second marriages by these same principles should not inherit the original patrimony. (In arguing against the admission of Western states as equals in Congress to the original 13 colonies. Randolph once expostulated that "The children of the second marriage must not displace those of the first!") Many biographies claim that, despite years of affection, Randolph broke with his stepfather St. George Tucker when the latter suggested he leave his property to his Tucker siblings. William Cabell Bruce, however, suggests the estrangement had more to do with the Madison-Monroe rivalry to succeed Jefferson in the Presidency.^ Plagued by constant ill health. Randolph in making his wills would therefore fit closely McColley's profile of "Virginians who actually did emancipate slaves" — "the most generous were elderly people who had no close relatives and had depended for years on the labor and care of their servants.Randolph chose manumission as

•^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of Samuel P. Miles (5-27-1910), pp. 801-803; Deposition of David Mitchell, pp. 918-919. ^"Henry Howe, Connecticut Yankee", Virginia Cavalcade 15 (Winter 1965- 1966): 40. ^Bruce. R a n d o lp h , p. II : 271. ^McColley. Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia , p. 143.

89 much because he saw no true competing claims on his estate as because of his strong Revolutionary principles. There being no rightful owner, the blacks could return to their state of liberty. Randolph's earliest will, dated the 17th of November 1800, seems to have been unknown to the later will litigants and to all of Randolph's biographers save William Ewart Stokes, but is of great interest as the only will written before Virginia law forbade freed blacks from remaining in the state. It includes the uncomplicated provisions that the slaves are to be freed and provided with a trust fund. There is, however, no provision giving the freed slaves land. Randolph's butler Essex White is specifically recommended to Henry St. George Tucker as a servant.'^ The first will known to the litigants, that of 1819. provided for posthumous manumission. This will was little discussed because it had definitely been superseded by either the 1821 or 1832 wills. At this time Randolph of Roanoke had been setting aside funds to defray the costs of manumitting and re-establishing his slaves, only to lose the money when his bank Tompkins & Murray failed in 1819.9 The 1821 will was the crucial one in the matter of freeing the Randolph slaves. Naming his friend and general business manager Judge William Leigh executor, Randolph specified that large portions of Roanoke were to be sold (a thing intolerable to Randolph in life), and that all his slaves were to be manumitted and with money provided by the executor resettled somewhere in the United States, "giving to all above the age of 40 not less than 10 acres of land." He asked the Virginia legislature to allow the slave family of his personal servants Essex and John White to remain as freedmen in Virginia. In a gesture which contributed to the acrimony of the will litigations, he accused St. George Tucker of stealing the title to slaves Randolph felt he should have inherited from his mother.

*WiU of John Randolph of Roanoke, 17 November 1800. Tucker-Coleman Papers. 9Bruce. Randolph., p. II ; 663.

90 One of the principal arguments for the validity of the 1821 will was that Randolph had added codicils to it in 1821. 1826, 1828. and 1831. The 1826 codicil in part reflected changes in the slave family of Essex White — both John and Juba had married. The 1828 codicil became significant in litigation because its incorrect references to certain provisions of the 1821 will suggested mental confusion. The 1831 codicil left land to his half-brother Henry St. George Tucker and a Tucker niece, directed that the slave John White receive an annuity, and placed certain funds in Judge Leigh's care for the slave relocation. The controversial January 1832 will named both Judge Leigh and Henry St. George Tucker executors, and specified that all of the slaves except one hundred chosen by the executors were to be sold with all his other property, the proceeds to be invested in either Bank of the United States bonds or English 3% consols, or if neither existed, in English land mortgages. The invested money and the remaining hundred slaves were then to be distributed among the heirs. The odd language of these directions, declaring both the Bank of the United States and English 3% consols dangerous institutions threatening liberty and wishing their end while enjoining investment, plus the generally erratic behavior of Randolph at this time created the basis for the later will litigations.'o The insanity question aside, Randolph's change of heart on manumission fit the prevailing trend in Virginia in favor of perpetual slavery. Manumissions of all kinds had declined during the 1830- 1860 period. Like Randolph's slaves those freed were generally liberated by wills from earlier eras." The manumission of the Randolph Slaves is thus probably a consequence of Randolph of Roanoke's irrationality. The written testaments, which probably would have led to litigation in any case, were confounded still further by Randolph's

■Olbid., p. II : 49-54. "Berlin. Slaves Without Masters, p. 141.

9 1 deathbed wishes on May 24, 1833. Dying in a Philadelphia hotel room attended by his slave servant John and by a local Quaker physician named Parrish, Randolph repeatedly told Dr. Parrish it was his wish that his slaves be freed. Worrying that his testimony might not be sufficient for the Virginia authorities. Dr. Parrish persuaded Randolph to let him summon other people into the room to provide corroboration. Randolph repeated his wishes to them in the hours before he died.'- What kind of community was Randolph trying to create by freeing his slaves? While Randolph never systematically described the future he envisioned for his freed plantation workers, certain themes are constant in those wills and other documents that emancipated his chattels. First of all, the Roanoke slaves were to remain in America. While the 1806 Virginia law against freed blacks remaining in the Old Dominion had proven virtually unenforceable against individual negroes, no large scale community such as Israel Hill was possible any longer in Virginia.The Roanoke slaves would have to migrate somewhere and bowing to the inevitability of some relocation, Randolph in his 1821 will specified only that it be within the United States. The 1826 codicil to his 1821 will more particularly expressed his conviction that Judge Leigh "is too wise, just, and humane to send them to Liberia, or to any other place in Africa, or the West Indies." Yet two of the trustees he named for his freedmen. William Meade and Francis Scott Key, were leading colonizationists who advocated the "solution" to both slavery and the growth of the free black population of sending American freedmen to colonize Africa and there found a Christian civilization. Indeed, Francis Scott Key had persuaded Randolph to attend the December 1816 organizational meeting of the American Colonization Society, at which Reverend William Meade was also present.’-* Speaking at that event, Randolph

’-Bruce. R andolph, pp. II ; 41-45. ’^Berlin, Slaves Without Masters, pp. 146-148. ’■*P. J. Staudenraus. The African Colonization Movement. 1816-1865. (New York

92 had supported colonization as a step which would encourage private manumissions by removing the troublesome free black population and thus securing slave property. On 14 January 1817 Randolph of Roanoke presented the petition of the only just organized American Colonization Society to the House of Representatives, asking the US to set up an African colony to which freed slaves might be sent.'^ By the time of Randolph's Senate term (February 1826), however, he refused Key's entreaties to present a Colonization Society petition to the Senate on the ground he now felt "a spirit of morbid sensibility, religious fanaticism, vanity, and a love of display" were the true motives of the Colonization Society.The wording of his 1826 codicil also suggests he privately viewed the Liberian experiment as a failure due to the chronic health and manpower problems its black settlers faced, then a not uncommon attitude (particularly among Southerners.) There is evidence Judge William Leigh also believed in colonizationism. Yet Leigh, acting on what he believed were Randolph's lucid wishes, always sought to resettle the Roanoke blacks within the United States, only contemplating foreign colonization when events seemed to make American residence untenable.This was why the colonizationists later attacked the relocation of the Randolph slaves to Ohio. They either ignored or were ignorant of Randolph's own prohibition of their plans, but they recognized a challenge to their tenet that any migration of free blacks should only be outside the Republic. But while John Randolph of Roanoke never considered blacks to be American citizens, he had come to accept that they were Americans. The second point in Randolph's concept was that the freedmen were to have land, with the implicit corollaries they would be

Columbia University Press, 1961), p. 27. •^Ibid.. p. 34. '^Garland. Life of John Randolph. 2 : 266. *^Davton Journal and Advertiser 28 July 1846, 4 August 1846. 1 September 1846 : William Buckner McGroarty, "Experiments in Mass Emancipation", William and Marv Ouarterlv. 2nd Series, 21 (July 1940) : 220.

93 agrarian and self-sustaining. While Randolph's first will in 1800 had not specifically provided for land purchases for his slaves, they were to have been given a trust fund. Those later testaments which did free the slaves not only did require they be given land, but spelled out how this property was to paid for and distributed. The lands were to be allocated by age, "giving to all above the age of 40 not less than 10 acres of land." Randolph’s belief that liberty must rest on property, which he stated against white egalitarians in the Virginia Convention of 1829, plus Richard's precedent of Israel Hill, probably accounts for Randolph's insistence in the manumitting will that the former slaves be settled on land they owned. Third, the "people" of Roanoke were to remain together. The significant exception was the family of Randolph's servant John White, who were often singled out in the master's wills. Randolph's 1821 will appealed to the Virginia legislature to allow the slave family who had been his personal servants — Essex White, his wife Hetty, their children John and Nancy, and other relations Juba and Queen — to remain as freedmen in Virginia. In the 1826 codicil Randolph had advised Leigh specifically against sending John White and his family to either Liberia or the West Indies, the two favorite destinations in colonizationist thought, even if the rest of the blacks had to be colonized abroad. Like the annuity an 1831 codicil to the 1821 will directed John White receive, Randolph would thus posthumously set the Whites apart from the rest of his slaves as a special caste, as he had viewed them in life. Fourth, the freed community was to be autonomous. While Randolph had spoken of "tutors" for his manumitted slaves, there were no provisions for white guardianship or continuing control. Once their master was dead, the Roanoke slaves were to be restored to their rightful liberty. Randolph thus planned for his freedmen to become a community of self-sufficient American small family farmers. While it would be hazardous to overemphasize the utopian elements of this scheme (Randolph may have just sought a more successful Israel

94 Hill), this is a fascinating glimpse of the Jeffersonian yeoman ideal as intended for free blacks. But was it a plan that could be fulfilled in Randolph's America? The first test would be determining which of Randolph's wills was executed. The decade long Randolph will litigation began on July 1834 when Judge Coalter submitted for probate the 1832 will favoring his infant grandson, John Randolph Bryan. A motion was then made that Essex White and his sons John and Juba be allowed to appear both on their own behalf and that of the other slaves in support of the manumitting 1822 will. When this was denied on the grounds of their slave condition, a second motion was made to allow Bishop William Meade to act on their behalf. This was granted. The necessity of collecting evidence from witnesses as far off as London and Philadelphia led to the case being continued until the next court term.'* Later Frederick Hobson, a representative of the insane deaf- mute St. George Randolph, also joined the challenge. (For the actual trial work both plaintiffs and defendants retained local lawyers who could conveniently argue before the Court of Appeals.)'^ For 13 years there were suits and countersuits in the courts of Virginia, the main issue being the mental state of John Randolph of Roanoke. That Randolph had periods of insanity was shown to have been admitted by Randolph himself, and the only witness to testify to Randolph's unqualified sanity was John C. Calhoun, who saw in Randolph's fierce states' rights positions the outlines of the new Constitutional theories he was devising. For the parties at litigation, though, the question was not whether but when Randolph had been insane — when making the will of 1832? When he made the codicils to the 1821 will, and if so. which ones? On his deathbed? Many of the most famous John Randolph anecdotes are from the testimony at these trials. For example, witnesses recalled that he claimed familiar conversations with the Devil in 1831. Showing who

'*Bruce. R andolph, p. II ; 107 '^Randolph's Ex'or v. Tucker. 10 Leigh (Va.) 661, quoted in Moton v. Kessens. p. 264.

95 ranked second only to His Satanic Majesty in Randolph's personal demonology, he had violently refused to board a ship named the HENRY CLAY-0 and had ordered himself buried facing West "to keep an eye on Henry Clay."-' (A reburial in the 1890's found this to be true!) Some witnesses testified that he mistreated and beat his slaves with unusual severity in his last years. The main parties to the suits were Henry St. George Tucker and later Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, who opposed the manumission of their half-brother’s slaves. Judge Leigh and Rev. William Meade acted on behalf of the slaves. Frederick Hobson represented St. George Randolph and opposed both wills. The disputants in this long case deserve attention. Henry St. George Tucker, for instance, was the oldest of Randolph of Roanoke's half-brothers, born only a few days before his family's retreat to Bizarre during the Revolution. A prominent lawyer, while serving in the Virginia state legislature he had proposed a gradual emancipation scheme on the lines of his father St. George Tucker's old proposal from the 1790's. In the will dispute he was less opposed to the manumission of the slaves than seeking to repudiate the 1821 testament for its accusations against his father St. George Tucker. His younger brother Nathaniel Beverly Tucker (known by his middle name of Beverly) was more problematic. A favorite of Randolph of Roanoke who had lived with his own family on Roanoke from 1809 to 1811.-- he was himself somewhat estranged from his father. Beverly Tucker was also a literary figure, his most famous work being THE PARTISAN LEADER,

-''Garland, Life of John Randolph. 2 : 137. -'This westward burial was so well known that John Greenleaf Whittier has it figure into his poem "Randolph of Roanoke ("He sleeps, still looking to the west/Beneath the dark wood shadow"), though offering a much more romantic rationalization for it ("As if he still would see the sun/Sink down on wave and meadow.") --Tucker, Nathaniel Beverlv Tucker, pp. 142-144. This means he actually resided at Roanoke permanently before Randolph himself made it his main residence in 1810.

96 a political fantasy attacking Vice President Martin Van Buren's 1836 effort to follow Andrew Jackson in the Presidency. It shows a tyrannical Van Buren ten years in the future triggering civil war as the South secedes to avoid mandated emancipation. This of course was to be seen as a prophecy of the actual Civil War, and was reprinted by both the Confederates (who hoped its prophecy of victory would also be fulfilled) and the North (who saw it as proof the South had been plotting treason for decades.) Its greater significance for the moment lies in Beverly framing his story as a conflict between brothers, a temporizing moderate and a patriotic firebrand widely seen as representations of Henry and himself. Beverly was also to become something of a watchdog for John Randolph's reputation, in 1844 dismissing the first public biography by one Lemuel Sawyer in an anonymous r e v i e w .He later vigorously denounced Hugh Garland’s LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH, though as much for Garland's own political positions as for his obvious imitations of Wythe's LIFE OF PATRICK HENRY (such as inventing an entire speech for Randolph).-^ Although he was urged to write his own life of Randolph, Beverly remained more critic than contributor. Ironically given his own tensions with St. George Tucker, it was Beverly who literally followed in his father's footsteps by becoming the College of William & Mary's law professor. (Legal instruction became such a vocation among the Tuckers that when Beverly's grand-nephew Harry Tucker wrote a book on the treaty-making power in the Constitution in 1915, he was able to cite four generations of Tucker law books.)-5 This placed him among a circle of aggressively Southern intellectuals such as Thomas R. Dew, whose 1830 work "Thoughts on Slavery" was to begin the displacement in the South of the colonizationist consensus with the pro-slavery

-^Ibid. , p. 403. -■* Tucker, "Hugh Garland's Life of John Randolph". Southern Ouarterlv Review New Series, 4 (July 1851) : 41-61. {Reprinted by NY: Ams Press. 1965} -^Hess, America’s Political Dynasties, pp. 387-388.

97 "positive good" ideology. These sectional thinkers would be very influential in the administration of President John Tyler, who even appointed one of their number, Abel Upshur, to the Cabinet. Beverly Tucker would cement his own fire-eater reputation by being one of the most vocal advocates of secession at the 1850 Nashville Convention where Southern delegates first formally debated leaving the Union. Frederick Siegel, on the other hand, cites Beverly "who is at the one moment attending a jousting tourney and at the next delivering speeches on the importance of . . . the cultivation of the commercial arts" as an example of the seemingly "Janus-faced . . . South" as illustrating the failings of simple historical stereotypes.-'^ On the other side, William Meade was a major figure in Virginia's Episcopal Church long before he became its Bishop. He was very concerned with the spiritual uplift of the slave population, constantly preaching to plantation slaves and urging attention to their spiritual and physical welfare. He himself manumitted his own slaves (later he concluded this had been an overenthusiastic act).-* A speech advocating colonizationism was one of the major impetuses of the formation of the American Colonization Society, and Meade was often pressed to serve as an officer (frequently the president) in that group (declining because of his evangelical work.)-^ Meade was only one trustee of the freedmen named in the wills, the others being Judge William Leigh and Francis Scott Key (who died three years before the conclusion of the lawsuits). It is the judgment of one biographer that Maryland-born Francis Scott Key's "only really close friend was the eccentric Virginian, John Randolph of Roanoke, a frequent house guest of the Keys during his several

-^Upshur was the Chancery Court judge who heard Coalter Ex'or v. Brvan (the final form of the Randolph will litigation) ; Plaintiffs Complaint , Coalter Ex'or V. Brvan. I Grattan (Va.) 21, cited in Moton v. Kessens. p. 403. -^Siegel, Roots of Southern Distinctiveness, pp. 166, 344. -^Dictionary of American Biography, s.y. "Meade. William", p. 481; Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. (1919 : reprint ed.. New York : Amo Press. 1960), pp. 188-189. -^Staudenraus, African Colonization Moyement. pp. 26-29.

98 Congressional terms.This friendship arose from the two men's common opposition to the War of 1812, overwhelming the party barrier of Key's Federalism and Randolph's Jeffersonianism.^' (Ironically, this war of course occasioned Key's claim to immortality, the poem which has become the national anthem THE STAR- SPANGLED BANNER.) Depressed by the outbreak of the war. Key sought Randolph's advice on whether he should stick to the law or become a minister or teacher.^- While Key resisted his inclination to join the clergy, he did write many hymns and was active in the Episcopal Church,33 which is presumably how he came to also know Meade.After the War of 1812 . Key had not only participated in the founding of the American Colonization Society, becoming one of its 12 original "managers",^^ involved Randolph with the group as well.36 Both Key and William Meade traveled widely to raise funds for the Colonization Society, and attempted to persuade President Monroe to make the scheme official policyKey was himself a slaveholder, both on his family plantation and in his Washington DC household, the slaves acquired by both inheritance and dowry. As an Episcopal leader Key received an 1838 questionnaire from antislavery minister Rev. Benjamin Tappan which provides some unique insights into his thoughts. Key defended slavery as permitted by God as long as not pursued for profit, and pronounced blacks "a

^•^Sam Meyer, Paradoxes of Fame : The Francis Scott Key Storv. (.A.nnapolis, MD: Eastwind Publishing, 1995), p. xvii. ^'Edward S. Delaplaine. Francis Scott Key : Life and Times. (New York ; Biography Press, 1937) pp. 77-79, 86-89, 94-100. ^-Staudenraus, African Colonization Movement, p. 26; Delaplaine, Francis Scott Key , pp. 90-93. ^^Dictionarv of American Biography, s.v. "Key, Francis, Scott", p. 363; Meyer, Paradoxes o f Fame, pp. 17-20. ^^Key and Meade knew each other at least by February 1814, when Randolph writes of them as his two most understanding friends — Delaplaine, Franc i s Scott Key , pp. 118-119. At the 1826 Episcopal General Convention Key and Meade took the same side in a liturgical dispute (Ibid., p. 246.) ^^Delaplaine, Francis Scott Key . pp. 197-199 ; Meyer. Paradoxes of Fame, p. 17. ^^Garland, Life o f John Randolph. , 2 ; 266. ^^Delaplaine, Francis Scott Kev . pp. 202-204.

99 distinct and inferior race." He blamed the shift toward tolerating or supporting slavery in the South, and among specific constituencies such as the Methodists, on Northern abolitionist agitation.He had manumitted seven of his own slaves, but worried they would not be able to sustain themselves in old age.^^ (At one point he proposed sending at least two of his freedmen to Liberia to show Maryland’s support for colonization.In his profession as an attorney Key's record on slavery on slavery was mixed, as represented by his appearances before the Supreme Court. He first came before the highest court as attorney for a slave (one Ben) in an 1810 freedom suit.-^' and he was one of the attorneys for the human "cargo" of the captured Spanish slave ship ANTELOPE in a famous 1825 case.-*- On the other hand he once successfully appealed all the way to the Supreme Court one Hezekiah Wood’s claim that the children of a free mulatto woman were rightfully his slaves.-*^ But the most important representative of the Randolph Slaves was neither Meade nor Key, but Judge Leigh. The burning of Richmond in the face of approaching Union forces on April 3. 1865. made the character of Judge William Leigh a central issue in the Randolph Slave saga. With virtually all the records of Virginia’s General Court destroyed, it was impossible to definitely prove how Randolph’s estate and particularly that portion reserved for the resettlement of his former slaves had been used.

pp. 446-450. ^^Meyer. Paradoxes of Fame, pp. 29-30 •*®Delaplaine, Francis Scott Kev . p. 217. ■**Ibid.., pp. 69-70. This case prefigured DRED SCOTT in that the issue was whether a Maryland statute against the slave trade meant Ben should be freed since his owner had not been allowed by a lower court to prove Ben had been in the US for at least 3 years before being brought into Maryland. Chief Justice Marshall ruled the owner should have been allowed to introduce such evidence, but Ben's own fate is unclear here. ■*-Ibid.. pp. 208-215. This case again hinged on the question of what constituted "importing" slaves, the ANTELOPE’s owners pointing out the slave trade was still legal in Spain, Key arguing that its capture by an American revenue cutter immediately freed the slaves. ■*^Meyer, Paradoxes of Fame, p. 30 ; Delaplaine, Francis Scott Kev . pp. 76-77.

100 Accordingly, when the Randolph slaves and their descendants brought suit in 1907 against Mercer County farmers for title to the lands the mob of 1846 had prevented them from reaching, attorneys for both sides were reduced to ad hominem arguments concerning Judge Leigh to determine through his general reputation how he might have executed his client's wishes. It was William Leigh’s fate always to be overshadowed. He was the brother of Benjamin Watkins Leigh , the famous Senator and codifier of Virginia law.-*-* Pursuing a law career too, he was admitted to the bar of Halifax County in 1805 and achieved a successful practice, apparently becoming Randolph's business manager in the 1810's. In 1829 he like his brother and Randolph served as a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention, but his role was undistinguished and in George Catlin's famous painting of the delegates he is relegated to the back rows. In personal appearance a thin man who wore spectacles.-*^ it seems to have been the general feeling that Leigh was decent and hardworking with high scruples concerning justice. Even in a glowing tribute to him, however, one eulogist conceded a lack of imagination-*^ in the Judge who had served as a Circuit Court magistrate from 1831 to 1857.-*'^ Although Judge Leigh moved among the elite of Virginia due to his own connections and qualities, he rarely cut a striking figure other than for his sincerity. A sense of his own limitations is suggested by Leigh's act while drafting Randolph's 1821 will of sending a copy of it to St. George Tucker for advice on how to set up a trust for Randolph's slaves (fortunately it did not yet contain the savage attack on Tucker of the final draft!)-**

-*-*Benjamin Watkins Leigh was also an Old Republican "Randolphite" politically. (Risjord, The Old Republicans, p. 150) -*5Robert P. Sutton. Revolution to Secession : Constitution Making in the Old Dominion. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989), p. 187; see also picture with Virginia Law Register eulogy. -*^”Judge William Leigh". Virginia Law Register 2 (September 1896): 319. -*^Bradshaw. Prince Edward C ounty, p. 681. -**Letter from William Leigh to St. George Tucker. 17 April 1820. Tucker-

101 Leigh was a slaveowner (expected of a man of his position in his time) and a family man — the overwhelming impression his surviving letters and papers give is the depth of his attachment to his wife and children. While in Ohio to supervise the resettlement of the Randolph slaves he lamented the separation this entailed from his wife.^9 Once one of his sons who was setting up his own plantation discovered that Judge Leigh had sent his own slaves over to prepare the place — a gesture of paternal affection which his slaves may not have appreciated.^o The 1830 Census found Leigh the owner of 58 slaves, 127 acres, and 5 horses.^* Leigh was Randolph's solid friend as well as advisor. Leigh named one of his sons John Randolph Leigh ; his Roanoke namesake left that youth a bequest of $5000 in the final 1832 will.5- Judge Leigh's dedication to securing the manumission of the slaves of Randolph during the litigation over the wills was beyond question. Although given bequests by both the 1821 and 1832 wills,53 Leigh renounced any share of the estate in order to avoid possible conflicts of interest.5-^ The wills made Leigh only one trustee of the freedmen, the others being Rev. William Meade and Francis Scott Key. Key had died in 1843, and though Meade had also played a part in the litigation (in fact beginning the proceedings to probate the 1821 will and have the 1832 will declared invalid), it was Leigh who handled the slaves's actual resettlement.. In February 1845 the Virginia Chancery Court found in favor of manumission for Randolph's slaves as per the 1821 will, with St. George Randolph receiving a portion of the remaining estate (the jury

Coleman Papers. ■*^Judge William Leigh to Rebecca Leigh. 7 July 1847 (sic — internal evidence confirms the year is really 1846.} Leigh Family Papers. Virginia Historical Society. Richmond, Va. 5°Thomas Leigh to Sarah Ann Leigh, 4 August 1842. Leigh Family Papers. Sutton, Revolution to Secession, p. 187. ^-National Anti-Slavery Standard 7 Oct. 1840. 53Çoalter Ex'or v. Brvan. 1 Grattan (Va.) 21, 23. 25. cited in Moton v. Kessens. . pp. 271, 273, 274. ^•^Ibid., p. 31,61. reprinted in Moton v. Kessens. pp. 282, 314.

102 being individually polled to establish the verdict beyond doubt. )5S The RICHMOND ENQUIRER, reporting on the verdict, speculated that "tracts of land will be purchased in Texas" for the freedmen, a guess reprinted in at least one newspaper in Ohio's Miami Canal region.^^ The actual relocation was now the chore of Judge Leigh. His first step was to write the governors of the Northern states querying their willingness to permit the emigration. Their replies soon demonstrated Northern hostility to a large settlement of free blacks.57 Settling on Ohio as the best choice, Leigh used the $8,000.00 generated from the sale of a portion of Roanoke^* per Randolph's instructions to purchase land in Mercer County. Even as the Randolph slaves were individually registered as free at the Charlotte County Courthouse, Judge Leigh's son Thomas was en route to Mercer County to finalize the land purchase.^s Judge Leigh himself left to meet the Randolph slaves at Mercer County, but had only reached Dayton when he heard of the mob incident which dramatically altered the destiny of the Randolph slaves, and forced him to change his plans.^o

^palter Ex'or v. Brvan. 1 Grattan (Va.) 29, cited in Moton v. Kessens. . p.4I4, Summarized in Bruce. Randolph, pp. II : 55-57. ^^Reprinted in Trov W eekly 8 March 1845. ^^Mary E. Lewis, "The Freeing and Settling in the State o f Ohio, o f the Negroes of John Randolph of Roanoke, after his death, by Judge William Leigh of the Circuit Court of Appeals of Virginia". Typed copy of 14 April 1948 ms.. Leigh Family Papers. 5®Deed of Sale by William Leigh to John T. Clark, January 30, 1846, Charlotte County Deed Book 26:85-87, reproduced in Moton v. Kessens, pp. 427-429. ^^Thomas Leigh to Sarah Ann Leigh, 30 April 1846. Leigh Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society. ^^Dayton Journal and A dvertiser. 14 July 1846

103 CHAPTER 7

NUMBERS AND EXODUS

Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head. —Numbers 1 : 2 (Revised Standard Version)

While Judge Leigh sought to prepare their way north, the 383 freed slaves of Roanoke were gathered in Charlotte County Courthouse to register their manumissions, a process which took from April 29 to May 1. 1846. Each slave was assigned a numbered certificate of freedom which noted their first name, color, height, age, and any distinguishing marks. The county clerks handling this task dealt with the blacks primarily in family groupings, beginning with the head of the family and generally indicating the relationships. A man would call the blacks into the courthouse by the family head's name, then take the names of the children.' The individual "freedom papers" were then given to the head of the family.- In some cases, the white clerks recorded men apart from their wives and children, indicating they failed to recognize the existence of these families. Nathan Jones, who received Certificate 269. was thus ’separated’ from his wife Paulina, Certificate 500, and two daughters Fanny and Julia Ann. In another instance Johnston Crowder (Certificate 216) was listed apart from both his wife (Amanda Ann Cox Crowder) and

‘Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914). pp. 120-121.

- Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914), p. 119.

104 children, and his father Armistead's family. Ephraim Brown (Certificate 526) was at least listed as a member of his parents Essex and Caty’s family, but his own wife Phillis (Certificate 481) and three children were registered elsewhere under Phillis's name. A case such as Ephraim's becomes problematical when considering family structures. The first ten manumissions were registered on April 29, 1846. the certificate count beginning with #215. The following day the majority of Randolph Slaves were registered. In processing 321 individual blacks, the county clerks of Charlotte inevitably made some clerical errors. They assigned the same certificate number (330) to two freedmen in succession, Solomon Brown and Peter Morton. That they caught themselves is shown by the registration jumping to number 332 for Peter Morton's wife Mary. Later a clerk assigned Lucretia White the same number "508" as her mother Dolly; this was caught it in time to blot it out, but not to give Lucretia her own number. A later slip, which appears to have been completely unnoticed, was skipping from certificate 377 ("Granny " Phebe) to 379 (her granddaughter Siller), omitting the number 378. With Certificate 545 (Thompson Ryal), the clerks ceased their work for the day. not to resume until the morrow — the first of May. 1846. Another clerical slip at the very onset of the last day gave Pagey Cole the same number (546) as her husband Nelson. With the registration of the last 52 Randolph Slaves, the clerical requirement for freedom was finished in Virginia. The resulting registry thus gives us a fairly complete profile of the Randolph Slaves. Although most of the new freedmen were noted only by their first name as usual for a slave, some few such as Frank Brown (Certificate 215) and Stephen Davis (Certificate 372) succeeded in having their surname given official recognition.^ The surnames 1 use

^Register of Free Blacks and Mulattoes for Miami County. Archives, Wright State University, Dayton. There are several different versions of the manumission roll of the Randolph Slaves — Moton v. Kessens. for instance, reproduces both the original Virginia version at pp. 366-400, which consists of

105 below are derived mostly from later Censuses and court records in Ohio. However, cases like Certificate 217, "Philip White", who in Ohio went by "Philip Cole" and even "Philip Cole White" underline the uncertainties of this approach. Most surnames for Randolph Slaves were constant. Some, such as Nero Randolph’s, mirror those of white masters — we find Jeffersons, Tuckers, Lees, and Shelbys among the Randolph Slaves. The surname "White", which we have already encountered with the family of Randolph's manservant John White, is usually seen by students of slave naming as an assertion of equality with the race of owners. Indeed, there are so many Roanoke Whites — including another John White (Certificate 590), distinct from Randolph's "famous man John ", with his own family of three generations (Certificates 585 through 591) — their interrelationships are impossible to determine. Other family names are more chameleonic. Ohioans sometimes heard "Ryal" as "Riley", and there is some uncertainty between the forms "Dickason" and "Dickinson." The most problematic surname, appearing in the family of Ellick (Certificate 220), is variously recorded as "Gillard ", "Gilliard", or "Gillett". Two of Ellick's own sons , for instance, were known as respectively as Craddock Gillard, Certificate 222, and as Jim Gillett, Certificate 223. The family headed by Stephen (Certificate 278) mainly used the "Gillett" form. . The first names of Randolph Slaves offer many instances of commemoration. Generational links in one family are shown by Essex Jones naming his daughter Mildred (Certificate 313). which Ohio references indicate is in honor of her grandmother "Old Milly" Jones . The naming patterns in Gabriel White's family particularly suggest the persistence of memory — Gabriel's daughter Lucretia may well be named for her great-grandmother, Lucy, while another daughter Polly (Certificate 511) was named for an aunt by marriage, Shadrach White's wife Polly (Certificate 515). Demonstrating the paragraphs of descriptive text, and the more tabular Miami County version at pp. 439-451.

106 multiple meanings a name could have in context, John White’s son Aaron (Certificate 288) is named not only for the Biblical brother of Moses (who John White named another son for, here receiving Certificate 289) but also for an uncle, an Aaron also appearing with John and Nancy in the 1810 price list. This is almost certainly the same Aaron White here freed by Certificate #457 with a wife and four children of his own. The community about to trek to Ohio was nearly evenly divided in gender, 193 men and 190 women. It was a youthful community, the median age for Randolph Slaves being 17 years ; once examined by gender, though, for men the median was 18 years while women average some two years younger, 16 years.-* This may also account for male slaves in the norm being slightly taller, the male median height of 5' 2" being almost three inches above the female median of 4' 11 1/4". The overall median height for the community was 5 feet. It is also of course possible that the clerks merely tended to perceive male slaves as both older and taller than women. While it is unsurprising to find a fairly straight correlation between height and age, the plots show that there is more variation in height among adult males than females. Had weight been another matter of record in this manumission register, we would have a better indication of the range of body types. Narrowing the field to those slaves between the ages of 22 through 48. when growth stops, still leaves a three inch gap between the median height for men (5 feet 5 inches) and women (5' 2"). The median age gap actually widens, men's median being 37 years while women's is merely 30 years. Slave height has in recent years become a point of much examination as a way of determining the health and life cycles of slaves. Some of the charts following show how Randolph Slave data compares with both contemporary norms and historical averages

-* "Youthful " is the term used by French demographers when at least 35% of a population is under 20. (Malone. Sweet Chariot, p. 311 footnote 3.)

107 calculated by Dr. Richard Steckel. Steckel concludes slaves were stunted by childhood malnutrition, especially after beginning field work at about age 8, though recovering with growth spurts in adolescence. Comparison of Steckel's figures with those for Randolph Slaves (Plots 7.28 and 7.29) shows that the Randolph community was slightly taller than the national average computed for slaves. However, the Randolph Slave heights are normal for Virginia slaves, underlining the traditional image of Upper Southern slavery as less harsh upon its bondmen. Girls under 15 within the Randolph community seem particularly fortunate, the national average' slave only catching up to their height with the late adolescent growth spurt. This matches findings that females tend to show fewer signs of distressed growth in both historical and modern Third World situations. The major difference the 1846 Randolph Slave recorded heights show from 'average' Upper South slave heights is that the growth spurt came later than usual in the Randolphs. This finding may be a misleading product of the long will litigation. An 8 year old Randolph slave, for instance, might have been raised while the family was hired out', not on Roanoke proper, and thus the difference between the child's height and their parents may reflect poorer treatment of 'rented' slaves.^ The age/sex distribution among the freedmen means that this community was capable of self-reproduction, though that of course would be qualified by the family interconnections within the group. While whitejudgment of skin color is even more erratic than age estimates (and a dubious measure of intermixture), the record shows an overwhelmingly dark-skinned group. Those listed as

^Dr. Richard Steckel to R. F. Bagby, 19 Nov. 1996. That hired slaves suffered poor health due to neglect was common enough knowledge that advertisements by white hiring agents, seeking both for white customers to rent the labor and for white masters to agree to let their own slaves be hired out. often made a great point of medical arrangements such as having local doctors under contract. (Todd L. Savitt, Medicine and Slaverv : The Diseases and Health Care of Blacks in Antebellum Virginia.. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1978) pp. 190-191.)

108 simply "Black" make up nearly two thirds of the manumission (239 individuals). While the remaining 152 manumits range from "Brown" to "Nearly white", those considered "Brown" (52), "Dark" (10), and "Dark Brown" (15) nearly equal those judged to "Mulatto", "Light", or "Bright".^ The seven children of one deceased Nancy, probably a sister of Nero Randolph's, are recorded as having the lightest skin color of any of the Randolph Slaves (Hiram, Certificate 228, being listed as "Bright, nearly white"). The only mixed blood in the list whose white parent is known by name ("white man Jerry Griffith")^ is Louisa (Certificate 574) ; that she used the maiden name "Giffon or "Griffin"^ in Ohio, presumably a form of "Griffith", indicates how open this paternity was. It is a measure of how thoroughly recorded the Roanoke slaves were in both Virginia and Ohio that there are only 23 names in the 1846 manumission register that appear in no other record. Sixteen of these actually comprise four families. For instance, Certificates 382 through 386 present the not uncommon phenomenon for Roanoke of a family group of parentless siblings, headed according to the white registrars by an older child, the oldest girl Ellender (Certificate 383).'" (It also included a nephew whose own two parents were dead, Thomas, registered as Certificate 386. Lacking surnames, and with both parents deceased, it is all but impossible to ascertain

"a minor note — usually when dealing with repeated data such as skin color, the county clerks o f 1846 merely wrote "ditto" from the last occurrence, which accounts for such phenomena as almost all 10 of the first day's freedpeople being listed as "Dark". But although Certificate 447. Charlotte White. is "Brown" like the two brothers surrounding her entry, she is specifically entered as "Brown", not merely "ditto". ^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Louise Butler (5-6-1914). p. 166. ^"Giffon" — Moton v. K essens. Deposition o f W illiam Fox. p. 689. ""Griffin", I860 Census, Reel 1011. p. 282A. '"An earlier instance in the 1810 price list includes the woman Dicey (Certificate 326 in 1846), among the many children (of a Fanny who had died by 1810) who were then led by an oldest brother (their surname may have been Shelby). Family acquaintance, if not prior interrelation, is suggested by the name immediately after Dicey's on that list being that of her future husband Sam Brown’s paternal grandmother. Old Tena

109 whether it was Thomas’s father Hanover or mother Lavinia who was the sibling of Ellender.) To know the names of Ellender’s parents might well place her in one of Roanoke's established family lines ; equally, we can speculate this group’s absence from the Ohio canal region records reflects either the orphans’ complete dispersal or that as a group they moved beyond that center of Randolph Slave settlement. The couple Abram and Judy (Certificates 308 and 309), and the families headed respectively by "Bull" Abram (Certificate 528) and Paul (Certificate 532) may also have just moved out of range of both the records of whites and the knowledge of their plantation fellows. The seven remaining individuals appearing only in this freedom register have no known family connections, though the clustering of two of them ("Cook" Ginny and Simon, Certificates 409 and 410) might itself point to possible relationship. Certificate 463. "Jugurtha Sandmies, or Sandy" very likely simply shed his Classical names and under some less individual moniker became impossible to distinguish from other citizens of the canal region’s many black communities. Certificate 541’s intriguing sobriquet of "Tennessee" Isaac suggests he may not have been born among the Roanoke community and thus may well have left it to seek an individual destiny. The same probabilities hold for those who, while visible in Virginia, leave no known record in Ohio. "Carpenter" Phil, because of the skill which became part of his name, is one of the easiest Roanoke slaves to follow through the Virginia records. From Major Scott, recording him in the Lower Quarter in 1801, to the supply lists of Randolph of Roanoke, "Carpenter Phil ” or "Phil Carpenter" is always specified. As an artisan, ’Carpenter’ Phil was valued at one of the highest prices in the 1810 inventory, 180 English pounds. Both that list and Randolph’s Christmas tally indicate that by 1810 he had moved to the Middle Quarter, where he seems to have remained until the time of the probate trials. No family connections for him are known, which may explain his disappearance’ in Ohio. The eighty

1 10 year old "Mulatto" Nancy (Certificate 375) most likely simply passed away in Ohio before the 1850 Census (her 90 year old husband Quasha died during the 1846 relocations, making him the first Randolph Slave buried in the Ohio canal region.)

1 1 I 100 +

80 -■ o o o

6 0 - -

g 4 0 -- e 20 -- M

m PLOT 7.1 MEDIAN AGES BY GENDER While the median age for women (the left hand boxplot) is younger than for men, women have far more exceptional cases (the outliers hovering above the main plot. - the asterisk, for instance, is Granny Hannah, a reputed centenarian.) ______

1 1 2 7 5 . 0 +

6 2 .5 -- e i

50 .0 --

37.5 --

2 5 .0 --

12.5 4.

mlhght fmhght

PLOT 7.2 HEIGHT IN INCHES BY GENDER Height in inches shows men tend to be taller than women.

• p •

. .Z 1 & » ' I . . 6 2 .5 -

h 5 0 . 0 - ■VI. g y 3 7 .5 - ■ -i': i L" n 2 5 .0 - r*

1 1 1 1 —1 20 4 0 6 0 80

age

PLOT 7.3 HEIGHT IN INCHES FOR GENERAL POPULATION

1 13 6 2 .5 --

m 50.0 --

9 37.5 4- :• h t 25.0 -L •• 1- 20 40 6 0 80

mlage

PLOT 7.4 HEIGHT IN INCHES FOR MEN

62.5 --

f 50.0 T m h 37.5 -- g h t 25.0 --

20 4 0 60 8 0

fm age

PLOTS 7.3 (ON PRECEDING PAGE), 7.4, 7.5 Dotplots of height (in inches) in relation to age, for the general population (7.3) and then for each sex (men 7.4, women 7.5). While unsurprisingly the main finding is that older people are usually taller, older men are a somewhat more diverse group than older women here. The key to this will be seen in the age plots 7.8 and 7.9. ______

1 14 5 0 "t*

40 --

30 --

20 --

1 0 --

—F £Ü -M— 2 5 .0 3 7 .5 5 0 .0 6 2 .5 75.0

mlhght

40 T

30 --

20 --

10 --

17.5 30.0 4 2 .5 55.0 6 7 .5

fm hght

PLOTS 7.6. MALE HEIGHT IN INCHES. AND 7.7. FEMALE HEIGHT IN INCHES Histograms for male and female height in inches, showing the distributions -- mainly demonstrating how 'real' the median averages are by their 'peaks' in the higher ranges.

1 15 3 0 r

20 --

10 --

25 50 75

mlage

40 T

30 --

20 --

1 0 --

25 50 75 100

fm age

PLOTS 7.8. MALE AGES, AND 7.9, FEMALE AGES These histograms for male and female ages show how young the general population of the Roanoke slaves was. The slightly smoother range of male ages accounts for why older women stand out so in the boxplot and dotplot representations of ages : there are simply more older men than older women in this group. ______

1 16 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 r

25000000 --

20000000 --

15000000 -- I

10000000 -- e

5 0 0 0 0 0 0 --

0 -t-

mlht4 fmht4

PLOT 7.10. HEIGHTS MATHEMATICALLY TRANSFORMED

1 17 1 0 -t-

8 --

6 --

4 --

0 -L

\ mig \fmg

PLOTS 7.10, HEIGHTS MATHEMATICALLY TRANSFORMED (preceding page) , & 7.11, AGES ALSO TRANSFORMED These boxplots, "transformed" mathematically to bring the extreme cases more Into line, visually demonstrate the true medians of the Randolph Slave population -- that the norm In this list Is for men to be slightly older and taller than women. (At least, so the county clerks th o u g h t!) ______

1 I 8 6 0

5 0

3 0

10 15 20

s e r ie s

PLOT 7.12 AVERAGE STATURE BY AGE OF RANDOLPH SLAVES This plots the median average height in inches (RS, for "Randolph Slaves") for each age group (Series) within the manumission registration, from infants to age 22 (when adult height becomes stable until middle age.) ______6 0

5 0

D a I a

3 0

10 1 5 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.13 COMPARISON OF FEMALE AVERAGE HEIGHT WITH COMMUNITY AVERAGE Beginning a breakdown by gender, this compares the median averages for the entire Randolph Slave population (the PLAIN line) with the median averages for female Randolph Slaves only (the STUDDED line.) While generally a close fit, this indicates female growth spurts in late childhood (around age 8) and early adolescence (around age 12). While not a strong trend, mature females are slighter shorter than 'average.' ______6 0

5 0

D a

* 4 0 a

3 0

1 0 1 5 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.14 COMPARISON OF MALE AVERAGE HEIGHT WITH COMMUNITY AVERAGE Comparing the median averages for the entire Randolph Slave population (PLAIN line) with the median averages for male Randolph Slaves only (STUDDED line.) The "dip" in male growth around age 8 Dr. Richard Steckel see as the age when work would begin to affect growth in "Stature and the Standard of Living", Journal of Economic Historv 33 (December 1995) ; 1924. As usual, the male growth spurt of adolescence seems to start a bit earlier than it did in females. As they reach maturity, male Randolph Slaves tend to be a bit taller than the overall average for this community (even more pronounced a trend than females being shorter) ______6 0

5 0

D a t a 4 0

3 0

10 1 5 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.15 MALE AND FEMALE AVERAGE HEIGHTS COMPARED Comparison of Randolph Slave males (STUDDED line) to females (PLAIN line) - the height gap between genders about age 8 becomes obvious, as does the earlier male adolescent growth spurt, and the eventual rise of male height above female. ______7 0

6 0

5 0

D a t a 4 0

3 0

10 1 5 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.16 RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS COMPARED TO MODERN AVERAGE HEIGHTS This multiple lineplot compares the overall Randolph Slave average (the black-specked line) with the modern National Center for Health Statistics averages for men (the studded line) and women (the plain line). While this shows Randolph Slaves to be usually shorter than either sex today, mature Randolph Slaves achieve about the same stature as modern women. ______6 0

5 0

D a t a 4 0

3 0

10 1 5 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.17 RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS COMPARED TO MODERN AVERAGE HEIGHTS (FEMALE) Randolph Slave females (the studded line) compared with NOHS averages for modern women -- while the slaves are shorter, after childhood only 'touching' the moderns at the adolescent growth spurt and when both groups mature, the patterns are parallel. (While not pronounced, this does slightly Indicate the age 8 catch-up growth Dr. Richard Steckel observes in the national slave population, in his article "Stature and the Standard of Living", p. 1924. ______6 0

D a t a

4 0

1 0 1 5 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.18 RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS COMPARED TO MODERN AVERAGE HEIGHTS: MALE Now, Randolph Slave males (the studded line) compared with the NOHS male averages (the plain line) -- while the gap between 19th century slave and modern statures is more obvious , only the adolescent growth spurt ever "touching" modern height here, there is indication that by maturity the gap may have closed. The "unusual height-by-age profile of American slaves, in which children were dreadfully small but recovered substantially as teenagers" Dr. Steckel observes generally seems then to apply more to Randolph Slave males than females. ("Stature and the Standard of Living", p. 1904.) ______67.5

6 0 .0

D 5 2 .5 a t a

4 5 .0

S e rie s

PLOT 7.19 (ADJUSTED) RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS COMPARED TO MODERN AVERAGES : MALE Because of the possible distortions introduced by the small numbers of Randolph Slaves in each single age group (i.e. only nine children listed as 1 year old), Dr. Richard Steckel re-examined and re-grouped the data into nine larger age cohorts before smoothing the results. Comparing these results (the STUDDED line) to the modern NOHS average heights emphasizes the gap between Randolph Slave height and modern stature, but still points to the eventual "catch-up" growth that brings them almost even.** ______

’ ’Dr. Richard Steckel to R. F. Bagby, 19 Nov. 1996. 6 0 .0

52.5 -- D a t a

4 5 .0 - -

S e rie s

PLOT 7.20 (ADJUSTED) RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS COMPARED TO MODERN AVERAGES : FEMALE The same re-grouping and re-smoothing for the female Randolph Slave population by Dr. Steckel as for the males, also compared to modern NHCS averages. The same pattern of a gap in youth closed by late "catch-up" growth is found here.*- ______

'-Dr. Richard Steckel to R. F. Bagby, 19 Nov. 1996. 6 0 .0

5 2 .5 D a I a

4 5 .0 0

S e rie s

PLOT 7.21 COMPARISON OF (ADJUSTED) MALE AND FEMALE RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS Dr. Steckel's new groupings for height by gender plotted against one another (males the STUDDED line, females the PLAIN line.) While this minimizes the difference in childhood height plotting the raw data in 7-15 showed, men on the average stili become taller than women in adolescence and maturity. ______6

4

D 2 a t a 1 1 0

2

12 16 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.22 RANDOLPH SLAVE AND MODERN GROWTH COMPARISON : MALE Turning to growth -- how many inches each year of life seems to add --the NOHS averages for incremental Increase in males from year to year (Plain Line) compared with the raw data for the same data for Randolph Slave males - like the next plot, this is mainly included to highlight my subsequent "smoothing" of the Randolph Slave data ______8

6

4

D a t 2 a 1 2 0

2

12 16 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.23 RANDOLPH SLAVE AND MODERN GROWTH COMPARISON ; FEMALE NOHS averages for incremental growth in females (plain line) compared with raw data on the same subject for Randolph Slave women (studded line) -- while the need for "smoothing" is still obvious, these Randolph Slaves show a clearer trend which already follows the NOHS downward tendency. ______3 .0 0

2 .2 5

D a t a

1 3 0 .7 5

- 0.00

12 1 6 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.24 RANDOLPH SLAVE (SMOOTHED) AND MODERN GROWTH COMPARISON : MALE incremental changes in height "smoothed" arithmetically (by medians) for Randolph Slave males (STUDDED line) compared with modern NHCS averages (PLAIN line). Unlike modern males, for the Randolph Slaves changes in growth literally "even out" between sharp increases and "decreases". In contrast with the modern "bump" for adolescence, the Randolph Slave pattern show a "drop" from the plateaus of childhood to adolescence and maturity. While there was steady growth (a flat rate of change) for very young children, at about age 8 the "normal" Randolph Slave male stopped dramatic growth (though a slight ‘bump' is discernible in adolescence). ______6.0

D 3 .0 a t a

1 4

1 2 1 6 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.25 RANDOLPH SLAVE (SMOOTHED) AND MODERN GROWTH COMPARISON : FEMALE Now the Increments of Randolph Slave females are "smoothed" (the studded line) and compared with the NOHS Incremental averages (the plain line) -- as earlier predicted, a much closer fit than for the males. Randolph Slave females, though, show a steadier Increase In growth than the “bump" and "dip" of modern adolescence. (While less so than for Randolph Slave males. It Is also clear that dramatic childhood growth ends by age 8 . ) ______6.0

4 .5

D a 3 .0 t a

1 5

1 .5

12 1 6 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.26 RANDOLPH SLAVE MALE AND FEMALE GROWTH COMPARISON (SMOOTHED) Now the smoothed patterns for both male (plain line) and female (studded line) Randolph Slave incremental growth are compared -- the steady continued incremental growth in males show why mature men will tend to be taller than mature women. ______2 0 t

D a l a

1 6

S e rie s

PLOT 7.27 RANDOLPH SLAVE MODERN POPULATION PERCENTILES (MALE AND FEMALE) Percentiles indicate where a population would fall within the range of modern population -* i.e., at age 7 the average Randolph Slave male's 43.4 inches would place him in the bottom 1.9% of the modern NCHS standards, while a Randolph Slave female of the same age averaging the same height is an even poorer 1.2% against modern female children. Plotting where Dr. Steckel's adjusted nine age groups for both genders fall in percentiles dramatizes that Randolph Slaves only approach modern norms as adults.' ^ ______

Richard Sleckel to R. F. Bagby, IV Nov. 1996. 6 0

5 0 D a I a I 7 4 0

10 1 5 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.28 COMPARISON OF RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS TO GENERAL SLAVE HEIGHTS. MALE Comparison of Randolph Slave males (plain line) to Dr. Steckel's estimated averages for male slaves (studded line) Overall a close fit, though the adolescent growth spurt at age 10 and thereafter for the Randolph group stands out. (Though late teenage heights seem a bit below average, by adulthood the lines have met again.) (See Dr, Richard Steckel, "A Peculiar Population : The Nutrition, Health, and Mortality of American Slaves from Childhood to Maturity," Journal of Economic History 46 (1986) : 724, Table 1.) 6 0

5 0

D a t a 4 0

1 8

3 0

10 1 5 20

S e rie s

PLOT 7.29 COMPARISON OF RANDOLPH SLAVE HEIGHTS TO GENERAL SLAVE HEIGHTS: FEMALE Comparison of Randolph Slave females (plain line) to Dr. Steckel's estimated averages for female slaves’** (studded line) -- here the Randolph group is clearly above average height until about age 15, whereupon except for the growth spurt in the late teens the Randolphs tend to fall below the overall slave average. ______

’■*Steckel, "A Peculiar Population", Tabic 2, p. 723. The family structures revealed by the manumission register again show the Randolph slaves as a mature, stable community. Of the 24 solitary individuals in the courthouse list, 21 are male and all but four of these young men (presumably not yet having started families of their own.) Again the simple family is the dominant type, almost 70% of the freedpeople belonging to such groups. The 31 standard nuclear families comprised 184 total individuals, this category alone being 48% of the total manumission. Nine couples without resident children made up the third largest category of family (11.9%) — of these, two couples had had children who now led families of their own, two were to have children later in Ohio, leaving only five couples "childless" in the strictest sense. Eight single-parent families, counting 37 individuals, made up nearly a tenth of the freed population. These single-parent households split almost exactly between three (totaling 18 people) headed by males, two of whom were definitely widowers, and five (numbering 19 persons) by women. Age differences between husband and wife ranged from the extremes of 33 years between Abram (Certificate 411) and Nancy (Certificate 412) to the only recognized case of a man and an older woman, Ellick (Certificate 220) and the four years senior Sally ( Certificate 220.) The median age difference was for a husband to be nine years older than his spouse. Ann Malone, finding age differences between spouses among Louisiana slaves averaged seven'^ to ten'? years (depending on the community being studied), concludes this arose from the interrelationships within slave communities which did not receive regular influxes of newly purchased slaves, older men then being less likely to be cousins or such to young women of marriageable age. Furthermore, not only was an older man less likely

'^Malone, Sweet Chariot, p. 230. '?Ibid., p. 170.

137 to pose problems of consanguinity, he would be more established and reputable than suitors the young woman’s own age.'» Multiple families, were the next largest group, especially those in which a nuclear household included a daughter with children of her own. Seven such households, counting in at 64 people, form the second largest single category of family to the standard married with children unit. Extended families, both nuclear including a spouse’s parent (five, involving 37 persons total) and grandparents raising their grandchildren (two cases) made up the third largest category. Whereas the 1810 price list had found five instances of co­ resident siblings, only Ellender’s family is such a group in the 1846 list. Sometimes the manumission register offers evidence suggesting its own patriarchal construction of slave families may not be true. Slave matriarchy has long been a controversial topic, but Roanoke’s records give support to the suggestion that while matriarchy and matrifocal families were never dominant, they were accepted forms of slave family organization.Thus while Sampson Ryal (Certificate 251) is listed as a family head, the fact one member of this family (William, certificate 259) is a child of Sampson’s wife Lucinda by one George, that three others are identified merely as "Lucinda’s son" or daughter, and that one such "Lucinda's daughter" Patsy (Certificate 255) has three children of her own. suggests Lucinda (daughter of the "Roger Billy" Young enumerated as Certificate 271) may have been the real focal point. Celey (Certificate 499) also appears to be the matriarchal center of a family of seven of her daughters and granddaughters, not her son-in-law Syphax Brown whom the clerks thought the head of the family. Similarly Nelson Cole (Certificate 546) was also entered as head of his family grouping, but the possibility of matriarchy is raised by the fact the

'»Ibid.. p. 171. 'Sibid., pp. 258-263.

138 family includes not only Nelson's mother's Jenny (Certificate 549) but his siblings Jane. Phill, and Thomas. Nelson Cole also points to the problem of how much the same surname may be used to presume a relationship. There were three other families using the Cole (or "Coles", or "Cowles") name among the 1846 freedmen — of these. Michael Cole (Certificate 537) may be a son of Isaac Cole (Certificate 400). But the relationship to them, if any, of "Phil White " (Certificate 217) — who in Ohio usually appeared as Philip Cole, but sometimes as "Cole White"! — is elusive. Before leaving the manumission register, some foreshadowing in looking at the families of the two Randolph Slaves who would stand for all the others in the MOTON V. KESSENS lawsuit. York Ryal and the eponymous Joseph Moton. Representing the descendants of those freedmen over 40 at the time of Randolph's death (and thus entitled to ten or more acres of land by Randolph's will) in the turn of the century court case, York Ryal is listed in 1846 as Certificate 589, a child estimated as age 9 living with his mother Martha. His family is scattered as individual entries and small clusters throughout the list , his uncle Thompson Ryal for instance being Certificate 545. (The Guy listed as Certificate 415 may be York's father Guy Ryal, but that is not certain.) Joseph Moton. representing the descendants of those original Randolph Slaves under 40 at the time of Randolph's demise, was the son of Margaret (Certificate 363). who was a twenty year old in 1846 and one of three children of Phebe and Moses Morton (Certificates 361 and 3 6 2 ) . Besides "Morton" and "Moton". the surname was sometimes rendered "Moten". Margaret's older brother Jeter was himself head of a family with a wife (pregnant with yet another child) and daughter (Certificates "330" — actually a duplicate number — through 333). While the Randolph Slaves were being numbered and described. Judge Leigh's son Thomas was in Mercer County paying

-^Moton V. Kessens. Petition of Joseph Moton and York Ryal vs. Gerhard Kessens, pp. 1-2. first filed 5 August 1907 with Mercer Court of Common Fleas.

139 for the land that was to be the new home for Randolph's former slaves.-' The title to the land had already been purchased through a local agent, Samuel Jay.-- To transport the Randolph Slaves, Judge Leigh had hired a professional 'Negro driver' named Tom Cardwell to see them from Charlotte County, Virginia, to Mercer County, Ohio.-^ After the manumissions were officially approved on May 4, final preparations were made, and the long trek began on June 10. For eight days the Randolph Slaves went in a caravan through Virginia, old people riding and the young walking, camping in family tents at night. Livestock was bought en route for their meat. The freedmen carried their own skillets and pots. Each evening the elders would sing hymns and pray.--* Sixteen wagons made up the train, each drawn by teams of four horses save the extra large general wagon' which required a team of six. At least three of the teamsters driving these wagons were white.On June 18 they reached Charleston. Virginia, where the water portion of their journey began on a chartered steamship to take them down the Kanawha River to the Ohio and onwards. This route was Virginia's traditional path to Ohio. The Kanawha River in what is now West Virginia was navigable clear to the Ohio River for six months of the year-^, and proposals to build a Kanawha Canal to directly link the Ohio to the eastern coast of

-'Thomas Leigh to Sarah Ann Leigh, 30 April 1846. Leigh Family Papers. (A visit to Celina. Ohio, by Thomas is also referred to by the Ohio abolitionist Augustus in his letter to Governor Mordecai Bartley of Ohio — Augustus Wattles to Governor Mordecai Bartley. 16 August 1846. Ohio Governors Papers. Ohio Historical Society. Columbus, Ohio.) --The Liberator 7 August 1846, (reprinting from St. Marv's Sentinel). -^Lvnchburg Virginian. 6 July 1846. (Cardwell's first name is given in Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914), p. 123. and by Evans, "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", pp. 444-445.) -~*Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay, pp. 123-125; Deposition of Noah Pearson (5-27-1910), p. 790. -^Evans, "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", p. 445. Evans tells an anecdote of two white teamster brothers on this trip, Dave and Sam Harvey, engaging in sibling practical joking on one another with the help of a third waggoner, Tom Cousin. -^Robert, Tobacco Kingdom, p. 264.

140 Virginia were a constant in Virginia politics until the 1850’s.-’^ The steamer they were booked on, the OHIO, proved too small, so the emigrants were transferred to a larger vessel named the OLD KENTUCKY. This too seemed a false start when that ship ran aground on a sandbar, compelling the Randolph group to wait on the Kentucky shore while the OLD KENTUCKY was floated ofL-s On July 1 they arrived in Cincinnati and transferred to four boats on the Miami & Erie Canal. Already an object of attention, they were commented on by all the local newspapers. The exodus attracted national attraction, the thirteen-year litigation among Randolph’s heirs over his conflicting wills having already made the Randolph slaves objects of interest.-^ When Judge William Leigh on behalf of the slaves succeeded in winning their freedom in these trials with financial provision for their resettlement in a free state, the event gained even more interest as one of the largest manumissions of blacks in American history. More than one observer realized they were watching rehearsal for any later national emancipation; the fate of the Randolph Slave resettlement would have implications for the whole slavery question. Two days later, their route took them past Dayton.^" The blacks were already beginning to encounter Northern prejudice, as canal towns refused to let them disembark during stops or obtain local water. But the worst was yet to come.

-^Robert. Tobacco Kingdom, pp. 252-254. The failure to complete this canal is one reason antebellum West Virginia's main product was salt, not coal. -^Henry Noble Sherwood, "The Settlement of John Randolph's Slaves in Ohio". Proceedings of the Mississippi Valiev Historical Association 5 (I9I1-I9I2) ; 39- 59. (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The Torch Press, 1912.), pp. 44-45; Evans, "Randolph of Roanoke and His People ", p. 446. -^The 16 August 1834 Piqua Gazette, for instance, reported on the "Randolph Will Litigation", unaware how that would become part of its own local history. ^QPavton Journal and .\dvertiser. 7 July 1846

141 CHAPTER 8

THE PROMISED LAND

"Ohio's not the place for me. For I was much surprised So many of her sons to see, In garments so disguised. Her name has gone out through the world. Free Labor — Soil — and Men; — But slaves had better far be hurled Into the Lion's den. Farewell, Ohio! I am not safe in thee; I'll travel on to Canada, Where colored men are free." —"Away To Canada" (to the tune of "O Susanna"), Joshua McCarter Sampson, antebellum black poet (1852)'

Judge Leigh's decision to resettle the Randolph Slaves in Mercer County, Ohio, is understandable. Many Virginians regarded the former Northwest Territory as their own colony as they did Kentucky. Its free soil reputation, acquired with the clause of the Northwest Ordinance forbidding slavery, made it an obvious magnet for Virginian antislavery thinking. Once lamenting the economically

‘The Liberator 10 December 1852 . Joshua McCarter Sampson (or Simpson) lived in Ohio, his songbook Original Antislaverv Songs in which "Away To Canada" — an antislavery parody of "0 Susanna" — was published being printed in Zanesville. In the context of the full song, the "the Lion's den" reference is clearly wordplay on both the Biblical peril and the song's own land of freedom Canada, realm of the British Lion.

142 depressing effects of slavery, Randolph of Roanoke himself had painted the image of a black Northwest: "Suppose instead of ceding her Northwestern territory to Congress, Virginia had at the peace of 1783 driven every negro and mulatto, bond or free, across the Ohio; would she now, think you, be less populous and powerful than she is at present? The only manumission in American history perhaps larger than John Randolph's had resettled its freed blacks in Ohio. Samuel Gist, a British born resident of Virginia, had for legal reasons turned formal possession of his Virginia slaves over to his American born daughter Mary and her Virginian husband, William Anderson. Both Gist and Anderson had left wills granting posthumous manumission and for land to be purchased for the freed slaves. Although the exact dates of their respective deaths are unclear, by 1815 Mary Anderson had begun probate proceedings as executrix. The actual legal details of both probate and the freedmen's resettlement were handled by the prominent lawyer John Wickham, who had previously renegotiated the British debts of Richard and John Randolph.^ Unlike Roanoke's blacks, the Gist and Anderson slaves were scattered on several noncontigous plantations in three different Virginia counties-^, so when manumission was granted in 1819 the first chore was to group all the freedmen in one place. The exact numbers of manumitted Gist slaves are uncertain — the traditional figure is 1000. but from land

-Bruce. R a n d o lp h , p. II : 244. ^Frederick A. McGinnis, The Education of Negroes in Ohio. (Wilberforce, OH: Curless Printing Co.. 1962). p. 36; Carter G. Woodson, A Century of Negro M igration. (1918; reprint ed.. New York ; The Arvis Press. 1970.), p. 25. In his 1831 will Randolph had left a minor legacy to Wickham with the curious descriptor "my best of friends, without making any professions of friendship for me" -- what this may mean for their relationship is disputable. ( Coalter Ex’or V. Brvan. 1 Grattan (Va.) 30, cited in Moton v. Kessens. . p. 281.) ■*This fits the dispersed pattern of plantation ownership common among late 18th century Virginia gentry. (Kolchin, American Slavery , pp. 33, 78.) Definite figures for slave populations owned in similar situations -- Robert Carter III (350 slaves). Thomas Jefferson (187 slaves), George Washington (277 slaves) -- support the suspicion that Gist's slaves at most numbered between 300 and 400 people.

143 records historian William McGroarty concluded it must be under 5 005. and another historian estimated them at merely between 270- 290 souls.^ Gist himself in a March 1811 codicil reported owning 374 slaves, though in a later codicil he spoke of "the great increase of my Negroes there being upwards of 100 under ten years of age . . . The freedmen were then resettled in Brown County in southern Ohio, in two communities called the "Upper Camp" and "Lower Camp." Local racists were unhappy at this colony’s existence, but there was no violent resistance and not that much attention paid to them at all. The downfall of this colony came not through violence but economics. Although the wills of both Gist and Anderson had specified that the freed blacks could not sell the lands provided to them (taxes for instance were still paid by Virginia trustees), land was the freedmen's only capital. Compounding their difficulties, John Wickham had dissociated himself from the colony, leaving the settlement under two new trustees, William F. Wickham of Virginia, who continued in the role until his death in 1880,^ and Carter Page.^ Sales and leases of land to local whites became so commonplace, almost always without examination of proper title or plat, that by 1858 black residents had to petition the local court to unsnarl the tangle of conflicting claims and liens. The court found the situation so hopeless it resorted to granting titles by fiat as the only way to end

^McGroarty, "Experiments in Mass Emancipation", 21 (July 1940): 226. On pages 224-6 he specifically calculates the population of the Upper Camp at a mere 1 1 4 . ^Frederick Richard 0"Dell, "The Early Antislavery Movement in Ohio". (Ph.D. dissertation. University of Michigan, 1948) pp. 156-158. The Works Projects Administration book The Negro in Virginia. (New York : Hastings House, 1940.) gives the lowest figure of all, a mere 263! (p. 116.) The failure to cite a source — and the misidentification on the very same page of Montezuma, Mercer County, as a Randolph Slave settlement leave little grounds for confidence, th o u g h . ^McGroarty, "Experiments in Mass Emancipation", 21 (July 1940); 210-1 ^""53,000,000!"", Cleveland Gazette. 20 August 1887 ^William H. Pease and Jane H. Pease, Black Utopia : Negro Communal Experiments in America. (Madison, WI: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1963.), p. 25.

1 44 the confusing situation.By 1887 the Gist slaves and their descendants had apparently lost most of their lands, since they were suing to recover title." Because of the role of John Wickham, both Randolph and Leigh may well have known of this major transplantation of freed slaves that had aroused no violent resistance." Partly out of fear of such large relocations of freed blacks, Ohio passed one of the harshest Black Codes in the North. Southern Ohio in particular, linked by both migration and trade to the neighboring slave states Kentucky and Virginia, successfully urged legislation against free blacks in 1804 to discourage both free black settlement and runaway slaves." Among other provisions every resident black was required to post a $500 bond as a pledge not to burden the community. By the time the Randolph Slaves came, free blacks had fewer rights in Ohio than in such slave states as South Carolina and Georgia. Several race riots, including Cincinnati’s in 1829 and 1836, demonstrated the Negrophobia of Ohio whites. Mercer County, however, seemed at the time one of the great success stories of the free black in the North. Mercer County's history is largely an account of the influence of the Miami and Erie Canal. Conceived in the canal boom of the 1830’s as a way to stimulate development of western Ohio, a north-south canal roughly following the Miami River would link the Ohio River’s commerce to the Great Lakes region. Eastern Ohio opposed this with its own north-south canal proposal, the Wabash and Erie Canal to Cleveland. In an uneasy compromise the state legislature decided to launch both projects, which reduced the amount of money available to either. By 1837 the canal reached Miami County's largest town. Piqua, whose economy had been booming from the canal’s effects for two years before its official opening.

'•^McGroarty, "Experiments in Mass Emancipation", 21 (July 1940): 208-219 ""53,000,000!", Cleveland Gazette. 20 August 1887 ‘-Pease, Black Utopia, pp. 24-25 "Hickok. The Negro in Ohio, pp. 40-42.

145 Continuing construction of the canal north of Piqua, though, faced several problems. The Panic of 1837 and the end of the canal boom chilled all canal projects and renewed the political disputes over them. Land speculation also caused contention. Both Toledo, an already established city but in disputed territory with Michigan, and the speculator's community of Manhattan sought to be the Great Lakes endpoint of the Miami Canal. Large speculators had cornered the land market in the northwest Ohio counties. Pioneers proved reluctant to move to an area whose lands were highly priced when the major advantage, the canal, seemed at best a distant prospect. Consequently Mercer County remained a thinly settled farming region.'-* Bitterly aware their development had been retarded by land speculation, abetted by the indifference of the state government, the population of Mercer County was fertile ground for Jacksonian hostility to large financial interests and centralization. Organized in 1820 from Darke County. Mercer did not in fact begin self-government until 1835. Originally larger than current boundaries, in 1849 its eastern boundary was moved six miles west as part of the organization of Auglaize County (which took German and Jackson Townships with the only direct canal ports. New Bremen and St. Mary's.) In exchange Mercer received Gibson Township from Darke County, establishing the boundaries and divisions shown on the appended maps. Connecticut supplied the county's first white settlers. Many of Ohio's major land speculators were Connecticut-born, such as the family of Captain James Riley.Captain James Riley had been a sea captain in 1815, when he was shipwrecked on the African coast. He and his surviving crew were enslaved by Arabs for two years. They were ransomed by diplomat William Willshire, whom Riley honored

Harry N. Scheiber, "State Policy and the Public Domain; The Ohio Canal Lands", Journal of Economic History 25 (March 1965) : 86-113. Particularly pp. 87. 111-113 ■5 Ibid. pp. 93. 110.

146 by naming both one of his sons and one of his Ohio settlements "Willshire". His own experience of slavery made him an outspoken abolitionist.*^ Returning to the US, he wrote a famous memoir of his captivity and was a delegate to Connecticut's 1818 Constitutional Convention. In 1821 he moved his family to Ohio, founding the town of Willshire in what became Van Wert County, and was prominent as both a surveyor and a politician until he moved to New York in 1825. resuming sea trading for his last fifteen years.His sons remained in western Ohio. In Mercer County the Riley family formed whole communities including the county seat, Celina, by land dealings. The Rileys also became the most prominent local Whigs. Very soon, however, native Yankees like the Rileys were eclipsed by a steady stream of German immigrants, mostly Low Dutch-speaking Catholics from Bavaria, whose votes made Mercer a stronghold of Jacksonian Democracy. Ironically, however, a third important ethnic group of Mercer County settlers — free blacks — were anathema to Jacksonians. The black settlement of Mercer County largely resulted from the work of one white abolitionist, Augustus Wattles. Born in Connecticut on August 25, 1807.*8 like many abolitionists Wattles began as a colonizationist. Becoming the President of the Oneida seminary's branch of the American Colonization Society,*") he encountered the hostility of free blacks to relocating in Liberia. The Lane Seminary debates in Cincinnati on the new Garrisonian antislavery movement, in which Wattles was originally scheduled to defend the colonizationist position, converted him to the abolitionist cause. Unlike the other Lane Seminary debaters. Wattles did not transfer to Oberlin College

*6joyce Alig. ed., Mercer Countv. Ohio. History 1978. (Celina: Mercer County Historical Society, 1980.). "Captain James Riley", p. 672. *^Ibid.. "The Riley Family", p. 670. **Ulrich P. Mueller (C.P.P.S.). Red. Black. And White. (Carthagena: By The Author. 1935), p. 52. *^Alma May. "The Negro and Mercer County". (M.A. thesis. University of Dayton, 1968). p. 23 footnote 1.

147 but remained in Cincinnati working to educate free blacks. He earned the nickname, spoken with varying degrees of irony, of "Cincinnati’s superintendent of colored schools." The main school for Cincinnati's blacks was in a black Baptist Church's basement ("cold, and dark, and out of repair").It had several other white instructors besides Wattles, one of whom would become Wattless wife.-' Since white boarding houses refused to lodge "teachers of niggers", these tutors had to rent an entire house for themselves,-- a target for white mobs during the 1836 race ri()ts.-3 Augustus Wattles s brother John also taught a black school for boys in Cincinnati.--* Their work attracted enough attention that in February 1835 Theodore Weld recommended to the American Anti- Slavery Society that Augustus Wattles be named their national agent to all free blacks. The national society did choose Wattles the following year as one of "the Seventy" who as lecturers and agents were to organize antislavery on a local level throughout the West. Beginning his duties in 1836, Wattles traveled through Ohio and Indiana agitating for the antislavery cause.He also claimed to have

-®John O. Wattles. Annual Report of the Educational Condition of the Colored People of Cincinnati. Including the Sentiment of Mercer Countv. Ohio. (Cincinnati: John White. 1847.). p. 5. -'McGinnis, The Education of Negroes in Ohio,p. 39. --Rev. B. W.. Amett. ed. Proceedings of the Semi-Centenarv Celebration of the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Cincinnati. (Cincinnati: H. Watkin, 1874), p. 63. -^John Brough Shotwell. A History of the Schools of Cincinnati (Cincinnati : The School Life Co.. 1902). pp. 450-451 ; Amett. ed. Semi-Centenarv of African Methodist Episcopal Church, p. 63. -■*Charles T. Greve, Centennial History of Cincinnati and Representative Citizens. 2 vols. (Chicago: Biographical Publishing House. 1904), p. 887; Shotwell. A History of the Schools of Cincinnati. p451. John O. Wattles also edited a journal. Herald of Progression, "devoted to the social, mental, and physiological redemption of the human race", while in Cincinnati. (Greve. Centennial History of Cincinnati, p. 804.) -^John L. Meyers. "American Antislavery Society Agents and the Free Negro, 1833-1838", Journal of Negro History 52 (July 1967) ; 203. See also 19 December 1835 letter from Theodore Weld in Dwight L. Dumond. ed.. The Letters of James Gillespie Birnev. 1831-1857. 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton-Century Co.. 1938.), pp. 283-284, when Weld was traveling with Wattles.

148 organized 25 schools for blacks within his circuit.These journeys included his first visit to the region of Mercer County.-"^ Mercer County already had a small free black population. In December 1830 James Watson Riley, as the county clerk, registered the manumission papers of freedwoman Dorcas Moore and her eight children. Dorcas had been a slave of one Mrs. Elizabeth Moore of Kentucky, who in 1826 had moved to Ohio and freed her bondwoman. Four years later Dorcas, who had now or earlier taken her mistress's surname, moved to Mercer County and in accordance with the Black Codes had her family's freedom noted. The third of her children here recorded, Charles Moore, would become a major figure in Mercer County's black life.-* Cincinnati's second major race riot erupted in 1836, triggered by leading colonizationist-turned-abolitionist James Birney moving there from Kentucky to found an antislavery newspaper. Fearful that abolitionist activities would cut into their strong Southern trade and encourage black equality and intermarriage, a mob of Cincinnati merchants attacked not only Birney's press but the free blacks he was presumably allied with.-^ A previous riot in 1829 led some of Cincinnati's more prosperous blacks to emigrate to Canada, founding the community of Wilberforce (which had suffered troubles in fundraising and leadership. Wattles and the current black leadership felt the same type of

-^S. S.. Scranton, History of Mercer Countv. Ohio, and Representative Citizens. (Chicago; Biographical Publishing Co.. 1907), p. 65. Meyers. "American Antislavery Society Agents" 52 (July 1967): 203. -*Scranton, History of Mercer Countv. p. 66. It is difficult to sort out the generations discussed in Moton v. Kessens. Testimony of Thomas Robinson (5- 7-1914), pp. 221-222, but it is clear that either Charles Moore himself or a son of the same name had Louisiana roots. -^Leonard Richards, "Gentlemen of Property and Standing": Anti-Abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America. (New York; Oxford University Press, 1970). pp. 92-100. *®Leon Litwack, North of Slavery : The Negro in the Free States. 1790-1860. (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1960). pp. 72-73; Pease and Pease, Black Utopia, pp. 46-62.

149 relocation to be the only solution now. Wattles, sharing the anti-urbanism of the times, believed that for Northern freedmen the degradations of slavery had been replaced or compounded by city temptations and city discrimination. Settling Cincinnati's blacks as farmers in a rural area would cure the vices and problems that city life had brought to them. Wattles was aware of the financial failure of the Gist freedmen Camps in Brown County, but blamed it on poor soil and cited other black communities in Ohio which were prospering. Because of its low population and excellent soil, Mercer County struck Wattles as the best site, and he moved there along with many Cincinnati blacks in the late summer of 1836.^' Ill health and low pay forced Wattles to end his antislavery traveling in 1838, and he appears in the 1840 census of Mercer County as a fairly typical farmer. He had married fellow abolitionist teacher Susan Perley, and they were to have four children in Mercer County.^3 However, Wattles had continued to teach such basic skills as reading and farming to the free blacks who had come from Cincinnati to Mercer County. In 1841 this educational work received a major boost. A New Jersey Quaker named Samuel Emlen had left a fund to be used for the teaching of black or Indian boys, and his trustees noted Wattles's school as a possible beneficiary. On the recommendations of such Midwest abolitionists as the newspaper publisher James Birney.^-* Wattles's school became the Emlen Institute for black manual education in November 1842.35 jn 1340 Dorcas's son Charles Moore had platted a primarily black city named Carthagena in Mercer County, even before the Emlen endowment made the county so much more attractive for free black settlement.

3'.VIueller, Red. Black. And White, p. 56. 33Meyers, "American Antislavery Society Agents", pp. 211-214; Gamaliel Bailey to Birney. 28 August 1838, Dumond, ed.. The Letters of James Gillespie Birney. p. 469. 33Mueller, Red. Black. And White, pp. 60-61. 3-*Daniel B. Smith to Birney, 29 May 1841, Dumond. ed.. The Letters of James Gillespie Birnev. pp. 628-629. 3^Scranton. Historv of Mercer County, p. 65.

150 (Moore had been developing property in Carthagena for a decade at least. )36 Wattles began to cite the achievements of his free black neighbors as examples of the opportunities open to the freedman in rural Ohio. This thriving and autonomous black community aroused hostility among some whites. In 1840 white workmen attempted to prevent blacks from getting a brick making contract for a hotel being constructed by James Watson Riley, one of the area's major land speculators and Mercer County's Whig leader^? They used the Black Code by asserting the blacks were paupers and thus liable to expulsion; Riley's brother W. Willshire Riley forestalled this move by leasing the blacks log cabins, so when the authorities investigated they found the supposed paupers now legally established as working householders.^* Canal construction in 1843 required that a reservoir be created in east central Mercer County's Jefferson Township to feed the waterway when levels got too low. A dam was built to create what was reputed to be the biggest manmade lake in the world. Many grumbled that the State's compensation went not to the residents whose property the dammed waters flooded, but to land speculators with corrupt political influence. Moreover, trees in the flooded district had not been removed before the dam's creation, and at the time many thought rotting timber a breeding place for such plagues as cholera.^") These issues of health and money galvanized local

^^Shannon McFarlin. "Carthagena". in Mercer County, ed. Alig. pp. 740-741. McFarlin reports that the county's Personal Property Record not only shows Moore bought 64 lots in 1830. but mentions an alternate name for Carthagena. "Negroburg". (A more minor variant of the community's name was "Carthagenia". which appears to have been used in the early 1840's.) John R. Adney. "Early Day History of Mercer County. Ohio". Ohio Historical Society, p. 1-2; Mueller. Red. Black. And White, p. 60. ^*Riley. W. Wilshire. "The Town and Its Founders", in Scranton. Historv of Mercer Countv. p. 96 ; Ulrich Mueller. C.P.P.S., Souvenir of the Golden Jubilee of St. Alovsius Church. 1878-1928. (Cincinnati: n. p... 1928). pp. 14-15. ^^Ronald E. Shaw. Canals For A Nation : The Canal Era in the United States. 1790- 1860. (Lexington. KY: University Press of Kentucky. 1990), pp. 140-141. A similar fear of cholera from flooded forests in Indiana's Birch Creek Reservoir

15 1 opposition. On May 3. 1843, a protest meeting held in Celina designated a local judge, Benjamin Linzee (one of the first settlers in the area), to present their grievances to the Canal Commission in nearby Piqua. The protester’s ultimatum to the Canal Commissioners in Piqua was that unless the money was paid soon to the residents the hated dam would be breached. The messenger sent to Piqua was Judge Linzee, later the "secretary" of the New Bremen mob.^o When Linzee returned with no satisfactory promises, a second protest meeting was held reiterating the demands. If these too fell upon uninterested ears, the meeting warned the Canal Commission, next the protesters would attack the dam. The Commission replied not with conciliation, much less compensation, but with a threat to send the Piqua militia to guard the dam. Not only were health and property threatened, but the dam had now become a symbol of oppressive outside authority. To submit would be to abandon self- determination and accept arbitrary force. On May 15, 1843, a group of approximately 150 farmers of Mercer County's Jefferson Township met at the dam and systematically began to dig breaches. The effort took two days, and the systematic disposal of the dirt and feeding of the diggers showed both high organization and broad local support. When the dam was ready to be broken, the digging stopped and two prominent local citizens volunteered to make the final strokes. With the dam breached, the mob dispersed to their homes satisfied they had vindicated their liberties. When the state government attempted to bring charges against the mob, it became obvious the matter was beyond their capacity barring a drastic step such as martial law. The mob which had attacked the dam had included almost all the officials of the county. Although 34 of the mob leaders were arrested, no local grand jury

led "Reservoir regulators" to so repeatedly attack and breach their dam during the years 1854-7 that the connected canal had to be abandoned. ■*ONevin O. Winters. A Historv of Northwest Ohio, 3 vols. (Chicago; Lewis Publishing Co., 1917), p. I : 513.

152 would bring indictments/' Since there was no fear of retribution, the members of the mob were quite open about their participation. Thirty years later the breaching of the dam was still remembered as a great local moment of self-determination, comparable to the Battle of Bunker Hill in its display of the spirit of liberty This anti-dam mob set several precedents for the residents of Mercer County. It taught them the truth of popular sovereignty. When the legally constituted authorities were unwilling to perform what the local population wanted, "the law could be taken into their own hands" with the full approval of the community’s leaders. Because such a mob was presumed to express the local will, no retribution was permitted against what were truly local heroes. In both causation and consequence the dam mob reinforced Mercer County suspicion of the central authorities. The state had created the crisis by flooding their lands with its dam and paying the damages due them to speculators. When the citizens had done what they believed was right, the state had sought to punish them only to find itself thwarted by local solidarity. While the philosophy of vigilantism obviously had been present in Mercer County in the first place to create the mob attack on the dam, its success confirmed the validity of its methods. The mob that breached the dam in 1843 shared at least one leader, Virginia-born Judge Benjamin Linzee, with the mob that would confront the Randolph Slaves in 1846. The canal had required the dam, and thus brought one focus of violence to Mercer County. In 1857 the Canal Commission reported that another mob had prevented a labor team from raising one of the dam's weirs, because that would have cut the water power supplied to local mills. The Democratic CELINA WESTERN STANDARD, however, asserted that this incident really involved no mass violence

■*'Horace S. Knapp. Historv of the Maumee Valiev (Toledo; Blade Mammoth Printing and Publishing House, 1872) pp. 443-445; William J. Mac Murray, ed., Historv of Auglaize Countv. Ohio. 2 vols. (Indianapolis: Historical Publishing Co.. 1923), pp.. 149-151. ■*-Knapp. Historv of the Maumee Valiev, p. 444.

153 but only a single landowner charging the canal laborers with trespassing/43 The canal itself also acted as a magnet for ill doing, such as providing a convenient place to dispose of a murder victim.-^^ The next major mob in Mercer's history would also involve the canal, this time as a conduit for unwanted immigration. Mercer County would then again discover that the outside world could produce 'threats' only local solidarity could keep at bay. But there had not been racial violence on any large scale in Mercer County. Its thriving black community made it seem ideal for the needs of Judge William Leigh. The major problem the Randolph Slaves posed in their new status as freedmen was their large numbers. While the 1806 Virginia law against freed blacks remaining in the Old Dominion had proven unenforceable against individual blacks, no such large-scale black community as Israel Hill was any long possible. Were the free states any better refuge for the nearly 400 "Randolphs"? Judge Leigh's plan to resettle the blacks in Mercer County was further encouraged by his contacts with Augustus Wattles, who reported that the actual white neighbors of the black community at Carthagena were all tolerant of free blacks. Inquiring of town officials in the area's white villages about the potential influx of the Randolph slaves. Wattles found them pleased at the prospect of an increase in the local labor supply which would ease such projects as road building. Wattles therefore assured Judge Leigh that the freedmen would be welcomed.-*^ In June 1846, the Randolph Slaves began their journey towards the land and lives promised them in Ohio. On July 1 they arrived in Cincinnati and transferred to four boats on the Miami & Erie Canal. These boats were rented from the Pilliod brothers of Newport, Ohio,

•43 Celina Western Standard 4 February 1858, 4 March 1858. •4~4St. Marv's Sentinel 21 August 1843. ■43Letter of Augustus Wattles, Davton Journal and Advertiser , 15 September 1846.

154 who captained three of the four boatsThe fourth boat, the BANNER, was under a Captain Saville who would give a revealing account of the ensuing events.-*? Already an object of attention, the Randolph migrants were commented on by all the local newspapers. Two days later, their route took them past Dayton.-*® The blacks were already beginning to encounter Northern prejudice, as canal towns refused to let them disembark during stops or obtain local water. The worst was yet to come. The imminent arrival of the Randolph Slaves triggered a race scare in Mercer County. Some contemporary observers were estimating the migrant blacks to number as many as 500, which would double the resident black population. Although there were at least twenty times as many whites as blacks in the county, the whites were spread out while to them it seemed the black community was ominously concentrated in the Carthagena area. Thus it seemed Mercer County faced those most horrible of prospects to respectable white men, black supremacy with the even more appalling consequence of black equality. The threat of free black dominance seemed obvious, and the response to this threat to while dignity was equally clear to a community which had already demonstrated the effectiveness of vigilante action against outside threats. Residents of New Bremen and the surrounding communities held a formal meeting. Organizing themselves along militia lines, with an elected captain and vice captain, the anti-black mob members armed themselves and marched to where the blacks would land. (Their military trappings may have included uniforms.)-*^ Many

■*^Terry D. Wright, "The Miami and Erie Canal and the Randolph Slaves", Buckeye Country Magazine, p. 25; John A. Rayner. comp.. The First Century of Piqua. Ohio. (Piqua; The Magee Brothers Publishing House, 1916), p. 206. naming Frank Pilliod as one of the suryiving captains. ■*?Sherwood, "The Settlement of John Randolph's Slaves in Ohio", p. 46. •*®Davton Journal and Advertiser. 7 July 1846. •*^Moton y. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay, p. 133 ; if the reprint from the St. Mary's Sentinel in The Liberator. 7 August 1846, is accurate, the mob's

155 accounts set the date for this collision as the highly significant one of the Fourth of July, but Captain Saville insisted it was actually the day after, a date Augustus Wattles’s account supports. Brandishing farm tools and guns, this Mercer County mob refused to let the blacks disembark and proceed to their new homes unless the bonds required by the Black Code were immediately posted, a provision the actual law did not require. That their real demand was expulsion became clear when the mob refused the Negro-driver Cardwell's offer to let himself be kept in custody until Judge Leigh arrived in a few days. In a dramatic gesture, Cardwell while addressing the mob from a stump vowed to protect his charges to his last drop of blood.^i The mob forced the travelers to camp down the river for a day until the land agent Samuel Jay could be found to see if he would post the bonds. When Jay refused to be held responsible on the grounds that Judge Leigh had given him no such authority, the mob forced the Randolph Slave party to retreat back down the Miami Canal out of Mercer County.5- This race action, like the dam mob of 1843, had shown organization sufficient to sustain its activities over two or three days. In the ensuing national controversy over the implications of this Northern mob, Mercer County's Congressman William Sawyer pointed

organizational meeting may have been the third meeting on how to deal with the coming of the Randolph Slaves, for that speaks of two previous Mercer County meetings discussing Black Code enforcement as soon as the arrival of the Roanoke blacks was learned of. ^QPavton Journal and Advertiser. 21 July 1846

Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay, pp. 134, 140-142; Testimony of York Rial, (5-18-1910). pp.. 836-837. 849. (Such is the appeal of this noble gesture that at least one descendant of Judge Leigh misattributes the event as an action of Leigh himself, also altering the Randolph Slave response -- Mary E. Lewis. "The Freeing and Settling in the State of Ohio, of the Negroes of John Randolph of Roanoke, after his death, by Judge William Leigh of the Circuit Court of Appeals of Virginia".. Typed copy of 14 April 1948 ms.. Leigh Family Papers.) ^-Davton Journal and Advertiser. 14 July 1846; The Liberator. 7 August 1846 (from St. Marv's Sentinel).

156 to this discipline as proof the group should not be considered a mob but legitimate protectors of their community The homeless freedmen went down the canal, repulsed everywhere until they reached Piqua in Miami County. There they were allowed to pitch camp on the bank of the Miami River opposite Piqua ; in the evenings the unfortunate blacks put on entertainments for whites who visited the camp to bring food and see the exotic transients for themselves.^-^ Coming to rendezvous with the blacks in Mercer County by way of Columbus,55 Judge Leigh was in Dayton when he heard of the mob. Going to Piqua instead of Mercer County. Leigh did not yet appreciate the significance of the mob and hoped to still settle the freedmen as originally planned. But on hearing out the tales and visiting Mercer County he realized that a new destination would have to be found for the former slaves. Leigh had apparently told Ohioans he had "means to subsist his colony for eighteen months", considered time enough for them to become self-sufficient.^^ A strong candidate was Shelby County, through which the Randolph Slaves had passed both coming and going along the canal. It had a black town of its own. Rumley, platted in 1837 by Col. Amos Evans.s? Five days after the decision to try Rumley the Randolph Slaves were again relocated. But even as this attempt began, an anti-black delegation of four Shelby County citizens warned Judge Leigh they would not tolerate the settlement. Although there was no such dramatic incident as the Mercer County mob. in three or four days the implacable opposition of the local whites convinced Judge Leigh

^^Congressional Globe. Appendix to 30th Congress 1st Session, p. 727. ^•^Davton Journal and Advertiser. 21 July 1846. ^^William Leigh to Rebecca Leigh. 7 July "1847" (sic —internal evidence shows the date to be 1846}. Leigh Family Papers. ^^Davton Journal and .A.dvertiser. 21 July 1846 5^Mary Ann Brown. "Vanished Black Rural Communities in Western Ohio". 1982 Typescript. Ohio Historic Preservation Office. Ohio Historical Society. Columbus. Ohio. p. 105.

157 that this place too would not do. Once more there was a retreat to Piqua.58 Judge Leigh concluded that there was no hope of settling the Randolph Slaves en masse, but arranged for them to be hired out as individuals or families by local whites in Miami County and elsewhere. Some reports claim that he promised the whites this was only temporary, a matter of a year until he could obtain funds from the American Colonization S o c ie ty ^ ^ to relocate the blacks to Liberia "where he had always favored sending them".6o Only the exhaustion of the funds from Randolph's estate perhaps prevented an African relocation. In the 1920’s Fountain Randolph claimed to remember that Piquas whites held "a meeting in the city hall and it was decided that we would be allowed to stay here, and that homes would be provided for us." Since Fountain goes on to speak of "My mother and I were sent to the Hire farm", the providing of homes' seems to have meant the placement of the blacks in white households.^* This may also fit in with York Ryal's account of "being bounded out to some person in Dayton" to work when young.^- In early August, with the dispersal of the Randolph Slave group well begun if not already complete. Judge Leigh left Ohio to return to Virginia.^^ The Virginia manumission register of the blacks was deposited with the county

SHPavton Journal and Advertiser. 14 July 1846; Moton v. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914). pp. 137-138. ^"^Davton Journal and Advertiser. 28 July 1846; this is perhaps supported by the .American Colonization Society's own account o f the resettlement in their Annual Report (African Repository March 1847, p. 70) having a long, oddly defensive passage on why the group was fiscally incapable of supporting Liberian resettlement for the Randolph Slaves. ^QPavton Journal and Advertiser 28 July 1846, 4 August 1846, 1 September 1846 ; McGroarty, "Experiments in Mass Emancipation", p. 220. ^*Piqua Daily Call. 14 July 1923; such a meeting is also alluded to in Moton v. K essens. Peposition of Pavid Mitchell (given 5-18-1910), p. 924.

^-Moton V. Kessens. Peposition of Howard Scudder (4-23-1913). p. 1002; Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910), p. 838, speaks more generally of all the migrants being hired out. ^^Davton Journal and Advertiser. 5 August 1846.

158 clerk in Troy, and a citizen of Troy, Joseph R. John, was designated their temporary guardian.^-^ In September even Miami County began to have antiblack rumblings due to the increase in black population the Randolph Slaves c a u s e d , ^ ^ but no dramatic events resulted. The hegira of the Randolph Slaves had already caught national attention. This interest was greatly increased by the dramatic event that had skewed the plans. Southerners saw it as a perfect illustration of Northern hypocrisy on race matters. Here was Ohio, bastion of abolitionism, refusing the consequences of emancipation. Here was proof that Northern Negrophobia would mean the South in the event of emancipation would be swamped by freed blacks.^^ The reaction of the rest of the North in general was to dissociate itself from Mercer County. It was absurd to hold an entire section responsible for one lawless mob. Many agreed that foreign colonization would have been the better solution for the Randolph Slaves, but to identify all Northerners with ignorant mob members was insulting. Clearly if there was hypocrisy it was in Mercer County, whose residents after milking every cent out of the Randolph Slaves by selling land and building homes had then risen against them.^^ These were precisely the attitudes protested by William Sawyer, Mercer County's Congressional representative. William Sawyer was born in Montgomery County, Ohio, on August 5. 1803. Apprenticed to a blacksmith when fifteen years old, smithing was what he stated as his occupation when asked for the rest of his life. After a journeyman period in Dayton, he went to Grand Rapids. Michigan, with an Indian agency. Sawyer returned to Ohio in 1829 when he moved to Miamisburg in Montgomery County. Just one year later he was elected to his first major office, the Ohio House of

G^Frank P. Mathias, "John Randolph's Freedmen; The Thwarting of a Will." Journal of Southern History 39(2): 264. ^^Davton Journal and Advertiser. 1 September 1846. GGLvnchburg Virginian. 22 July 1846 (quoting Richmond Times). ^^"Mob Law in Ohio", Lvnchburg Virginian. 10 Sept. 1846 (quoting from New York Sunt .

159 Representatives. He remained in the legislature for five consecutive terms, finally becoming Speaker of the House for the 1835-36 session. Sawyer suffered his first electoral defeats when in 1838 and 1840 he failed to dislodge incumbent national Congressman Patrick Goode, a Methodist clergyman and Whig.^* Although Goode did not seek re-election in 1842, Sawyer decided his own political fortunes would benefit from a change of scene and so in 1843 he moved north to the town of St. Mary's in Mercer County (setting up a flour rnill&9). This would be his home the rest of his life. Once again it was only one year after a move that he was elected to high office — this time, finally, the US Congress. (Another incoming Congressman was Illinois's Abraham Lincoln, though only once did he and Sawyer speak in the same debate.) In Congress William Sawyer immediately acquired a reputation as a pompous hick. When he ate a large sausage at his desk during a Congressional session, according to a hostile reporter's account,^' his opponents dubbed him "Sausage" Sawyer and plagued him with jokes about links and sausages the rest of his Congressional career, humor with more than a trace of anti-German ethnic sneer in it/?? William Sawyer was an ardent Jacksonian with a demagogic manner. As a Congressman from 1845 to 1849. he spoke mainly for the sectional interests of the West, opposing the use of Federal money for internal improvements in the East, and above all trying to

^^Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1971 (Washington. D.C. : Government Printing Office. 1971), s.v. "Goode. Patrick", p. 1013. G^St. Mary's Sentinel 3 April 1844. (The fact this article still speaks of him as "Col. Sawyer of Miamisburg" may support Lewis Cass Sawyer's claim the family actually moved in 1844.) Sawyer mentions his flour mill in a Congressional tariff debate recorded in Congressional Globe. Appendi.x to the 29th Congress 1st Session, p. 701. ^^Congressional Globe. 30th Congress 2d Session. 12-27-1848. pp. 108-9. 110. ^'Adney. "Early Day History of Mercer County", p. 2. The reporter was William Robinson of the New York Tribune, himself later a Congressman. ^-Congressional Globe. 29th Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 219, 225 ; Davton Journal and Advertiser. 25 .August 1846.

160 end the hated practices of the land speculators by urging laws

limiting purchase only to actual settlers.^^ ^ militia colonel. Sawyer opposed flogging in the Navy.'^-^ He was one of the most vocal advocates of the abolition of West Point as a publicly funded school

for the e l i t e , "^5 his main speech against the institution being separately printed as a pamphlet.^^ While himself of English ancestry and a Freemason.^^ Sawyer by moving to Mercer County sought to represent a region where the bedrock of Jacksonian Democracy were immigrant German Catholics. Sawyer was always so mindful of this constituency that he proposed that the debates of the 1850 Ohio constitutional convention, to which he was a delegate, be printed in German as well as English.^* Proudly proclaiming himself a "hard money Locofoco"^^. Sawyer was passionately behind the Jacksonian leadership on everything from the Mexican War to hatred of banking. The element of Jacksonian Democracy which Sawyer most ardently embraced was white supremacy, becoming one of Ohio's major bigots. Although paying lip service to colonizationism. he opposed any national money being used for relocation and made clear his own satisfaction with the South retaining its blacks in

^-’Congressional Globe. 29th Congress 2nd Session, pp. 426-7. 441-5: 30 Congress. 1st Session, p. 1019. ^•^Congressional Globe. 30th Congress 1st Session, pp. 837-838. 842 (14 June 1848): Appendix to the 30th Congress 2d Session. 16 January 1849. p. 165. This may not have been entirely altruistic — Sawyer's son Lewis Cass Sawyer served as a midshipman during the Mexican War. ^^Congressional Globe. Appendix to 29th Congress. 1st Session, pp. 585-588: 14 May 1846, p. 790-1: 22 May 1846, pp 805-806: 878-879: 30th Congress 2d Session, 29 January 1849. p. 393: 10 February 1849, p. 494: Appendix to the 30th Congress 2d Session, 16 January 1849. p. 167. ^^Marcus Cunliffe. Soldiers And Civilians : The Martial Spirit in America. (Boston: Little. Brown and Company, 1968.) pp. 107, 109-110. 161. 77Qn his death Sawyer received a Masonic funeral. Mercer Countv Standard 27 Sept. 1877. ^^Official Reports of the debates and proceedings of the Ohio State Convention. 2 vols. (Columbus: Scott & Biscom. 1851), 5-8-50. p. 33: 5-21-1850. p. 125. ^^Congressional Globe. 29th Congress 2nd Session, 17 February 1847, pp. 444-5

1 6 1 slavery.*^0 In the Congressional debates over the antislavery Wilmot Proviso for the new Oregon and Mexican territories, he even denied that the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 barred Ohio from potentially becoming a slave state.*' After his Congressional career ended. Sawyer served as a delegate to Ohio's 1850 Constitutional Convention, where he was the most vocal opponent of any extension of civil rights or public services to blacks.*- To Sawyer it was a testimonial that Ohio's Black Codes "had been draughted by the hand of a very distinguished man of the Senate . . . Brigadier General Cass," and damning that a Whig candidate for Governor should propose even a partial repeal.*^ In a speech at Miamisburg in the summer of 1846 Sawyer claimed he had organized the Mercer County mob.*-^ even though "Colonel " Sawyer of the militia was not in Mercer County that Fourth of July.*5 Whatever the truth of his claim (which Wattles's account does not support). Sawyer was the national spokesman for the racist element in Mercer County and gives the best insight into how the mob perceived its own actions. To Sawyer, the mob was no mob at all, but an honorable vigilante action. Faced with the horror of a massive influx of free blacks, the respectable men of Mercer County had taken the law into their own hands in the same spirit as the patriots of the American Revolution . Their demands were not those of a lawless mob, but on the contrary the enforcement of the 1804 Black Code of Ohio designed to prevent idle and useless blacks from drifting in. They

* ('Congressional Globe. Appendix to 29th Congress 2nd Session, p. 445; Appendix to 30th Congress, 1st Session, p728; 1847, p. 427. *'Congressional Globe, 30th Congress 1st Session, 13 .August 1848, p. 1091. *-Hickok, The Negro in Ohio, pp. 60-61, 95-96, 97; Official Reports of the debates and proceedings of the Ohio State Convention, pp. II : 10-13, 704. *^Congressional Globe. 29th Congress 2nd Session, 28 December 1846, p. 91; 15 February 1847, p. 427. Sawyer was such a partisan of Lewis Cass's Presidential ambitions that he named his own son Lewis Cass Sawyer. *"*"CoL Sawyer's Speech at Miamisburg", Davton Journal and Advertiser, 25 August 1846. *^Congressional Globe. 10 July 1846 speech as evidence.

162 had simply demanded the payment of the bonds required of free blacks on settlement, and expelled them only when no deposits were forthcoming. The vigilantes had not been violent but well ordered, and had done themselves proud.*^ To Sawyer the true villains of the piece were, first, the Southerners who were willing to permit large scale manumission but who tried to dump the resulting free blacks on to other states ; second, the land speculators who were uninterested in the communities their sales of land affected ; and third of course, the abolitionists. Above all. the members of the mob were not hypocrites. They had never been party to the coming of the Randolph Slaves, only to their departure. This last position was echoed by none other than Augustus Wattles, who that September in a letter to the DAYTON JOURNAL AND ADVERTISER denied that the mob had really represented the people or racial feelings of Mercer County. He cited his own advance work and the annoyance local officials expressed to him at losing such a large work force for local improvements to demonstrate that the mob had been the work of a group not only uninvolved in the process of resettlement but from outside the communities truly affected. He suggested that the true test of popular sentiment should be a vote on black emigration in Mercer County.*^ Wattles wrote these remarks after the continuing crisis in Mercer County had already been resolved for good or ill. The success of the New Bremen mob had again demonstrated the effectiveness of vigilante methods, and emboldened many to further action. The Randolph Slaves had been prevented from settling there, but so long as the thriving resident free black population of Mercer County existed other members of the despised caste would be tempted to settle there. On August 15. 1846. white representatives, including Congressman Sawyer and county officials Frederick Elkins and Samuel Mott, from all the townships of Mercer County met and

* "^Congressional Globe. Appendix to 30th Congress 1st Session, p. 727. ^^Pavton Journal and Advertiser. 15 Sept. 1846.

163 unanimously passed resolutions calling for the expulsion of all blacks from the county by the next spring. On the motion of the meeting’s secretary. John T. Ferguson, a preamble and further resolutions were added condemning political abolitionism. The resulting Mercer County Resolutions were sent to several Ohio newspapers.

Whereas the Supreme Ruler of the Universe has fixed immutable laws for the government of the world, and marked his lines and boundaries, and made undeniable distinction every where perceivable, between the different races of men, therefore. Resolved, That we will use all and every means in our power to preserve inviolate those laws and distinctions ordained by the Creator, and hand them down unimpaired to our posterity. Resolved, That we view with shame and disgust, the disgraceful attempts of the anti-republican citizens, to fasten disgrace upon the laboring classes of this country, by means of their miscalled philanthropy. Resolved, That political abolitionism as it has shown itself in our national councils , deserves the everlasting execration of all honest men, and the individual among us, who adheres to such sentiments shall be held in contempt and scorn. Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting shall be signed by the Chairman and the Secretary, and published by the St. Mary's Sentinel, and that the Piqua Register, Sidney Aurora, the Dayton Empire, and Journal, the Ohio Statesman, Press, Journal, and the West Bote of Columbus, and the Volks Blatt of Cincinnati be requested to copy the same.*^ Resolved, That the negroes and mulattoes residing in Mercer County, came in opposition to a well known law of the State, and contrary to the wishes of the white population, and still remain here, contrary to the law, and

^^All of these were Democratic papers (May, "The Negro and Mercer C o u n ty p . 56.)

1 64 to our wishes, and therefore have no claims upon our sympathies. Resolved. That we will not live among negroes, and as we have settled here first, we have fully determined that we will resist the settlement of blacks and mulattos in this county, to the full extent of our means, the bayonet not excepted. Resolved. That the blacks of this country be [sic], and they are hereby requested to leave the County on or before the first day of March 1847. in case of their neglect or refusal to comply with this request we pledge ourselves to remove them peaceably if we can. forcibly if we must. Resolved. That we who are here assembled pledge ourselves not to employ, or trade with any black or mulatto person, in any manner whatever, or permit them to have any grinding done at our mills, after the first day of January next Resolved. That in the opinion of this meeting, the laws of this State, commonly called the Black Laws, ought not to be repealed, but should be so changed, as to absolutely prevent for all time the emigration into this State of any black or mulatto person whatever and to carry out this principle, we pledge ourselves not to vote for any man for office who is not in favor of the enactment of such laws as will effectually prohibit the emigration of this class of people into our State.*^

These sentiments bear out historian Leonard Richards’s analysis of the nature of race violence in the Jacksonian period.")" The great fear was of a social transformation caused by free blacks and political abolitionism. Abolitionists are "anti-republican", endeavoring to "force disgrace on the laboring classes" by forcing competition with the labor of blacks (as had already happened in the case of the brick makers hired by James Watson Riley), and trying to erase "distinctions ordained by the Creator." The meeting, valuing these

^^"Mercer County Resolutions". Davton Journal and Advertiser. 15 Sept. 1846. ^"Richards. "Gentlemen of Propertv and Standing", pp. 92-100.

165 distinctions which the abolitionists seek to destroy, believe that to "hand them down unimpaired to posterity" it is necessary to resist the growing movement to abolish the Black Code, and instead strengthen it to prevent any black entry and expel all present blacks. The strategy called for is political action and complete boycott, with a constant threat of force. What is missing from Mercer County's Negrophobic pronouncements that Richards observed in the urban race riots of the period is the nativist, usually anti-British element in the rhetoric. Abolitionism is denounced as "misplaced philanthropy", not a foreign ideology. Primarily immigrants themselves, the makers of the Mercer County Resolutions merely state a claim of priority ("as we have settled here first".) Actually prior settlement depended on who defined it. Six participants in the Resolutions meeting had not appeared in the 1840 census, two being German immigrants, and ironically two others being the county officials Frederick Elkins and Samuel Mott whom Wattles would denounce to Governor Bartley.^' We have already noted that William Sawyer was a comparative newcomer. This movement also fits historian Richard Maxwell Brown's model for typical vigilante action: "The characteristic vigilante movement was organized in command or military fashion and usually had a constitution, articles, or a manifesto to which the members would subscribe", said members usually being only a few hundred activists living in a frontier region. Like most 1840's vigilantes, the Mercer County racists saw expulsion rather than lynching as their major activity.'^- It was not until after the Civil War that a true lynch mob appeared in Mercer County. Like the anti-dam mob. though, this vigilante action was against a threat to a way of life and to property values, not criminal activity.

^‘Augustus Wattles to Governor Mordecai Bartley. 16 August 1846. Ohio Governors Papers. Ohio Historical Society. Columbus, OH. ^-Richard Maxwell Brown, "The American Vigilante Tradition", in The History of Violence in America, ed. Hugh D. Graham and Ted R. Gurr. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger. 1969). pp.. 172-173.

166 This manifesto reveals dimensions to the summer’s events besides simple race hate. First is the insecurity many clauses display. The last paragraph makes it clear even to those knowing nothing of Ohio history that repeal of the state's Black Code was a definite political possibility at this time. In fact it came four years later, as part of a political deal to ratify Ohio's 1850 Constitution.^^ Having acted in the name of the Black Code to keep out the Randolph slaves, and claiming now to see any local black presence as a violation of it, the Mercer racists feared this bulwark would be lost. Another undertone in their denunciations of abolitionism is the clear anxiety that "the individual among us, who adheres to such sentiments" is perhaps not being "held in contempt and scorn". One of the main conflicts between Sawyer and Wattles, as each interpreted the events in 1846 Mercer County for outside audiences, was whether the New Bremen mob had represented the people of Mercer County or only a violent minority uninvolved in preparations for the coming of the Randolph group. Was a community being represented or imposed in Mercer County? The Mercer County organizers of this latest anti-black effort had reckoned without the talents of Augustus Wattles. Wattles wrote his own long account of the race troubles in Mercer County, and set out for Columbus to appeal personally to Governor Mordecai Bartley. In Dayton he collected white signatures to an affidavit confirming his account,*^-* and he obtained in Columbus a letter of introduction to Governor Bartley from Mercer County's Whig leader James Watson

Riley,^5 a dedicated opponent of Sawyer who had unsuccessfully run

^^Robert E. Chaddock. Ohio Before 1850 : A Study of the Earlv Influence of Pennsylvania and Southern Populations in Ohio. (New York; Columbia University Press. 1908: reprint ed.. AMS Press, 1967.). p. 87; Frederick J. Blue. "The Ohio Free Soilers and Problems of Factionalism" , Ohio History 76 (Winter/Spring 1967) ; 23. ^-^Affidavit of James A. Shedd et al., 19 August 1846. Mordecai Bartley, Ohio Governors Papers. ^^James Watson Riley to Mordecai Bartley. 21 August 1846. Ohio Governors Papers.

167 against the Jacksonian for Congress.'^^ xhe result was a proclamation from Bartley on August 30, only two weeks after the Mercer County Resolutions, threatening Mercer County with martial law unless it kept the peace.^^ Wattles s letter to Bartley is his own longest statement on the incidents of the summer of 1846, and what he saw behind them. Apparently unknown to previous writers on the mob. it is therefore worth reproducing in full :

{Unclear}, Mercer Co. O. Aug. 16 '46 To Gov. Bartley; I have been repeatedly urged by the friends of law and order to lay before your Excellency the state of anarchy which now reigns in this county. I will do so as briefly as possible, stating nothing but what is notorious or which can be proved in a court of law. On the 4th of July 1846 nearly 400 emancipated slaves formerly belonging to John Randolph of Va. arrived in this county and landed at New Bremen on the canal. Judge Leigh, by his agent, had purchased for them 3,200 acres of land lying in this county as follows — about 1500 acres in German Township lying from 10 to 15 miles from the canal. The land in this township is mostly wild, and nearly one third of the population in it is colored. I was told by both of the Justices of the Peace in the tp. {township} that no one opposed their settling there if they conformed with the law. About 1000 acres were purchased in Marion tp. I live in this tp. and adjoining Granville. A considerable part of this was bought of the state. I do not know of but four families in the tp. who opposed the negroes settling here. Three of these offered to sell to the agent and not oppose the

^^Adney. "Early Day History of Mercer County, Ohio", p. 2. ^^Proclamation, 30 August 1846. Mordecai Bartley, Ohio Governors Papers.

168 negroes coming here if he would buy their land at their price. The land in these two townships might have been settled by the blacks and no white man would be a neighbor to a black man who is not already. About 300 acres were bought in Butler tp. near the county seat, a part of it from the sheriff, all from citizens residing there. This {ms. damaged} miles from the sole {ms. damaged} The prosperity {ms. damaged} much excitement. All the citizens of Celina assured the agent and also Thomas Leigh that there would be no opposition. About 400 acres were purchased in Franklin tp.— a part of it from resident inhabitants, a part of it from the state and a part of it from nonresidents. The most of it lay in such a position as to join land already owned by colored people or near to them. The people of this township were also very much excited at the prospect of these blacks being amongst them. I never heard of them going any further than to say they would enforce the bond & security law, till after their arrival in New Bremen. The feeling of the Germans has always been friendly. I am told by the Portmaster of New Bremen who is also a merchant and one of our County Commissioners and himself a German that he never had heard a word spoken by any of the {leading?} citizens against the settlement of the negroes in the county prior to their arrival, but rather they were pleased with the idea. The county is so new and uninhabited that almost any inhabitants are looked upon as desirable. On Sunday the 5th of July most of the disaffected men assembled at Bremen and by misrepresentations and whiskey excited the Germans to action. Whiskey was carried by the {americans?} in buckets and drank from tin cups. Towards evening in the Sabbath I passed through Minster and heard the drums beating and saw soldiers marching. On inquiry, I was informed , "they were going to thrash

169 the niggers". This announcement was made by {ms. damaged} of the comments and counsel of Gen. Starbuck & (ms. damaged} before ten o'clock the next (ms. damaged} of the bayonet. This they said, with many other outrages. Their threats to murder are common and bold. They defy the law & say it is impossible for men of their numbers to be arrested. On Sunday last the 15th a new scene in the drama opened. A handbill issued from Gen. Starbucks office has been circulated among the men, calling upon the people to assemble again at New Bremen and take measures to clear the county of the blacks and mulattoes who now reside in it. This meeting assembled on the 15th and resolve to drive them from their land. The negroes have been settled here for ten years. The land was almost no more than wilderness before they came to it. And they have good farms & houses and every thing comfortable. They are all citizens of the state, some of them living in it before the adoption of the present constitution. No one of them has ever been prosecuted for a single crime since their settling here. They are mostly members of the temperance society & belong to the Baptists & Methodists churches. None of them has even been accused of stealing and other crimes. I have heard but three reasons given for driving them away. The first by the Democrats, is this. If they were gone their places would be filled by German Democratic voters. The second, by the Catholics, is this. If they were gone, the county would be immediately filled by good Catholics from Germany. The third is this by the loafers. If they were driven out we should get good homes. I have not heard a respected man speak in favor of the movement. Yet we all expect it will be done by an armed force. We have not power to prevent it. One reason for informing you (ms. damaged} of these facts are (ms. damaged}. Frederick Elkins, a

170 Justice of the Peace of Marion tp. has done more than all others to excite the Dutch. Mr. Mott the State Atty. for Mercer Co. is a lawyer for the mobocrats and has a high fee for driving the negroes from this county by any means. Mr. Starbuck a General of the Ohio militia approves and encourages all their violent processes. In the paper which he edits , the St. Mary's Sentinel, he excites the people to outrages and encourages them to violence. He went so far as to declare to Judge Leigh, and the same statement is in his paper, that he cared nothing about the Constitution of Ohio, although sworn to support it. 2] Quiet men fear for their lives and property. Some who were friendly to the colored men have been obliged to leave the county. The law is powerless. I {illegible} these facts with your excellency simply stating that all civil minded people in this and in adjoining counties think there is a great need for immediate executive action. On behalf of many of my fellow citizens of Ohio Your Excellency's Augustus Wattles^* This largely confirms the picture already deduced of events in Mercer County. Augustus Wattles of course gave his own interpretation of the situation, as in the contrast of the temperate Negroes with the whiskey-crazed mob. His emphasis on the leadership of Democrats in the expulsion movement, although true, also had obvious appeal to a Whig governor (and sheds light on why another Whig wrote his letter of introduction). In the next Congressional election Sawyer's re- election was challenged by James Watson Riley for the Whigs, and the Democratic victory margin more than halved from the 2,500 votes which had put Sawyer into office to a plurality of

Augustus Wattles to Governor Mordecai Bartley, 16 August 1846. Ohio Governors Papers.

1 7 1 1.000 keeping him his seat.^^ Similar is the contrast between immigrant Catholicism and black Protestantism. Black Carthagena resident Thomas Robinson was to testify in MOTON VS. KESSENS that the local blacks "had three churches. African Methodist Church. Baptist Church, and the Wesleyan Church", though by MOTON's time only two of these churches rem ained.'00 What Wattles’s account most usefully shows is the continuity of the New Bremen mob with the Mercer County Resolutions — the movement to expel all resident blacks proceeded from the same impulse that had prevented the settlement of the Randolph Slaves. Although Wattles denies universal Negrophobia among the German element, his own account of the goals of the mob and their own Resolution's inclusion of two German language newspapers show a strong German involvement in the cause. The insurgents sought a homogenous Mercer County: all German, all Catholic, all Democratic — and paramountly, all white. In short. Wattles saw the race campaign as a grab for land and power by Mercer’s German/Democratic/Catholic population, at the expense not only of blacks but of native Protestants not voting for the Democracy. Elsewhere in this document he notes that the racists are harassing local whites "who were friendly to the colored men". What Wattles presents as the argument of the "loafers" probably also echoes what the Mercer County Resolution saw as "the disgraceful attempts of the anti-republican citizens, to fasten disgrace upon the laboring classes of this country" — economic competition such as James Watson Riley had already exploited. Economic competition is more colorfully if unpleasantly stated in one Randolph Slave’s memory that the Mercer County mob had said "... they didn’t want any more coons out there, cause the coons and the squirrels were

Wilshire Riley. "The Town and Its Founders", in Scranton. History of Mercer Countv. p. 101. lOOMoton V. Kessens. Testimony of Thomas Robinson (5-7-1914), p. 219.

172 eaten up all the roasten [sic] ears."'o> While so large a group as the Randolph Slaves would probably have been a target for trouble in any case, probably the most incendiary element of their planned settlement was that it would have made them independent family farmers like the existing Carthagena colony. Whites will often attack blacks who are achieving some goal many whites fail to reach. In this rural setting the prospect of black freeholders galled alike the poor farmhand who aspired to independence, the tenant-farmer ever insecure about "his" lands, and their ideal, the self-sufficient farmer who suddenly found his status threatened by a degrading new set of 'equals'. Wattles had successfully persuaded Governor Bartley to threaten Mercer County with martial law.’O- and in an 1846 report on Cincinnati's black education. Wattles's brother John O. Wattles says the campaign had failed to dislodge significant numbers of free blacks in Mercer County.*0^ Certainly the stark numbers in Plot 8.1 show that Mercer's black population continued to grow steadily, peaking just before the Civil War and only declining in the postbellum period. Historian Mary Ann Brown, studying the land records of Mercer County, reports that in 1859 free black farmers owned "over ten thousand acres of farmland" in a region extending eastward from Carthagena.'o-* As late as 1860, to the fury of the Democratic editor of the Celina WESTERN STANDARD, Mercer was still being recommended by abolitionists as a destination for manumitted slaves.'05

'O'Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of David Mitchell (5-18-1910), p. 913 ; this is a remembered conversation with Syphax Brown. 'O-Proclamation. 30 August 1846. Mordecai Bartley, Ohio Governors Papers. '03\Vattles, Educational Condition of the Colored People of Cincinnati, p. 8. '0-^Brown, "Vanished Black Rural Communities", p. 103. 'O^Celina Western Standard 7 June 1860. An earlier reaction by the same paper to abolitionist Congressman Joshua Giddings recommending either Mercer or Shelby County as a free black destination to a Southerner planning manumission is at 6 May 1858.

173 Yet the conventional belief about the racial events of 1846 is that they represented a victory for the white racists. In 1857 the Emlen trustees transferred their institution to Bucks

County. Pennsylvania.'06 This transfer of the Emlen Institute and Augustus Wattles s departure to join the free soil settlers of Kansas in the mid-1850's'07 are traditionally cited by local historians as proof that the Randolph Slave repulse soured Mercer County for blacks. ‘os Aside from white wishful thinking, one obvious reason for this historiographic myth is the tendency to see a trend (the diminishing black population of Mercer County) as caused by a single dramatic incident rather than by gradual changes. Yet this is contradicted not only by the numerical evidence of the continuing growth of the black population, but by black testimony. Kentucky freedwoman Mary McCay found Mercer a racial haven in the 1850's'"^ ; William Stewart, an elderly black interviewed in the 1890's told of simply sticking out the harassment."o And black Mercer County resident Thomas Robinson was to recall black picnics in Mercer County on the 1st of August which were attended by members of the "colored settlements" from Piqua and even further south, sometimes numbering in the thousands."' More subtle is the evidence of some degree of black assimilation — in 1857. some forty blacks in Mercer County's village of Philothea

'06f^yeller. Red. Black. .And White, pp. 66-7. 69. In various locations the Emlen Institute endured at least into the 1880's. (Ironically during the Panic of 1837 Bucks County had had its own period of German-led antiblack agitation -- Litwack. North of Slavery, p. 167.) "^^Meyers. "American Antislavery Society Agents", p. 214. Wattles remained in Kansas the remainder of his life, dying at a patriarchal age of 76 in the year 1883. (Dumond. ed.. The Letters of James Gillespie Birnev. p. 246 footnote 2.) '('^Mueller. Red. Black. And White, p. 67; Alig. Mercer Countv. "St. Charles Seminary. Carthagena. Ohio", p. 762. 'O^Mary F. (Taylor) McCray. Life of Marv F. McCrav. Bom And Raised A Slave In the State of Kentucky. Ohio Historical Society. ''^Evans, "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", p. 447.

' ' 'Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Thomas Robinson (5-7-1914), pp. 229-232.

1 74 were baptized as Catholics.*'- The grain of truth in the legend of white triumph is shown, however, when we consider the ratio of blacks to whites in the population as shown in the following Plots.

5 0 0

3 7 5 B

a ^ 2 5 0 k s

1 2 5

1 8 4 0 1 8 6 0 1 8 8 0 1 9 0 0 1 9 2 0

C e n s u s e s

PLOT 8.1 MERCER COUNTY BLACKS 1840-1920 Mercer's black population, in actual raw numbers, is here shown to grow steadily until before the Civil War and only declining in the postbellum period - refuting the myth that the race hatred of 1846 caused any immediate decline in black numbers. ______

'-Shannon McFarlin, "Philothea", in Mercer County, ed. Alig, p. 85.

I 75 5 . 0 0

3 .7 5

2 . 5 0

1 .2 5

1 8 4 0 1 8 6 0 1 8 8 0 1 9 0 0 1 9 2 0

C en su s

176 PLOT 8.2 BLACKS AS PERCENTAGE CF TOTAL MERCER COUNTY POPULATION What this graphic above dramatizes is that while the black population of Mercer County increases numerically until the 1860's, its impact thereafter is diluted by even more dramatic growth in the white population as shown next: ______

2 5 0 0 0 -- T 0 t a 1 20000 --

P 0 P 1 5 0 0 0 -- u 1 a t i 10000 -- o n

h + -t- 1 8 4 0 1 8 6 0 1 8 8 0 1 9 0 0 1 9 2 0

C e n su s

PLOT 8.3 MERCER COUNTY TOTAL POPULATION, 1840-1920

177 Note in Plot 8.3 of overall population trends the "dip" for the 1850 census figures — this is due to the creation of Auglaize County in 1849, which shaved at least a thousand people off Mercer's count.The vast majority of this reassigned population were white, since Auglaize in 1850 reported a black population of only 87 persons."-^ As the next graphic represents, albeit more artistically than statistically"^, the creation of Auglaize County made Mercer’s black population loom even larger. From 1850 on, though, the lines veer apart as both white immigration and reproduction steadily help reduce the significance of blacks. (Although their pockets of settlement were such that it is on record that in the 1880’s one white German family sent its children to a nearby black school, as the most convenient local education.)"^ In any case the respite Wattles won for those blacks already living in Mercer County did nothing for the now dispersed Randolph Slaves.

'"John L. Andriot, Population Abstract of the United States. (McLean. VA; Andriot Associates, 1980.) '*■'1850 figures in 1871 Annual Report of the Secretary of State of Ohio (Second Edition) ; David Allison Gerber. Ohio and the Color Line : Racial Discrimination and Negro Response in a Northern State. 1860-1915. Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 1971. Map of 1860 Ohio. *'^To show this "convergence" I divided the Total Population figures by 1000 to fit them to the same scale as the percentages figures for the blacks; while this makes this graphic meaningless statistically, it remains valid as what Edward Tufte calls "conceptual art." ' '^Fr. Dominic B. Gerlach, "Michael Gerlach". in Mercer Countv. ed. Alig. p. 140.

178 20 --

D a t a

S e r i e s

PLOT 8.4 COMPARING TRENDS FOR WHITE AND BLACK POPULATIONS IN MERCER COUNTY This graphic, by bringing both the boom in white population (the top line) and the decline in black population for 19th century Mercer County into (the bottom line) the same visual space, dramatizes the diminishing black presence in the county which was (incorrectly) attributed to the 1846 mob activities. ______

179 CHAPTER 9

DIASPORA

Any more, any more. I'll never turn back any more; When I'll get there on yonder hill. I'll never turn back any more. —spiritual sung by Randolph Slaves'

The effect of the Mercer County mob on the Randolph Slaves was to deny them what Randolph himself had sought, their continued existence as a single community. Instead they were dispersed throughout the counties of Miami and Shelby, often as the servants of whites. No longer controlled in common or living together, would their community persist? If so. in what form? One freedman sought a fate outside the community. John White gained new fame when, after the Mercer County mob had refused to let the blacks reach their new homes, he decided to go back to Virginia. His announced intention was to petition the legislature for resident free black status, or failing that (at least according to the white newspapers) to submit to re-enslavement.- This made him that automatically popular figure of the time, a slave who preferred slavery to freedom.^ The proslavery and colonizationist advocates

•Evans, "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", p. 446. - African Repository 22 (October 1846): 321. ^Berlin. Slaves Without Masters, p. 367.

180 who praised him for thus demonstrating the benefits of Southern slavery and the impossibility of free blacks being accepted by whites ignored that John White’s stated preference was to be a Virginia freedman, the status urged for him by John Randolph himself. John White was very likely aware that the odds of success for a petition of residence in a case such as his were excellent, and may have simply used resignation to re-enslavement as a rhetorical gesture/ Significantly White's sons had refused to leave Ohio with him due to their own marriages with other Roanoke families^ ; and much less heralded than his return to Virginia was White's own eventual return to Ohio, where he died and was buried in the Tipp City black cemetery in Miami County.^ While Mercer County was Jacksonian, Miami County was overwhelmingly Whig.' This did not automatically make it more hospitable to free blacks. Only six years before there had been a riot in the county seat of Troy against a school for black children run by a white Methodist.* Nonetheless, its ties to the broader world and its more diverse economy made black survival a better bet. The 1840 Census shows Miami and Mercer Counties almost even in black population, 211 and 199 individuals respectively. By the 1850 Census Randolph Slaves were present in six townships of Miami County in varying numbers ; as shown on Map 9.1 their presence pulled Miami ahead of Mercer in black residents (602 to 399), thus making Miami the center of black population in the region. In the 1850 Census 222 Randolph Slaves have been clearly identified, mostly living together in families. Adding their Ohio-born children raises the number to 283 individuals. Only four years after the New Bremen mob had undone Judge Leigh's plans for them, this

■^Jackson, Free Mesro Labor, p. 99. ^Sherwood, "The Settlement of John Randolph's Slaves in Ohio", p. 48. ^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay, p. 152. . ^Rayner. The First Century of Piqua, p. 102. ^National Anti-Slavery Standard 24 December 1840, partly quoting Elvria Advertiser.

1 8 1 census shows that over half of the freedmen had found niches in their new territory. Although widely dispersed, not only geographically but within the region’s free black community, some concentrations are obvious. Map 9.9 shows that the Randolph Slaves in 1850 were generally settling along the Miami & Erie Canal. By far the largest identifiable group, approximately seventy individuals, lived away from the canal in the town of Hanktown in Miami County's Union Township, a fact which lends vigor to an old controversy. Union Township was settled by a community of Southern Quakers who had sought free soil, forming a "Ludlow Anti-Slavery Friends Meeting" in 1844.^ This disbanded in 1847. One member. Elijah Coate. in 1857 became a minister in a Wesleyan Methodist Church organized in 1852 by Andrew Stevens.'o Elijah Coate and Andrew Stevens had already worked together before — to found Hanktown. Hanktown was named either for local civil engineer (and Quaker) James Hanks, who sold 200 acres of land to local representatives. •> or for South Carolina Quaker Thomas Hanks who had been one of Miami County's first surveyors.'- Hanktown was begun in 1847 when Elijah Coates, at this time a Quaker, and Andrew Stevens bought land in trust for the Randolph Slaves, then deeded it in 1849 to one Henry Davis (another Quaker) as the white trustee for the blacks.'^ Almost immediately a school, a log building which served as a Baptist Church, and a cemetery were set up for

‘^Gail Edwin Spider Honeyman. "Hanktown". in Irene E. Miller, ed.. History of Miami County, Ohio (Tipp City. OH; Miami County Historical Society. 1981: reprint ed., Fletcher, OH: Corn-Tech Pub.. 1991). p. 348. 'Ojbid.. p. 349. '•"Freed Randolph Slayes Settled in Miami County". Troy News (though this claims Hanktown was founded in 1843!! '-Honeyman. "Hanktown”. in History of Miami County. Ohio, ed. Miller, p. 349. '^Deed of Trust by Elijah Coates and Andrew Steyens to Dr. Henry Dayis for Isaac Cole et al (22 March 1849) . Moton y. Kessens. pp. 468-470; Honeyman. "Hanktown". History of Miami County. Ohio, ed. Miller, p. 350.

182 the community.*-^ The 1850 census shows Randolph Slave families as the dominant population of this settlement. In 1864 some of the residents of Hanktown successfully sued to end their guardianship under Davis, thus achieving self-determination.'5 This was a "friendly law suit," signaled by the fact that Dr. Davis had already moved to Indiana and put up no contest. The Hanktown freedmen typically lived in two-room log cabins,*’ the logs often local trees cut down and assembled into a house without any finishing. The cabins usually measured about 15 feet by 20, had clapboard roofs, with stick and clay chimneys on the cabin’s outside.*^ Mercer County attorneys would point to the dates of Hanktown's history during the lawsuit claiming the Mercer County lands Judge Leigh had purchased for Randolph Slaves. The lawyers argued that this small community was in fact the shrunken but successful fulfillment of Judge Leigh's trust. How, they queried, could the Randolph Slaves have been able to afford the $1100.50 for Hanktown land purchases only a year after their arrival’'^ This, they argued, was how Leigh finally succeeded in partly fulfilling John Randolph's commission.

'■^Honeyman, "Hanktown", History of Miami County. Ohio, ed. Miller, p. 349 ; Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Dayis (11-18-I910), p. 545, howeyer, asserts "They used the [Baptist] church for a school-house for a great many years." At p. 576 though Dayis says "They first had school in an old cabin that stood on the Essie Brown parcel of land ..." '^Henry Tucker et al y. Henry Davis (11-12-1864), reproduced in Moton v. Kessens, pp. 472-477; Leonard U. Hill, "John Randolph's Freed Slaves Settle in Western Ohio", Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin 23 (July 1965): 183-184. * ^Tucker v. Davis. Final Decree (8 Dec. 1864), reproduced in Moton v. Kessens. p. 478; Honeyman, "Hanktown", History of Miami County, Ohio, ed. Miller, p. 350. '’ Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Matilda Johnson (5-6-1914), p. 176. *^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). pp. 579-580; Deposition of Samuel P. Miles (5-27-1910), p. 809. '^Deed of Trust by Elijah Coates and Andrew Stevens to Dr. Henry Davis for Isaac Cole et al (3-22-1849) , Moton v. Kessens. p. 468. ’^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Matilda Johnson (5-6-1914), p. 179; Deposition of M.H. Davis ( 11-18-1910). p. 552; Deposition of John Coate (11-18-

183 This theory arose from the fact that Judge Leigh in October 1846 authorized an agent to begin selling off the lands purchased in Mercer County for the Randolph Slaves, the sales beginning in 1847.-' Any accounting for the resulting money probably disappeared when Richmond burned during the Civil War. The Randolph Slaves contended in their 1907-1917 lawsuits that Leigh had no right to make such sales, that the money was never given to them, and that therefore the title held by current occupants was faulty. Mercer County's lawyers responded that Leigh had used the funds for their benefit, and that this was the origin of Hanktown.-- Certainly whatever he had done or not for Randolph Slave settlement. Judge Leigh seems to have regarded his role in the Randolph Slave affair as ended by the 1850’s. There continued to be correspondence between him and the Tuckers on the aftermath of the Randolph will litigations, but it concerned only the decree that the Tuckers bear the costs (ironically at one point some of their slaves were attached to make the payments.)-3 Leigh's health had troubled him for years,--» and he finally retired from the bench in 1858. Although Leigh lived six years past the destruction of the Virginia General Court records, he made no effort to indicate any continuing trust. Judge Leigh's will of 1870. probated after his death

1910). p. 633; Deposition of G.B. Correy (5-27-I9I0), pp. 762.765; Deposition of Samuel P. Miles (5-27-1910), pp. 805, 808-809, 821; Deposition of A.H. Kessler (4- 24-1913), pp. 952, 955; Opinion of [Mercer County] Court of Appeals, Judge Crow, Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus, OH; F. B. Toothaker, n. d.) pl8; Brief of John Loree, Ibid.. pp. 141-143. 219. -'Tower of Attorney to Josiah Plunkett from William Leigh, 26 October 1846. Copy in Moton v. Kessens.p. 456.

- -Moton V. Kessens, Testimony of Matilda Johnson (5-4-1914) , pp. 172-173, 174, 178-179; Deposition of M.H. Davis, p. 552, Deposition of G.B. Correy (5-27-1910), pp. 762, 765; Deposition of Samuel P. Miles (5-27-1910), pp. 805, 808; Deposition of A.H. Kessler (4-24-1913), pp. 952, 955. -jJudge William Leigh to Nathaniel Beverly Tucker. 23 May 1848, 17 June 1848, 27 January 1849, 2 February 1849, 23 February 1851. Tucker-Coleman Papers. -■» For instance, he complains of it in his letters from Ohio while en route to meet with the Randolph Slaves : William Leigh to Rebecca Leigh, 7 July "1847" {sic - internal evidence shows it to really be 1846). Leigh Family Papers.

1 84 a year later, gives no indication of either such a trust or of money exceeding his own estate.What became of the funds raised through the resale of the Mercer County lands, and whether Hanktown was Leigh's doing in part, are still unknown. The most durable of the communities the Randolph Slaves settled, the only one still existing, was Rossville. Rossville began as a white settlement on the opposite side of the river from Piqua. It was therefore also in another township, Springcreek. (Throughout its history there have been proposals to completely annex Rossville to Piqua, but this has never come about.) Though named for local landholder Elizah Ross, it had been platted by William Knowles as early as 1835.-^ Although only 14 Randolph Slaves have definitely been identified as living in that settlement in 1850 . it was probably the center for the 22 in adjacent Washington Township including Piqua, v/hich had itself 5 definite Randolph Slave residents, bringing the number for this subregion up to 36. Piqua's booming economy with its growing manufacturing element gave economic opportunities not elsewhere available in the region, encouraging further settlement. By 1870 Piqua and Rossville had displaced Hanktown as the pre-eminent Randolph Slave community. In 1847 Gabriel White built a story and half double house in Rossville, which his family shared with "Sam" (Sampson) Rial's family.-^ A few years later York Rial built his own house in Rossville.-* In 1850 Philip White also built in Rossville.-^ Nelson Cole settled in the Piqua area, probably as another resident of Rossville.

-^Estate of William Leigh (inventory) and Last Will of William Leigh. Copy in Moton V. Kessens. pp. 428-431, 433-435. -^Bill Fox. "Shawnee and Rossville", Historv of Miami Countv. Ohio, ed. Miller, p.325; Helen D. Gilmore, The Historv of the John Randolph Freed Slaves of Roanoke, Virginia, who settled in Miami and Shelbv Counties, (Piqua, OH: Rossville-Springcreek Historical Society, 1982), p. 18. -^Gilmore, The Historv of the John Randolph Freed Slaves, p. 27. -^"Significance", African Jackson Cemetery, National Register of Historic Places Inventory -- Nomination File (1982), Ohio Historic Preservation Office, Ohio Historical Society. Columbus. OH. -^Gilmore, The Historv of the John Randolph Freed Slaves, p. 9.

185 The tentative identification of his brother as the "Phillip Coles" buried in Rossville’s black cemetery makes this even more likely, and his son James was definitely in Rossville during the 1870 census. Nelson Cole was a member of Piquas Cyrene AME Church, and in 1867 participated in a black co-operative association. York Ryal testified that his father Guy owned two or three acres in the Piqua-Rossville area which he planted with corn and oats, and on which he built a house and a barn "where he keep a horse, two wagons", with which he carried and delivered barrels for the local coopers. As the living settled, they made provision for the dead. In December 5, 1866. land in Rossville for an "African Cemetery" (later known as the Jackson Cemetery) was purchased from William and Freelove McFarland. A trustee group consisting of William Rial, Robert Smith, and Peter Bray were put in charge of this burial ground.^' Some came to lie in this cemetery by way of the paths of glory. When the Civil War came, perhaps half a dozen Piqua blacks enlisted in the famous Massachusetts 54th Regiment in January 1863. including Randolph black Paul Crowder.In the 55th Massachusetts Beverly Harris reached the rank of corporal in Company G (which would have put fellow Randolph black Silas White under him)^^ ; there also served Armistead Jones^^ and Harrison Gillard.35 ^ year later ten more Piqua blacks went to Columbus to

^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp. 845-846. ^'Gilmore. The Historv of the John Randolph Freed Slaves, p. 4. This "African Jackson" Cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. (David A. Simmons to Rossville-Springcreek Historical Society. 26 October 1982. African Jackson Cemetery Nomination File.) 3-James C. Oda, Piqua s Black Heritage (Piqua. OH; Piqua Historical Society. 1986), no pagination. Miller, Historv of Miami County. Ohio, p. 349. ^•*War of the Rebellion : a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies. 70 vols. (Washington, D C. : Government Printing Office. 1880-1901). p. 70: 235. -^Ronald F. King. "Marshalltown", Historv of Miami Countv. O hio. ed. Miller, p. 308.

1 86 join the 27th U.S. Colored Troops regim ent.^^ their ranks including the younger Phill White (Certificate 444) who became a bugler.The 12th US Colored Troops included at least one probable Randolph, George Ewill.^* Because of the black veterans in its lots, a cemetery "due north of the Hanktown Cemetery, halfway to Ludlow Creek" became known as the 'Civil War Cemetery' — at least four of these men were Randolph Slaves.^^ Such veterans are sometimes easier to track than the general population, such as when the 1890 census of Union Army pensioners noted that Armistead Jones had died of "consumption from exposure." Piqua had a Cyrene African Methodist Episcopal Church by 1853. The following year it got its own building by purchasing a former white church.-*^ Polly White's home became the meeting place for Rossville's first black church in 1857, whose small congregation included at least seven Randolph Slaves. Rossville's first actual church building, the African Baptist Church, was constructed twelve years later.-*’ Reportedly this Baptist congregation had split off from the Cyrene AME church of Piqua.-*- Eventually the Baptist church opened a Sunday school, of which Randolph descendant William Ryall (son of Thompson Ryal) was the secretary.-*^ More worldly schools were also set up in Randolph Slave communities. Elizabeth Moss testified that though although the "free schools" for blacks didn't open until 1873, in the 1850's her parents paid for her to attend a subscription school where she learned to read and write.-*-* At some point in the late 1860's or 1870's a

^^Oda. Piqua s Black Heritage, no pagination. 37lbid. ^^Piqua Daily Leader-Di.spatch 8 May 1909. ^‘*Honeyman, "Hanktown". Historv of Miami County. Ohio. ed. Miller, p. 349. -*Qpda. Piqua s Black Heritage, no pagination. -*‘Fo.\, "Shawnee and Rossville". History of Miami Countv. Ohio, ed. Miller, p. 325 -. Gilmore. The Historv of the John Randolph Freed Slaves, p. 11. -*-Oda. Piqua s Black Heritage, no pagination.

-*^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910). p. 716.

-*-*Moton V. Kessens. Testimony ofElizabeth Moss (5-6-1914). pp. 158-159.

187 Hanktown lot owned by Fountain Randolph's wife Susan became the site of Hanktown's second school building (Special School District #15 — the actual building was of brick) until 1895, when the school board sold it to become a private home/^ The schoolteacher lived in a loghouse with a foundation of boulders on a second, nearby parcel of land/^ Louise Butler, one of the children in the 1846 relocation, testified in MOTON V KESSENS about her attendance at this school. She remembered it as a subscription school, open 9 months of the year (but closed during Autumn — presumably so farm children could help with the harvest.)-*^ Another Hanktown resident, Matilda Johnson, remembered two white female teachers.-^* White farmer M.H. Davis spoke of other teachers : two white male Quakers, and a New York black named Aaron Dillbaugh.^^ A white teacher at this school, A.H. Kessler of West Milton, gave a deposition in MOTON VS. KESSENS stating his brother the lawyer W.S. Kessler and their sister also taught there at times.^o This school served not only Hanktown but Marshalltown.^' Rossville had a black public school from 1873 through 1922, when a previously all-white Springcreek School integrated.^- William Fox, who taught in this Rossville school during the 1880's, testified in MOTON VS. KESSENS that this was a primary schoolA^ Other communities took in the Randolph Slaves, though often even more dispersed than Piqua and Rossville. The Jones family were scattered through the Miami County seat of Troy as domestic

■^^Honeyman, "Hanktown", History o f Miami Countv. Ohio. ed. Miller, p. 349. Susan had received this lot from her father Isaac Cole. •*^Ibid., pp. 249-250. Like the schoolhouse itself, this lot was Cole land. ^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Louise Butler (5-6-1914), p. 163. (Interestingly she states on p. 169 that she attended "what they call the Round Top school" before the Hanktown institution.) ^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Matilda Johnson (5-6-1914), p. 180.

•^^Moton V. Kessens, Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910), p. 611.

-^Moton V. Kessens, Deposition of A.H. Kessler (4-24-1913), p. 963.

^'Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). p. 612. ^-Gilmore, The Historv of the John Randolph Freed Slaves, p. 12.

^^Moton V. Kessens, Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), p. 700.

188 servants to several white families. Still, in 1850 there were 27 Randolph Slaves in Troy, no matter how dispersed, which ranked it with Piqua and Shelby County's Sidney as a center of these freedm en. Marshalltown in Miami County's Newton Township was another major Randolph Slave settlement, with six settlers in the village itself and fourteen more in the area. Like Hanktown, this was somewhat removed from the immediate Miami Canal path. A related settlement was "Possum Hollow ", where William Young's family resided. Marshalltown was very close to Hanktown, so one account given of its founding was that "there was not enough land in the Hanktown plat to give them all home and they bought the Marshalltown land from a man by the name of Marshall."5-* Whether insufficient Hanktown space was the cause or not, on Oct. 16, 1847, John Marshall had sold farm land to four Randolph Slave families, starting this settlement. It would persist into the 1930's. Many of the white neighbors were Quakers, their meeting house being only a few miles from t h e black s e t t l e r s . Shelby County, although it had refused the en masse settlement of the freedmen, became another area of their dispersal. Scattered among four of its townships in 1850 were at least 39 Randolph Slaves. Indeed, Shelby County always had from a tenth to a third of the known Randolph Slaves and descendants in the Miami Canal region from 1850 through 1910. Although Rumley in Shelby's Van Buren Township was a major free black settlement, of the Randolph Slaves only the Creath (or Creth) and Dickerson families settled in that communityMore important was the county seat of Sidney, where for instance Aggy

^•^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of John Coate (11-18-1910), p. 638. ^^King, "Marshalltown", Historv of Miami Countv. Ohio. ed. Miller, pp. 307- 308. ^^Raterman, Clarence B. "Black Community of Rumley Once Thrived In Shelby County". Sidnev Dailv News 14 July 1973.

189 High and her daughters worked as washerwomen, laundresses, and other domestics for the next 40 years. In 1864 a petition from Shelby County citizens asked the state legislature for a Negro exclusion law to forestall an influx of the "degraded race"^^ due to Civil War emancipation. Taking the law into their own hands, an 1865 proclamation by "the I.O.O.N.A.’" ordered the blacks of Shelby (specifying the inhabitants of 'Romiey' and Daysville) to leave the county by November 20, 1865 "in consequence of their bad conduct, insolence, and competition with white labor".58 Like the Mercer County Resolutions, this produced a counter-petition to the Governor from white citizens anxious to preserve the public peace.5^ There may well have been other settlements. There is a persistent claim of Randolph Slave presence in Greene County^o for which no evidence is found in the Censuses. Shelby County resident Milton Ailes did mention as second hand information to Randolph biographer William Cabell Bruce that "there is still living, near Xenia, one of the old Randolph slaves, who could give an interesting account of the migration.But such a person has not yet been identified. We have already seen how maddeningly often names could appear and disappear in the Roanoke slave lists, and freedom only compounds the problem of accountingfor disappearances in the Ohio census data. Some disappearances, of course, are much more understandable than others ; in November 1857 Braxton Green (certificate 468 in the 1846 manumission) was working in a Troy

5^Forrest G. Wood, Black Scare : The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), p. 22. 58 "Warning to Negroes in Shelby County," Ohio Historical Center. 59petition from Shelby County, 27 September 1865, Ohio Historical Center. ^^Helen Santmeyer, Ohio Town (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. 1962), p. 87; Xenia is also mentioned as a Randolph Slave settlement in James H. Rodabaugh, "The Negro in Ohio", Journal of Negro Historv 31 (January 1946) : 18. Xenia is briefly but unhelpfully mentioned in Moton v. Kessens. Deposition of George Vogler (5-27-1910), pp. 755-756. and Deposition of Samuel P. Miles (5- 27-1910), p. 812. ^•Milton E. .Ailes to William Cabell Bruce, 30 July 1924. Bruce-Randolph Papers.

1 90 saloon called the Morris House when the owner requested him to throw out a drunken, violent patron, Capt. Kidd of Piqua. While physically resisting ejection, Kidd's throat was gashed fatally — he was found dying "a few minutes after a short distance from the door." Braxton immediately fled Troy, and his absence from all subsequent enumerations is hardly a matter of wonder.^- These problems of disappearance and identification underline that the Randolph Slaves were fairly typical Ohio free blacks. What distinguished them from other freed people was not any unique economic situation or cultural trait, but a shared history and sense of persistent identity. William Fox, who taught in Piquas colored school in the 1880’s, testified that "the Randolphs" were blacks of the region who knew they and their forebears had been slaves of John Randolph.^^ In the MOTON v KESSENS trial there would be arguments whether even the Randolph blacks could identify all the families of 1846. and admissions that many genealogical "Randolphs" had become lost to the conscious Randolph Slave community by moving away.^-* Even at the high point of the 1850 Census, identifiable Randolph Slaves constituted only 39% of Miami County's black population of 602 Negroes — and while Miami County's black population stabilized at eleven hundred people in the 1870's. the identifiable Randolph element dropped to a mere 5% by the time of MOTON VS. KESSENS. With an already smaller black population. Shelby County had a proportionately larger Randolph Slave presence, but this was not necessarily a conscious one. Economic migration is undoubtedly one factor. Carter Lee illustrates how a search for livelihood could shift a Randolph Slave within the boundaries of the Miami Canal region. The 1850 census

^-Celina Western Standard 8 October 1857, reprinting from Piqua Enquirer.

^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of William G. Fox (5-7-1914). pp. 199-202. G^For instance. Moton v. Kessens. Deposition of William Getz (5-18-1910), p. 897. in which an Ed Johnson previously identified as a Randolph slave is no longer after the witness talked with York Rial. The Deposition of George E. Lee (4-23- 1913), p. 992, mentions having to ask local blacks whether they were of "the Randolph party " or not.

19 1 found him one of the Randolph Slaves in Miami County's Monroe Township ; by 1860 he is another of Marshalltown’s residents in Newton Township of Miami, but the next counting finds him a farmer in Shelby County's Turtle Creek Township. Even more telling is York Ryal's own lengthy testimony in MOTON VS. KESSENS about the periodic labor migration apparently typical for a black man of the time, ranging from eight to nine years in Dayton ^5 to many casual jobs for Miami County whites^s and "a good many years" as a Sidney hod carrier.^^ One of Fountain Randolph's Ohio-born sons, John S. Randolph, reversed the family's migration pattern by becoming a teacher in Georgia, where he was killed in a railroad accident and his body returned to Ohio for burial.^* Freedom meant that the unpaid skill of the slave had to become the paying Job of the free black. Most of the Randolph slaves continued to be what they had been in Virginia, farm workers, laboring among the white farmers of the region. "Laborer" is the job description given by 24 of the 222 identifiable Randolph Slaves found in the 1850 census, the largest category. Although most gave no occupation, three more were "farmers" and two were barbers. This figure is somewhat low since usually the census only recorded the male head of the family's work, and the rest of the family probably worked as well. For example, almost eighty years later Fountain Randolph had "distinct recollection" of one large log cabin near what became Piqua's Public Square because "his mother did washing for the family that lived in that hut. At this point the advantages of the artisans became clear, blacksmith Peter Johnson continuing to smith in Hanktown when the 1850 census found him.

^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910), pp. 880, 1002.

^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp. 871,995. 1016.

^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). p. 862. ^^Oda, Piqua's Black Heritage, no pagination; Mrs. Janet C. Martin to R. F. Bagby, 26 May 1995. ^^Piqua Dailv Call. 14 July 1923

192 But as white farmer John Coate observed in his MOTON VS. KESSENS deposition, when lawyer W.E. Henderson asked him about the ignorance of the general Randolph community, "They knew how to come out on the farm and work . . . They knew when they were paid their wages. We know something of what it meant "to come out on the farm and work" for those wages. In giving a deposition about his black Hanktown neighbors, M.H. Davis specifically said the women were often employed by his own family "to help in washing, cleaning house, shearing sheep.The Davis family had "two to five and six of these men working for us at times and at noon or when they were gathered together they would talk and relate the incidents in regard to their coming here and their getting this land."^- In his similar testimony, Quaker farmer John Coate paints an even more detailed picture of their working : "they would work for my father . . . chopping wood and hoeing corn, men and women would hoe corn for us. the men would chop wood and work sometimes around the barn, cleaning up when tramping out corn and such as that, they would sing a song which they said they sang when they left Virginia . . . they had a humming tune they would always sing when they were working together, two or three of t h e m . "'^3 In an 1891 article Indiana journalist Albert G. Evans quotes many "snatches of plantation songs", which had been sung to him by Troy residents Sallie Jones and Choe Williams "in true old style, with all the accompanying grotesque motions of the head and body, which contribute so much to the effect." As his chosen adjectives indicate, Evans took a condescending, paternalist view of the freedmen, depicting their trip to Ohio as full of primitive frights and naive misapprehensions, but he sympathized with their then

^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of John Coate (I I-I8-19I0), p. 643.

Moton V. Kessens, Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). p. 546.

^^Moton V. Kessens, Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910), p. 553.

^-^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of John Coate (11-18-1910), p. 637. 7^Evans. "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", p. 448.

193 beginning land suits. The "humming tune" Coates testified about might then be, perhaps. Stand back, Satan, an' let me come by; Stand back, Satan, an' let me come by; Then I'll shout glory, glory! You whipped ole Sal, and you'll whip her again; Stand back, Satan, an' let me come by;

Then I'll shout glory, glory, h a l l e l u j a h Or perhaps. Seek him, seek him, seek him truly. My Lord, I feellike I'm new-born again; I've got free-grace, 'deeming Lord, I'm new-born again. Glory, glory, glory, free at last; I'm new-born again! We've been a long time talkin' 'bout trials here below. I'm new-born again!^^ Or even. Any more, any more. I'll never turn back any more; When I'll get there on yonder hill. I'll never turn back any more.^^ These three "snatches" all deal with overcoming adversity. It is a truism that black spirituals had at least as much to do with all too earthly slavery as with heavenly salvation, and it is not difficult to see obvious meanings in a whipping "Satan" whose overthrow brings "glory", or being "free at last" from "trials here below", . The great success story of the Randolph community in material terms was Goodrich Giles. Though himself not actually one of the 383 migrants of 1846, Goodrich was the son of Archibald Giles by one

^^Ibid., p. 445. ^^Ibid., p. 446. 7 ? I b id .

1 94 Sallie^* and joined his Randolph Slave relatives after the Civil WarJ") As a huckster,^® a farmer (owning up to three farms in the Piqua region),*' purchasing agent for the American Strawboard Company,*- and Piqua livery stable owner (incidentally employing other Randolph Slaves),*^ Giles prospered to such an extant he became the first black investor in a Piqua bank, the Third National Bank of Piqua.*-* The ultimate tribute to such entrepreneurial achievement was when Booker T. Washington included Giles in his gallery of ex- slave success stories in 1909's THE STORY OF THE NEGRO (giving his wealth as "something over $50,000").*5 The flip side of such fame came during the MOTON VS. KESSENS trial, when the Mercer County lawyers made much of the admission that Goodrich had often visited Mercer County on business trips since the 1870's.*^ (While the motive was unique, the circumstance was not — dispersed, the Randolph slaves had mixed socially with the regional black community, even going on social visits to old friends living in Mercer County.)*^

^*Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Goodrich Giles (5-5-1914), p47; Deposition of Noah Pearson, p. 903. ^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Goodrich Giles (5-5-1914), pp. 43-44. Giles first spent "eight or nine years" in New York. *''Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Goodrich Giles, p. 254.

* 'Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Goodrich Giles, pp. 46-47; the figure of 425 acres owned by Giles is given in Booker T. Washington. The Story of the Negro : The Rise of the Race from Slavery. (New York: Doubleday. 1909 : reprint ed.. Negro University Press. 1969). I: 236. *-Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Goodrich Giles, pp. 250. 252-254 ; Testimony of Thomas Robinson (5-7-1914). p. 232; Testimony of William Robinson (5-7-1914). pp. 233-234. *^Oda. Piqua's Black Heritage, no pagination. *-*Ibid. *^Washington. The Story of the Negro I: 236.

*^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Goodrich Giles, pp. 250-254; Testimony of Thomas Robinson, pp. .225-226. 232. *^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Thomas Robinson, pp. 220-221. Robinson's testimony that an Edith of the Randolph community visited his mother because they had been slaves on adjoining Virginia plantations is made much of by Mercer lawyer P. E. Kenney as proving social communication between the Mercer County blacks and the Randolph group. Brief of P. E. Kenney. Moton v.

195 The community of "Randolph Slaves" in the Miami Canal region was necessarily different from the slave community owned by John Randolph. In discussing the national Emancipation and Reconstruction, historian Peter Kolchin points to the "centrifugal as well as centripetal tendencies" freed blacks had to deal with.** Like the Southern freedmen, the Randolph Slaves were no longer united by common control or common residence (John Randolph's own scheme of a new shared settlement having been thwarted by the mob.) That in Piqua a Goodrich Giles could prosper while a "Jeemy James" Ryal could be famous there as a beggar ("Gi" me a penny")*^ meant they might now split along emerging class lines. Was a shared past enough grounds for a continued common future? In this new environment kinship might well become even more important than on the plantation, mutual dependence and support in the face of racism being one possible response to the loss of a "geographic focus" for groups of former slaves.^o For the Randolph Slaves, their survival as a single united, autonomous community had been prevented by the Mercer County mob. Evidence, though, that the sense of a unique communal identity had not been lost was to be dramatically demonstrated at the turn of the century.

Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker. n. d.), pp. 37-38. **Koichin, American Slavery , p. 227. *^"James Rial", in Rayner, The First Centurv o f Piqua, p. 208. ^"Malone. Sweet Chariot, p. 238.

196 1850 □ . 46.00 to 157.20 v a n W e rt 0 X 157.20 to 268.40 CD * 268.40 to 379.60 0 ^ 379.60 to 490.80 H o 490.80 to 602.00

A u g la iz e

MAP 9.1 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1850 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES This shows the distribution of the general black population (not distinguishing the Randolph Slaves) as found by the 1850 Census. Note that while Miami County leads, Mercer is equal to Shelby County in black population.

197 1860

□ ■ 64.00 to 211.20 v a n W e rt 0 X 211.20 to 358.40 m * 358.40 to 505.60 0 505.60 to 652.80 M o 652.80 to 800.00

A u g la iz e

MAP 9.2 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1860 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES The 1860 Census finds the same patterns for general black population as did the 1850 enumeration.

198 1870

□ • 61.00 to 258.60 van Wert IdX 258.60 to 456.20 im * 456.20 to 653.80 653.80 to 851.40 O 851.40 to 1049.00

A u g la iz e

MAP 9.3 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1870 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES Not until over twenty years after the 1846 race crisis does Mercer County's black population begins to drop significantly.

199 1880 □ ■ 69.00 to 289.60 \A X 289.60 to 510.20 (ill * 510.20 to 730.80 N 730.80 to 951.40 Lfl o 951.40 to 1172.00

M e rc e r A u g la iz e

'M:,w c

MAP 9.4 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1880 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES Mercer County's black population has finally declined to the level of Auglaize County (though notice this is still not completely lily-white.) Miami, on the other had, remains the center of regional black population, while Van Wert's increases from here on.

200 1900

□ • 24.00 to 249.80 y X 249.80 to 475.60 lU* 475.60 to 701.40 y 701.40 to 927.20 Ml o 927.20 to 1153.00

M e r c e r A u g la iz e

%

%

MAP 9.6 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1900 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES While the distribution patterns remain the same as in 1880, note in the Legend that the range from lowest (24 blacks) to highest (at least 970) has grown more extreme.

202 ” ■ > 1890 □ . 46.00 to 272.20 0 X 272.20 to 498.40 Qn ^ 498.40 to 724.60 724.60 to 950.80 H o 950.80 to 1177.00

M e rc e r A u g la iz e

"rri?

MAP 9.5 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1890 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES While much of the 1890 Census was destroyed in a fire, the county population totals survive to show that the situation remains as in 1880.

201 1910 □ • 36.00 to 250.60 y X 250.60 to 465.20 liU 465.20 to 679.80 y 679.80 to 894.40 Ml o 894.40 to 1109.00

M e rc e r A u g la iz e

S h e lb y

MAP 9.7 BLACK DISTRIBUTION IN 1910 MIAMI CANAL REGION COUNTIES In this last map of this series, Shelby County has finally declined from the second rank to join Mercer and Auglaize in the third. But note in the Legend that the"minimum" black population has risen from a mere 24 to 36 — still small, but growing.

203 1850 - Total Black Pop

D in s m o re J a c k s o n □ O 0.00 to 53.00 0 O 53.00 to 106.00 HD O to M c L e a n 106.00 159.00 F ra n k lin 0 O 159.00 to 212.00 S a le m 11 O 212.00 to 265.00 TU tie C re e l'

C y n th ia n

L o ra m ie W ashington^ pgpigg

N e w b e rry B row n P io u a

XXX ta u n to n L ost C r e e k

N e w to n

E liz a b e th

M o n ro e T ip p C ity

B ethel 39109023

MAP 9.8 TOTAL BLACK POPULATION IN MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTY TOWNSHIPS Beginning a series of maps combining Miami and Shelby Counties, this shows the distribution of the entire black population in the 1850 Census, the Randolph Slaves being only a part of this whole. Unlike the later maps, this also indicates urban concentrations by showing Troy. Piqua, and Sidney in that order had the largest black populations of the canal towns.

204 1850 -All RS’s

D in s m o re V a n B u re n J a c k s o n □ O 2.00 to 19.00 0 O 19.00 to 36.00 GDO 36.00 to 53.00

F ra n k lin S o 53.00 to 70.00 S a le m S o 70.00 to 87.00 TU tie Creet

C y n th ia n P e r r y

L o ram ie W a s h in g to i G r e e n

in g c r e e k

N e w b e rry B ro w n

iS ta u n to n i T ro y L o s t C r e e k

E liz a b e th

M o n ro e Tipp City

B e th e l 39109023

MAP 9.9 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1850 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES Using the same township map as the previous map. this depicts the distribution of all Randolph Slaves (original migrants and Ohio-born descendants.) Note that Randolph Slaves are not found in all townships with a black population, and that while there are some Randolphs in Shelby County's Van Buren Township, it is not as strong a presence as is the general black population.

205 1860 -All RS’s

D in s m o re v a n B u r e n J a c k s o n □ o 1.00 to 14.80 0 o 14.80 to 28.60 28.60 to 42.40 M CLSan m o F ra n k lin o 42.40 to 56.20 S a lem o 56.20 to 70.00 TO tie Creel-

C y n th ia n

L o ra m ie W ashingt^range G re e n

n g c r e e k

N e w b e rry B row n

ta u n to n L o st C re e k

E liz ab e th

M o n ro e T ip p C ity

B e th e l 39109023

MAP 9.10 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1860 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES Ten years have resulted in the Randolph Slave population becoming somewhat more concentrated, due to the success of settlements such as Hanktown in Union Township or Marshalltown in Newton Township.

206 1870 -All RS's

D in s m o re V an B u re n J a c k s o n □ O 1.00 to 12.00 □ O 12.00 to 23.00 El O 23.00 to 34.00

F ra n k lin S o 34.00 to 45.00 S a le m Tnt] S o 45.00 to 56.00

C y n th ia n P e rry

./*

L o ram ie W a s h in g to i G r e e n

N e w b e rry B ro w n

ita u n to n T ro y L o s t C r e e k

9 % ^ E liz a b e th M o n ro e T ip p C ity

B e th e l 39109023

MAP 9.11 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1870 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES The tendency towards concentration continues. Piqua (& Rossville) increasingly now the center for identifiable Randolph Slave population.

207 1880-All RS's

D in s m o re V an B u ren J a c k s o n □ o 5.00 to 14.40 □ o 14.40 to 23.80 wcnsan DUO 23.80 to 33.20 F ra n k lin 0 O 33.20 to 42.60 42.60 to 52.00 Ttr tie Creek

C y n th ia n

Sidney L o ra m ie WashingtonQfapQ0

N e w b e rry B ro w n P ia u a /Vashinotan S ta u n to n L o st C r e e k

C o n c o rd E liz a b e th

M o n ro e TiPP C'ty

B e th e l 3 9 1 0 9 0 2 3

MAP 9.12 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1880 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES The settlements in the Miami townships of Union (Hanktown), Newton (Marshalltown), Washington (Piqua — which is also why Rossville, in Springcreek Township, rises) predominate.

2 0 8 1900 -A ll RS's

D in s m o r e V a n B u re n J a c k s o n □ O 4.00 to 8.20 0 O 8.20 to 12.40 IIDO 12.40 to 16.60

F ra n k lin 0 O 16.60 to 20.80 S a le m E lO 20.80 to 25.00 T n tie Creel

C y n th ia n P e rry

S id n e y

L o ra m ie W a s h in g to i r a n g e G r e e n

N e w b e rry B ro w n

L o s t C r e e k

N e w to n

E liz a b e th

M o n ro e U nion T ip p C ity

B e th e l 39109023

MAP 9.13 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1900 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES Due to the loss of the 1890 Census we must jump 20 years. In Shelby County Randolph Slaves can be identified only in Clinton and Washington Townships, part of its general loss of black population which was noted in the 1910 map.

209 1910-All RS's

D in sm o re V a n B u re n J a c k s o n □ O 3.00 to 6.80 0 O 6.80 to 10.60

MCL&g DUO 10.60 to 14.40 F ranklin E O 14.40 to 18.20 S a le m H O 18.20 to 22.00 T D i tie C re e l'

C y n th ia n P e r r y

S id n e y

L o ra m ie W a s h in g to i 'ra n g e G r e e n

N e w b e rry B ro w n

itau n to n T ro y L o st C r e e k N e w to n

E liz a b e th

M o n ro e U n io n

B e th e l 39109023

MAP 9.14 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1910 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES Union Township has finally ceased to be a Randolph Slave settlement.

2 10 1920 -All RS's

D in s m o re V a n B u re n J a c k s o n □ O 6.00 to 8.40 0 O 8.40 to 10.80 DUO 10.80 to 13.20 F ra n k lin Mo 13.20 to 15.60 S a le m E lO 15.60 to 18.00 Ttr tie Creef

C y n th ia n

S id n e y

L o ra m ie W ashingtoi r a n g e G re e n

in g c r e e k

N e w b e rry B row n

T ro y L o st C re e k N e w to n

E liz a b e th

M o n ro e U n io n T ip p C ity

B e th el 39109023

MAP 9.15 RANDOLPH SLAVES IN 1920 MIAMI & SHELBY COUNTIES First, note in the Legend that the differences in distribution are much less dramatic than apparent from the map, the range from lowest (6 Randolph Slaves) to highest (18 Randolph Slaves) being a mere 12 individuals. The real story here is that after MOTON VS. RESSENS (and the First World War), Randolph Slaves are still found in the same six townships as in the previous Census.

2 1 1 1850 - Original Migrants

D in s m o re V a n B u r e n J a c k s o n □ O 1.00 to 15.00 □ O 15.00 to 29.00 [ID O 29.00 to 43.00 M c L ea n F ra n k lin 0 O 43.00 to 57.00 S a le m E iO 57.00 to 71.00 Ttr tie Creel

C y n th ia n P e rry

L o ra m ie W a s h in g to i G r e e n

in g c re e k

N e w b e rry B ro w n

^yyyyj^Staunton T ro y L o st C r e e k

E liz a b e th

M o n ro e Tipp 9'ty

B e th e l 39109023

MAP 9.16 ORIGINAL RANDOLPH SLAVE MIGRANTS IN 1850 CENSUS This series of maps shows the distribution of the 383 Randolph Slaves who originally migrated into western Ohio in 1846 from 1850 to 1880. The point is that by showing their inevitable decrease, their replacement by descendants can be studied from the previous all- Randolph series of maps. Unsurprisingly the first Census finds them synonymous with the total Randolph group. Map.

2 1 2 1860 - Original Migrants

D in s m o re van Buren Jackson □ O 1.00 to 7.20 □ o 7.20 to 13.40

IviCLSan ED O 13.40 to 19.60 F ra n k lin 0 O 19.60 to 25.80 S a le m H O 25.80 to 32.00 TU tie Creel'

C y n th ia n

L o ram ie Washingtonérange

m i # # n g c r e e k

N e w b e rry B ro w n

ta u n to n L o s t C r e e k

E liz a b e th

M o n ro e nldrȔ^ Tipp City

B e th e l 39109023

MAP 9.17 ORIGINAL RANDOLPH SLAVE MIGRANTS IN I860 CENSUS Still indistinguishable from the total Randolph Slave distribution.

2 1 3 1870 ■ Original Migrants

D in s m o re van Buren Jackson □ O 1.00 to 4.20 □ o 4.20 to 7.40 [ m o 7.40 to 10.60 KTOt53n F ra n k lin g o 10.60 to 13.80 S a le m o 13.80 to 17.00

C y n th ia n

L o ra m ie Washington^range

N e w b e rry B row n P ia u a

S ta u n to n L o st G re e k

E liz a b e th

M o n ro e T ip p C ity

B eth el 3 9 1 0 9 0 2 3 (

MAP 9.18 ORIGINAL RANDOLPH SLAVE MIGRANTS IN 1870 CENSUS The passage of 24 years since the move from Virginia finally creates a noticeable distinction between the whole Randolph community and the original migrants, as age and mortality take their tolls. While present in all the same townships as their descendants, the original group is more concentrated in those with key settlements such as Union Township. This reflects households being formed by now mature adults as well as the elderly needing care from the extended family.

2 14 1880 - Original Migrants

D in s m o re V a n B u re n J a c k s o n □ O 1.00 to 3.40 0 O 3.40 to 5.80 DU O to MCLëan 5.80 8.20 F ra n k lin S o 8.20 to 10.60 S a le m H o 10.60 to 13.00 Ttl tie Creel"

C y n th ia n

L o ram ie Washington^range

N e w b e rry B ro w n P i a u a

S ta u n to n L o s t C r e e k

E iz a b e th

M o n ro e Tipp City 0 # B e th e l 3 9 1 09 023

MAP 9.19 ORIGINAL RANDOLPH SLAVE MIGRANTS IN 1880 CENSUS Again the distinction between this and Map of the total Randolph population is mainly one of concentrations rather than spread. However, Shelby County's Turtlecreek Township is the first location with no original migrants, but which had some descendants present at this time. Due to the loss of the 1890 Census, we cannot see the transition from the original migration to the new generation completed.

2 15 CHAPTER 10

UNITY THROUGH OPPOSITION

"From the same also it proceedeth that men cannot distinguish, without study and great understanding, between one action of many men . and many actions of one multitude ; . . . and therefore are disposed to take for the action of the people, that which is a multitude of actions done by a multitude of men, led perhaps by the perswasion [sic] of one." —LEVIATHAN, Chapter 11, Thomas Hobbes

The New Bremen mob of 1846 had put two communities into conflict, and profoundly affected each. For the white residents of Mercer County it was the type of vigilante action that reaffirmed their own perception of themselves and gave new sanction to vigilantism and to violence.' As Richard Maxwell Brown notes, "taking the law into your own hands" can bind communities together. If vigilante rhetoric declares they are defending their homes from a common threat (usually in terms modeled on American Revolutionary discourse), vigilante actions to impose order (in their eyes at leasf) reaffirm not merely that the community is worth preserving, but the very existence of community.- In particular, when the proper authorities seem hostile or ineffective, administering your own justice not only secures but empowers. Excluding disturbances during the Civil War, there were four major mob actions in Mercer County between 1820 and 1880. Each

'Brown, "The American Vigilante Tradition". pp. 184-185. - Ibid.. pp. 172-173.

216 incident reveals not only hostility to outside threats to the community, but internal tensions and divisions within Mercer's own society. In 1843 over a hundred local farmers breached the Grand Reservoir of the nearby Miami & Erie Canal in the name of health and property. In 1846 armed farmers repulsed the attempted settlement of John Randolph of Roanoke’s 383 black freedmen, followed over the summer by a campaign of harassment of resident blacks. In 1871 alleged counterfeiters were rescued' from Treasury agents in Celina, and in 1872 two peddlers accused of a sensational rape-murder were lynched. A mere glance at these dates shows vigilante actions cluster into two periods, the mid-1840's and early 1870's; adding the Civil War period, with its more complicated acts of group violence involving the Federal draft and party politics, establishes three periods of violent group activity. The two 1840's mobs in Mercer County both began as defensive acts against external threats, though the race campaign turned into aggression against local residents. They aimed violent action not directly at people but at threats to property and lifestyle and were regarded as hostile by central authority. How do they fit into the broader patterns of violence in 1840's Mercer County? As Plot 10.2 shows, on the personal level Mercer County was actually more consistently violent in the preceding decade. Ten years before the Randolph slave mob, for instance, the 1836 session of the Court of Common Pleas had to deal with 9 assaults, a rape, and a "riot" (probably an election disturbance). The year 1840 finds indictments for two separate "riots", possibly showing an era of more group violence beginning. Another "riot" charge in 1842 is also suggestive. When the actual mob years are examined for crimes against the person and the state, 1843 doubled the number of assault charges from the previous year (from 2 to 5) and features one of Mercer County's known murders. The year 1844 saw another doubling to 11 assault cases and yet another rape. While 1845 offers a mere 2 assaults, it seems a lull before the storm when the mob year 1846 presents us with a whopping 10 battery cases (none

2 17 apparently connected with the racial violence of the same year.) Assaults then drop slightly for the remainder of this decade, only to jump again for the early 1850's.^ Statistically "smoothing" this data (in Plot 10.2) to display its trends shows the mid-1830's as the peak, with the years following the dam and race mobs dipping into a peaceful trough until personal violence explodes again in the 1850's. The "rough" (Plot 10.3). showing what data values don't fit into this tidy picture, depicts the 1840's as both anomolously high in its number of assaults (1843, 1845) and anomolously low (1841.) Mercer County itself was reduced in size when in 1848 most of German Township was shifted to the newly organized Auglaize County, so that the Mercer County sued by the Randolph slaves in 1907 was not actually identical to that which had refused them.-* Contemplation of these graphics suggests the major ingredient for violence is simply large numbers of people. Obviously mobs can only be raised when there are enough people to agitate and gather together into violent groups; the figures on assaults suggest that even personal violence similarly follows the density of the local population.

^In 1853 state law changed the jurisdiction of assault cases from county Courts of Common Pleas to Justices of the Peace, making it difficult to compare figures before and after that year. (The shearing off of Auglaize in 1849 does not seem actually to have affected the general trends.) •*Bronsart H. Gilberg, comp.. History of Mercer Countv (Rockford, OH: The Rockford Press, n.d.), p. 68.

2 1 8 10.0

7 . 5

A s s a 0 u I t s 5

1 8 3 0 . 0 1837.5 1 8 4 5 . 0

Y e a r s

PLOT 10.1 ASSAULT CASES IN MERCER COUNTY, 1820-1850

219 9 . 0

7 . 5

6.0 S m 0 o t h

3 . 0

1 8 3 0 . 0 1 8 3 7 . 5 1 8 4 5 . 0

Y e a r s

PLOT 10.2 ASSAULT CASES IN MERCER COUNTY. 1820-1850 (SMOOTHED)

220 6 --

3 --

R 0 0 -- u g h

3 --

1----- 1---- 1------1 8 3 0 . 0 1 8 3 7 .5 1 8 4 5 .0

Y e a r s

PLOT 10.3 ASSAULT CASES IN MERCER COUNTY. 1820-1850 (ROUGH)

Another obvious suspect for the general violence of the 1830's and the shorter but more intense eruptions of the I840's is Jacksonian Democracy. Both the dam breachers and the black chasers were led by influential Jacksonians. and what can be found out about their members supports Democratic dominance. The newspapers listed in the Mercer County Resolutions as appropriate venues for their publication were all Democratic and include two German language sheets, showing the immigrant element of the race campaign. The "banner township" Marion and the other Democratic bastions Granville and Recovery Townships had both probably the largest foreign born populations^

^Lester Jules DeFord, "Mercer County, Ohio, During The Civil War". (M. A.

22 1 and definitely the major concentration of local free blacks.^ From the 1840's onward Mercer County was locked into the Democratic party. Majorities of 60% for Democratic candidates become normal with the exception of Union Township (Plot 10.4). Third parties, whether Free Soil or (postbellum) Greenback, never picked up more than three or four votes in Mercer. This Democratic solidarity, however, contributed to Mercer finding itself out of step with the nation when the Civil War made all Democrats suspect, antiwar "Peace Democrats" most suspect of all. Auglaize County, which had been formed partly from Mercer, contributed the only Ohio regiment (the 57th) whose soldier vote went for Peace Democrat candidate Clement Vallandigham in the 1863 gubernatorial election.^ Mercer's own soldier vote was almost three times as Democratic as Ohio's average, one of every six Mercer County men in uniform supporting Vallandigham while other Ohio soldiers only gave him one in seventeen support.®

thesis. Ohio State University, 1948), p. 8 (though this is an backward estimate from the 1870 Census.) ^Ibid., p. 9. ^Frank L. Klement. The Limits o f Dissent : Clement L. Vallandigham and The Civil War. (Lexington. KY: The University Press of Kentucky; 1970). p. 254. ®DeFord. "Mercer County. Ohio, During The Civil War", p. 35.

222 100 T

8 0 - - % ï

6 0 ■■

4 0 - -

20 --

0 -L *

Granville Hopewell Jefferson Liberty RecoveryWastiington Marion Union

PLOT 10.4 PERCENTAGES OF VOTES GOING DEMOCRATIC. 1852-1880 This multiple boxplot depicts, on this page and the next. Democratic votes within Mercer County townships. For the sam e scale, the two partisan extremes of Marion (the Democrat "banner township" for three Civil W ar elections of 100% solidarity) and Union (recording 0 votes for McClellan in 1864) are shown twice on the far left. ______

223 PLOT 10.4 PERCENTAGES OF VOTES GOING DEMOCRATIC, 1852-1880 (continued)

1 0 0 -t-

3 : 8 0 - -

60 Ï

4 0 - -

20 --

0 4-

Blackcreek Butler Center Dublin Franklin Gibson Marion Union

224 While the old stereotype of treasonous Copperheads plotting to convert Ohio into a Confederate state has long since been discredited, a 'civil war' of sorts occurred within Mercer County. By geographic coincidence it too followed a north-south' pattern, the lower townships of Marion. Granville, and Recovery becoming bastions of Copperhead (or Butternut)^ strength and draft resistance, while northwestern Union Township remained anomolously anti-Democrat and neighboring Van Wert County was accused of effectively invading Mercer in the form of Deputy Provost Marshals. Democratic Mercer and Republican Van Wert each accused the other of harassing citizens of the opposing county traveling through on business, another north-south' clash. The truth is that the Peace Democrats did not so much "become" Copperheads as remain Jacksonians. The description of the Civil War as the "tragedy of Jacksonian America" would be heartily endorsed by Mercer's Democratic leaders who saw the outbreak of the war as the triumph of conspiratorial fanatics both North and South, and whose own slogan was "the Union as it was. the Constitution as it is" — often with the additional clause "the niggers where they are." William Sawyer, anti-black leader in the Randolph Slave incident, declared in speeches throughout the area that the war could have been prevented had "a Jackson" instead of the despised Lincoln faced the secession crisis. His audiences greeted him amid such Jacksonian props as hickory poles. What confounded the die­ hard Sawyer was a reception such as he got in Franklin Township in 1861, where local Republicans not only hooted his speech but parodied the Democratic raising of a hickory pole by raising a "sugar pole" in a mock parade led by a black man." Clearly the Jacksonian

"^This was clearly the term preferred by the men themselves, their counter- slang for Republicans being "Black Walnuts" (i.e.. mixtures of black and white, often with a joke of being rotten at the core). Butternut probably derived from the color of homemade clothing, but was embraced because butternuts made handy symbols in such forms as vest ornaments or hat garnishings. 'QÇelina Western Standard 24 March 1864. * 'Celina Western Standard 12 September 1861. Hickory poles and hickory

225 hegemony was under attack — quite literally two years later, when another rally of Sawyer’s was fired on by Republicans as its members returned home.'- What "Butternuts" such as Sawyer or the editor of the CELINA WESTERN STANDARD sought is worth explaining, since its meaning has largely been forgotten or distorted in the wake of Republican triumph. By "the Union as it was" they did not mean restoration of the status quo before the election of Lincoln. The controversial Clement Vallandigham of Dayton, who became the most visible spokesman for the movement and received a majority of votes in Mercer when he ran for Governor in 1864, personally thought the solution to this crisis of federalism was to make the United States a loose union of four autonomous regional confederacies, with a general council enacting only unanimous decisions.T his willingness to entertain loosening the American union marked the Copperheads as a sectionalist movement, their focus being the Midwest. In their view New England, which had sowed the abolitionist seed, was now reaping a harvest of industrial profit while the agricultural Midwest suffered wartime strangulation of markets. Men who had already clashed with the Yankee as profiteer, such as James Watson Riley, or as abolitionist, such as Augustus Wattles, now saw the heirs of such men ascendant while the Jacksonian star fell from the heavens. Nor was "the Constitution as it is" necessarily a bar to action — many like the STANDARD editor supported the 1860 Crittenden Compromise, which included amending the Constitution to make slavery entirely a matter of state law. What the sloganeers objected to was the

sticks were also common in the rural campaigns of Clement Vallandigham of Dayton, who would become Ohio’s Copperhead leader (Klement. The Limits of Dissent, pp. 40-41) Hickory poles continued to be political symbols in Mercer into the 1880's ; during the 1888 Presidential election Mercer County Republicans (allegedly mostly black) cut down the hickory pole in front of a Democrat's home in Coldwater and raised an "ash pole" instead. (Mercer Countv S ta n d a rd 22 Nov. 18881 I-Celina Western Standard 27 August 1863. '^Klement, The Limits of Dissent, pp. 54-56.

226 transformations being wrought by the Lincoln Administration. These old school Democrats had believed even before the Emancipation Proclamation that the "Abolition" party would alter the Constitution to grant negro suffrage and black equality, and they saw Lincoln as a despot encroaching on traditional liberties in the name of Federal authority. Federal tyranny's most obvious and controversial manifestations were conscription and arbitrary arrests. Although the WESTERN STANDARD editor always claimed that Democrats were the most enthusiastic volunteers to fight the war — and Abolitionists the most common deserters — his very own tally of volunteers by townships shows that Mercer's only Republican township led the rest.'-* When conscription was levied originally only on those townships which had not filled their volunteer quotas, in Mercer these proved to be five: Blackcreek, Liberty. Granville. Recovery, and Gibson.'5 Certainly Mercer's most famous draft evader was based in strongly Democratic Granville Township. William Simison was 36 when the first draft lottery in Mercer called him up.'^ His father is traditionally regarded as the first white to settle in Mercer County in 1818 ; William recalled growing up when both wolves and deer were "ordinary sport." and had no timidity about roughing it.*'^ Taking his gun and his dog. he hid out in the cranberry swamp which dominated his home township of Granville. While he does not seem to have been a highwayman, his willingness to use his weapons in self-defense against the Federal Provost Marshals trying to track him down made him a legend in his own time, a wild man either dangerous or romantic as the taleteller chose. After the war ended Simison emerged from hiding but never faced any charges.

'■*Celina Western Standard ‘^Celina Western Standard '^ibid '^DeFord. "Mercer County. Ohio, During The Civil War", p. 9; Knapp, History of the Maumee Valiev, p. 447; Scranton. History of Mercer Countv. p. 9.

227 ultimately dying a natural death at the age of 72 in the County Home.'* He did, though, have one more brush with Mercer County justice which shall be discussed in its time. Simison is the most famous of Mercer's men on the wrong side of the conscription laws, but another's actions had far more serious consequences for the county. Philip Bacher had been drafted, but his son John offered to be his substitute. When his father turned 45. John believed that this ended his obligation to substitute since his father himself would no longer have had to serve. He left the Army camp to return home. The question of what happened when Provost Marshal Lorin Shaffer came looking for this deserter illustrates how the war had heated partisan divisions to searing intensity. The official version was reported in the ardently Republican VAN WERT BULLETIN. This declared that when the Provost Marshal tried to arrest John at his father's home, the fugitive had held him off at gunpoint until a supporting mob gathered to help him make good his escape. The WESTERN STANDARD scoffed that the cowardly Federal officer had stood by while the unarmed deserter picked up a rifle and then offered no resistance to his escape. The "mob" was merely unarmed neighbors coming to see what all the ruckus was about. This disputed event resulted in an incontrovertible action. Alarmed by the resistance he encountered in Mercer, the Provost Marshall deputized five solid Van Wert County Republicans and rode into Mercer to arrest the deserter, his father, his uncle, and four other men accused of helping him escape from the law. While the arrests were certainly fact, interpretation again of course varied. The STANDARD saw this as a piece with the Lincoln policy of arbitrary arrests, and accused Federal officials of seeking to discourage Democratic voting in an imminent election. That all the men but the

‘*Gilberg. History of Mercer County, p. 70 ; Mercer County Home Inmates. Ohio Historical Center. Columbus. OH. p. 12. Briefly mentioned in "Cranberry Prairie". Alig, M ercer County, p. 363. '^Celina Western Standard 17 Sept. 1863.

228 deserter were released without charges shortly after this election was proof positive in the Butternut editor's eyes.-o The dispute over the next incident involving draft resistance was even more heated. Undisputed was that James S. Houston had been deputed by Provost Marshal Robert Stewart to deliver conscription rolls to the southern townships of Granville and Recovery, and that this errand was left incomplete because of a bullet ending his horse's life on a Granville road. The Butternut STANDARD, though, sneered that Houston was a drunk and a liar who had shot his own horse to avoid facing the resistant populations of these townships, then made up the claim an unknown sniper had done the deed.-' This time Provost Marshal Stewart appealed to his superior in Lima for troops to impose martial law on the area. A detachment was underway when a delegation of Mercer's leading citizens (including the STANDARD'S editor) called on the Lima officer, arguing that their county's troubles had been overstated and that a better solution would be replacing Stewart with a more diplomatic Provost Marshal. The troops halted while still in Auglaize County and eventually pulled back.-- This brush with martial law was followed by an even more sensational draft incident. Provost Marshal Stewart had captured a draft evader named Thompson and was taking him to jail with an escort of soldiers, when the group was ambushed on the road by Thompson's friends. In this rescue the Marshall and two of the soldiers were wounded. This time the STANDARD could not dispute the facts, but the editor offered a different exculpation, citing concurrent incidents of Republican violence against Democrats and concluding the violence was all the fault of Lincoln's policies, not the Democracy.-^

-'^Ibid.. 15 October 1863. -'Ibid.. 29 Sept. 1864. -- Ibid., 6 October 1864. -^Ibid.. 10 October 1864.

229 Both "Butternuts" and "Abolitionists" agreed that too many people were riding around the county waving guns. Indeed, the first year of the Civil War saw a wave of shooting accidents as children toyed with weapons which were probably more readily at hand. In 1860 a gang of highwaymen operated as widely as the seat of neighboring Shelby County and tried to kidnap the Mercer County treasurer.-"^ Much of the violence occurring in Mercer County was attributed to soldiers on leave, sometimes from just across the border in Indiana. Soldiers at one time attacked a hotel considered a Copperhead meeting place. Another group tarred and feathered a Democratic Justice of the Peace in the Republican township of Union - - though in this case the action backfired, since he was re-elected by a large majority at the next election.Yet another group of soldiers on furlough tried to attack the vociferously anti-war WESTERN STANDARD, only to find it defended by Democrats with deer rifles.-^ The first postbellum mob is forgotten by local historians, possibly because it presented the same problems of partisan reporting as Civil War incidents. In the fall of 1871 agents of the Treasury Department arrested some residents of Celina on charges of counterfeiting. After a short time in jail, the men were released on bail to be tried locally. All were then acquitted. Beyond these plain facts lies historical quicksand, for the CELINA STANDARD claimed the initial arrests were an attempt by the Federal officers to shake down the local citizens, thwarted when the good people of Celina rallied to free their fellows and through intimidating numbers caused the Fédérais to decide a local trial was the better part of valor. However the Republican WORKINGMAN'S JOURNAL scoffed at all reports of mobbing as hysteria, claimed the men had been freed by dry legal procedures, and considered it insulting when the Attorney General of

-■^Ibid., I Nov. 1860. -5lbid.. 13 April 1865. -^"The Standard Printing Co.. Inc.", Alig. Mercer Countv. p. 568.

230 Ohio made a personal visit to see if martial law was required.-^ Rather than try and sort a definite truth from these highly colored accounts, simply observe that this shows the divisions of the Civil War continuing into this new decade. To the editor of the STANDARD, Federal arrest still had the tyrannical overtones of the Civil War's arbitrary confinements, and the appropriate response remained popular uprising. To the JOURNAL and its Republican readers, even admitting such a possibility marked Mercer County as lawless and anarchic — the outside world's image of this county must be one of orderly due process among respectable lawyers, not "idlers" attacking the duly authorized agents of the law. Similarly, the acquittal was seen by the STANDARD as proving the original arrests unfounded, by the JOURNAL as proving legal form was the true guarantor of liberty. The fourth mob presents no such problem of determining whether it existed, being part of one of the most sensational events in Mercer's history. In Liberty Township, during June 1872 a fourteen year old girl. Mary Secour, failed to return home from Sunday school. A search the next day found her body in the woods (partly eaten by wild pigs) ; she had been raped and her throat cut. In the ensuing furor, three peddlers were arrested. Two were locals, Henry and Jake Kimmel, while the third, McLeod, was a Canadian. In the Celina jail, Henry Kimmel made a confession that he, his younger brother Jake, and McLeod had waylaid the girl and committed the outrage.-* From the moment of arrest lynch fever was in the air.-^ People soon gathered from all points of the county. On July 8 two hundred masked men on horseback, surrounded by a crowd of supporters, demanded that the Sheriff surrender his prisoners. That the Sheriff put up only token resistance is implied by the fact he spent months litigating the

-^W orkingm an's Journal 7 Sept. 1871. -*C elina Journal 27 June 1872. -^Celina Journal 4 July 1872. This fits W. Fitzhugh Brundage's profile that the usual white victim of a lynching was someone transient (peddlers), often "foreign" (McLeod). Brundage. Lynching in the New South, pp. 90-91. 95-96.

23 1 county to try and collect a reward posted for Mary Secour's murderers in the first day's search, the county’s position being the fate of the men made such a reward moot.^o Whether surrendered or taken, the three men found themselves in the hands of the lynch mob. The lynchers decided to take the accused men to Liberty Township and hang them in the approximate area where Mary Secour had been slain. There H. Kimmel and McLeod swung from makeshift gallows^' ; after their bodies were taken down, the corpses were presented to a local medical school.The members of the lynch mob were as usual never criminally charged though publicly known.^^ But what of Jake Kimmel? His brother's confession had implicated him as much as the Canadian in the rape murder, and it seems clear the mob had him in their power just as they had the other two. Yet Jacob Kimmel was left in the jail to face a regular trial, in which he was acquitted. That the public did not agree with this verdict is shown by a rumor the following year that the surviving Kimmel had committed suicide in remorse over the Secour murder, which local reporters found completely baseless.--^ Actually, after the lynching far more argument arose over the innocence of the dead McLeod than the guilt of the surviving Kimmel. The stoic demeanor of the Canadian in the face of his hanging and his refusal to incriminate himself apparently impressed some of the many spectators of the hanging with the possibility he was guiltless. Although the editor of the WORKINGMAN'S JOURNAL had initially opposed the lynching, he now felt compelled to argue that McLeod

^**That lynching was usually due to either the open complicity or the professional failings of the local sheriff was notorious in the 19th century ; Mark Twain, for instance, denounced this situation in his 1902 anti-lynching short story "A Double-Barreled Detective Story". A modern historian discusses the problem in Brundage, Lynching in the New South, pp. 180-182.. ^'Celina Journal 11 July 1872. ^-Gilberg, History of Mercer Countv. p. 73. ^3lbid.. p. 17. ^•^Celina Journal reported 28 Aug. 1873. denied 4 Sept. 1873.

232 had in fact been one of Secour s m urderers.^^ actual guilt or innocence of the men was probably irrelevant to the ceremonial blood sacrifice of a postbellum lynching, in which a threatened community reassured itself of its power and values by slaying some person identified as the threat to the community. This bloody declaration of community values immediately triggered a revealing act of real self-murder (unlike Jake Kimmel’s imaginary suicide of the following year). Shortly after the Secour lynchings, a resident of Liberty Township cut his own throat . He was widely suspected of being the lover of his unwed but obviously pregnant sister-in-law, and he had publicly feared that the lynch fever the Secour rape-murder inspired might turn to other sexual scandals, just as the Black Code vigilantes who had turned away the Randolph Slaves shifted their attention to expelling local blacks. Thus the vigilante impulse could even succeed without actual vigilantes. The rape-murder of Mary Secour and the lynching of two of her accused slayers was merely the most sensational of many violent crimes marking the 1870's in Mercer County. Hopewell Township lost three school buildings to an arsonist who also claimed a barn before being captured.^^ while a highwayman practiced on the rural roads of Mercer and Auglaize the same arts made famous by more southwestern colleagues like Jesse James, before coming to a suitably

^5"Was MacLeod Guilty?". Celina Journal 18 July 1872. MacLeod's self-control probably impressed his lynchers because of the belief that most crime, and especially rape, was due to uncontrolled passions. (Brundage, Lynching in the New South, p.59.) Mrs. Joyce Alig of the Mercer County Historical Society informs me the Kimmel family still residing in the county have always insisted their kinsm en were both innocent, all three men being mere scapegoats. -^^Celina Journal 11 July 1872 ; the tendency of mobs to link unconnected local scandals is discussed in David Grimstead, "Rioting in Its Jacksonian Setting", American Historical Review 77 (1972) : 382, and Brundage, Lvnchina in the New South, pp. 43-44. As someone of local ill-repute this suicide would indeed have fit the profile of a lynching victim, Brundage, Lvnching in the New S o u th , pp. 90-91 ^^Celina Journal 12 Dec. 1873

233 violent end.^s Local historian Bronsart Gilberg, surveying the history of crime in Mercer County, concluded that the middle 1870's represented a peak in absolute number of murders for the county’s history.39 Postbellum Mercer County may have displayed what Richard Maxwell Brown calls "instant vigilantism", in which the methods of vigilante action have become so well known that formal organization is ignored for immediate action. This is difficult to distinguish from simple lynching, save for the community's own record.^o (Elsewhere Brown speaks of "dormant vigilante movements", which might be the distinction — if there is one.)-^' The widespread knowledge of vigilante methods and organization is demonstrated by the case of a failed mob. In May 1877 William Simison, previously mentioned as a famous draft evader, shot an Indiana farmer named Thomas Atkinson during a quarrel. Simison was quickly jailed, and many in both Mercer and Indiana’s adjoining Jay County talked of lynching him. However, the major attempt at raising a lynch mob came to nothing. The STANDARD reprinted an Indiana paper’s analysis of why this lynching had failed, showing how well known the pattern for mob raising was :

Anvils were fired at Lancaster about four or five o’clock as a signal for the crowd to gather and procédé [sic] to Recovery, where they are [sic] to be organized and properly officered for the work. The programme was : to leave Recovery in the evening and reach Celina about one or two o’clock in the morning, take Simerson [sic] from jail and convey him to the place where he shot Atkinson, and hang him to the tree behind which he stood when he fired the deadly shot. But owing to the inclement weather, and the lack of a leader the company failed in

38Çelina Journal 19 Oct. 1871, 26 Oct. 1871.1 Dec. 1871 39Gilberg. History of Mercer Countv. pp. 64-65. •*°Brown. "American Vigilante Tradition", p. 103. ■*‘Ibid., p. 161.

234 its organization. There were near one hundred men assembled at the Fort, three-fourths of whom were going merely as lookers on, and not to participate in the hanging.-*-

The "lack of a leader" was specifically due to rumors a former Indiana sheriff. J. G. Crowell, would lead the mob. although in fact Crowell publicly denounced the lynch movement. Meanwhile, the Celina Sheriff had Simison transferred to Wapakoneta's jail in Auglaize County, and thus preserved his life to stand trial for second degree murder.-^^ Simison apparently won his case, ultimately dying of natural causes in the Mercy County Home in 1900.^-^ In 1878 the CELINA JOURNAL discussed rumors that a vigilante movement was being organized in New York City "to do a Mercer County job"-^5 His readers had no trouble at all understanding his meaning — after all, they were of one community.

•*-Mercer County Standard 17 May 1877 (reprinting from Jav Countv Granger) •^^Mercer County Standard 17 May 1877. Crowell’s rumored role andactual public stance are in the same reprint from the Jav County Granger ; Simison's relocation to Wapakoneta for safety is mentioned in a separate, untitled article. The indictment for Second Degree Murder was reported in Mercer County Standard 14 June 1877. Mercer County Home Inmates, p. 12. Celina Journal 9 April 1878 ; an earlier pro-vigilante editorial (28 Nov. 1872) used the phrase "come Mercer County on ’em."

235 1850Whlte □ • 182.00 to 376.60 □ X 376.60 to 571.20 n * 571.20 to 765.80 765.80 to 960.40 n o 960.40 to 1155.00 Hopewell Liberty

Butler F ra n k lin

Manon

MAP 10.5 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS: 1850 WHITE POPULATION This series of maps represents white and black distribution within Mercer County from 1850 to 1870. Note the southeastern township of Marion has the highest population.

236 1 BSOBIack

B la c k c r e e k Dublin Union □ ■ 0.00 to 54.60 □ X 54.60 to 109.20 HI *- 109.20 to 163.80 163.80 to 218.40 p o 218.40 to 273.00

Hopewell Center L ib e rty

J e f f e rso n

1 W a s h in g to n

Butler Franklin

R e c o v e r y

G ib s o n

■

MAP 10.6 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS: 1850 BLACK POPULATION Black population is concentrated in the southeastern townships of Granville and Marion (which as the previous map indicated was also the white population center.) While Recovery Township had the third largest black population in Mercer at this time, it is not enough to register here as significant.

237 1860White □ • 508.00 to 739.60 □ X 739.60 to 971.20 n ¥ 971.20 to 1202.80 1202.80 to 1434.40 H o 1434.40 to 1666.00

H o p e w e ll L ib erty

. 1 = f ( Î • ; : r

F ra n k lin

MAP1 10.7 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS: I860 WHITE POPULATION Marion continues to lead in population, but the northeast townships of DuhLn and Union are rising. (As the later political maps will show, those become the Republican rivals of Marion's Democratic "banner township" too.)

238 1860Black Blackcreek Dublin Union □ ■ 0.00 to 41.00 □ X 41.00 to 82.00 n * 82.00 to 123.00 123.00 to 164.00 u o 164.00 to 205.00

Hopewell Center Liberty

Jefferson

W ashington

Franklin

R ecovery

G ibson

MAP 10.8 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS: 1860 BLACK POPULATION The pre-Civil War growth of Mercer County's black population has added Butler Township to the previous concentrations in Granville and Marion.

239 1870White □ • 779.00 to 978.60 □ X 978.60 to 1178.20 ŒH ^ 1178.20 to 1377.80 1377.80 to 1577.40 ^ O 1577.40 to 1777.00

H o p e w e ll

F ra n k lin

%

%

MAP 10.9 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS; 1870 WHITE POPULATION Dublin Township has now joined Marion in the first rank, followed by both Union and Jefferson.

240 1870Black B la c k c re e k D u b lin U n io n □ ■ 0.00 to 31.60 □ X 31.60 to 63.20 in ^ 63.20 to 94.80 94.80 to 126.40 Elo 126.40 to 158.00

H o p e w e ll C e n te r L iberty

J e f f e rs o n

W a s h in g to n

F ra n k lin

R e c o v e ry

G ib s o n

,A. ^ A >*

MAP 10.10 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS: 1870 BLACK POPULATION This shows that the post-Civil War decline in Mercer County black population is most apparent in Marion Township, the major center in the 1850 and 1860 Censuses but now behind Granville and Butler.

24 1 r > 1863Val Blackcreek Union □ • 72.00 to 129.40 □ X 129.40 to 186.80 n * 186.80 to 244.20 244.20 to 301.60 Ho 301.60 to 359.00 V H o p e w e ll L ib erty

Butler Franklin

G ib s o n

MAP 10.11 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS; 1863 VALLANDIGHAM VOTE In the 1863 election for Governor of Ohio, the Democratic candidate was Copperhead spokesman Clement Vallandigham from nearby Dayton. Marion became known as the "banner township" of the Democrats for its votes being almost unanimously Democratic.

242 1863Brough 0.00 to 35.80 35.80 to 71.60 71.60 to 107.40 107.40 to 143.20 143.20 to 179.00

L ib erty

%

W a s h in g to n

R e c o v e ry

M arion G ra n v ille

%

MAP 10.12 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS: 1863 BROUGH VOTE The votes for (successful) Republican gubernatorial Brough in 1863 in Mercer produce one interesting result — Franklin Township here produces more votes for Brough in this state election than it will for Lincoln in the Presidential election. (Although both times its actual majority was Democratic.)

243 1864McClellan B la c k c r e e k U n io n 71.00 to 123.00 123.00 to 175.00 175.00 to 227.00 227.00 to 279.00 279.00 to 331.00

H o p e w e ll C e n te r L ib erty

B u tle r F ran k lin

% ■SSfsv

G ib s o n

MAP 10.13 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS: 1864 McCLELLAN VOTE This depicts the vote by townships for Democratic Presidential candidate General McClellan in 1864. Marion is confirmed as the "banner township" for a strikingly stronger Democratic vote than the other townships. Union Township, on the other hand, reported NO votes for McClellan at all!

244 1864Lincoln 0.00 to 28.00 28.00 to 56.00 56.00 to 84.00 84.00 to 112.00 112.00 to 140.00

L ib erty

W a s h in g to n

F ra n k lin

R e c o v e ry

M a n o n G ra n v ille

MAP 10.14 MERCER COUNTY TOWNSHIPS: 1864 LINCOLN VOTE The Republican votes in this Presidential election confirm Union Township’s Republican reputation, with neighboring Dublin and Center Townships close behind. As noted in Map 10.12, Franklin Township has fewer votes for Lincoln than it did for Republican Governor Brough the previous year.

245 CHAPTER 11

JUDGES

Seek him, seek him, seek him truly. My Lord, I feel like I'm new-born again; I've got free-grace, 'deeming Lord, I'm new-born again. Glory, glory, glory, free at last; I'm new-born again! We've been a long time talkin' bout trials here below. I'm new-born again! ■' spiritual sung by Randolph Slaves'

The 1880 Census found only about sixty of the original 1846 Randolph Slaves still alive in Miami and Shelby Counties. Their Ohio- born descendants, though, numbered well over two hundred people. Marshalltown and Hanktown now matched the Piqua-Rossville area in Randolph population. By 1914, when MOTON VS RESSENS actually came to trial, Clem Clay would testify that "about twenty-five or twenty" of the original 1846 migrants still lived.- In the same case Mercer County lawyer P. E. Kenney gave the figure of 370 Randolph claimants — 50 living freedpeople who had been under forty in

'Evans, "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", p. 446. - Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914), p. 102

246 1846, 120 heirs of those slaves over forty in the manumission, and 200 heirs to deceased slaves under forty in 1846.3 Rather than pass security in race relations and property "unto our posterity" as the Mercer County Resolutions had proclaimed, the racial violence of 1846 sowed the seeds of further conflicts. Beginning in the 1880's, the Randolph Slaves began to explore legal action to claim the land or its monetary value from Mercer County. One possible inspiration were efforts about this same time by the descendants of the Samuel Gist emancipated slaves to regain their lost property in Brown County, where they had been relocated decades before the Randolph migration.-* A more immediate but less well recorded example may have been that of Charles Moore, either the original developer of Carthagena or a son of the same name, who at least explored legal action to regain personal land title for some Mercer County property in the 1880's.^ Charles Moore had hired one of Mercer County's most prominent attorneys, Francis Celeste LeBlond,G a former U.S. Congressman who during the Civil War had been a "Butternut" spokesman^ and later spoke against Reconstruction.^ LeBlond died in 1902, but one of the younger lawyers in his firm, Patrick E. Kenney, would be a key player in MOTON VS. KESSENS. A Miami County lawyer named Walter S. Kessler claimed to have been approached by the Randolph slaves in 1887 to assist them in reclaiming their lands. He declined to represent them after

3p. E. Kenney. Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker, n. d.) p. 35. This large figure served Kenney's purposes by creating the implication the many Randolphs who did not testify could be presumed to be aware of their history and rights, (p. 40) •*"53.000,000!". Cleveland Gazette. 20 August 1887. ^Testimony of Thomas Robinson, MOTON V. KESSENS. pp.. 222-223: Deposition of Louisa Bostwick (4-21-1910). MOTON V. KESSENS, p718-723, 726-731 ^MOTON VS. Kessen, Deposition of Louisa Jane Bostwick (given 4-21-1910). PAGE ^Biographical Directorv of the American Congress 1774-1971. s.v. "LeBlond. Francis C.", p. 1355; "Francis C. LeBlond" , Taylor, William. OHIO IN CONGRESS From 1803 to 1901 (Columbus, OH: The XX Publishing Company. 1900.) p724: DeFord, "Mercer County, Ohio, During The Civil War", pp. 30. 40-41. ^"Hon. Francis C. LeBlond", in Scranton, History o f Mercer Countv. p. 320.

247 research convinced him their case would not hold up.^ This was also the year that Judge Leigh’s agent in selling off the Mercer County lands, Auglaize County lawyer Josiah Plunkett, died. One later opponent of the Randolph claims saw this timing as more than coincidence. Mercer County attorney John G. Romer argued that the freedmen had waited until the one person who could personally testify about Leigh's expressed intentions for the land sale money was forever muted.By the 1890’s formal reunions of surviving Randolph Slaves with an official membership roll were being held, in part to discuss legal action.* ■ In 1891 journalist Albert G. Evans opened his magazine article on the Randolph relocation and settlements with the explanation that "survivors of the band are putting forth efforts to secure the adjustment of a long neglected wrong", hence creating a "special interest at present" in the historic background of the simmering conflict.’- He spoke of "an investigation of their claims to the lands" as occurring "ten years ago", but abandoned upon "suspecting dishonest intent on the part of the counsel which they had employed".*3 This might be an unflattering reference to W.S. Kessler's exploration, though the date is a bit off. or Kessler might on the contrary be part of the recent resumption of inquiries Evans mentioned as still ongoing. In any case Evans was clear that thinking men in Mercer were already aware of a potential cloud to many land titles.'-* If some in Mercer County were aware of Randolph activism, most were not — neither the Democratic STANDARD nor its latest

‘^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of W.S. Kessler, pp. 618-619. 620-621. 625. ’"Brief of John G. Romer. Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH; F. B. Toothaker. n. d.) p. 237

’ ’Moton V. Kessens. Testim ony of Goodrich Giles (5-5-1914), pp. 32-33. 36-41 ; Testimony of Fountain Randolph, pp. 64-65. 70-71. 81; .Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). p. 841. ’-Evans. "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", p. 442. '^Ibid.. p. 448. '•*Ibid.

248 Republican rival, the Celina OBSERVOR, make any mention of these claims during the 1880's, nor showed any awareness of Evans’s article. Mob leader Benjamin Linzee's son was prompted by the 1890 Census reporting only 48 black farmers in Mercer to write a letter from Detroit on the black expulsion campaign, mainly noteworthy for its nostalgic inaccuracy. (For instance, he thought the Randolphs had come in 1838.) With conventional racism this younger Linzee attributed the decline in Mercer County black population to "their inability to cope . . . with opening a new farm . . . or a new kind of crops" rather than to the "prejudice" and "armed force" his own account admitted. Some sources attribute the actual commencement of legal action to one John W. Bean, a black lawyer from Indiana who died early in the long lawsuit, having interested his senior partner W.E. Henderson (who was also black) in the case.'^ While still a law student in the summer of 1903, Bean had begun looking into the Randolph land issue. He and Henderson contacted the Randolph slaves in May 1904.'^ For the actual court case, a Mercer County legal firm was retained on behalf of the Randolph Slaves.'^ W. E. Henderson thus shared representation in court with Mercer County politician James D. Johnson. Johnson made two research trips to

'^"The Color Line in Agriculture ". Mercer County Standard 9 July 1891. '^Sherwood. "The Settlement of John Randolph's Slaves in Ohio. " p. 56. Goodrich Giles speaks of Bean reporting to the "Randolph Association" at its reunions in the years 1902-3 (Testimony of Goodrich Giles — Moton v. Kessens. Rebuttal, p. 249.) Bean's full name is given among the signatures of the Plaintiffs lawyers in the Petition of Joseph Moton and York Ryal vs. Gerhard Kessens, Moton v. Kessens p. 11.

*^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of W.E. Henderson (5-5-1914). p. 26; Testimony of Fountain Randolph (given 5-6-1914). p. 82 says Bean contacted the Randolphs at their "third reunion" in 1903. Brief of John G. Romer, Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker. n. d.) p. 236, says that Bean served notice on Kessens (and presumably other Mercer County landholders) "along about 1903. " '^Mathias. "John Randolph's Freedmen", p. 272.

249 Virginia, first in November 1905 and again in January 1911, then a third trip to take depositions there. The second collision between the Randolph Slaves and the residents of Mercer County began in the late 1900’s when farmers in Mercer County were astounded by court papers notifying them the Randolph slaves were claiming their la n d s .T h e re had been preparatory moves ; a copy of John Randolph's will was received by Henderson and Bean from Virginia by December 8, 1903,-* and recorded in Mercer County's Courthouse on January 12, 1904.-- The first formal demand for lands and accounts from the Mercer County farmers by the Randolph slaves was made on May 26, 1905.-3 The identification of farms whose ownership the Randolph case brought into question created a local sensation. The first significant case was MOTON VS. DEWALL.35 Filed in 1903, it was officially placed on Mercer's civil docket for the October 1905 term. Plaintiffs were Bernard and Anna Maria Dewall,**6 represented by Mercer County lawyers P. E. Kenney. John W. Loree, and John G. R o m er.H ere the Mercer County Circuit Court found a

'^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of J. D. Johnson (5-5-1914). pp. 15, 24 ; (5-6-1914) pp. 183-184 -*OMoton V. Kessens.. p. 263; Sheriffs Notice to Gerhard Kessens (5-25-1905). p. 437; Opinion of [Mercer County] Court of Appeals, Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus, OH; F. B. Toothaker, n. d.) p. 9

3* Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of W.E. Henderson (5-5-1914), p. 25. ^^Brief of P. E. Kenney, Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error, Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus, OH; F. B. Toothaker, n. d.) p. 81 ; Joyce Alig, "St. Henry", Alig, Mercer Countv. p. 376. 33Sherwood, "The Settlement of John Randolphs Slaves in Ohio", p. 56 ; supported by Moton v. Kessens. Sheriffs Notice to Gerhard Kessens (5-25- 1905), p. 437, and Judge Cameron, Opinion in Mercer County Court of Common Pleas, Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus, OH; F. B. Toothaker, n. d.) p. 260. 3-^'Owners of Valuable Farms", Mercer Countv Standard 2 June 1905. 35lbid. 3^"Docket for October Term", Mercer County Standard 29 September 1905. •^^Stipulation about D epositions in Moton v. Kessens Given 12-19-1910, Moton v. Kessens, p. 646. The surname Dewall is also rendered "Duwall" and "Duwell" in the same paragraph! The Petition for Moton v. Dewall was filed 24 June 1905.

250 trust to exist, but by what Loree argued was incorrect legal thinking.-* Specifically it was allowed that Judge William Leigh had had no right to sell the Mercer County lands and had never informed the Randolph freedpeople of their own title, so the property was actually still in trust for them (a "constructive trust"). MOTON VS. DEW ALL also established the right of Joseph Moton and York Ryal to sue on behalf of all other Randolph slaves. The next phase of litigation began on March 9, 1907. when the attorneys filed 27 cases on behalf of Joseph Moton and York Ryal against the current landholders.T hese filings immediately provided another example of Mercer County's complicated race history, since one of the farm families thus challenged by the Randolph Slave suit were themselves blacks, though not Randolph S lav es.W h ile the claim was filed against the nominal owner, seventy year old matriarch Allie Orr Cannon, the farm was actually worked by her eldest son John Cannon and his own family, with occasional help from her other four children. Allie (also known as "Elsie") had been freeborn in Indiana to former slaves from Tennessee only a few years before the Randolph manumission ; her family had been Mercer County residents since the Civil War CHECK. The Cannons in Butler Township lived the furthest north of any Mercer County black family.-- The Cannons also figured in MOTON VS. KESSENS as the past hosts of a black Southern orator, John Jones. While in Mercer, this

Marie De wall's first name was also given by the Mercer Countv Standard. 2 June 1905. as Anna ; see above for the 'Anna Mari ah' version which seem s p la u sib le . -*Brief of John W. Loree. Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus, OH; F. B. Toothaker, n. d.). pp. 210-211. -^Judge Cameron, Opinion in Mercer County Court of Common Pleas, Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker, n. d.), p. 308 ^^Mathias, "John Randolph's Freedmen ", p. 271, citing to Mercer County, Ohio, Common Pleas Record, 27 ; 93-95. Besides Moton v. Kessens these cases included Moton V. Dewall, filed 24 June 1905, and Moton v. Schritmever. 5 August 1907. ^'Mathias, "John Randolph's Freedmen ", p. 271 footnote 33.

^-Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of William Robinson (5-7-1914), p. 238.

25 1 Jones had been "looking into histories", an obscure activity Gerhard Kessens's lawyers would try to identify with the Randolph Slave claims in M O T O N .T h e 1920 Census found Allie, her son John, and their extended family still in the same place, among the 75 blacks still in Mercer at that counting.3-* The 1910 Census had in fact showed Mercer County with a black population of 115 individuals.^^ An example of black presence in Mercer at this time comes from MOTON VS. KESSENS itself ; while giving a deposition in the case in 1910, black Piqua resident L. A. Medley was accused of selling off Mercer County farmland that he owned in the disputed region when MOTON c o m m e n c e d . Clearly a lily-white Mercer County was still more perception than fact. Another sign of Mercer's racial complexity was a stillborn mob. In December 1904 fliers were distributed calling for a rally to demand expulsion of all blacks from Celina. The MERCER COUNTY STANDARD, sniffing this was partly the work of a rival newspaper, attributed this incitement to riot to the hiring of a dozen blacks to work on the city sewer excavations, stirring in some whites the kind of labor envy the Rileys had defused in the 1840's. The organizational meeting these fliers had called, however, proved ill attended and without consequence^? If Mercer's capacity for racial violence seemed to be diminishing, other old problems could still bring spectacular trouble. In 1904, contemporary with the beginning of the Randolph land lawsuits (and pushing much of MOTON VS. DEWALL out of public attention), local thug Riley Colton was caught trying to dynamite the dam ; though assumed to be in the pay of others, Colton refused to

^-'Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Thomas Robinson (5-7-1914), p. 227 ; Testimony of William Robinson (given 5-7-1914), pp. 236-7 ^■*1920 Census, Supervisor 3. Enumeration District 125, Sheet 7B, 1 January 1920 ; May, "The Negro and Mercer County"^ p. 49. ^^May, "The Negro and Mercer County", p. 49. 3^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of L. A. Medley (5-18-1910), pp. 933-935, 937. ^?"Citizens Ought To Act", Mercer Countv Standard, 16 December 1904.

252 explain his actions even as he was sentenced to the Ohio Penitentiary.^*

On August 15. 1907 — the sixty first anniversary of the Mercer County Resolutions — forty nine residents of St. Henry in Mercer County whose title was thus in question met and agreed to fight for their properties together. Each person contributed $25 to the committee thus formed, creating a legal war chest of $1225.^^

After the verdict in MOTON VS. DEWALL, the major case became that whose principal parties were JOSEPH MOTON & YORK

RYAL V. GERHARD KESSENS. An identification of these parties shows the continuity of this conflict ; York Ryal was one of the last surviving Randolph slaves and Joseph Moton was the freeborn son of a Randolph slave.-^o while Mercer County farmer Gerhard Kessens was a German immigrant who barely spoke English (and who protested he had never heard of the Randolphs in his life).-*' All three named parties were acknowledged to be representatives rather than activists. Ryal and Moton for instance barely knowing each other before this case linked their names.-*- The reason for two Randolph plaintiffs was the distinction of claims from Randolph's will between the heirs of the slaves who had been 40 or older when manumitted and thus were directly entitled to land, represented by York Ryal,

Mercer County Standard 26 August 1904 and I September 1905. After release from prison. Colton finally ended up in Mercer’s County Home, where in 1918 he shot himself in the head. (Gilberg, History of Mercer Countv. , p. 66; Mercer County Home Inmates, p. 104.) ^^Alig. M ercer C ounty. , p. 376.

"***Moton V. Kessens. Petition, p. 1.

'*‘Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Gerhard Kessens , pp. 193-194. 197-198. Kessens's lawyer P. E. Kenney made the point that his client could thus plead the same "illiterate and ignorant" argument the Randolph case rested on. Brief of P. E. Kenney. Moton v. Kessens. Brief o f Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus, OH; F. B. Toothaker, n. d.), p. 42.

•*-Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). p. 842.

253 and the heirs of the slaves under forty in 1846, represented by Joseph Moton. Joseph Moton was a Baptist minister,-^) though he supported his family as a courthouse janitor in Troy.^^ The son of Margaret Moton (Certificate 363), his paternity is a mystery. Clem Clay was to testify in court "I don't know his father. There isn't a man in the house here knows his f a t h e r . However, white Hanktown area farmer M. H. Davis would aver about Moton's father in his 1910 deposition ". . . he was a white man, supposed to be w h i t e . (While Joseph Moton's death certificate lists his father as "John Mo ten of Montgomery County. OH", other inaccuracies in that document make this questionable.)-*^ Joseph had grown up in Hanktown, then served a year as a private in the U.S. Colored Troops (Regiment 25 OR 27? Company A) during the Civil War,-*® and thus a member of the Grand Army of the Republic veterans organization afterwards.-*^ Marrying after the Civil War, he headed a large family. He was one of the directors of Hanktown's black school.^o His first wife Rosanne White dying in 1911, he remarried.^' The other plaintiff had less stature even within the black community. Over seventy years old. illiterate (signaled by the original MOTON VS. KESSENS petition bearing only "His mark" and the signatures of witnesses).^: and in very poor health,^^ York Ryal had

-*^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-6-1914), p. 82 ; Deposition of A.H. Kessler (4-24-1913), p. 955. -*-*Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of .A.H. Kessler (4-24-1913). p. 969.

-*^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914). p. 117.

-*^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). p. 551. -*^Death Certificate of Joseph Moton. 18 July 1913, Troy. OH. ■*®1890 Civil War Veterans' Census. This mentions Moton missing toes on his right foot, but it is not clear whether this was from the war or a later cause. -*^Letter from Mrs. Janet C. Martin to Ross Frederick Bagby. 20 December 1996. ^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of A.H. Kessler (4-24-1913), pp. 967-968. 5 'Letter from Mrs. Janet C. Martin to Ross Frederick Bagby. 20 December 1996. ^-Moton V. Kessens. Petition of Joseph Moton and York Rial vs. Gerhard Kessens. signed 7-5-1907: York himself admits his illiteracy at Moton v. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp. 856. 858-859.

^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). p. 855.

254 to his name at this time only a small Rossville "lot with a house" inherited from some kinsmen.^-^ He had twice been married and had a son himself. He never met John Bean, but did go to James D. Johnson's Celina office and with Joseph Moton authorize the lawsuit.55 James D. Johnson, the white Celina attorney representing Ryal and Moton in the Mercer County courts, had himself been born in Indiana in 1858, but his family had moved to Mercer County only two years later. He had attended Ohio Wesleyan University in 1878, and six years later passed the Ohio bar. He had served in the Ohio State Senate as a Democrat before the turn of the century. 56 His black colleague W.E. Henderson would remain an practicing lawyer in Indianapolis throughout the I920's. 57 Representing first Dewall, then Kessens, and thus the other Mercer County farmers were three local lawyers. The chief attorney, Patrick E. Kenney, was born in 1854 Cincinnati to Irish Catholic immigrants. Growing up in Indiana, he initially became a schoolteacher58 and did not seek a legal career until in his 30's. being admitted to the bar in 1887. He came to Celina as an associate in Frank LeBlond's law firm and married a local woman, remaining in Mercer County the remainder of his long life. He was a pillar of Mercer's Catholic and Democratic establishment, holding several public offices (including two terms as Mayor of Celina.) At the time of MOTON VS. KESSENS he was in partnership with John G. Romer.5*^ In the transcript of MOTON VS. KESSENS Kenney is the most aggressive of Kessens's attorneys, repeatedly trying to cast doubt on the

5-*Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-I8-I9I0). pp. 843-844.

55Moton V. K essens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp. 860. 879. 5^"Hon. James D. Johnson". James K. Mercer and C. N. Vallandigham. Representative Men of Ohio 1896-1897 (Columbus. OH; Mercer and Vallandigham. 1896.) pp. 94-95; Scranton, History of Mercer Countv. pp. 250- 251. 5^Martindale's American Law Directory (1917) p. 205. (1925) p. 204, (1929) p. 245. Each of these entries gives Henderson a different address. 5®Scranton, History of Mercer Countv. p. 248. 5^Claudia Kenney, "Patrick E. Kenney", in Alig, Mercer Countv. , pp. 641-642. (Claudia was his daughter.)

255 authenticity of the copies of Randolph’s will^o and using the word "nigger" while questioning the Randolphs.^' At the same time he would argue against the stereotypical assumption of black incompetence, since to portray the Randolphs as intelligently aware of their interests weakened their claim of ignorance of their rights.^- Kenney’s partner John G. Romer spoke German well enough to at least once act as a translator in MOTON’s courtroom sessions.^] being a German immigrant's grandson.^-* He was a generation younger than his associates in MOTON, Kenney and Loree, though in the same Catholic and Democratic mold.^5 Sometime after this case he moved to Dayton.^^ The third attorney, John W. Loree, is a much less distinctive figure. Born and raised in Mercer County, he was another pillar of the Democratic Party (in 1892 nominated for the Electoral College to ratify Grover Cleveland.) His principal contribution to MOTON VS. KESSENS is an appellate brief on behalf of Kessens which is an abstract, rather academic attack on the Randolph side's claim that the lands William Leigh purchased for them in Mercer County should be considered a trust.^7 Only in passing does this brief address the specifics of Randolph history.^* (At one point during the trial Loree confused the black lawyer W.E. Henderson who had begun these land suits with a black schoolteacher.)^9 The emphasis a biographical

6"For instance. Moton v. Kessens. Deposition of Robert Gilliam (1-18-19!!). pp. 488-491. and Brief of P. E. Kenney. Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker. n. d.). pp. 6-7.

^ 'Moton V. Kessens. pp. 839. 841 ^-Brief of P. E. Kenney, Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker, n. d.) p. 6. 45. 49. 100.

^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Gerhard Kessens (5-7-1914). p. 198. "John G. Romer" in Scranton. History of Mercer Countv. p. 542. 65lbid.. p. 543. GGKenney. "Patrick E. Kenney ", in Alig. Mercer County, pp 642. ^^Brief of John W. Loree, Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker. n. d.). pp. 125-223. ^*Brief of John W. Loree, Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker. n. d.). pp. 203-204. 215-216. ^‘^Moton y. Kessens. p. 161.

256 sketch of Loree lays in stating he "was always a close and hard­ working student and prepared his cases for trial with such care that he felt assured if a case was lost that he had done all that could be done on his part to win a victory" makes one wonder if Loree was more known for prepared briefs than for actual courtroom success7° The claim which Loree attacked, key to the Randolph Slave case, was that since Judge William Leigh had had no right to sell their Mercer County lands, the property was actually still in trust for them. Gerhard Kessens should thus be considered merely the latest trustee of this "constructive trust" begun by Leigh. The Mercer County lawyers argued that Leigh had had the right to sell, that he had probably actually fulfilled his obligations in some further work such as Hanktown, and that in any case the statute of limitations made such suit impossible. The Randolph counter-argument against the statute of limitations was that the 1846 migrants had never been told of the purchase of Mercer County lands for them by Leigh (hence the constructive trust), and that their knowledge of the lands came only when a "disinterested party" (presumably either Bean or Henderson) contacted them with the information in the winter of 1903-47' Thus the statute of limitations should be dated from the time they claimed to have become aware of their rights, not from the pre-Civil War date of the sales. A paradox of the case was thus that it was the black claimants who had to deny memory,^- while the defenders of white possession argued for black tradition. Repeatedly it is the Mercer County lawyers who elicit from black and white witnesses anecdotes of Randolph Slaves and their heirs speaking of the 1846 mob and the lost lands in the years between their settlement and their lawsuit."^^

^'^Scranton. History o f Mercer County, p. 248. ^'Moton V. Kessens. Petition of Joseph Moton and York Ryal ys. Gerhard Kessens. p. 9. Also. Brief of P. E. Kenney, Moton y. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker, n. d.). p. 32. 7-For instance Moton v. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-7-1914). pp. 243. 245. ^^Brief of P. E. Kenney, Moton y. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup.

257 When Mercer County lawyers Loree and Kenney went to hire attorney Walter S. Kessler of West Milton. Miami County, as a legal associate he told them how in 1887 he had been hired by a contingent of Randolph Slaves, mostly Marshalltown and Hanktown residents, to sue for the lands. After obtaining from Virginia court officials a copy of Randolph’s will which he read to the Randolph delegation,^-^ he concluded that because of the statute of limitations the case would not hold up. His clients had included Beverly Harris and Robert Johnson (who acted as spokesmen for the group), Jeter Moton (who links this attempt to the later MOTON cases by being

Joseph Moton's u n c l e ) . ^ ^ Jacob Young, and the brothers-in-law Mitchell Coles and Oliver Jefferson.'^^ Kessler ruefully noted mentioning this incident had cost him the legal fees he would have earned as an attorney, rather than a witness, for the Mercer County parties.77 While the Mercer County attorneys immediately realized the importance of this earlier attempt,7s in the trial they (perhaps deliberately) confused it with Charles Moore's land suit in Carthagena of the same year,79 obscure activities of a popular Negro speaker John Jones from Georgia who "was looking up h is to rie s ,a n d an incident in which Clem Clay was swindled out of some Miami County

Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus, OH: F. B. Toothaker. n. d.). p. 4. 96.

7-*Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of Walter S. Kessler (4-24-1913). pp. 945-946.

75Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). p. 551.

7^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of W.S. Kessler. (11-18-1910), pp. 618-619. 620- 621, 625.

77Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of W.S. Kessler, (11-18-1910), p. 625-626. 7*Brief o f P. E. Kenney, Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus, OH: F. B. Toothaker, n. d.). p. 106.

7^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of Louisa Bostwick (4-21-1910), pp. 718-723, 7 2 6 -7 3 1 .

*"Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Thomas Robinson (5-7-1914), pp. 221-223. 227-229 (Charles Moore), 223-224, 232 (John Jones) ; Testimony of William Robinson (5-7-1914), pp. 234-236, 240, 242 (Charles Moore), 236-237, 240 (John Jones) ; Testimony of Clem Clay (5-7-1914), pp. 245-246; Testimony of Goodrich Giles (5-7-1914), pp. 249-251; Deposition of John Jefferson (4-21-1910), p. 674; Deposition of Louisa Bostwick (4-21-1910), pp. 723-726, 730, 731-4. 736-737 (John Jones).

258 real estate by a white lawyer,*' thus muddying the simple point that the Randolph group had been aware of both their claims and the statute of limitations problem. The lawyers for the Randolphs successfully argued that Kessler's deposition of November 1910 violated attorney-client privilege, so it was ruled inadmissible by the Mercer County Common Pleas Court.*- A second deposition from Kessler avoiding this pitfall was taken in 1913, as well as one from his brother A.H. Kessler about the Hanktown settlement for use during the appellate litigation. MOTON VS. KESSENS got underway by the lawyers from both sides. Henderson for the Randolphs and Kenney and Loree for the Mercer farmers, collecting depositions. The first group of depositions were taken in Mercer County on April 21, 1910, from local blacks John Jefferson of Celina, William Fox (who had been a teacher in Piquas black school), and Louisa Jane Bostwick. Judge Cameron later ruled Bostwick's inadmissible because there had been no showing she could not have testified in court, whereas a physician certified Jefferson too old and infirm. William Fox's deposition was ruled out because he DID testify in court during the trial.*3 Since Bostwick and Jefferson were the principal sources concerning both the Charles Moore and John Jones activities which Kenney and associates attempted to identify with Randolph Slave claims, depositions were taken again later from both of them. In Piqua on May 18, 1910, depositions were taken from York Ryal, nonRandolph black L. A. Medley, and two white men. Because of his death before the trial proper York Ryal's deposition here is his major contribution to the case. York spoke at length not only of the

*'Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-7-1914), pp. 246-249; Deposition of Ernest A. Schneyer (4-23-1913). pp. 1032, 1034, 1038. *-Judge Cameron, Opinion in Mercer County Court of Common Pleas, Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus, OH: P. B. Toothaker, n. d.), pp. 249-250. **Judge Cameron, Opinion in Mercer County Court of Common Pleas. Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker. n. d.). pp. 246-247.

259 migration of 1846 but of his own subsequent labor peregrinations, beginning with eight to nine years in Dayton immediately after arriving in Ohio*-* followed by many casual jobs for Miami County w h it e s * ) and "a good many years" as a Sidney hod carrier*^ for white William Betz, who gave a deposition himself later the same day.*^ While in the morning York spoke freely, when the questioning was resumed in the afternoon he was suddenly reticent and tried to dismiss many of his earlier statements. Mercer County attorney P. E. Kenney charged that the lawyers Henderson and Johnson and the Randolph entrepreneur Goodrich Giles had warned York to deny and suppress certain facts in court damaging to their case.** On 27 May 1910 depositions were taken from white farmers George Vogler, G.B. Correy, Noah Pearson, and Samuel P. Miles concerning the neighboring black settlement of Hanktown. In November 1910 the lawyers went to the village of West Milton in Miami County to take depositions largely concerning the neighboring Hanktown settlement. Those questioned were local white farmers M.H. Davis (who wished it specified he was an unwilling witness)*^ and John Coate (who also spoke of Marshalltown), plus the previously mentioned West Milton attorney W.S. Kessler who described the 1887 contemplation of a lawsuit. The two sides next went to Virginia. On January 18 and 19. 1911. depositions from three judicial officers, such as Petersburg Court of Hustings Clerk Robert Gilliam, concentrated on the destruction of the chancery records in the Civil War and the authenticity of the copy of Randolph's will found in COALTER'S EXECUTOR VS. BRYAN. Later (3 April 1911) came a deposition from

*-*Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910), p. 880 ; Deposition of Howard Scudder (4-23-1913), p. 1002. *^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp. 871. 1016; Deposition of Howard Scudder (4-23-1913), pp. 995. 1003. 1007. *^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp. 862.868 .

*^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of William Getz (5-18-1910), pp. 889, 897-898.

**Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp.882-883.

*^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910) p. 598.

260 Charles James Faulkner, the husband of Judge Leigh's granddaughter and a lawyer in his own right, about the final years and estate of Randolph's executor. MOTON VS. KESSENS was submitted to the Mercer Court of Common Pleas and taken under advisement on July 11. 1912.^° The local Circuit Court had already ruled for the Randolph petition (against Kenney and associate's demurrer it was frivolous) on the grounds the Randolph Slave charges of fraud by an executor upon ignorant, illiterate slaves gave it merit.^' The rain-swelled Miami River's torrential flooding of March 24th and 25th. 1913. devastated river communities like Rossville. Due to the flood damage the few segments of the Miami and Erie Canal remaining active for local cargo were finally abandoned, ending that era forever. The human cost was high too. Neither of the two Randolph representatives lived to be at the actual trial. Joseph Moton contracted tuberculosis in December 1912 and died just before the flood,^- so Clem Clay along with Moton's administrator Albert W.

Jones were substituted for Moton as parties in MOTON V KESSENS. York Ryal died from complications after surviving the 1913 flood and was buried in the African Jackson Cemetery. A cousin. Ward Ryal, took York's place as plaintiff in MOTON VS. KESSENS.')^ A second round of depositions tried to overcome the sustained objections to some taken earlier. Walter S. Kessler gave a statement on April 24. 1913. avoiding his references to the 1887 legal

90Judge Cameron, Opinion in Mercer County Court of Common Pleas. Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH; F. B. Toothaker, n. d.). p. 244. 'Judge Cameron. Opinion in Mercer County Court of Common Pleas. Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH: F. B. Toothaker, n. d.). pp. 306-307. Death Certificate of Joseph Moton. 18 July 1913. Troy, OH; Moton v. Kessens. Trial Testimony of Fountain Randolph, p. 66. ‘'^Moton V. Kessens. Bill of E.xceptions (5-5-1914) . p. 1. ^-'Moton V. Kessens. p. 1.

26 1 exploration which had been ruled a violation of attorney-client privilege. Walter's brother A.H. Kessler also gave a deposition at this time, revealing that not only both Kessler brothers but a sister had at various times taught in the Hanktown school. Similarly during the actual trial (6 May 1914) new depositions from Carthagena blacks John Jefferson and Louise Jane Bostwick were taken. The principal courtroom portion of MOTON VS. KESSENS began on May 5. 1914 with testimony from Fountain Randolph and Goodrich Giles. The most financially successful of the Randolphs. Goodrich Giles would become crucial for the issues of black ignorance and cunning during the MOTON VS. KESSENS trial. The Mercer County lawyers ridiculed the idea such a man of business would have been as ignorant of both his potential rights in Mercer County property and the means to pursue them as the Randolph Slaves had to claim in their arguments.'^s (A former teacher in Rossville's colored school. William Fox. did in fact claim Giles had discussed the Mercer County lands with him.)^^ Another damaging point was the admission that Goodrich had often visited Mercer County on business trips since the 1870's.‘^‘^ A later lefthand compliment to Goodrich Giles was when Mercer County attorney P. E. Kenney ranked him with the lawyers Henderson and Johnson in charging the trio ordered Randolph Slaves to suppress certain facts in court. The following day had still more Randolph Slave testimony from Clem Clay (called to the stand twice). Louise Butler, and second generation claimants Matilda Johnson and Elizabeth Moss. The third day. May 7. featured the testimony of Gerhard Kessens himself and of black schoolteacher William Fox before the Mercer County lawyers rested their defense. After once more calling in Clem Clay. Fountain

^^Brief of P. E. Kenney. Moton v. Kessens. Brief o f Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus, OH; F. B. Toothaker, n. d.), p38; Brief of John W. Loree, Ibid.. p. 218.

^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), p. 690.

^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Goodrich Giles, pp. 250-254; Testimony of Thomas Robinson, pp. 225-6, 232. *^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp. 882-883.

262 Randolph, and Goodrich Giles, and introducing as new witnesses Mercer County blacks Thomas and William Robinson (to distinguish the Charles Moore and John Jones actions from the Randolph suits), the attorneys for the Randolph side also rested. More important than this actual trial testimony was the great mass of depositions and other documentation both sides had been gathering for up to four years now. as shown by the Randolph side ritualisticly objecting to the admission of every single defense deposition introduced.')^ As already mentioned. Gerhard Kessens had testified on May. 7. 1914. in the afternoon. The 78 year old immigrant from Hanover explained he had purchased his farm from a Eustach Kunkler in 1866 and moved onto it permanently in 1 8 7 0 . (The purchase by Kessens was twice removed from Leigh's own title, one Absalom Hall having bought the land from Leigh's agent in 1849 and then sold it to Kunkler in 1866.)'°' Kessens's life was as full of labor migration as that of the Randolph Slaves — he had driven teams for the government during the Civil War, and for ten years had worked in Cincinnati during the winters and in the countryside during the summers.'°- Although literate in German, he couldn't "make out right" English, and spoke it with such a thick accent the court finally had defense attorney John G. Romer interpret for them.'°^ The Mercer County Court of Appeals ruled on August 29. 1916. that, while no evidence existed to show Judge Leigh had obtained proper court orders to sell off the Mercer County lands, the "familiar rule here applies, that the executor is presumed to have performed his duty" and thus the presumption was Leigh had acted under

‘)^Moton V. Kessens. Bill of E.xceptions. p. 3.(Filed with the Mercer County Court of Appeals 7-31-1916.)

'° ° Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Gerhard Kessens (5-7-1914). pp. 192-193. 'O'Judge Crow. Opinion of [Mercer County] Court of Appeals. Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH; F. B. Toothaker. n. d.), pp. 14-15. 125-128.

'° - Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Gerhard Kessens (5-7-1914). p. 197.

'O^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Gerhard Kessens (5-7-1914). pp. 197-198.

263 proper a u th o rity .T h e final paperwork on MOTON VS. KESSENS was finished on May 19, 1917. There were appeals on the procedural point of the statute of limitations, until the Randolph Slaves finally lost in the State Supreme Court and were denied appeal by the U.S. Supreme Court. The 1920 Census showed a mere 63 Randolph Slaves and descendants in the old Miami Canal region, concentrated in the towns of Piqua, Troy, and Shelby County's Sidney. Comparison with the 1910 Census suggests this was no drastic decline due to the failure of MOTON VS. KESSENS, but rather a sign of a steady erosion due to labor migration and mortality. By this time at least three of the surviving 1846 manumits had moved to cities outside the Canal region (though still in Ohio.) Loss of MOTON VS. KESSENS, though it did not drive any known individual from the area, meant there was no magnet to keep Randolphs there against the attractions of other cities and opportunities. In a 1923 newspaper interview, old and blind Fountain Randolph said only eight original Randolph Slaves still survived ; himself. Clem Clay, Goodrich Giles (who was not one of the 1846 exodus), Delphina Gordon in Piqua, Rebecca Morton in Troy, Le {sic} Gillard and Rebecca Robinson of Akron, and Dick Gillard of Dayton. With two more who just might have been still alive, a younger John White and Martha Sawyer, these ten names marked the last of the 1846 Randolph migrants.

'^■^Judge Crow. Opinion of [Mercer County] Court of Appeals. Moton v. Kessens. Brief of Defendant in Error. Oh. Sup. Ct. No. 15398. (Columbus. OH; F. 8. Toothaker. n. d.). p. 27. 'O^Mathias. "John Randolph’s Freedmen". p. 272. *Q^Piqua Daily Call. 14 July 1923. (By garbling his correct death date of 1903 into "1930". a newspaper once mistakenly identified "Jimmy Jeems" Rial as the last first-generation Randolph Slave to die — "Magazine Talk". Dayton Daily News Sunday Magazine. 3 February 1985. His true death year is given in the short, anecdotal sketch of him in Rayner, The First Century of Piqua, p. 209.)

264 CHAPTER 12

EPILOGUE : COMMON PRAYER

This work began by rejecting irony ; it concludes by discovering the ordinary. The 18th century movement of the white Randolphs and their black slaves from Virginia's Tidewater into its Piedmont was part of a larger migration that settled nearly all of Old Virginia by the American Revolution. The 19th century continuation of this movement, taking Roanoke’s plantation population from slavery in Virginia to freedom in Ohio, was only slightly more unusual, as the manumission and relocation of the Gist slaves and the backgrounds of the two Kentucky freedwomen in Mercer County. Dorcas Moore and Mary McCay, indicate. In Ohio, despite the drama of their arrival, the Randolph Slaves were so like other free blacks even they could not always tell a "Randolph" from another local black. The turn of the century lawsuits culminating in MOTON VS. KESSENS were part of a broader resort by blacks to legal action, as signaled when the lawyers for Mercer County attempted to confuse the Randolph claims with at least three other Negro lawsuits. Even the legendary "fantastic" John Randolph of Roanoke, whose whim and will seemingly dominate this story, is typical in his individual positions from Revolutionary Era manumission to Jacksonian reaction ; it is the flickering flame of his insanity that made his shadow now loom, then shrink over the lives of others like an elusive specter. Considered as an "ordinary" story, then, what the Randolph Slaves in Virginia and Ohio illustrate is that no community stands

265 alone any more than does any individual. The concept of America as a multiracial society was rejected by many whites in both the North and South, yet their efforts to "remove" blacks through hostile laws and violent mobbing nearly always failed due to the interconnections of white and black life and livelihood. Despite the wish of hostile whites that manumit colony Israel Hill would vanish, it survived the family of its original white masters. Even the "success" of the 1846 New Bremen mob in preventing the landing of the Randolphs was only possible against a group not yet resident — the sametactics tried against already settled blacks failed and resulted in warnings from the higher authorities. And even the Randolph Slaves were able to try again when they became able to use local courts and lawyers in their own interests. That MOTON VS. KESSENS found some "Randolph land" now owned by nonRandolph blacks underlined that even when white racists thought they had triumphed in earlier clashes. German immigrants and African-American migrants had actually continued to live side by side. Indeed, conflicts that at first seem clearly "racial" often prove to be as much disputes between rival white communities as collisions of white and blacks. In Randolph's Virginia the slave revolts of Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner enabled those fearing Virginia might abandon slavery (including Randolph as a public man) to shut off all discussion of emancipation, and political change in general. In Mercer County both William Sawyer and Augustus Wattles portrayed the campaign nominally against local free blacks as also a power struggle between Connecticut Yankees and immigrant Germans. The Civil War showed the fatal potential of such imposed unities as Virginia's disenfranchised white mountaineers seceded from secession as the Union state of West Virginia, and the Jacksonian stalwarts of Mercer County found themselves now persecuted "Copperheads" in a Republican North. Community is always as much vision as reality. What made the "Randolph Slaves" distinctive was not Just a shared past (Roanoke and its erratic master) but a possible future (Mercer County farm

2 66 land — a dream the more alluring the longer deferred.) A legendary, even mythical past made the white Randolph family see themselves as an elite, despite the evidence of their own eyes that their material lives were sometimes no different from those of their chattels and neighbors. Within Mercer County, the dream of future peace among a uniform population only led time and again to violence and outside condemnation, yet persisted long past possible realization. Visions thus blind as well as inspire. Collision, even at its most violent, forced people to face that their own vision of community was not the only possible one and that compromise and accommodation might prove necessary. Incompatible ideals about land, politics, and family ignored realities of interdependence, interests, and adaptation that meant every group was as much ruled by mere "common identification" as by any passionate "sense of community". Since all community begins with "common identification", even those with a hostile "sense of community" on one level may find themselves side by side in another context, as when the North's demands for Civil War soldiers put both Mercer County farm boys and Randolph Slave migrants into Union blue. Every "community" begins with the discovery of something in "common". "Common", of course, in everyday speech is used interchangeably with "ordinary." The final discovery of the ordinary is that any saga, however great its events or prominent its major players, in the end comprises the actions and reactions of "ordinary" people.

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries? (Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?)

267 APPENDIX A

9 March 1801 List of Roanoke Negroes by Major Scott for John Randolph I

NUMBER NAME QUARTER STATUS AGE X’s 1 S. Davis Lower 2 Ned Lower X 3 Judy Lower 4 Doll Lower X 5 York White Lower 6 Amy Lower 7 Anthony Lower X 8 Nancy Lower 9 Remus Lower X 1 0 Anna Lower 1 1 Simon Lower 1 2 Effy Lower 1 3 Isham Lower 1 4 Tenee Lower 1 5 Essex Lower 1 6 Mingo Lower X 1 7 Dinah Lower 1 8 Will Lower X 1 9 Morocco Lower 20 Milly Lower 2 1 Ned Lower 22 Manuel Lower 23 Phil Lower 24 John Lower 25 Peter Lower

'"Major Scott's List of Negroes at Roanoke Mar. 9, 1801", Commonplace 1803-1832. Tucker-Coleman Papers.

26 8 26 Quashee Lower 27 Molly Lower 28 Chloe Lower 29 Aggy Lower 30 Archer Lower 3 1 Nancy Lower 32 Sampson Lower 33 Phillis Lower X 34 Fanny Lower 35 Billy Lower 36 Jane Lower 37 Guy Middle 38 Hetty Middle 39 Hercules Middle X 40 Roger Middle 4 1 Hannah Middle 42 Billy Middle 43 Nero Middle 44 Hannah Middle X 45 Sam Middle 46 Milly Middle 47 Stephen Middle X 48 Aggy Middle 49 W. Jemmy Middle 50 Phillis Middle 5 1 Othello Middle 52 Isabel Middle X 53 Jane Middle 54 Jem Boy Ferry 55 Nancy Ferry 56 Tom Ferry 57 Mary Ferry 58 Joe Ferry X 59 Effy Ferry 60 Geoffrey Ferry 6 1 Phoebe Ferry 1 Judy Lower Young (12-16) 1 4 2 Jane Lower Young (12-16) 1 2 3 Little Quashee Lower Young (12-16) 1 5 4 Amos Lower Young (12-16) 1 3

269 5 Phil Lower Young (12- 16) 1 3 6 Guy Lower Young (12- 16) 1 5 7 Abram Lower Young (12- 16) 16 Lined thru 8 Paul Lower Young (12- 16) 1 3 9 Tom Lower Young (12- 16) 16 Lined thru 1 0 Slab Lower Young (12- 16) 1 3 I 1 Caesar Middle/Ferry Young (12-16) 15 X 1 2 Patience Middle/Ferry Young (12-16) 12 1 3 Abram Middle/Ferry Young (12-16) 15 1 4 Phil Middle/Ferry Young (12-16) 13 1 5 Louisa Middle/Ferry Young (12-16) 12 1 6 Sam Middle/Ferry Young (12-16) 16 Lined thru 1 7 Tom Middle/Ferry Young (12-16) 14 1 8 Caty Middle/Ferry Young (12-16) 14 1 Sue Free 2 Unity Free 3 Sampson Free 4 Fanny Free 5 Tom Free 6 Amy Free 7 Iris Free 8 Lucy Free

270 APPENDIX B

November 1810 : Slaves Alloted to John Randolph After Judith Randolph'

Prices are in English Pounds

NAME RELATIONSHIPS PRICE SKILLS Abraham Son of Cloe 140 Sucky His wife 90 and "their 4 children" Bartley Jupiter's brother, 80 son of Nelly (deceased) Jupiter Bartley's brother 1 10 Jim.Boy [sic] 1 10 Nancy Jim-Boy's wife 45 John son of Lucy (dead) 1 1 0 Lucy John's wife. Milly's daughter 90 Beverly John & Lucy's son 20 Roger 35 Hannah 1 0 and "their children and grandchildren" Billy 140 Aggie 90 Richard 40 Lucinda 65 Polly 50 Queen 40 Roger 25 Polly 20 Hannah 1 5 Hetty 1 5

‘"Report of Commissioners of division of slaves confirmed". November 1810. Copy in Bruce-Randoiph Papers.

27 1 Essex Son of Tena 135 Jinny Essex's wife 75 Harry Essex & Jinny's children 75 Tena Essex & Jinny's children 45 Sam Essex & Jinny's children 35 Tony Essex & Jinny's children 30 Louisa Essex & Jinny's children 1 5 Othello His wife Isabella dead 130 Celia Othello & Isabella's children 65 Johnny Othello & Isabella's children 3 5 Molly Othello & Isabella's children I 5 Billy Son of Jim I 20 Isham Son of Nero 1 I 0 Nancy Daughter of Jim 50 Israel Nancy's children 45 Lucy Nancy's children i 5 Johnny 140 Waggoner Phil 180 Carpenter Sampson Son of Jane 130 Amos son of Mingo & Dina(dead) 120 Billy 1 40 Blacksmith Anna Mother of Anthony 90 Anthony Anna's son 50 Old Quasha 45 Molly Old Quasha's wife 50 Moses Quasha and Molly's children 120 Aggie Quasha and Molly's children 80 Lucy Quasha and Molly's children 50 Izzy Quasha and Molly's children 20 Henry Quasha and Molly's children 5 5 Jenny family of Roger & Hannah 90 Tom 135 Shoemaker Cleo Quasha's sister 30 Paul Cleo's children 90 Henry Cleo's children 1 20 Allen Cleo's children 85 Little Quasha Cleo's children. 90 old Quasha's nephew Nancy Cleo's children 65 Jim Son of Agga 130

272 Jenny Jim's wife, daughter of Hetty 75 Eliza Jenny’s children 1 0 Israel Jenny's children 30 Polly Jenny's children 20 Ned Son of Agga 1 20 Isham Son of Caesar 100 Phoebe Moses’s wife, Billy & Isaac's sister 9 0 Billy Phoebe and Isaac's brother 100 Isaac Phoebe and Billy's brother 90 Essex 90 Hetty Essex's wife 30 Phil Essex and Hetty's children 100 Nancy Essex and Hetty's children 85 Lavinia Essex and Hetty's children 60 Aaron Essex and Hetty's children 60 Johnny Essex and Hetty's children 125 Priscilla Essex and Hetty's children 45 Romulus Essex and Hetty's children 1 10 Abraham Son of Nero 1 10 Louisa Abraham's wife 90 Dilcey 20 T anner 75 Ampy 50 York Son of Lucy 75 Anna York's wife 85 Sam York and Anna's children 60 Gabriel York and Anna's children 55 Sedrack York and Anna's children 50 Meshack York and Anna's children 35 Katy Effie's daughter.Isabelle's sister 90 Dolly Katy's children 45 Docia Katy's children 35 Harrison Katy's children 35 Rachel Katy's children 1 5 Isabelle Effie's daughter. Katy's sister 90 Isaac 90 Phil Isabelle's baby, 6 months old 20 Sally 60 Avery 80 Henry Son of Nero 80

273 Maria 60 Dinah 50 Effy Cesar’s daughter. Simon's wife 65 Jenny Effy's children 135 Isham Effy's children 100 Maria Effy's children 75 Dick Effy's children 60 Nancy Daughter of Sue 90 Edmund Nancy's children 85 Alice Nancy's children 60 Moses 1 80 Carpenter Milly Moses's wife 65 Jenny Moses & Milly's children 65 Sarah Moses & Milly's children 50 Archer Moses & Milly's children 45 Meschack Moses & Milly's children 35 Essex Moses & Milly's children 30 Milly Moses & Milly's children 1 5 Archer Son of Jane, infirm 50 Nancy Archer's wife 40 Hampton Archer & Nancy's children 60 Jenny Archer & Nancy's children 80 Isaac Archer & Nancy's children 90 Grue Archer & Nancy's children 1 5 Sally Archer & Nancy's children 40 Anaca Archer & Nancy's children 20 Moses Hetty's son 120 Phil 140 Amelia Phil's wife. Hetty's daughter 65 Robert Anna's grandchildren.by Fanny (dead) 45 Christian Anna's grandchildren.by Fanny (dead) 45 Ben Anna's grandchildren,by Fanny (dead) 100 Peter 180 Blacksmith Jenny Peter's wife, daughter of Tena 90 Abel Peter and Jenny's son 30 Cesar Son of Unity, Grue's brother 125 Grue Cesar's brother 140 Same [sic] Son of Fanny (deceased) 1 2( Aggie Sam's sister, daughter of Fanny (dead) 90 Theodore Aggie's son 20

274 Effy Daughter of Fanny (dead) 8 0 Dicey Daughter of Fanny (dead) 4 0 Old Tena 3 0 Caesar 0 Milly 0 Anna 0 Jenny Mother of Sampson 0

TOTAL VALUATION IN POUNDS : C 10115

275 APPENDIX C

Christmas 1810 List by

No. NAME RELATIONS QUARTER X SKILL 1 Jim Boy 2 Nero 3 Billy of Milly 4 Billy Roger's 5 Amos 6 Mingo Tom's 7 Old Quashee 8 Jem my W aggoner 9 Little Phil I 0 Ned Lower I 1 Little Quashee I 2 Allen 1 3 Henry 1 4 Paul 1 5 Abram I 6 Sampson 1 7 John Ferry I 8 Abram Nero's Ferry I 9 Moses Hetty's 20 Caesar 2 I Tom Lower Shoemaker 22 Isham Lower

'"My Own List of Negroes Xmas 1810". Commonplace Book, 1803-1832. Tucker- Coleman Papers.

2 7 6 23 Sam Lower 24 Sam Ferry 25 Geoffrey 26 Phil of Essex 27 Isham Ferry 28 Toney Ferry 29 Essex House 30 Morocco 3 1 York Ferry 32 0. Roger 33 Elex Middle 34 Jemmy 35 Isham 36 Simon 37 Juba 38 Henry Nero's 39 Isaac Joe’s 40 Ben Fanny 4 1 Manuel 42 Berkeley 43 Ned Carpenter 44 Phil Carpenter 45 Hampton 46 Guy 47 Jem of Asa 48 Edmund Small Boy 49 Geoffrey Small Boy 50 Billy Small Boy 5 1 Tom Ferry 52 Old Ned X 53 Robin 54 Moses of Quashee 55 Sam Lower 56 Isaac Archer’s

111 57 Billy of Tenee 58 Peter Smith 59 Old Guy 60 Aaron 6 I Othello 62 Billy of Guy G Louisa W omen G Effy Herry W omen G Amy York's W omen G Hannah M(for Middle?) W G Phoebe W omen G Jenny W omen G Nancy W omen G Asa or Aya Roger’s W omen G Jenny Middle Women G Effy Women G Jenny of O. Jupiter Middle W G Lucy of Milly Middle Women G Caty Ferry W omen G Nanny of Guy Middle W omen G Isbel Ferry Women G T amar Ferry Women G Betsy of Geoffrey Women G Onagh Middle W omen G Sally Ferry W omen G Nanny of Milly Women G Y armouth Ferry Women G Milly of Morocco Women G Amelia Lower Women G Hetty of Essex Women G Lavinia Women G Priscilla W omen G Anna Lower Women G Chloe Women

2 7 8 0 Tenee W omen 0 Sukey of Tenee W omen 0 Aga Lower W omen 0 Jenny Lower W omen 0 Sally of Nancy Lower W omen 0 Phoebe Lower W omen 0 Jean Lower W omen 0 Effy Lower W omen 0 Molly of Quashee W omen 0 Sukey W omen 0 Nancy W omen 0 Jenny Hetty's W omen 0 Jenny Morocco's W omen 0 Jenny Peter's wife,Tenee's W omen 0 Anna W omen 0 Nancy W omen 0 Old Molly W omen 0 Bizarre Hannah W omen X

2 7 9 APPENDIX D

Undated Slave List by John Randolph'

M.Q. I Simon & Effy I Essex & Jenny of Roger Caesar, Amy 1 Mingo & Jenny of Jupiter 1 Amos, Aga I. Jem. Jenny - of Roger Othello & Nanny Peter & Jenny of Tinee Roger& Hannah Jemmy Waggoner Sam from Ferry of Old Tom Phil of Essex W. Morton Phil Carpenter X Billy of Guy Billy Smith Billy Carpenter Isham of Simon Paul Isham of Nero Ben - Paul- Harry Carpenter Berkeley John of Tom Ferry Dick of Simon Aaron Ned Carpenter

'Copy in Bruce-Randolph Papers. -Paul's name is crossed out. A line is drawn by the side of the names Ben through John of Tom Ferry.

2 8 0 Maria of Simon Sally of Roger's Aga Christiana Fanny 12 of Simon Phoebe of Simon Tiny of Essex & Jenny Queen of Aga 12. Robert 10 of Hercules &Patience both dead Essex & Hetty Richard 10 Alice of Roger dead Nancy, Priscilla Abel of Peter Smith 10 Sam of Essex 12 Tony of Essex 12 Roger of Aga 9

Ferry Jemboy & Nancy Milly & Old Robin lower quarter Royal 9 Trim Nancy & Isham (Nero's) M.Q. 2 children Betty of Geoffrey & Johnny L.Q. 1 girl 1 year Geoffrey & Phoebe. Moses 12 Sam of Milly. Yarmouth of York Ferry York &Amy -Gabriel 14 Shadrack 13 Mesheck 12 Abram of Nero & Louisa of Jupiter 2 children oldest 6 Tamar & Paul - MQ Nero - and his daughter Dinah Maria & Isham of Simon M.Q. Onah - (Old Tom) I child John & Lucy 4 eldest 6 XX Katy & Daniels Toney - large family X Isbel & Tucker's Abram- large family Billy of Milly W. Morton Isaac of Joe & Effy Henry of Nero Davy of Milly Hercules of Milly 14 Amphy 14 Tilla of Milly 1 3

28 I Dolly of Katy 1 6 Docia of Katy 1 4 Harrison 11

Lower Quarter Sampson 2 -x Abram & Sukey of Teine 3 children oldest 10 Quashe & Molly - 2. the biggest. 12 yrs. 1 -X Morocco & Milly 5. largest 12 years 2 X. Archer & Nancy 5. largest 12 years 1 X Jem (dead Jenny of Hetty 3 oldest Israel 1 X Henry & Lavinia. 1 one year 1 X Moses & Phoebe none 1 X Phil & Amelia none X Avery^? (Tucker's) Nancy 1 Remus (T) Anna I 12 years old. or 2 1 Jane & Hampton

O. Ton^ dead Aga or 2 1 Isham & Tiney X Aga & Effy of Fanny, &Cocke's Sam. Aga. 1 ten years Chloe. Mr. C's Isham X Savary 13 X Alice 15 X Jenny & Louis Caesar W. Simm s I Manuel & Tucker's Judy 1 Guy X Effy X L. Quash. X Isaac Edmund

^This name is unclear. •^This name is crossed out.

282 APPENDIX E

UNDATED LIST OF NEGROES >

Nelly, daughter of Will (sold at my father's sale to Billy Black.) Dinah her daughter got by Martin's Will. Her other children Stephen Will. Jupiter. Berkeley. Joas Sims's Charles afterwards Mrs. Pr Carringtons.

O. Will african & Moll (sold to Pettus Sandy Creek) Aga lower quarter. Sukey dead. Doll sold by my father to Farmer. Fanny sold. Hannah Rogers. Billy. Josiah both sold to Farmer. Jim Boy. Old Will is father of Ferry Tom by Judy.

Old Quasha african . Nanny african, pregnant with little Quash: Little Quash. Matty. Chloe.

Toney african & Hannah lost her hands with the Yaws-. Old Amy. Toney. Hannah (Indian Jack's), Hercules. Phil. Nancy (mother of Geoffrey). Barbara (sold at Lynchburg). Sukey ditto. Rhode ditto. Toney ditto. Roger. Essex. Harry

’ "Negroes" {November 1809} , Commonplace Book. 1803- 1832. Tucker-Coleman Papers. -Yaws is a medical condition in which large open ulcers appear, inviting secondary infections (and thus disfigurements like Hannah's) and transmission of yaws itself through contact. Endemic to Africa, its presence in Virginia was associated with first-generation African slaves and it died out when the end of the slave trade led to the Africans themselves eventually passing away among black creoles. (Savitt. Medicine and Slavery, pp. 73-77.)It cannot be assumed that Hannah's African husband Toney infected her, but the presence of a case of yaws underlines the significant numbers of Africans in this Roanoke listing.

283 o. Nero african and Hannah country born. Myrlilla (Manuel's mother sold). Nero. (Ampy sold — Isham sold to Col. Bland.)

Amy (midwife & Sam)

Mary (Tom's), Effy (Guy's), Sam (at Ferry. Milly's husband). Mingo (Dinah's husband), Hannah (Nero's), Phil. Nancy (Jim Boy's wife), Harry (carpenter, sold), Amy (York's), Jenny (Toney's widow & Essex's wife), Hercules (died of fever)

Phil & old Fanny africans. Afterwards Old Sampson's wife. Old Sue & Fanny at Bizarre Phil's wife. Jean

Old Tom african & Aga (old Vik's daughter) Will killed by a tree. Biddy sold. Tom shoemaker. Siah died of fever. Ned. Jem.

Old Jean & Cobb's Jim. Rachel sold at Lynchburg. Archer Jemmy Sampson Billy (sold)

Old Peter & Molly sold to Morton (John). Garrick, old Robin. Sally. Jack, sold to Gibson. Louis of Unity.

284 APPENDIX F

UNDATED SLAVE SUPPLY LIST'

"The Beds are to be shared as follows; eight yards of oznaburgs to a bed.

Middle Quarter Simon & Effy Essex & Jenny Mingo & Jenny Amos & Agga Jim & Jenny Rogers & Hannah Othello & Nancy Peter (Smith) & Jenny Maria

nine

Ferry Quarter Molly, Robinson's wife Nancy, Isham's wife Betty, Johnny's wife / Geoffrey & Phoebe / Jim & Yarmouth

‘Bouldin, Home Reminiscences, pp. 71-72.

285 / York & Amy / Abram & Lavania Farrar (Pompey's wife / Nero Maria / John & Lucy 1 4 Katy 1 7 Isbel ___

fourteen beds 40 a 8 yards 320 yards 2 19

Lower Quarter / Abraham & Sarey / Quashee & Mollv' / Archer & Nancy Jerry (Hetty's daughter / Henry & Lavinia / Moses & Phoebe / Phil & Amelia Nancy (Anthony's wife) Anna ( Remus's wife) Old Jane Old Aggy / Isham & Finey Chloe Savarey Aggy & Effy Little Quashee

'The appearance of Quashee s first wife Molly helps approximately date this list, since she died from childbirth in November 1819.

286 ______seventeen beds Stockings to be given two pair apiece to each of the men above named* and also to the following. See over leaf. * except Little Quashee & Old Quashee who have had here. Also Waggoner Jimmy has had. Aaron & little Henry have also had stockings here.

Sent by Quashee.

Stockings shared to the twenty-two men and the women on the other page who are to have beds and the following in addition.

Middle Quarter Sam Phil, Essex's son Phil Carpenter Billy (Smith) Billy Carpenter Isham & Simon's son Paul Isham & Nero's son Ned Carpenter Ben Berkley Harry Carp'r 1 2 Terry Jim Boy Billy (Milly's son) Isaac

Lower Quarter

2 8 7 Hampton Caesar Manuel Guy Isaac 5 forty-three men 2 pair apiece No. of pair 8 6 thirty-four women 1 ditto ditto 34 Sent by Quashee Ten dozen pair 120

Note — The men are forty-three in number, viz. 22-12-5-4. They must have two pair apiece and the women one pair (except those who have a line drawn under their names. There are thirty-seven women of whom Molly Jane & Chloe at the Lower Quarter and Nanny (Othello's wife) at the Middle Quarter are to have no stockings."

288 APPENDIX G

John Randolph - Nancy Morris Correspondence 1814/1815

Greenwich St.. Oct. 31, 1814 Madam: When, at my departure from Morrisiania. in your sister's presence, I bade you remember the past. I was not apprised of the whole extent of your guilty machinations. I had nevertheless seen and heard enough in the course of my short visit to satisfy me that your own dear experience had availed nothing toward the amendment of your life. My object was to let you know that the eye of man as well as of that God, of whom you seek not, was upon you — to impress upon your mind some of your duty towards your husband, and, if possible, to rouse some dormant spark of virtue, if haply any such should slumber in your bosom. The conscience of the most hardened criminal has. by a sudden stroke, been alarmed into repentance and contrition. Yours, I perceive, is not made of penetrable stuff. Unhappy woman, why will you tempt the forbearance of that Maker who has, perhaps, permitted you to run your course of vice and sin that you might feel it to be a life of wretchedness, alarm and suspicion? You now live in the daily and nightly dread of discovery. Detection itself can hardly be worse. Some of the proofs of your guilt, (you know to which of them I allude); those which in despair you sent me through Dr. Meade on your leaving Virginia; those proofs, I say, had not been produced against you had you not falsely used my name in imposing upon the generous man to whose arms you have brought pollution! to whom next to my unfortunate brother you were most indebted, and whom next to him

289 you have most deeply injured. You told Mr. Morris that I had offered you marriage subsequent to your arraignment for the most horrible of crimes, when you were conscious that I never at any time made such proposals. You have, therefore, released me from any implied obligation (with me it would have been sacred; notwithstanding you laid no injunction of the sort upon me, provided you had respected my name and decently discharged your duties to your husband) to withhold the papers from the inspection of all except my own family. I laid them before Tudor soon after they came into my hands with the whole story of his father’s wrongs and your crime. But to return: You represented to Mr. Morris that I had offered you marriage. Your inveterate disregard of truth has been too well known to me for many years to cause any surprise on my part at this or any other falsehood that you may coin to serve a turn. In like manner, you instigated Mr. Morris against the Chief Justice whom you knew to have been misled with respect to the transactions at R. Harrisons, and who knew no more of your general or subsequent life than the Archbishop of Canterbury. Cunning and guilt are no match for wisdom and truth, yet you persevere in your wicked course. Your apprehensions for the life of your child first flashed conviction in my mind that your hands had deprived of life that of which of you were delivered in October, 1792, at R. Harrison's. The child, to interest his feelings in its behalf, you told my brother Richard (when you entrusted to him the secret of your pregnancy and implored him to hide your shame) was begotten by my brother, Theodorick, who died at Bizarre of a long decline the preceding February. You knew long before his death (nearly a year) he was reduced to a mere skeleton; that he was unable to walk; and that his bones had worn through his skin. Such was the inviting object whose bed (agreeably to your own account) you sought, and with whom, to use your own paraphrase, you played 'Alonzo and Cora,' and, to screen the character of such a creature, was the life and fame of this most gallant of men put in jeopardy. He passed his word, and the pledge was redeemed at the

2 9 0 hazard of all that man can hold dear. Domestic peace, reputation and life, all suffered but the last. His hands received the burthen, bloody from the womb, and already lifeless. Who stifled its cries, God only knows and you. His hands consigned it to an uncoffined grave. To the prudence of R. Harrison, who disqualified himself from giving testimony by refraining from a search under the pile of shingles, some of which were marked with blood — to this cautious conduct it is owing that my brother Richard did not perish on the same gibbet by your side, and that the foul stain of incest and murder is not indelibly stamped on his memory and associated with the idea of his offspring. Your alleged reason for not declaring the truth (fear of your brothers) does not hold against a disclosure to his wife, your sister, to whom he was not allowed to impart the secret. But her own observation supplied all defect of positive information and, had you first been proceeded against at law. your sister being a competent witness, you must have been convicted, and the conviction of her husband would have followed as a necessary consequence ; for who would have believed your sister to be sincere in her declaration that she suspected no criminal intercourse between her husband and yourself? When, some years ago, I imparted to her the facts (she had a right to know them), she expressed no surprise but only said, she was always satisfied in her own mind that it was so. My brother died suddenly in June, 1790, only three years after his trial. I was from home. Tudor, because he believes you capable of anything, imparted to me the morning I left Morrisiana his misgivings that you had been the perpetrator of that act, and, when I found your mind running upon poisonings and murders, I too had my former suspicions strengthened. If I am wrong, I ask forgiveness of God and even of you. A dose of medicine was the avowed cause of his death. Mrs. Dudley, to whom my brother offered an asylum in his house, you drove away. Your quarrels with your own sister, before fierce and angry, now knew no remission. You tried to force her to turn her out of doors that you might have some plausible reason to assign for

29 1 quitting Bizarre. But, after what my poor brother had been made to suffer, in mind, body, and estate, after her own sufferings as wife and widow from your machinations, it was not worth while to try and save anything from the wreck of her happiness, and she endured you as well as she could, and you poured on. But your intimacy with one of the slaves, your 'dear Billy Ellis.' thus you commenced your epistles to this Othello!, attracted notice. You could stay no longer at Bizarre, you abandoned it under the plea of ill usage and, after various shiftings of your quarters, you threw yourself on the humanity of Capt. and Mrs. Murray (never appealed to in vain), and here you made a bold stroke for a husband — Dr. Meade. Foiled in this game, your advances became so immodest you had to leave Grovebrook. You, afterwards, took lodgings at Prior's (a public garden), whither I sent by your sister's request, and in her name $100. You returned them by the bearer, Tudor, then a schoolboy, because sent in her name which you covered with obloquy. But to S. G. Tucker, Esq., you represented that I had sent the money, suppressing your sister's name, and he asked me if I was going to see 'poor Nancy'? You sent this, a direct message, and I went. You were at that time fastidiously neat, and so was the apartment. I now see why the bank note was returned — but the bait did not take — I left the apartment and never beheld you more until in Washington as the wife of Mr. Morris. Your subsequent association with the players — your decline into a very drab — I was informed of by a friend in Richmond. You left Virginia — whether made a condition of your — {sic} or not. I know not. but the Grantor would not, as I heard, suffer you to associate with his wife. From Rhode Island, you wrote me. begging for money. I did not answer your letter. Mr. Sturgis, of Connecticut, with whom you had formed an acquaintance, and with whom you corresponded! often brought me messages from you. He knows how coolly they were received. When Mr. Morris brought you to Washington, he knew that I held aloof from you. At his instance, who asked me if I intended to mortify his wife by not visiting her. I went. I repeated my visit to ascertain whether change of

292 circumstances had made any change in your conduct. I was led to hope you had seen your errors and was smoothing his passage through life. A knowledge that he held the staff in his own hands and a mistaken idea of his character (for I had not done justice to the kindness of his nature) fortified this hope. Let me say that, when I heard of your living with Mr. Morris as his housekeeper . I was glad of it as a means of keeping you from worse company and courses. Considering him as a perfect man of the world, who. in courts and cities at home and abroad, had in vain been assailed by female blandishments, the idea of his marrying you never entered myhead. Another connection did. My first intimation of the marriage was its announcement in the newspapers. I then thought, Mr. Morris being a traveled man. might have formed his taste on a foreign model. Silence was my only course. Chance has again thrown you under my eye. What do I see? A vampire that, after sucking the best blood of my race, has flitted off to the North and struck her harpy fangs into an infirm old man. To what condition of being have you reduced him? Have you made him a prisoner in his own house that there may be no witness of your lewd amours, or have you driven away his friends and old domestics that there may be no witnesses of his death?Or do you mean to force him to Europe where he will be more at your mercy, and, dropping the boy on the highway, rid yourself of all incumbrances at once? 'Uncle.' said Tudor, if ever Mr. Morris' eyes are opened, it will be through this child whom, with all her grimaces in her husband's presence, 'tis easy to see she cares nothing for except as an instrument of power. How shocking she looks! 1 have not met her eyes three times since I have been in the house. My first impression of her character, as far back as I can remember, is that she was an unchaste woman. My brother knew even better than I. She could never do anything with him.' I have done. Before this reaches your eye, it will have been perused by him. to whom, next to my brother, you are most deeply indebted, and whom, next to him. you have most deeply wronged. If he be not both blind and deaf, he must sooner or later unmask you

293 unless he too die of cramps in his stomach. You understand me. If I were persuaded that his life is safe in your custody, I might forbear from making this communication to him. Repent before it is too late. May I hear of that repentance and never see you more. JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE *

Morrisiana. January 16th. 1815 SIR: My husband yesterday communicated to me for the first time your letter of the last of October, together with that which accompanied it. directed to him. In your letter to my husband, you say. 1 wish 1 could withhold the blow but 1 must in your case do what under a change of circumstances 1 would have you do unto me.' This. Sir. seems fair and friendly. It seems. Sir. as if you wished to apprize Mr. Morris and him only of circumstances important to his happiness and honor, though fatal to my reputation, leaving it in his power to cover them in oblivion or display them to the world as the means of freeing him from a monster unfit to live. But this was mere seeming. Your real object was widely different. Under the pretext of consulting Com. Decatur and Mr. Bleecker. you communicated your slanders to them, and then to Mr. Ogden. You afterward displayed them to Mr. Wilkins, who. having heard them spoken of in the city, called on you to know on what foundation they stood. How many others you may have consulted, to how many others you may have published your malicious tale. 1 know not. but 1 venture to ask if this be conduct under a change of circumstances you would have others pursue towards you? You have professed a sense of gratitude for obligations you suppose my husband to have laid you under. Was the attempt to blacken my character and destroy his peace of mind a fair return? There are many other questions which will occur to candid minds on the perusal of your letter. For instance, did you believe these

•Bruce. Randolph, pp. II ; 274-278

2 9 4 slanders? If you did. why did you permit your nephew to be fed from my bounty and nursed by my care during nearly three months? Could you suppose him safe in the power of a wretch who had murdered his father? Does it consist with the dignified pride of family you affect to have him, whom you announce as your heir, and destined to support your name, dependent on the charity of a negro's concubine? You say that I confine my husband a prisoner in his house that there may be no witnesses of my lewd amours, and have driven away his friends and old domestics that there may be no witnesses of his death. If I wished to indulge in amours, the natural course would be to mingle in the pleasures and amusements of the city, or at least to induce my husband to go abroad and leave me a clear stage for such misdeeds. Was it with a view to multiply witnesses to my ill conduct that you published tales tending as far as they are believed to make his house a solitude? It cannot escape your observation that you take on you to assert things which, had they existed, you could not know. Thus you say your brother passed his word and the pledge was redeemed at the hazard of all a man can hold dear’! Pray, Sir, admitting (tho it is not true) that I had exacted from your brother a promise of secrecy, how could you have known it unless he betrayed it? and if he betrayed it. how was the pledge redeemed? Again you say that I instigated Mr. Morris to write to the Chief Justice whom I knew to have been misled.' Had the instigation been a fact, how could you have come by the knowledge of it? Like many other things in your letter, it happens to be a downright falsehood, and is, therefore, a just standard to estimate the rest of your assertions. Permit to observe also that it is an additional proof of your intention to spread your slander abroad! ; for, had you meant to communicate information to Mr. Morris, you would not have hazarded such a charge. People of proper feelings require that the evidence of accusation be strong in proportion as the guilt is enormous; but those, who feel themselves capable of committing the blackest crimes, will readily suspect others, and condemn without proof on a mere hearsay, on the suggestion of a disturbed fancy or

2 9 5 instigations of a malevolent heart. Those who possess a clear conscience and a sound mind, will look through your letter for some proof of my guilt. They will look in vain. They will find, indeed, that you have thought proper to found suspicions on suspicions of your nephew, and, with no better evidence, you have the insolence to impute crime at which nature revolts. You will perhaps say that you mention a piece of evidence in your possession — a letter which I wrote on leaving Virginia. As far as that goes, it must be admitted, but permit me to tell you that the very mention of it destroys your credibility with honorable minds. To say, as you do, that I laid no injunction of secrecy will strike such minds as a pitiable evasion. If you had the feelings of a man of honor, you would have known that there are things the communication of which involves that injunction. You have heard of principle and pretend to justify the breach of confidence by my want of respect for your name. But you acknowledge that you communicated the information to my sister and her son Tudor (this a boy of eleven years old) shortly after you became possessed of it. Thus was my reputation, as far as it lay in your power, committed to the discretion of woman and a child many years before the imputed want of respect for your name! Formerly Jack Randolph — now. John Randolph of Roanoke.' It was then a want of respect to the great John Randolph of Roanoke to say he had done the honor of offering his hand to his poor cousin Nancy. I shall take more notice of this in its proper place, and only add here that among the respectable people of Virginia the affectation of greatness must cover you with ridicule. But to return to this breach of confidence, without which you have not the shadow of evidence to support your slanders. While on the chapter of self-contradictions, (which, with all due respect to John Randolph of Roanoke,' make up the history of his life) I must notice a piece of evidence not indeed contained in your letter, but written by your hand. I have already hinted at the indelicacy of leaving your nephew so long in my care with the view of meeting observations which no person can fail to make on a conduct so

296 extraordinary in itself and inconsistent with your charges against me. You pretend to have discovered, all at once in this house, the confirmation of your suspicions, but surely the suspicion was sufficient to prevent a person having a pretense to delicacy from subjecting himself to such obligations. One word, however, as to this sudden discovery made by your great sagacity. Recollect. Sir. when you rose from table to leave Morrisiania, you put in my husband's hand a note to my sister expressing your willingness that she and her son should pass the winter in his house. Surely, the discovery must have been made at that time, if at all. You will recollect, too, some other marks of confidence and affection, let me add of respect also, which I forbear to mention because you would no doubt deny them, and it would be invidious to ask the testimony of those who were present. One act, however, must not be unnoticed. It speaks too plain a language to be misunderstood, and was too notorious to be denied. When you entered this house, and when you left it. you took me in your arms, you pressed me to your bosom, you impressed upon my lips a kiss which I received as a token of friendship from a near relation. Did you then believe that you held in your arms, that you pressed to your bosom, that you kissed the lips of a common prostitute, the murderess of her own child and of your brother? Go. tell this to the world that scorn may be at no loss for an object. If you did not believe it. make out a certificate that John Randolph of Roanoke' is a base calumniator. But no. you may spare yourself this trouble. It is already written. It lies before me. and I proceed to notice what it contains in a more particular manner. And first. Sir. as to the fact communicated shortly before I left Virginia. That your brother Theodoric paid his addresses to me. you knew and attempted to supplant him by calumny. Be pleased to remember that, in my sister Mary's house, you led me to the portico, and, leaning against one of the pillars, expressed your surprise at having heard from your brother Richard that I was engaged to marry his brother. Theodoric. That you hoped it was not true, for he was unworthy of me. To establish this opinion, you made many assertions

2 9 7 derogatory to his reputation — some of which I knew to be false. Recollect that, afterwards, on one of those occasions (not infrequent) .when your violence of temper had led you into an unpleasant situation, you. in a letter to your brother, Richard, declared you were unconscious of ever having done anything in all your life which could offend me. unless it was that conversation, excusing it as an act of heroism, like the sacrifice of his own son by Brutus, for which I ought to applaud you. The defamation of your brother whom I loved, your stormy passions, your mean selfishness, your wretched appearance, rendered your attentions disagreeable. Your brother Richard, a model of truth and honor, knew how much I was annoyed by them. He knew of the letters with which you pestered me from Philadelphia till one of them was returned in a blank cover, when I was absent from home. By whom it was done. 1 knew not ; for I never considered it of importance enough to inquire. It was your troublesome attentions which induced Richard to inform you of my engagement. At that time, my father had other views. Your property, as well as that of your brothers, was hampered by a British debt. My father, therefore, preferred for my husband a person of clear and considerable estate. The sentiment of my heart did not accord with his intentions. Under these circumstances, I was left at Bizarre, a girl, not seventeen, with the man she loved. I was betrothed to him. and considered him as my husband in the presence of that God whose name you presume to invoke on occasions the most trivial and for purposes the most malevolent. We should have been married, if Death had not snatched him away a few days after the scene which began the history of my sorrows. Your brother. Richard, knew every circumstance, but you are mistaken in supposing I exacted from him a promise of secrecy. He was a man of honor. Neither the foul imputations against us both, circulated by that kind of friendship which you have shown to my husband, nor the awful scene, to which he was afterwards called as an accomplice in the horrible crime, with which you attempt to blacken his memory, could induce him to betray the sister of his wife, the wife of his brother ; I repeat it. Sir.

298 the crime with which you now attempt to blacken his memory. You say that, to screen the character of such a creature as I am. the life and the fame of that most generous and gallant of men was put in jeopardy. His life alas! is now beyond the reach of your malice, but his fame, which should be dear to a brother's heart, is stabbed by the hand of his brother. You not only charge me with the heinous crime of infanticide, placing him in the condition of an accomplice, but you proceed to say that had it not been for the prudence of Mr. Harrison, or the mismanagement of not putting me first on my trial, we should have both swung on the same gibbet and the foul stain of incest and murder been stamped on his memory and associated with the idea of his offspring.' This. Sir, is the language you presume to write and address to me, enclosed in a cover to my husband for my inspection, after having been already communicated to other people. I will, for a moment, put myself out of question, and suppose the charge to be true. What must be the indignation of a feeling heart to behold a wretch rake up the ashes of his deceased brother to blast his fame? Who is there of nerve so strong as not to shudder at your savage regret that we did not swing on the same gibbet? I well remember, and you cannot have forgotten that, when sitting at the hospitable home of your venerable father-in-law. you threw a knife at that brother's head, and, if passion had not diverted the aim, he would have much earlier have been consigned to the grave, and you much earlier have met the doom which awaits your murderous disposition. It was. indeed, hoped that age and reflection had subdued your native barbarity. But, setting aside the evidence which your letter contains, the earnestness with which you disclosed in the presence of Col. Morris and his brother the Commodore [your desire?]- to shoot a British soldier, to bear off his scalp and hang it up as an ornament in your house at Roanoke, shows that you still have the heart of a savage. I ask not of you but of a candid world whether a man like you is worthy of belief. On the melancholy occasion you have thought

-this parentheses is William Bruce's own gloss. Bruce. Randolph, p 11:284.

299 proper to bring forward there was the strictest examination. Neither your brother or myself had done anything to excite enmity, yet we were subjected to an unpitying persecution. The severest scrutiny took place ; you know it. He was acquitted to the joy of numerous spectators, expressed in shouts of exultation. This. Sir, passed in a remote county of Virginia more than twenty years ago. You have revived the slanderous tale in the most populous city in the United States. For what? To repay my kindness to your nephew by tearing me from the arms of my husband and blasting the prospects of my child! Poor innocent babe, now playing at my feet, unconscious of his mother's wrongs. But it seems that on my apprehensions for his life first flashed convictions on my mind that my own hand had deprived in October. 1792, that of which I was delivered. You ought to have said, the last of September. You must. Mr. Randolph, have a most extraordinary kind of apprehension ; for one child can induce you to believe in the destruction of another. But. waiving this absurdity, you acknowledge that every fact, which had come to your knowledge, every circumstance you had either heard or dreamt of in the long period of more than twenty years, had never imparted to you a belief, which nevertheless you expect to imprint on the minds of others. You thus pay to the rest of mankind the wretched compliment of supposing them more ready to believe the greatest crimes than John Randolph of Roanoke.' Doubtless there may be some, who are worthy of this odious distinction ; I hope not many. 1 hope too that, in justice to the more rational part of the community, you will wait (before you require their faith) until some such flash will have enlightened their minds. Mark here, for your future government, the absurdity to which falsehood and malice inevitably lead a calumniator. They have driven you, while you endeavored to palliate inconsistency of conduct, into palpable self contradiction. Sensible as you must be that no respectable person can overlook the baseness of leaving your nephew so long, or even permitting him to come, under the roof of the wretch you describe me to be, you are compelled to acknowledge

3 0 0 that you did not believe in the enormities you charge, until yourself had paid a visit to Morrisiana. Thus you not only invalidate everything like evidence to support your criminations but found them on circumstances which produce an effect (if they operate at all) directly opposite to that for which they are cited. You have. Sir, on this subject presumed to use my sister’s name. Permit me to tell you, I do not believe one word of what you say. Were it true, it were wholly immaterial. But that it is not true, I have perfect conviction. The assertion rests only on your testimony, the weight and value of which has been already examined. The contradiction is contained in her last letter to me, dated Dec. 17th, of which I enclose a copy. You will observe she cautions me against believing anything inconsistent with her gratitude for my kindness, and assures me that, altho' prevented from spending the winter with us, she is proud of the honor done her by the invitation. With this letter before me, I should feel it an insult to her as well as an indignity to myself if I made any observations on your conduct at Bizarre. No one can think so meanly of a woman who moves in the sphere of a lady as to suppose she could proud of the honor of being invited to spend a winter with the concubine of one of her slaves. Nevertheless, tho I disdain an answer to such imputations. I am determined they shall appear in the neighborhood under your hand ; so that your character may be fully known and your signature forever hereafter be not only what it has hitherto been, the appendage of vainglorious boasting, but the designation of malicious baseness. You say I drove Mrs. Dudley from my sister's house. A falsehood more absurd could hardly have been invented. She left the house the day before your brother was buried. I shall not enter into a detail of the circumstances, but this assertion shall also be communicated to the neighborhood. It is well that your former constituents should know the creature in whom they put their trust. Virginians, in general, whatever may be their defects, have a high sense of honor. You speak with affected sensibility of my sister's domestic bliss, and you

301 assume an air of indignation at the violence of my temper. Be pleased to recollect that, returning from a morning ride with your brother, you told me that you found it would not do to interfere between man and wife ; that you had recommended to him a journey to Connecticut to obtain a divorce ; that he made no reply, nor spoke a single word afterwards. Recollect, too, how often, and before how many persons, and in how many ways you have declared your detestation of her conduct as a wife and her angry passions. One form of expression occurs which is remarkable : 'I have heard.' said you, that Mrs. Randolph was handsome, and, perhaps, had I ever seen her in a good humor, I might have thought so ; but her features are so distorted by constant wrath that she has to me the air of a fury.' And now. as to my disposition and conduct, be pleased not to forget (for people of a certain sort should have good memories) that, during full five years after your brother's death, and how much longer, I know not, I was the constant theme of your praise and, tho you wearied everyone else, you seemed on that subject to be yourself indefatigable. I should not say these things, if they rested merely on my own knowledge, for you would not hesitate to deny them, and I should be very sorry that my credibility were placed on the same level with yours. You have addressed me as a notorious liar, to which I make no other answer than that the answer, like your other charges, shall be communicated to those who know us both. You will easily anticipate their decision. In the meantime, it may not be amiss to refresh your memory with one sample of your veracity. There are many who remember, while your slaves were under mortgage for the British debt, your philanthropic assertion that you would make them free and provide tutors for them. With this project, you wearied all who would listen. When, by the sale of some of them, a part of the debt was discharged, and an agreement made to pay the rest by installments, you changed your mind. This was not inexcusable, but when you set up for representation in Congress, and the plan to liberate your slaves was objected to in your District. , you published, to the astonishment of numbers, who had heard you

302 descant on your liberal intentions, that you had never had any such idea. Thus your first step in public life was marked with falsehood. On entering the door of Congress, you became an outrageous patriot. Nothing in the French Revolution was too immoral or too impious for your taste and applause. Washington and Britain were the objects of your obloquy. This patriotic fever lasted till the conclusion of Mr. Chase's trial, from which you returned, complaining of the fatigue of your public labors, but elated with the prospect of a foreign mission. As usual, you rode your new Hobby to the annoyance of all who like me were obliged to listen. Your expected voyage enchanted you so much that you could not help talking of it even to your deaf nephew : 'Soon, my boy, we shall be sailing over the Atlantic.' But. all at once, you became silent and seemed in deep melancholy. It appeared soon after that Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison . knowing your character, had prudently declined a compliance with your wishes. A new scene now opened ; you became a patriot, double distilled, and founded your claim to the confidence of new friends on the breach of that which had been reposed by your old ones. I know not what others may think as to your treacherous disclosure of Mr. Madison’s declaration, that the French want money and must have it.’ but it is no slight evidence of his correct conduct, in general, that you had nothing else to betray. With the same insensibility to shame, which marks your allegations, you have denied the fact of turning me out of doors. This also shall be made known in the neighborhood where it must be well remembered. 1 take the liberty again to refresh your memory. Shortly after your nephew (whom I had nursed several weeks in a dangerous illness at the hazard of my life) had left home to take the benefits of a change of air. you came into the room one evening, after you had been a long time in the chamber with my sister, and said, addressing yourself to me, ’Nancy, when do you leave this house? The sooner the better, for you take as many liberties as if you were in a tavern.’ On this occasion, as on others, my course was silent submission. I was poor, I was dependent. I knew the house was kept

303 in part at your expense. I could not therefore appeal to my sister. I replied with the humility, suitable to my condition, I will go as soon as I can.' You stalked haughtily about the room, and poor, unprotected 'Nancy' retired to seek the relief of tears. Every assertion of yours respecting my visit to Grovebrook is false. Mr. Murray cannot but acknowledge that I went there with Judge Johnston in his carriage, on my way to Hanover, after repeated invitations from his family, conveyed in letters from his daughters ; that I left there in the chariot of my friend. Mr. Swan ; that they pressed me to not only prolong my stay but to repeat my visit. Of this, Mr. Curd, a gentleman sent by Mr. Swan to escort me, was a witness. You are unfortunate in what passed two years after when I saw you in Richmond, but, before I refresh your memory on this subject. I must notice another malicious falsehood respecting my residence, while in Richmond. You say I took lodgings at Prior's, a public garden. It is true Mr. Prior owned a large lot in Richmond, and that there was a public building on it. in which public balls and entertainments were given, and this lot a public garden, but it is equally true that Mr. Prior's dwelling and the enclosure round it were wholly distinct from that garden. In that house, I lodged. My chamber was directly over Mrs. Prior's, a lady of as good birth as Mr. John Randolph and of far more correct principles.^ All this. Sir. you perfectly well know. From that chamber. I wrote you a note, complaining that your nephew, then a school boy in Richmond, was not permitted to see me. You sent [it]-* back, after writing on the same sheet. I return your note that you may compare it with my answer, and ask yourself, if you are not unjust to one who through

^Unfortunately for Nancy's choice of words, this lady of "good birth . . . and of far more correct principles. " Mrs. Anne Pryor. was to run off with a French émigré named Jean Fremon — and give birth to the explorer and first Republican Presidential candidate, John Fremont. (Daniels, Randolphs of V irginia, p. 214) ■*This bracketed interpolation is William Cabell Bruce’s. Bruce. Randolph , p. 11:288

304 life has been your friend.' This, with the recital of your professions of regard, made to my friend Lucy Randolph and her husband and her husband's brother Ryland, led me to suppose you had, in the last scene at Bizarre, acted only as my sister's agent. I therefore wrote to you. remonstrating against the reason you assigned for turning me out of doors, which you yourself knew to be unfounded, for you had often observed that I was 'Epicene, the Silent Woman.' You knew that I was continually occupied at my needle or other work for the house, obeying, to the best of my knowledge, the orders I received, differing from any other servant only in this ; I received no wages, but was permitted to sit at table, where 1 did not presume to enter into conversation or taste of wine, and very seldom of tea or coffee. I gave my letter into the hands of Ryland Randolph, to be put by him into your hands. I pause here. Sir, to ask. whether on the receipt of this letter, you pretended to deny having turned me out of doors? You dare not say so. You shortly after paid me a visit, the only one during your stay. You sat on my bedstead. I cannot say my bed. for I had none, I was too poor. When weary, my limbs were rested on a blanket, spread over the sacking. Your visit was long, and I never saw you from that day until we met in Washington. Some days after, you sent your nephew to offer me $100 on the part of his mother. I supposed this to be a turn of delicacy, for. had you been the bearer of money from her. you would have delivered it, when you were in my chamber, and given me every needful assurance of the quarter from which it came. But. let it come from whom it might, my feelings were too indignant to receive a boon at the hands of those by whom I had been so grievously wounded. I readily conceive. Sir, that this must have seemed to you inexplicable, for it must be very difficult for you to conceive how a person in my condition would refuse money from any quarter. It is true that afterwards, when in Newport, suffering from want, and borne down by a severe ague and fever, I was so far humbled as to request not the gift (I would sooner have perished) but the loan of half that sum. My petition struck on a cold heart that emitted no sound. You did not deign to reply. You

305 even made a boast of my silence. I was then so far off my groans could not be heard in Virginia. You no longer apprehended the {reproaches]^ which prompted your ostentatious offer at Richmond. Yes. Sir, you were silent. You then possessed the letter on which you grounded your calumnies. You supposed me so much in your power that I should not dare to complain of your unkindness. Yes. Sir. you were silent, and you left your nephew nearly three months dependent on the charity of her. to whom in the extreme of wretchedness you had refused the loan of fifty dollars. Yes. Sir, you were silent. Perhaps you hoped that the poor forlorn creature you had turned out of doors would, under the pressure of want, and far removed from every friend, be driven to a vicious course, and enable you to justify your barbarity by charges such as you have now invented. You say you were informed of my associating with the players and my decline into a very drab by a friend in Richmond. Your letter shall be read in Richmond. You must produce that friend, unless you are willing to yourself father the falsehood which in Richmond will be notorious. I defy you Mr. Randolph to substantiate by the testimony of any credible witness a single fact injurious to my reputation from the time you turned me out of doors until the present hour ; and God knows that, if suffering could have driven me to vice, there was no want of suffering. My husband, in permitting me to write this letter, has enjoined me not to mention his kindness, otherwise 1 could give a detail of circumstances which, as they could not involve any pecuniary claim, might touch even your heart. You speak of him as an infirm old man. in whom I have struck the fangs of a harpy, after having acted in your family the part of a vampire. I pray you. Mr. John Randolph of Roanoke,' to be persuaded that such idle declamation, tho it might become a schoolboy to his aunt and cousins, is misplaced on the present occasion. You know as little of the

^This bracketed interpolation is William Cabell Bruce's, Ibid.. p. II :289

306 manner in which my present connection began as of other things with which you pretend to be acquainted. I loved my husband before he made me his wife. I love him still more now that he has made me mother of one of the finest boys I ever saw; now that his kindness soothes the anguish which I cannot but feel from your unmanly attack. I am very sorry I am obliged to speak of your nephew. I would fain impute to his youth, or to some other excusable cause, his unnatural, and I must say, criminal, conduct. I hope the strength of my constitution, the consolation I derive from the few friends who are left and the caresses of my beloved babe will enable me to resist the measures taken for my destruction by him and his uncle. Had his relations rested only on your testimony, I should not have hesitated to acquit him of the charge ; but a part of them at least, not fully detailed in your letter, was made in Mr. Ogden's presence. This young man received several small sums of money which I sent him unasked, while he remained at Cambridge. Early in April, by a letter, which he addressed to me as his 'Dear good Aunt,' he requested the loan of thirty or forty dollars. I heard no more of him until the end of July, when a letter, dated in Providence, announced his intention of seeing me soon at Morrisiana. At the same time, letters to my husband mentioned the dangerous condition of his health. On the 4th of August, a phaeton drove to the door with a led horse, and a person, appearing to be a servant, stepped out and inquired for Mr. Randolph. He was directed to the stable, and shortly after Mr. Randolph landed from the boat of a Packet. His appearance bespoke severe illness. I showed him to his chamber, and venture to say that from that time to the moment of his departure he was treated by me with the tenderness and kindness of a mother. The injunction I have already mentioned restrains me from going into particulars. My health was injured by the fatigue to which I was exposed, the burthen of which I could not diminish without neglecting him ; for I could not procure good nurses or servants. My husband's health, too. was, I believe, injured by the confinement which this youth occasioned ; for he was prevented from taking a journey we were

307 about to make for air and exercise among the mountains of New Jersey. We were also under the disagreeable necessity of keeping a servant whom our friends had denounced as a thief. Bye the bye, I have reason to believe that he is one of those 'ancient domestics' you have taken under your protection. If so, I must in justice to myself inform you that your friend. Geo. Sevens, dismissed only two days before your arrival, was shortly after admitted to a lodging in the Bridewell of New York for theft. I had an opportunity, indeed I was made by my laundress, to observe that your nephew (though driving his phaeton with a servant on horseback) had not a pair of stockings fit to wear ; his man, Jonathan, dunning him in my presence for his wages. At one time, in particular, passing by his door, . I heard Jonathan ask for money. My heart prompted me to offer relief. As I entered his room for that purpose (it was two days after a violent hemorrhage which threatened his life) he was rising feebly from his bed, and. when I mentioned my object, said in a tremulous voice, 'My dear Aunt. I was coming to ask you.' I bade his servant follow me and gave him $5.00. Tudor had received the $30 first borrowed but, shortly afterwards, increased the debt $10 to furnish as I supposed, his traveling companion, Mr. Bruce, [of Rhode Island]^ with the means of returning home. A few days after that. I supplied him with an additional $20. I gave stockings, and before his departure, sent $30 to one of Mr. Morris' nieces to purchase handkerchiefs which he wanted and which his mother said he could not afford to buy. The evening you left Morrisiana, I received a note from this lady excusing herself for not executing my commission by reason of the death of a cousin and returning the money because she understood that my sister was to go the next Tuesday. You witnessed my surprise at receiving such information in such a way. You will recollect what followed. After your departure. I communicated the note to your nephew, and told him, as he was going to town, he could purchase the handkerchiefs for himself. I gave him thirty dollars

^This bracketed interpolation is William Cabell Bruce’s. Ibid.. p. II :292

308 which he put in his pocket and thanked me. Two days after, when in town, he said to me, 'Aunt I wish you would choose the handkerchiefs yourself ; I would value them more.' He forgot, however, to return the money. I purchased the Hdkffs {sic}, together with a merino tippet to protect his chest, and received again his thanks which were reiterated the same day by his mother at Mr. Ogden's. The debt, amounting to $65.00. she paid at Morrisiana. The $30 were enclosed in her note, dated Saturday morning, of which I send you herewith [a]? copy together with that of the 3rd November from Philadelphia. And now. Sir, put the actual parties out of the question, and say what credit can be due to the calumnies of a person in your nephew's situation, soliciting and receiving favors to the very last moment. Let me add. after he had poured slanders in your ear or repeated them from your dictation, he left me to discharge one of his doctor's bills, which he said I offered to pay. and receive his thanks in advance. Is it proper, or is it decent to found such calumnies on the suspicions of such a creature? . even supposing them to have originated in his mind, and not been, as is too probable, instigated by you? Could anything but the most determined and inveterate malice induce anyone above the level of an idiot to believe the only fact he pretended to articulate? Who can believe me cruel to my child? When it is notorious my fault is too great indulgence ; that my weakness is too great solicitude, and that I have been laughed at for instances of maternal care by which my health was impaired. You cite as from him these words. 'How shocking she looks. I have not met her eyes three times since I have been in the house.' Can you believe this? Can you believe others to believe it? How happens it you did not cry out as anyone else would have done? 'Why did you stay in that house? Why did you submit to her kindness? Why did you accept her presents? Why did you pocket her money?' To such an apostrophe he might have replied perhaps. 'Uncle I could not help

^This bracketed interpolation is William Cabell Bruce's. Ibid.. p.11:293

309 it. I was penniless, in daily expectation that you or my mother would bring relief. When at last she came, I found her almost as ill-off as myself. We were both detained until you arrived.’ To this excuse, which is a very lame one for a person who had a phaeton to sell or pledge, any one who feels a spark of generosity in his bosom would reply. 'Why, then, wretch, having from necessity or choice laid yourself under such a load of obligations, do you become the calumniator of your benefactress? Are you yet to learn what is due to the rites of hospitality, or have you, at the early age of nineteen, been taught to combine profound hypocrisy with deadly hate and assume the mask of love that you may more surely plant the assassin's dagger? Where did you learn these horrible lessons?' This last. Sir, would have been a dangerous question on your part. He might have replied and may yet reply, 'Uncle, I learned this from you.' But, to return to the wonderful circumstance that this young man had not met my eyes above once a month, though he saw me frequently every day. That he met them seldomer than I wished is true. I was sorry to observe what others had remarked, that he rarely looked any one in the face. I excused this sinister air to myself, and tried to excuse it to others as proof of uncommon modesty, of which he nevertheless gave no other proof. I sometimes succeeded in my endeavours to make people believe that this gloomy, guilty look proceeded from bashfulness. I know not. and shall not pretend to guess, what heavy matter pressed on his conscience ; perhaps it was only the disposition to be criminal. At present, [now]* that he has an opportunity (with your assistance) to gratify that disposition, he will, I presume, be less capable of assuming the air of an honest man, [and]^ he will probably find himself frequently on leaving good company in condition to repeat

*This bracketed interpolation is William Cabell Bruce's. Ibid.. p.11:294 ^This bracketed interpolation is William Cabell Bruce's. Ibid., p. II; 294

3 10 the same sentence of self-condemnation: "Uncle. I have not met their eyes three times since I have been in the house.' You make him say. 'my first impression as far back as I can remember is that she was an unchaste woman — my brother knew her better than I — she never could do anything with him' — This too is admirable testimony to support your filthy accusations. Pray, Mr. John Randolph of Roanoke, why did you not inform your audience that, when you turned me out of doors, this Mr. Tudor Randolph was but nine years old, and his brother, poor deaf and dumb Saint George, just thirteen — Can it be necessary to add to your confusion by a single remark? It seems to me, if any one present at your wild declamation, had noticed this fact, you would have been hissed even by a sisterhood of old maids. Unluckily for you. I have letters from poor Saint George, one of which, written shortly before his late malady, is filled with assurances of attachment. In that which I received, while I was in Washington, he makes particular and affectionate inquiries respecting Col. [M onroe's]fam ily. These show that he does not participate in your ingratitude, but feels as he ought the kindness of that gentleman, who. at your instance, took him into his family in London and watched over him with parental care. You repay this favor by slanders which I have the charity to believe you are too polite to pronounce in the Col's presence. I have a letter from my sister telling me the pleasure St. George manifested at the present of my portrait I made him. I have a letter also from her. shortly after her house was burnt, in which she tells me among the few things saved she was rejoiced to find my portrait which you brought out with your own. By this act, you have some right to it. and. should my present ill health led me shortly to the grave, you may hang it up in your castle at Roanoke next to the Englishman's scalp — a trophy of the family prowess. I observe. Sir. in the course of your letter allusion to one of Shakespeare's best tragedies. I trust you are by this time convinced that you have clumsily performed the

'*^This bracketed interpolation is William Cabell Bruce's. Ibid.. p. 11:294

3 1 1 part of 'honest lago.' Happily for my life, and for my husband's peace, you did not find in him a headlong, rash Othello. For a full and proper description of what you have written and spoken on this occasion. I refer you to the same admirable author. He will tell you it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. ANN C. MORRIS"

"Bruce, R a n d o lp h , pp. 11:278-295.

3 1 2 APPENDIX H

1846 Manumission Register With Biographical Notes

The first ten were entered on April 29. 1846, the certificate count beginning with #215 — 215 Frank Brown, Dark, 5'II 5/8” (in shoes) 25 years old Small scar in the forehead, whitish Although one of the few to have his surname actually given in this list, nothing more is known certainly of Brown. (Fountain Randolph testified that a Frank Brown — though not necessarily this one — lived in Sidney, was married to a Disa and father to three children, Nancy. George, and Fannie.)' 216 Johnston, Son of Armistead, Dark 5' 6", 22 years. Appearances on the hand Johnston (or Johnson) Crowder is listed apart from both his wife (Amanda Ann Cox Crowder) and children, and his father Armistead's family. Both the 1870 and 1900 Censuses show him residing in Piquas Third Ward (the later giving the street address 646 Miami St.) This Piqua residence meant his children did not go to the black school in Rossville.- The 1870 Census also gives his worth as 1000 dollars in property and $200 personal. Though listed as a "Farmer" in the 1850 Census, the 1860 and 1870 Censuses more modestly give his

'Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-5-1914). pp. 53-54. 68.

-Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of William Fox. p. 212; Deposition of William Fox. p. 680.

3 1 3 occupation as "Day Laborer." He may have been most known as a whitewasher.3 Johnson was buried in Lot I OB. Section 375. of the Forest Hill Cemetery on April 21. 1908, his age given as 92 years/ Yet there is also a record of him as Lot 12 of the African Jackson Cemetery^ — was he first buried in Rossville. and then re interred with his family? 2/7 Phill White, Dark, 5 ’ 5 ” 45 years 218 Sylva His wife Dark 5' ,25 years 219 Agnes Jane Daughter Dark 2’ 6" ,2 years 7 months Although listed here as "Phill White", this man often went by "Philip Cole". That four children later born in Ohio used the form "Cole White" implies both surnames were used by this family. (As Fountain Randolph tried to explain to black attorney W.E. Henderson in his MOTON VS. KESSENS testimony, "Phil Cole, he had two names attached; Cole, that is his right name ; they call him Phill Cole but he is Phill White." Phill, his wife Sylva, and their daughter Agnes lived in Piqua. (Agnes herself had one or two children.F Phill and Sylva as mentioned above had four more children themselves. 220 Ellick Dark 5' 10 3/4" ,24 years Scar behind the right ear 221 Sally A mother Mulatto 5' 1" , 28 years Lame in hip 222 Craddock Sally's son Bright 3' 6 1/8", 7 years 223 Jim Sally's son Bright 2' 6 3/4" , 4 years The family of Alexander ("Ellick") introduces us to a problematic surname, variously recorded as "Gillard". "Gilliard". or "Gillett". Of his sons here, for instance, one was known as Craddock Gillard and the other as Jim Gillett.

^Oda. Piqua s Black Heritage, no pagination. ■*Mrs. Janet C. Martin to Ross F. Bagby, 13 January 1996. ^African Jackson Cemetery Nomination File. ^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-5-1914). p. 56.

^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-5-1914), p55-7; but see also the Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914), p. 103.

3 14 Alexander and Sally (also ’’Sarah") Gillard lived in Troy, where they had another daughter, Elizabeth. Sally seems to have married Ned Lee after Alexander’s death and lived in Piqua. Craddock was also known as Craddock Lee after his stepfather. Residing in Piqua, he married in the 1860's and had seven children. Jim Gillett became a hostler, living in the Rossville area. 224 Willis Dark 5' 7" ,22 years wart on the middle of the forefinger of the left hand The last freedman entered on the first day, Willis White was the son of Queen White. He became a resident of Piqua, and was buried in the African Jackson Cemetery of Rossville next to his mother. He married Edmund Sowell’s daughter Jane and had several children by her. 225 Nero Head Dark 5' 4 ”, 26 years 226 Edy (Edith) His wife Black 5' I" 20 years 227 Fountain Her son Black 2' 6" ,3 years 228 Hiram Nancy (deceased) son Bright, nearly white 4'6" ,12 years 229 Mark Nancy (deceased) son Very bright 4' 3", 10 years 230 Watkins Nancy (deceased) son Very bright 4' , 8 years 231 John Nancy (deceased) son Very bright 3' 7 1/2” ,6 years 232 Susan Ann Nancy (deceased) daughter Very bright 3' 4 1/2” , 5 years 233 St. George Nancy (deceased) son Very bright 3', 3 years 234 Pugh Price Nancy (deceased) son Very bright 2' 4 1/2” ,1 y ear Nero Randolph was the brother of the deceased Nancy whose children are listed here with his own wife Edith and son.* The surname question for Nancy’s children is even murkier than "Gillard/Gillett", Mark and Watkins using "Leigh", while Susan Ann and St. George used "Clay". Nancy’s seven children are recorded as having the lightest skin color of any of the Randolph Slaves.

^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph {5-6-1914), p. 60.

3 15 Nero became a Piqua day laborer (though the 1880 Census more narrowly says a teamster). He was buried in Rossville's African Jackson Cemetery. One account of his Piqua years claims he was a religious enthusiast.’ William Fox identified him as one of those Randolph Slaves who had mentioned the Mercer County lands (just before a mysterious trip to Richmond. Virginia.)'" Fox also describes Nero’s physical appearance: "He was rather a small man. probably weighed 135 or 140. gray whiskers, black complexion, but not exactly black" and "about 5 foot high"." Nero was known to have fathered besides Fountain the sisters Elizabeth and Jane Coleman (certificates 257 and 258).'- Edy Randolph was to pay annual social visits to Carthagena. Mercer County, renewing acquaintance with one Susan Robinson who had once been enslaved on a Virginia plantation near to Roanoke.'^ Their son Fountain Randolph, if only through longevity, became one of the most important of the Randolph migrants. According to his own testimony in MOTON v. KESSENS, he and his mother Edith were sent to work on the farm of a white family named Hire in the 1846 dispersal; by 1860 he is a domestic servant in the household of a Piqua doctor, and he also worked for George Lee (who testified "After '75 for about twenty years he worked for me. blackened stoves and done the porter work and deliverying")'-^ and for Howard Scudder.'s Around 1867 he married Isaac Coles's Ohio-born daughter Susan, and this marital tie causes his name to appear in several Hanktown land transactions.'^ In the 1880's one of his jobs was delivering the

’ Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of William Fox, p. 712.

'"Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of William Fox (5-7-1914). pp. 206-207; Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), pp. 691-692. 694, 703. ' 'Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), p. 704.

'-Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-6-1914). p. 80 ; Testimony of Elizabeth Moss (5-6-1914), p. 159. '^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Thomas Robinson (5-7-1914). pp. 220. 225.

'-'Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of George E. Lee (4-23-1913). p. 992.

'^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of Howard Scudder (4-23-1913). pp. 997-999. "^Honeyman, "Hanktown", History of Miami County. Ohio, ed. Miller, p. 249; Warranty Deeds. 6 February 1869 and 24 July 1869 (Troy Historical Society,

3 1 6 CINCINNATI ENQUIRER to Piqua subscribers. In the I890’s he went blind, but lived for over thirty years with his children in Piqua, Susan having died in 1889. (Blindness seems to have made him at the least a prayer meeting leader, if not a recognized p r e a c h e r . Both for the MOTON v. KESSENS trial and local reporters his tales were a major source of lore about the Randolph Slaves and their lives. Physically he was a small m a n . i s (One of Fountain's Ohio-born sons, John S. Randolph, reversed the family's migration pattern by becoming a teacher in Georgia, where he was killed in a railroad accident; his body was returned to Ohio for burial.)‘9 Fountain testified that Hiram Clay moved to Chicago. John Clay and his sister Susan Ann worked as servants for a Troy white family in the 1850 census's count. Nancy's mulatto son St. George Clay worked for a white Piqua potter, John Ewell, in 1860 ; this makes it probable he is the"George Ewill" who lives with a wife and children in Shelby County's Turtlecreek Township for 30 years, but returns to Piqua in old age to live with a son. (If this identification is correct, he was another Civil War veteran. George Ewill having served in the 12th U.S. Colored Troops.)-' 235 Doctor Dark Brown 5'5 1/4" ,45 years Known as Doctor Jones or Doctor Johnson, this man is likely to be one of the sons of Old Milly Jones, whose many descendants will turn up in this list.--

Troy, OH.)

'^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph - In Rebuttal, p. 244.

'^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox. p. 712 ; Deposition of Howard Scudder (4-23-1913). p. 995. ‘‘^Oda. Piqua's Black Heritage, no pagination; Mrs. Janet C. Martin to Ross Bagby, 26 May 1995.

-QMoton V. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-6-1914), p. 60. - ‘Piqua Daily Leader-Dispatch 8 May 1909

- - Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-6-1914), p. 60, identifies Doc Jones’s mother as "Millie".

3 1 7 Certainly he is living with Old Milly's family in 1850 Piqua. By 1870 he lives in Troy as a farm worker (where a son and a married daughter also lived). He married in the 1850's and had at least seven children. For a time he was a director of Piquas colored school. 236 Edmund, Head, Brown, 5' 5 3/4" 55 years 237 Sucky, His wife. Black, 5' 1" 24 years 238 Giles Her son Mulatto 3' 8" ,8 years 239 Nancy His daughter by other wife Black 5'6" ,20 years 240 Jane His daughter Brown 5' I" ,18 years 241 Susan His daughter by Hetty { deceased) Black 5' 4", 14 years 242 Martha His daughter by Hetty (deceased) Brown 5' 3", 12 years 243 "Nancy, Granny Nancy" Black 5' 3", 65 years Edmund Sowell, also known as Ed Sawyer, is listed with his mother Nancy (here "Granny Nancy") in many of the earlier Roanoke slave counts. Nancy is listed in Major Scott’s 1801 tally ; Edmund first appears in the 1810 court list with her and a sister Alice, all living in the Lower Quarter. (In 1810 Nancy was priced at £90 and Edmund at £85.) Notice that the court clerks in 1846 have estimated ages for Nancy and Edmund only 10 years apart — since Randolph of Roanoke’s own Christmas 1810 list identifies Edmund as a ’Small Boy" at a time the manumission estimate would have him aged 19. the error is presumably in the later guess. (Randolph’s undated slave list indicates Granny Nancy’s husband was one Roger.) Edmund’s late first wife Hetty is probably the Hetty valued at £15 in the 1810 price list. Edmund’s second wife Sucky is an aunt of the Fountain Randolph listed above as Certificate 227. Edward became a Piqua resident, by 1870 specifically its 4th Ward. The 1880 census found him crippled by eight months of rheumatism. He and Sucky had several more children in Ohio.

-^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Matilda Johnson, p. 182.

3 1 8 Jane married Willis White (Certificate 324) and had several children in Ohio. His daughter Susan married an Andy Hunt and lived in Rossville. She died in 1913 and was buried in the African Jackson Cemetery. 244 Meshack Head Black 5' 3" ,42 years 245 Cloe His daughter, mother dead Black 4' 10" ,13 years 246 Crawford His son Black 4' 5 1/2” ,11 years 247 Armstead His son Black 4’ 1" ,7 years 248 John His son Black 3' 6", 4 years 249 Sindy His daughter Black 2' 3", 1 years 250 Amelia Black 4' 11" ,22 years Now pregnant Meshack Jones is first recorded (as "Meschack") in the 1810 price list (value £35), another of the many children of Old Milly and Moses Jones. There is no record of his dead first wife's name. Meschack became a laborer in Troy, Miami County. He married Sally Johnson (Certificate 297) and had four more children in Ohio. Cloe became a domestic servant in Troy, as did her sister Lucinda ("Sindy"). Her name may have become Williams.--* Crawford is one of the few skilled emigrants noted in the 1850 census, as a barber in Troy. Armistead Jones was one of the Randolph Slaves who served during the Civil War in Massachusetts’s famous all-black 55th Regiment (from May 1862 through August 1865.) He married and had at least one child. After the war he moved to Shelby County’s seat of Sidney — thanks to his veteran status the 1890 census of

-•*Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-6-1914). p. 61 — this speaks of a "Clay Williams", which seems to be a mistake for "Chloe". since Fountain is speaking of Meschack Jones and his family. (Similarly the. Testimony of Clem Clay [5-6-1914], p. 104 speaks of a "Tony Williams” in a context which strongly points to Cloe.) Albert G. Evans also interviewed a "Chloe Williams" in Troy for his 1891 piece on the Randolph Slaves (Evans, "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", p. 448.)

3 19 Union Army pensioners noted he had died of "consumption from exposure". John may appear in the I860 census as a Troy hotel worker. Clem Clay stated in MOTON V KESSENS testimony that John Jones eventually moved to Urbana, Ohio.-^ 251 Sam pson H ead Black 5' 5" ,65 years 252 Lucinda His wife Mulatto 5' 7" ,46 years 253 Patience Their daughter Bright 5' I ” ,26 years 254 John Patience's son Bright 2' 1” ,1 years 255 Patsy Lucinda's daughter Light 5' 4". 24 years 256 Henrietta Patsy's daughter Mulatto 3' 10 1/2", 6 years 257 Elizabeth Patsy's daughter Light 3' 3" ,4 years 258 Jane Patsy's daughter Light 2' 5" ,2 years 259 William Lucinda's son Light 5' 7", 20 years 260 Queen Lucinda's daughter Light 5' 4" ,18 years 261 Little Sampson Lucinda's son Light 5' 7" ,16 years 262 Peyton Lucinda's son Light 4' 8" ,13 years While Sampson Ryal is listed as the family head. Lucinda (maiden name Young, daughter of the "Roger Billy" soon to be enumerated in his turn) may have been the real focal point. This family became Rossville residents. In everyday life Sampson was apparently known as "Jeemy James" Ryal, one of the more visible Randolph Slaves in the Piqua area.-^ Black schoolteacher William Fox identified "Jimmy James" as one of the Randolphs most outspoken about their treatment by the Mercer County mob and their rights to land.-"^ At least part of his income came from "selling shavings over town in Piqua."-* Residing

-^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914), p. 104. -^"James Rial", in Rayner, The First Century of Piqua, pp. 208; Moton v. Kessens. Testimony of William G. Fox (5-7-1914), p. 201 (on "Jimmie James Ryal") ; Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), pp. 682, 705 (on "Jimmy James, or Jimmy Ryall"). -^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), p. 705.

-*Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), p. 713.

320 in Rossville. he was a charter member of the Second Baptist Church organized in 1857.-9 He is probably the "Sam Rial" sharing an 1847 double house with Gabriel White in Rossville.^o In old age he had to beg in Piqua, his appeal "Gi' me a penny" being remembered by patronizing whites. He died in 1903.^' Sampson & Lucinda’s daughter Patience's married name was Alexander. Another daughter of Lucinda’s. Patsy, used the married name Coleman as did her children — though her daughters Jane, certificate 258, and Elizabeth were known to be fathered by the Nero Randolph listed above.^- Patsy’s daughter Elizabeth married a nonRandolph free black. William Moss.^^ William Ryal became a cook in Piqua and died in 1908.^-* "Little Sampson" Ryal was in Troy for the 1850 census, but within the next decade moved to Piqua and set up as a barberas He married a Minerva and they had at least two children. 263 Old Milly Head Black 5' 5” 68 years 264 Fanny or Fannie Milly's daughter Brown 5 ’ 2 ” ,29 y ears 265 Clem Fanny's son Mulatto 4' 7" ,12 years Spectacle m a r k 266 Delpha Fanny's daughter Light 4' 4" ,10 years 267 Barnett Fanny's son Mulatto 3' ,8 years 268 Wxatt Cardwell Fanny's son Mulatto 3' 6" ,6 years

-9piqua's Black Heritage ^OGilmore, The History of the John Randolph Freed Slaves. . p. 27. "James Rial", in Rayner. The First Century of Pigiia. pp. 208-209. ^-Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Elizabeth Moss (5-6-1914). p. 159 ; later, at page 160. Elizabeth says she was raised by her mother and barely knew her father Nero. ^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Elizabeth Moss (5-6-1914), pp. 157. 162. ^9piqua's Black Heritage: Clem Clay in Moton v. Kessens .p. 104. mentions William dying before M oton testimony was given. ^^Piqua's Black Heritage

32 1 "Old Milly" Jones and her large family have already been mentioned, her two or three marriages having contributed greatly to Roanoke's increase. Because of her many children. "Old Milly" accounts for twenty-one of the names in the manumission register (twenty two if the presumption that Certificate 235. Doctor Jones, is another of her sons is correct.) The 1850 Census found Old Milly living with her grandson "Clemm" and a "Doctor Jones" in Washington Township. Miami County (the Piqua region) Her daughter Fanny apparently married at least twice — her son Clem used the surname "Jeffries" in Ohio, which fits her using "Jefferson" at the same time, but the other children (Delpha. Barnett. Wyatt) used "Clay". Fanny lived in Hanktown in 1850 with a Doctor Jefferson and two children, then in Newton Township. Miami County with her daughter Delpha in 1860. Clem Clay (sometimes "Clem Jeffries" — he identified a Jack Jeffries as his stepfather) worked as a "stationary engineer" for the railroad for over twenty years in Piqua. He began railroad work in 1854. passing an examination for a stationary engineer' certificate in the early 1880's ("when Cleveland was first President").^^ retiring in 1910.^'^ Before beginning railroad work he was probably another farm laborer, since he describes himself as "working . . . three and a half mile in the country."3* At one point he worked in the Piqua furniture making business of L.C. & W. Cron.-'^^ He married one Sarah in the 1860's. but the match was childless. He died in the 1920's and was buried in Rossville's African Jackson Cemetery. His lengthy testimony in MOTON v KESSENS is one of the fullest accounts of the migration to Ohio and subsequent lives of the Randolph Slaves. (Clem was substituted for Joseph Moton. along with Moton's administrator

^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914). p. 117 ; Deposition of Ernest A. Schneyer (4-23-1913), pp. 1035-1036.

’^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914). pp. 117-8.

^*Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914), p. 145.

-^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition ofErnest A. Schneyer (4-23-1913). p. 1032.

322 Albert W. Jones, as a party in MOTON V KESSENS on the death of Joseph Moton. Delpha is probably the "Delphia" Gordon married (to a Robert Gordon) with children in Newton Township, Miami, in 1900. Her brother Clem testified she was alive in 1914,-^' and she may be the 'Delphina Borden of Piqua" whom Fountain Randolph identified in 1923 as one of the last surviving original Randolph Slaves.-^- Barnett was unusually short for his age (raising again the suspicion the clerk's estimate may be wrong.) By 1880 Wyatt Cardwell Clay is living (with mother Fanny?) in Marshalltown. Newton Township, Miami County. He had married and had two daughters. Clem Clay testified this brother of his had at least two children.-*^ 269 Nathan Brown 5 ’ 6" 27 years Nathan Jones was evidently a very wary individual, since in Ohio he took the precaution of having his manumission recorded twice, thus having a separate record from the mass manumission. He is the husband of Paulina (certificate 500), thus making another case of father and family being recorded separately. (Clem Clay's reference to him as an uncle may mean he is another son of Old Milly Jones.)■♦■* Nathan is in Troy by 1850; he and Paulina had four more children in Ohio. After Paulina died, he married a Margaret and had many more children, living in the Piqua area. 2 70 Granny Hannah Brown 5' 100 years 271 Roger Billy Head Black 5' 7” ,66 years 272 Christian His ^vife Black 5' 5 ” ,48 years 273 John Their son Black 5' 5 1/2" ,20 years 274 Harry Their son Black 5' 6 1/2" ,18 years

•^^Moton V. Kessens. Bill of Exceptions (5-5-1914) . p. 1.

•**Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914), p. 105. •^-Piqua Daily Call 14 July 1923.

•^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914). p. 97.

323 275 Ryal Their son Black 5' 6" .16 years 276 Jacob Their son Black 5' I" ,14 years 277 Juba Their son Black 4' 9" ,12 years Hannah is listed with her husband Roger Young and a son Billy (here "Roger Billy", i.e. Billy son of Roger) in the Middle Quarter in Major Scott's 1801 counting. (A reference to Billy as "Disa's son" could indicate either an earlier marriage by Roger, or that Hannah was known as Disa familiarly.) Hannah and Roger (who apparently died before 1846) are listed in the 1810 price list as present "with their children and grandchildren" — the then thirtysomething Billy was Judged worth an impressive £140, in the same value range as the slave artisans. His future wife Christian (maiden name probably Shelby, one of the several children of a Fanny and one "Cocke's Sam") was then a mere £45, supporting the judgment of the 1846 clerks that she was probably almost two decades younger than her spouse; John Randolph once noted her name as "Christiana ". She too was a Middle Quarter resident. A note concerning Granny Hannah — in addition to the usual cautions about white estimates of black ages, her centenarian status is even less certain. We cannot know whether she herself claimed a century of life, but demographers have long known that elders often exaggerate their age (for one thing knowing there are no contemporaries to dispute the claim.) The court clerks here may have been on the modest side, since during the Randolph Slave stopover at Dayton in their Ohio migration, curious white spectators were told "one of the women in the company is 110 years old."^- Roger Billy Young and his family lived in Newton Township, Miami County. "William" and "Christina" Young are among the first four couples to buy the farmlands of white John Marshall which became the Marshalltown settlement in 1847.-*^ Many of its

•^^Davton Journal and Advertiser. 7 July 1846 ■*^King, "Marshalltown", History of Miami Countv. Ohio. ed. Miller, p. 308.

324 members were remembered as speaking frequently of their trip from Virginia and being mobbed by the "wooden shoe Dutch."-*’ Some accounts definitely identify Jacob Young as a Possum Hollow resident.-** Jacob Young married Eliza Moton of Hanktown (Certificate 333) and they had several children. He was one of those hiring W.S. Kessler in the 1887 attempt at regaining the Mercer County lands,-*^ and identified as one who often spoke of the Mercer County lands.50 He eventually became chronically ill and died in the County Infirmary.51 278 Stephen Head Black 5' 10” 30 years 279 Effy His wife Black 5' 4 1/2” ,27 years 280 Spencer Their son Black 4' 11” .12 years 281 Maria Their daughter Black 4' 4” .10 years 282 Jack Their son Black 4' 1” ,8 years 283 Saluda Their daughter Black 3' 6 1/2” ,6 years 284 Dick Their son Black 3' 2” ,4 years Another group of the "Gillard/Gillet" family, though this branch consistently used the "Gillet" form surname. The mother here, Effy (Certificate 279) may have belonged to the Crowder family. They became residents of Marshalltown, Newton Township, Miami County as early as 1850, and had several more children. An 1875 map of Marshalltown shows Stephen as owning 10 acres, next to Simon Gillard and Fanny Hill.5’ Stephen Gilliard was remembered as one of the Randolphs who spoke of the events of 1846.5? Maria married Edward Crowder on April 18, 1860.5-*

•*’Moton V. Kessens, Deposition of George Vogler (5-27-1910), p. 742; Deposition of Noah Pearson (5-27-1910), pp. 785-786, 789, 792 ; Deposition of W.S. Kessler (1 1-18-1910), p. 621. •**Moton V. Kessens, Deposition of George Vogler (5-27-1910), p. 744.

•*^Moton V. Kessens, Deposition of W.S. Kessler (11-18-1910), p. 621.

5^Moton V. Kessens, Deposition of Cyrus Long, (4-24-1913), p. 974.

5*Moton V. Kessens, Deposition of George Vogler (5-27-1910), pp. 744, 753. 5?King, "Marshalltown", History of Miami Countv. Ohio. ed. Miller, p. 308. 5?Moton V. Kessens, Deposition of Noah Pearson (5-27-1910), pp. 785-786, 794. 5-*Notes from Mrs. Janet C. Martin made in Troy-Haynes History Room (8-24- 1990.)

325 Saluda is probably the "Celinda" Gillard living in Marshalltown with Robert Johnson (Certificate 300), his wife Lobinda. and their two children in 1860. Richard Gillard married a Francis. While Clem Clay said that Dick Gillet had died in the 1913 Miami River flood. Fountain Randolph in a 1923 interview cited a "Dick Gillard of Dayton" as one of the last surviving original Randolph Slaves. He is often mentioned in MOTON v KESSENS as a Randolph Slave who spoke of the events of 1846.55 285 John Head Black 5' 2" ,63 years 286 Betsy His Wife Black S' 4", 48 years 287 John Their son Black 4' 8 1/2". 14 years 288 Aaron Their son Black S' 8 1/2" ,20 years 289 Moses Their son Black S' 7 1/2" ,18 years 290 Polly Their daughter Black S' ,17 years 291 Lucy Polly's daughter Dark Brown 2' 4 1/2" ,2 years 292 Charles Son John & Nancy Black 3' ,4 years This is the family of Randolph's personal slave John White : as mentioned in the previous chapters, he is seldom counted in the early Roanoke lists since he was under Randolph's direct observation. The 1810 price list does however include him (under the diminutive "Johnny", valued at £125), as well as his sister Nancy, whose son Charles is here listed with his uncle's family — that her own husband was another John shows how confusingly common some names are. John White's son Aaron is named not only for the Biblical brother of Moses (whose namesake here is Certificate 289) but for an uncle, an Aaron (value £60) also appearing with John and Nancy in the 1810 list (and almost certainly freed by Certificate #457 later this same day). Although John White made a famous attempt to return to Virginia, he eventually returned to Ohio, where he died and was

55Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). p. 560; Deposition of Samuel R. Miles (5-27-1910). pp. 804, 813-814, 829-831.

326 buried in the Tipp City black cemeteryJohn White’s sons John, Aaron, and Moses had refused to leave Ohio with him due to their own marriages with other Roanoke f a m i l i e s . (It is possible that the family resided in Newton Township's Possum Hollow.)5s John's wife Betsy is counted more often than her husband, probably because her lot was to stay home and raise their family. First listed in the special section for Women in Randolph of Roanoke's own Christmas 1810 list as a "daughter of Geoffrey" living in the Ferry Quarter, her marriage to John is noted in Randolph's undated slave family list, and in one supply list it is she who is getting the family's allotments of stockings and like goods. (The Ferry Quarter seems to have remained her residence.) Her own parents Geoffrey and Phoebe appear later in this manumission list. Polly White, Certificate #290. in 1870 was keeping house for Doctor Jones and his family in Troy. She had two more children by that time. 293 Queen Governor Mother Mulatto 5' 5" 38 years 294 Essex Queen's son Brown 5 ’ 1" ,18 years Queen may have used the surname White. 295 Able Head Black 5' 7" .40 years 296 Anakey His wife Mulatto 5 ’ 2" ,35 years 297 Sally Anakey's daughter Mulatto 5' 3 1/2” .22 years 298 Patrick Sally's son Light 2' 11 1/2" ,4 years 299 Catharine Sally's daughter Light /' 7 1/2" 0 years 3 months 300 Robert Able & Anakey's son Brown5' I" ,19 years 301 Betsy Their daughter Brown 5' 2" ,17 years 302 Tom Ellis Their son Brown 5' 1 1/2" ,15 years 303 Letsey Their daughter Light 4' 3" ,12 years 304 Peter Their son Brown 4' 10 xears

^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay, p 152. Clem says White remained in Virginia for "three or four years". s^Sherwood. "The Settlement of John Randolph’s Slaves in Ohio". 5 (1911): 48. ^^Moton V. Kessens. . Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914). p. 100.

327 305 Nick Davis Their son Brown 3' 4" ,6 years 306 Charity Their daughter Brown 2' 8 1/2" ,3 years 307 Frederick Their son Brown 3' 9 1/2" .8 years A son of Peter and Jenny Johnson's, Abel ("Able") Johnson is listed in the 1810 price list as valued at £30. It has already been mentioned as one of the more dramatic proofs why the 1846 estimates of ages should not be trusted that his wife Anakey. here given as five years younger (and thus born in 1811), in fact also appears in the 1810 price list under the name "Anaca", old enough to valued at 20 English pounds. (Anakey's oldest daughter is named after her sister Sally.) Although they were then in different quarters, he the Middle and she the Lower, the fact only seven names separate them in the 1810 price list suggest they would have grown up as close to being neighbors as the physical separation of the Lower Quarter from the rest of Roanoke allowed. Abel is a Hanktown resident from at least 1850 o n w a r d s ,an 1875 plat map showing his property adjacent to fellow RS's Lucy White and S. Williams. In the 1850's they had three more children in Ohio. Both he and Anakey had died by the time of MOTON v KESSENS (Anakey being bedridden in her last years).^o Several witnesses identified Abel as someone who had spoken of the 1846 manumission. Judge Leigh — "called him Massa Lee"^' — and of the Mercer County mob.^- Sally (or "Sarah") was the second wife of Meshack Jones (Certificate 244). bearing him several children. (Since their families are listed apart in 1846. it is uncertain he was the father of Patrick and Catharine.) After his death she remained in Troy for many years as a washerwoman. She is probably the "Sallie Jones " whom Albert

S^Tucker v. Davis, reproduced in Moton v. Kessens. p. 478.

^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914), p. lOl; 1880 Census 6-12- 80.

Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of John Coates (11-18-1910). p. 632.

^-Moton V. Kessens. , Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). pp. 536, 538; Deposition of John Coates (11-18-1910). p. 634.

328 G. Evans interviewed in Troy, and who sang for him "snatches of plantation songs", when he was researching his articie.^^ Robert Johnson, a "nailer" and preacher, also lived in Hanktown (though the 1850 census lists him in Troy and the 1870 census lists him in Marshalltown.) He married one Lobinda by 1880. Miami County lawyer W.S. Kessler identified him as a spokesman for those Randolph Slaves who tried to hire Kessler to regain their Mercer County lands in the 1880's, and to whom a copy of John Randolph's Virginia will was given.^-* He was also one of the directors of Hanktown's colored school ss Thomas Ellis Johnson was living with his older brother Robert in Troy in 1850. working as "Laborer". Peter Johnson (named for his grandfather) was a day laborer in the Rossville area. A wife Susan (who may have been a Green) bore him two sons. Nicholas Johnson married, but was living alone in Hanktown by 1880. Charity Johnson in I860 was a servant in Troy, living with kinswoman Sarah Johnson. 308 Abram Head Black 5' 10" ,37 years 309 Judy His M'ife Black 5' .30 years Nothing more is known of this couple (though "Judy" may also be listed as "Lucy"). 310 Essex Head Brown 5' 7" .38 years 311 Louisa His wife Black 5' 1 1/2" ,35 years 312 Clarissia Their daughter Brown 4' 6 1/2" ,12 years 313 Mildred Their daughter Brown 4' 5" ,10 years 314 Watson Their son Dark Brown 3' 10" ,8 years 315 Rhoda Their daughter Brown 3' 9" ,6 years 316 Minton Their son Dark Brown 3' 10 1/2" ,4 xears

G^Evans. "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", p. 448. ^•*Moton V. Kessens. . Deposition of W.S. Kessler (11-18-1910). p. 615. 620-1: Deposition of W.S. Kessler (4-24-1910). p. 947.

^^Moton V. Kessens. , Testimony of Matilda Johnson (5-6-1914). p. 182.

329 317 Henrietî Their daughter Dark Brown 2' 3 1/2” ,2 years Essex Jones is yet another child of Old Milly and Moses Jones, listed in the 1810 price list at £30 (at the time, their next to youngest child.) His daughter Mildred is named for her paternal grandmother, going by the diminutive "Milly" in everyday life. Essex Jones is in Miami’s county seat of Troy by the 1850 census. By 1880 he had died, his widow Louisa remaining in Troy and keeping house for her children. Their daughter Mildred acted as domestic servant to several Troy white families. While also remaining in Troy, Watson Jones at one time lived with fellow Randolph Slaves Frank Jones and John Dillard, though the 1880 census finds him again living with his mother and his sister Mildred. (This census also lists him as a teamster.) At some point prior to 1880 he had married, but his wife had died. Minton was a bit tall for his age in this manumission register. Henriett Jones in 1870 was the live-in cook for a white realtor in Troy, though by 1880 she is a washerwoman and another member of the extended Jones household. 318 Phil Head Black 5'3 1/2",60 years 319 Lucy His wife Light 5' 5" ,35 years 320 Martha Their daughter Light 5' I 1/2" ,20 years Now pregnant 321 Isaac Their son Black 4' II" ,17 years 322 Elvilett Their daughter Brown 3' 7 1/2" .8 years 323 Silas Their son Dark Brown 3' 1 1/2" ,6 years 324 Lethey Their daughter Dark Brown 2' 3" ,2 years Phil White may have been the Phil denounced for thieving in Randolph of Roanoke's famous sermonette, but that is very tentative. Somewhat more certain is identifying him as the 13 year old Phil of the "Middle or Ferry" Quarter in Major Scott's 1801 list ; if as is likely he is a son of Essex White and thus older brother to John White, he lived in the Ferry Quarter when Randolph made his Christmas 1810 list.

330 Phil reputedly lived in both Hanktown^^ (as "Phil Glovis") and Marshalltown before the Civil War. working as a carpenter and cabinetmaker^? He was a charter member of Rossville’s Second

Baptist Church.^* and may have himself been a preacher.^^ Ohio he and Lucy had three more children. Apparently dying before the 1870 census, his widow Lucy is found in Hanktown. (She was cared for by her daughter Lethey.) Silas served in the all-black 55th Massachusetts Infantry. Company G. during the Civil War.?° 3 25 Sam Head Black 5' 10” ,40 years 326 Dicey Second wife Brown 5' 3 1/2" ,40 years 327 Peggy Sam's dghtr by 1st wife (dead) Black 5' 3" ,18 years 328 Martha Sam's daughter Black 4' 10 1/2" ,14 years 329 Essex Sam's son Black 4' 9 1/2" 18 years Has a blemish in right eye 330 Solomon Sam's son Black 4' 2 1/2" ,9 years Sam Brown is listed in the 1810 price list among the other children of his parents Essex and Jinny Brown, the family living in the Middle Quarter. His second wife Dicey is also in that list, among the many children (of a Fanny who had died by 1810) who were led by an oldest brother (the maternal surname may be Shelby). Family acquaintance, if not prior interrelation, is suggested by the name immediately after Dicey's on that list being that of Sam Brown's paternal grandmother. Old Tena. (Sam Brown is also one of the slaves

^^Moton V. Kessens, , Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). pp. 540 . 544 for "Phil Glovis". ^?Moton V. Kessens. . Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910), p. 556 — the carpentry makes it possible the Marshalltown references are a confusion with "Carpenter Phil", but the ages and definite Hanktown history make this individual more likely. ^*Oda. Piqua s Black Heritage, no pagination.

^"^Moton V. Kessens. . Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). p. 577 ; this may however be referring to "Carpenter Phil" or some other individual with the "Phil White" name. ?'^Miller. History of Miami County. Ohio, p. 349.

33 1 Randolph of Roanoke gave an age for in his otherwise undated slave list, in this case 12 — while it is probably impossible to precisely date this list, this piece of evidence would argue for an 1818/1819 dating. Note that Sam’s eldest son is named for Sam's own father Essex. Here the county clerks of Charlotte made their first definite clerical error, assigning the same certificate number to the next freedman, Peter Morton, as Solomon Brown had just received. (That they caught themselves is shown by the jump to number 332 for the Peter Morton's wife Mary.) Many more slips would come as the day wore on. Sam Brown became a cook in Clinton Township, Shelby County. His son Essex eventually moved to Piqua. Martha is one of the few slaves we have a definite birthdate for, Randolph of Roanoke having noted in his diary her delivery on April 3, 1830.^' She first married a Brian High, then (probably) Dudley Crowder. "330" Jeter Head Dark Brown 5' 7 1/2" ,26 years 332 Mary Peter's wife Dark Brown 4' 8 3/4" ,20 years Now P re g n a n t 333 Eliza Their daughter Dark Brown 2' 6 1/2" ,2 years Jeter or Jeba Moton was a son of Moses Moton and Phoebe (who were freed by Certificates 361 and 362), and thus an uncle to the Joseph Moton of the MOTON VS. KESSENS lawsuit over Randolph slave lands in Mercer County. Jeter’s family were Hanktown residents.^- Five more children were born to them in Ohio. Mary died by the 1880 census, and Jeter had married one Fanny by then. Jeter was another of the Hanktown Randolph Slaves who tried to hire attorney W.S. Kessler in 1 8 8 7 ."^^ M.H. Davis cited him as one of the Randolph community who had spoken of Mercer County lands.?-*

^’Randolph Diary for 1830, Bruce-Randolph Papers. ??Tucker v. Davis. . reproduced in Moton v. Kessens.p. 474; this gives his name as "Geeber White", with "Moses White".

332 Eliza married Jacob Young (Certificate 276). moving to Piqua after his death. They had several children (and the 1900 census shows Eliza's household to include two grandchildren.) 334 Freeman Head Dark 5' I 1/2" ,40 years Lame in right leg, both hands injured due to burn & frostbite 335 Mill}' Freeman's wife Brown 5' 40 years 336 Keener Their daughter Brown 5' 1/2" ,18 years 337 Biddy Their daughter Black 4' 9 1/2" 14 years 338 Anney Their daughter Brown 4' 5" ,11 years 339 Malinda Their daughter Brown 3' 11 1/2" ,9 years 340 Beverly Tucker Their son Brown 3' 6 1/2" ,7 years 341 Agnes Their daughter Brown 2 ’ 9 1/2" ,5 years Freeman Harris may have changed his first name for this occasion, since there is no prior record of him. (Perhaps his physical disabilities kept him from being considered one of the working slaves, though, so he was simply not counted.) White Union Township farmer M.H. Davis remembered Freeman as a cripple very reserved in manner/5 In Ohio his wife Milly expanded her name to "Pamela ", though some also knew her as "Amelia". This couple had three more sons in Ohio. Freeman is one of the settlers of Hanktown in Miami County's Union Township, his property adjoining Abel Johnson's and Benjamin

W h i t e . ^"5 B y 1880 this had apparently passed to his son Beverly (Certificate 340.) The 1870 Census, though, found both Beverly and his mother Pamela in the Marshalltown settlement of Newton Township (Beverly as a "farm worker"), and although mother and son are back in Hanktown for the 1880 enumeration, by 1900 Beverly is a day laborer in a mortgaged home in Troy.

^^Moton V. Kessens. , Deposition of W.S. Kessler (11-18-1910), p. 620. 7-*Moton V. Kessens. , Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910), p. 551. 75Moton V. Kessens, , Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910), p. 566. 7GTucker V. Davis. . reproduced in Moton v. Kessens. p. 473.

333 Beverly served as a corporal in Company G of the famous Massachusetts 55th black regiment in the Civil War7^ He married a Kentucky-born freedwoman named Amanda in the 1870's, and had several sons. Beverly Harris was also a leader of the Randolph Slaves who tried to hire Miami County lawyer W.S. Kessler to regain their Mercer County lands in With Joseph Moton and Mitchell Cole, he was one of the school directors who signed white teacher A.H. Kessler's pay vouchers for teaching in Hanktown.^^ 342 Caesar Black 5' 7" ,70 years Caesar White appears in Randolph of Roanoke's Christmas 1810 list as living in the Lower Quarter — it is uncertain whether his age when freed was a Scriptural 70 years or a more modest 40 (which is how William Cabell Bruce's copy of the list gives it), though the older seems more likely. 343 Bartlett Black 5' 3" ,56 years Bartlett may the "Bartley brother of Juba, listed in the 1810 price list (appraised at £80), and/or the "Berkeley" residing in the Middle Quarter in Randolph of Roanoke's Christmas list for thesame year; "Berkeley" is also found in Randolph's undated supply list. As Bartlett Taylor he lived in Marshalltown in Miami County, with William Young's family.*^ 344 Aggy Mother Black 5' 4" ,45 or 50 years 345 Dolly Aggy's daughter Black 5' 3 1/2" ,26 years 346 Madison Dolly's son Light 4' I" ,7 years 347 Emily Dolly's daughter Light 3' 2" ,4 years 348 Kitty Dolly's daughter Brown 2' 3" ,1 years 349 Fanny Aggy's daughter Black 5' 4" ,20 years 350 Phillis Aggy's daughter Dark Brown 5' 5" ,17 years 351 Bryan Aggy's son Black 4' II" .12 years

^^Miller, History of Miami County. Ohio, p. 349. ^^Moton y. Kessens. Deposition of W.S. Kessler (11-18-1910), pp. 615, 621. ^^Moton y. Kessens. , Deposition of A.H. Kessler (4-24-1913). pp. 967-968. ^^Moton y. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Dayis (11-18-1910), pp. 554-555.

334 Because of the commonness of the Aggy/Agnes/Aga name on Roanoke, it is too hazardous to identify Aggy High in earlier tallies. The "45 or 50" range in years is a too rare admission of uncertainty for the 1846 county clerks. If the genealogical hypothesis discussed below under Theodorick's family is correct, then Aggy's maiden name may have been Shelby. Aggy High settled in Shelby County's governing seat of Sidney as a laundress — by the time of her second Ohio census counting (I860), she had 300 dollars in real property. Most of her daughters are also found there, working also as laundresses and washerwomen. Aggy's oldest daughter Dolly was married to a Frank or Louis Brown, and their three children are listed here with their mother. Dolly had several more children in Ohio, and by a daughter Fanny's marriage to one John Creth the Creth surname becomes as linked to Randolph Slave families in Shelby County as Johnson or White. Dolly herself died in 1914, only a few months before MOTON v. KESSENS began hearings.*' In 1870 Fanny High was living in Sidney with Charles and Phillis Dickinson (the latter probably her sister, listed above as Certificate 350.) 352 Theodo rick Head Mulatto 5' 11" ,38 years 353 Rose Theodorick's wife Mulatto 5' 5" ,37 years 354 Wilson son of Rose and Archer Light 5' I 1/2" ,17 years 355 America daughter of Rose and Theodorick Mulatto 5 ' 3 " ,14 years 356 Jackson son of Rose & Archer Light 4'8 1/2" ,12 years 357 Sukey daughter of Rose and Theodorick Mulatto 4' 2" ,9 years 358 Hillery Their son Mulatto 3' 9 1/2" ,7 years 359 Viney Their daughter Mulatto 3' ,4 years 360 Nancy Their daughter Mulatto 2' I" ,1 year

*'Moton V. Kessens. . Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914), p. 109.

335 Is Theodorick Randolph a son of Aggie High? The 1810 price shows a "Theodore son of Aggie " in the family of Fanny and Cocke's Sam — which would make Aggie High's daughter Fanny (Certificate 349 above) the namesake of her maternal grandmother. This was Rose's second marriage, her first husband being Archer Giles (whose sons Wilson and Jackson took their father's surname. ) Theodorick and his children became residents of Clinton Township. Shelby County. Theodorick became visible to local whites as the janitor for over three decades for both the Shelby County Courthouse and the Sidney Presbyterian Church (for which he also rang the bells), though he also had to do odd jobs for townspeople. A contemporary described Theodorick in 1876 to William Cabell Bruce as "a white-haired, brown-skinned, old colored man".*- The 1880 census found him a gardener in the village of Dugermanburg. His children America and Hillery became domestic servants in Sidney. 361 Moses Head Brown 5' 7" ,60 years 362 Phebe Moses's wife Brown 5' 4" .50 years 363 Margaret Their daughter Black 5' 6 ” ,20 years 364 Diver Their son Brown 5' 2" ,18 years Moses Morton is first recorded by Randolph in the Christmas 1810 list, when he is in the Lower Quarter. He and Phoebe have married by the time of Randolph's two supply lists. (Their grandson Joseph Moton. by the Margaret listed above as Certificate 363 . will become the Randolph Slave litigant of MOTON vs. KESSENS.) Moses and Phoebe were among Hanktown's residents. Of their children. Diver left the most footprints, as a laborer for the local white farmers. An 1875 plat map shows him owning Hanktown property. (Jeter Morton, their oldest son. is discussed with his own family earlier ; his Hanktown property was right next to that of his parents. )

^-Milton Ailes to William Cabell Bruce, 30 April 1924. Bruce-Randolph Papers..

336 Diver Moton never married.*^ 365 Sypha.x Head Mulatto 5' 4 1/2” ,45 years 366 Hannah Syphax's wife Light 5' 4" ,36 years 367 Albert Hannah's son Brown or Black 5' 4 ” ,19 years 368 Letsey Hannah's d by Cy Mulatto 4' 11" ,16 years 369 Eliza Munroe Hannah's daughter Light 4' 5" ,13 years 370 Aggy Hannah's daughter (no list entry) 4'1 " ,11 years 371 Maria Hannah's daughter Light 3' 8 1/2" ,9 years 372 Stephen Davis Hannah's son Light 3' 4 1/2" ,7 years 373 Henry Hannah's son Light 2' 8" .2 years Syphax Davis may be the son of the Syphax who was remembered by the Tuckers and Randolphs for driving Frances Randolph Tucker and the infant Henry Tucker to the sanctuary of Bizarre. The presenceof a "Stephen Davis" among these children in 1846, though, makes it more problematic to identify the "S. Davis" of Major Scott's 1801 tally with "Daddy" Syphax. (Stephen is one of the few Randolph Slaves whose surname is given in the manumission register.) Syphax and his family became farmers in Van Buren Township, Shelby County. An Ohio-born son, John, served as a corporal in the 17th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War. Letsey Davis became the housekeeper to a white family (the Oglesbys) in Sidney, Shelby County — her sisters Aggy and Maria also became domestic servants to white families in Sidney, though each of these three siblings worked for a DIFFERENT white family. She married Seymour Dickerson and had several children. 374 Old Quasha Head Black 5' 5" ,90 years 375 Nancy Joshua's wife Mulatto 5' ,80 years Old Quasha's near century of life spanned birth in Africa to dying on the Miami Canal a few months after this manumission (Ohioans copying this certificate into their own records Anglicized his name into "Old Joshua".) In Roanoke he lived in the Lower Quarter. Only

^^Moton V. Kessens. , Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). pp. 537, 574; Deposition of John Coate (1 1-18-1910), p. 635.

337 "Granny Hannah" is credited with a greater age in this list — we might perhaps take the same grain of salt about Quasha's years, but it is sure he was indeed one of the oldest Randolph Slaves. He is probably the first Randolph Slave to be buried in Ohio. (Late 19th century journalist Albert G. Evans stated his burial place was near Sidney, but that the exact site was unknown.)*-* "Mulatto Nancy" was his second wife, his first wife Molly having died in November 1819 after giving birth to a girl. Molly was among those specially noted in one supply list by Randolph as not to receive any stockings. Clem Clay remembered "Mulatto" Nancy as so light skinned he described her as "a white w o m a n " . *5 376 Jeffrey Head Black 5' 2 1/2" ,80 years 377 Granny Phebe Jeffrey's '^vife Black 5 ” 4" ,74 years 379 Siller Jeffrey's granddaughter (mother dead) Brown 5' 1” ,25 years 380 Jarvis Siller's son Bright 2' 7" ,2 years Geoffrey and Phoebe have already been briefly mentioned as the parents of John White's wife Betty. Phonetically rendering Geoffrey's name into "Jeffrey" is nothing compared to the boner the clerks of 1846 next pulled in entering this family, namely skipping the number 378! (And this time they apparently did not catch their mistake.) Recorded in the Ferry Quarter in the first listing of Roanoke's slave by Major Scott in 1801. Geoffrey and Phoebe are for some reason not included in the 1810 price list, though listed by Randolph in his Christmas 1810 count and in all subsequent counts. Their granddaughter Siller married a Simon Gillet. so she and their great-grandchild Jarvis (or "James") used the Gillet surname. Siller became one of the first settlers in Marshalltown in Miami County's Newton Township*^, and had seven more children by Simon. 381 Lot Black 5' 5 1/2" ,30 xears

*-*Evans, "Randolph of Roanoke and His People", p. 447. *^Moton V. Kessens. , Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914). p. 111. *^King. "Marshalltown". History of Miami Countv. Ohio. ed. Miller, p. 308.

338 Lot Green became a resident of Rossville and was buried in its African Jackson Cemetery. His main job skill was as a wood sawyer.*^ He was identified as one of the Randolph community who spoke of Mercer County lands.** His wife Lucretia is assumed to be Gabriel White's daughter Lucretia. 382 Titus Black 5' 5 1/4" ,25 years 383 Ellender Titus's sister Black 4' II" ,20 years 384 Hetty Ellende r's sister Black 4' 11 1/2" ,10 years 385 James Ellender's brother Black 3' 8 1/2" ,8 years 386 Thomas son of Hanover (dead) and Lavinia (dead), Ellender's nephew Dark Brown 3' 10 1/2" ,9 years Here is the not uncommon phenomenon of a family group of parentless siblings, headed (at least in white eyes) by an oldest child. Lacking surnames, and with both parents dead, it is all but impossible to ascertain whether it was Thomas's father Hanover or mother Lavinia who was the sibling of Ellender and Titus. 3 87 Toney Head Black 5' 8" ,39 years 388 Rebecca (Beckeyj His wife Black 5' 1/2" ,35 years 389 Gracey Their daughter Black 5' ,22 years 390 Dolly Gracey's daughter Black 2' 3" ,2 years 391 Sarah Anne Toney & Beckey's dghtr Black 4' 10" , 17 y e a r s 392 Elisha Their son Black 4' 3 1/2" ,10 years 393 Washington Their son Black 3' 10" ,8 years 394 Dick Their son Black 3' 4" ,6 years 395 Nelson Their son Black 3' 1" ,4 years 396 Caty Their daughter Black 2' 9 1/2" ,3 years Toney Brown appears in the 1810 price list as a younger brother of Sam Brown and the next to youngest child of Essex and Jinny Brown, valued at £30 pounds, and living in the Middle Quarter with the rest of his family. That Randolph of Roanoke lists him in the undated

*^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of David Mitchell (5-18-1910). pp. 913: 1880 Census, 6-8-1880

**Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox (given 4-21-I9I0). pp. 913-914.

339 supply list as Age 12 is another piece of evidence for setting that list in the years 1818-1819. In Ohio he became a Hanktown resident.*^ and had several more children. M.H. Davis cited Tony Brown as a Randolph Slave who had spoken of the 1846 manumission, the mob, and the Mercer County lands.*^o Gracey Ann Brown and her daughter Dolly lived in the Piqua area. Caty Brown. Certificate 396, was named for her father’s stepmother. 397 Isham ("Isey") Head Black 5' 9" ,55 years 398 Nancy Isham's wife Dark Brown 5' 2" ,35 years 399 Hampton Their son Black 5' I" ,15 years The family name is White. The first name "Isham". common among the Randolph slaves, was also common among their white Randolph masters, an Isham Randolph being the maternal grandfather of Thomas Jefferson.^' Isham and Nancy White and their son took up residence in Van Buren Township of Shelby County. 400 Isaac Head Dark Brown 5' 6 1/3" ,45 years 401 Isey His wife Black 5' ,35 years 402 "Raner, Reener" Their daughter Black 4' 10 1/2" ,13 ye a rs 403 Mitchell Their son Black 3' 11" ,10 years 404 Anderson Their son Black 3' 9" ,8 years 405 Sally Daughter Black 3' 2" ,3 years 406 Billy Their son Black 2' 8 1/2" ,2 years 407 Jane Their daughter Black 2' (blot) ,2 years This surname is Coles, also rendered "Cowles." Elizabeth Coles, here the mother "Isey", may have been the Eliza listed in the 1810 court inventory as worth £10. She appears to have died during the 1850's, Isaac remarrying one Johanna Green.*^-

^^Tucker v. Davis. . reproduced in Moton v. Kessens. p. 474.

^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). pp. 546-550. ‘^'Morton. Colonial Virginia II : 552.

340 The family became Hanktown residents. Isaac purchasing 70 acres of land in the communityOver the years this real estate was sold not only to neighbors, but to his own children and in-laws. Thus one 1869 deed shows him selling land to his sons-in-law Oliver Jefferson and Fountain Randolph. White neighbors remembered Isaac as one of the Randolph community who spoke of the 1846 mob and Mercer County lands.^^^ Laurena ("Reena") Cole married Oliver Jefferson (Certificate 439), also of Hanktown. Mitchell Coles was among the Randolph Slaves who tried to hire lawyer W.S. Kessler to regain their Mercer County lands in 1883.^5 He married an Anna (possibly a daughter of Freeman Harris) and had two children. White farmer G.B. Correy remembered him as a Randolph who had spoken of being barred from Mercer County by "the Dutch with wooden shoes. After the Coles’s arrival, another daughter Susan was born to them in 1848. In 1867 ten of Isaac's acres were sold to this daughter, who shortly thereafter married Fountain Randolph of Piqua. At some point this land became the site of Hanktown's second school building (Special School District #15 — the actual building was of brick), until in 1895 it was sold by the school board and became a private residence. (A second, nearby parcel of Cole land was where the schoolteacher lived in a loghouse with a foundation of boulders.)^7 Susan herself, after bearing Fountain children, died in the late 1880's and was buried in the African Jackson Cemetery.

^-Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). p. 538. ^^Honeyman. "Hanktown". History of Miami Countv. Ohio. ed. Miller, p. 249; Tucker v. Davis. , reproduced in Moton v. Kessens. pp. 472-477. Isaac Coles's property being spelled out on the first page

^•^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910), p. 568; Deposition of John Coate. (11-18-1910), p. 634.

“^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of W.S. Kessler (11-18-1910) pp. 613. 621, 945.

^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of G.B. Correy (5-27-1910). pp. 771-772. ^^Honeyman. "Hanktown". History of Miami Countv. Ohio. ed. Miller, pp. 249- 250.

34 I 408 Ryall Brown 5' II" ,35 years Ryall Randolph became a laborer in Troy. 409 Cook Ginny Black 5' 2" ,64 years 410 Simon Black 6' 1/2" ,20 years Nothing more is yet known of these individuals (who may have been no relation to one another). 411 Abram Head Black 5' 5 1/2" ,60 years 412 Nancy Abram's wife Dark Brown 5' 3 1/2" ,27 years 413 Mary Their daughter Black 4' 10 1/2" ,12 years 414 Savarey Their daughter Black 4' 8" ,11 years Abram is listed as a 15 year old resident of the Middle/Ferry Quarters by Major Scott in 1801. The name "Savarey" given to his younger daughter here might indicate a relationship to an older Savarey, a daughter of Quasha's sister Cloe and her husband Isham mentioned in Randolph’s undated slave list. 415 Guy Head Brown 5' 9" , 33 years 416 Esther His wife Black 5' 9 1/2", 30 years 417 Elizabeth Their daughter Black 4' 4" ,10 years This family may be a branch of the Ryal line. (If so. this is probably the "Guy Rile" who lives in Rossville in the 1870 and 1880 censuses.) Esther is the tallest woman in this manumission register. 418 Lot Head Black 5' ,30 years 419 Fanny Lot's wife Black 5' 5 1/2" ,23 years 420 Rebecca Ann Their daughter Light 2' 11" ,2 years Lot Hill and his wife Fanny are more recorded in their coming Ohio years than in their early Virginia times. Lot Hill resided in Newton Township’s Marshalltown until his death in the 1890’s. Lot was one of the original four Randolph Slave purchasers of land from white farmer John Marshall in 1847. thus founding Marshalltown. ”F. Hill", probably Fanny, is shown in an 1875 plat map as owning 6 acres, and by a similar 1895 map heir "A. Hill" has increased the acreage to eight. (This was Ohio-born son Albert Hill, who married Joseph Moton’s daughter, and whose family

342 were the last black residents to leave in 1930.)^* Fanny lived past the turn of the century census, which found her living in Piquas fifth ward with one of her many daughters, Nancy. Rebecca Hill became a servant in Piqua. 421 Carter Head Black 5' 9 1/2" ,33 years 422 Phebe Carter's wt/e Black S' 3" ,22 years 423 Clemina Their daughter Black 3' 2 1/2" ,6 years 424 Betsy Their daughter Black 3' ,4 years 425 Siickey Their daughter Black 2' , 6 months Again, Carter Lee left more footprints in Ohio than in Virginia. He may have been a son of Amos Lee, who lives with him at one point. The 1850 census found him one of the Randolph Slaves in Miami County's Monroe Township; by I860 he is another of Marshalltown’s residents in Newton Township of Miami; but the next counting finds him a farmer in Shelby County's Turtle Creek Township. He and Phoebe had several more children in Ohio, most of whom ended up living in the Piqua area. 426 Isbell Black S' S" ,60 years One of three children of a couple (Joe and Effie) in the Ferry Quarter. Isbell appears in the 1810 price list as "Isabelle" with a six month old baby named Phil (who was already priced at worth £20.) Randolph of Roanoke's undated supply list identifies her as the "wife of Tucker's Abram", suggesting she was a broadwife. Her married name may have been Jefferson. 427 Sam Black S' 10" ,S7 years Sam White is the eldest of the four sons of York and Anna White (the only one without an overtly Biblical name — can it be he was really Samuel or Sampson?) The 1810 price list found him living with his parents and siblings in the Ferry Quarter, and estimated him worth £60. 428 Henry Head Black S' 6" ,S7 years 429 Dosha Henry's wife Black 4' 11 1/2" ,40 years

'^^King, "Marshalltown", History of Miami Countv. Ohio. ed. Miller, p. 308.

343 430 Dinah Their daughter Black 4' 10" ,15 years 4SI Hilery Their son Black 4' 5 1/2" ,12 years 432 Le they Their daughter Black 4' 6" ,10 years 433 Harriet (Henrietta) Their daughter Black 2' 2" ,1 year 434 Israel Their son Black 3' ,5 years 435 Anderson Their son Black 4' 4 1/2" ,10 years Dosha appears in the 1810 slave inventory as "Docia". a Ferry Quarter niece of the Isbell discussed above as Certificate #426. If we accept her age in this manumission register (a hazardous venture), and believe Randolph of Roanoke accurate when he lists her as Age 14 in his undated supply list, it follows that that listing is in the 1819- 1820 years. Henry White is harder to identify — he may be a son of "Old Nero" of the Ferry Quarter (naming his own eldest daughter Dinah would thus commemorate a sister of that name listed in the 1810 price list), or else be kin to Old Quasha. He became a resident of Marshalltown in Newton Township by 1860.^9 Hillery White served in the Fifth Ohio Infantry during the Civil War. 436 Carpenter Phil Brown 5 ’ 7" ,80 years Because of the skill which became part of his name, this Phil is one of the easiest Roanoke slaves to follow through the Virginia records. From Major Scott, recording him in the Lower Quarter in 1801. to the supply lists of Randolph of Roanoke. "Carpenter Phil" or "Phil Carpenter" is always specified. As an artisan. 'Carpenter’ Phil was valued at one of the highest prices in the 1810 inventory. 180 English pounds. Both that list and Randolph's Christmas tally indicate that by 1810 he had moved to the Middle Quarter, where he seems to have remained until the time of the probate trials. No family connections for him are known. 437 George Head Black 5' 11 1/2" ,42 years 438 Mary George's ^vife Black 4' 11 1/2" ,30 years

‘^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). p. 555.

344 439 Oliver Their son Black 5' 4" ,18 years 440 Sarah Gould Their daughter Black 4' 2" ,7 years The surname is Jefferson. The family became Hanktown residents in Ohio.'00 (The family actually boarded with another farming family, using their own Hanktown property entirely for agriculture.)"" White Union Township farmer John Coate identified George Jefferson as one of those who had spoken of Mercer County lands.‘O- Oliver Jefferson was one of those who tried to hire W.S. Kessler in 1887 to reclaim the Mercer County l a n d s . He married Isaac Cole's daughter Laurena (Certificate 402) and lived in Hanktown : they had three children. 441 Phi 11 Head Black 5' 8 3/4" .57 years 442 James PhilTs son Brown 5' 5" ,22 years 443 Dick PhilTs son Black 5 ’ 8 1/2" ,18 years 444 Phill PhilTs son Black 5' ,15 years 445 John PhilTs son Brown 4' 5" 10 years 446 Francis PhilTs daughter Brown 4' 5" ,8 years 447 Charlotte PhilTs daughter Brown 3' 8 3/4" ,7 years 448 Solomon PhilTs son Brown 3' 2" ,4 years Phill White may be the 13 year old Phil of the Middle & Ferry Quarters listed in 1801 by Major Scott. No record of his presumably deceased wife's name seems to remain. A minor note — usually when dealing with repeated data such as skin color, the county clerks of 1846 merely wrote "ditto" from the last occurrence. (Which accounts for such phenomena as almost all 10 of the first day's freedpeople being listed as "Dark".) But although Charlotte White is "Brown " like the two brothers surrounding her entry, she is specifically entered as "Brown", not merely "ditto".

lOOTucker v. Davis. . reproduced in Moton v. Kessens. p. 473.

'Q*Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). pp. 536. 556. This explains why in the 1860 Census (Reel 1011 page 369B) the Jeffersons are listed apart from the main Hanktown settlement. ‘Q-Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of John Coate (11-18-1910). p. 634.

'"-^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of W.S. Kessler (11-18-1910). p. 620.

345 Phill White lived in Rossville. with his son Solomon. Dick White, however, lived in Piqua and worked at a livery stable. The younger Phill White served as a bugler in the 27th US Colored Troops during the Civil War for one year, seven months. He returned to Rossville after the war and, like so many of the rest of his family, was buried in the African Jackson Cemetery. (Fountain Randolph remembered attending the funerals of three of this group, including the father Phil and the oldest son James's.)'"-* He had married and had several children. 449 Bob Head Black 5 '5 ” ,40 years , Dark appearance on left breast 450 Hannah Bob's wife Black S' 2" .30 years 451 Thomas Their son Black 4' 6" ,15 years 452 Jesse Their son Black 4' I" ,13 years 453 Abram Their son Black 3' 11" ,10 years 454 Louisa Their daughter Black 3' 7 1/3" ,5 years 455 Hercules Their son Black 2' 11 1/2" ,3 years That two of his children are named "Abraham" and "Louisa" suggests Robert Shelby is kin to the couple Abraham and Louisa who appear in the 1810 inventory and in a supply list of Randolph's . Robert is listed in the 1810 court inventory as one of several children of a deceased Fanny (another is William Young's wife Christian), apparently being raised by a grandmother Anna. His youngest son Hercules, though, supports a confusing identification with the 10 year old "Robert, son of Hercules (deceased) and Patience (deceased)" in the undated supply list by Randolph of Roanoke, which would date that list as 1816. Was Patience also a Fanny, or is he a grandchild of Fanny rather than her child? Hercules (Certificate 455). by the way, in Ohio became plain "Mark", and lived in Shelby County's Clinton Township apart from the rest of the family. He married, and had four children of his own by 1880.

'"•*Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-6-1914), p. 76.

346 Jesse Shelby was a bit short, if his age really was 13 years at this time. Rather fittingly, the Shelby family took up residence in Ohio's Shelby County, mostly Turtlecreek Township. At least one more son, Flavius, was born to Hannah by 1860. Louisa seems to have died by 1880. when the Census finds her own four children living with their grandparents Roger and Hannah in Sidney. 456 Cesar Black 5’ 10" ,30 years Nothing more is known of this individual. 457 Aaron Head Black 5 ' 8 " ,43 years 458 Vice y His wife Brown 5' 3" ,36 years 459 Keziah Their daughter Brown 4' 10 1/2" ,15 years 460 Shadrack Their son Brown 4' 7 1/4" ,10 years 461 Kitty Their daughter Light Brown 4' 2" ,8 years 462 Ursey Their daughter Brown 3' 6 3/4" ,7 years Aaron White is probably the younger brother of John White listed in the 1810 price list as worth 60 English pounds. He is also likely to be the Aaron whom Randolph noted in one supply list as having already received his annual stockings before the general distribution. His son Shadrach may be the "Shadrick White" the 1900 Census finds living in Sidney. Shelby County, rooming with another (but not Randolph) Virginian-born freedman, James Wicker. 463 Jiigurtha Sandmies or Sandy Black 5' 6" ,30 years Despite, or because of. his rich supply of names, nothing else is known of this slave. (Unless perhaps he is the obscure "Ben Sanders claimed he was Randolph people, his right name is Ben McGoughlin" mentioned by Mercer Count black John Jefferson in his MOTON VS. KESSENS deposition.)'05 464 Quasha Head Black 5' 4" ,57 years 465 Sally Quasha's wife Black 5' 4" ,40 years

’Q^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of John Jefferson (4-2I-I9I0), p. 653; the Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910) p. 701, denies this Ben Sanders claimed Randolph status

347 Quasha is the nephew of the African-born Quasha already mentioned (his mother Cleo was Old Quasha's sister), and was usually listed as "Little Quasha " or "Little Quashee" in previous slave counts. A Lower Quarter slave. Major Scott estimated his age as 15 in 1801 (three years older than the 1846 clerk's guess). In the 1810 inventory he was priced at £90. 466 Fanny Mother Black 5' 2 1/3" ,40 years 467 Hercules Fanny's son Black 5' 6 1/4" ,24 years 468 Braxton Fanny’s son Black 5' 3" ,18 years 469 Parthena Fanny's son Black 4'9 3/4" , 13 years 470 Yarmer Fanny's daughter Black 4'9 3/4" ,10 years 471 Joanna Fanny's daughter Black 3' 10 1/3" ,8 years 472 Louisa Fanny's daughter Black 3' 7 3/4" ,4 years The family name is Green. (Fanny was Anna Green.) The 1850 Census finds them in Union Township. Miami County (Hanktown). Hercules Green mainly resided in Hanktown'^^. though in 1850 he was in Troy. John Coate and Cyrus Long identified him as a Randolph slave who had talked of the Mercer County lands and the 1846 incidents.'0"^ Before his death at about the turn of the century he had several children. Braxton Green disappears from the historical record after a moment of violence. In 1857 "Brackson Green" was working in Troy for a saloon when one Thursday in November at the owner's request he threw out one Capt. Kidd of Piqua for drunken violence. In doing so he apparently gashed Kidd's throat, so the drunk was found dying a few moments later outside. Braxton took flight rather than test the colorblindness of Miami County justice. Louisa may be a household servant in Piqua of that same name in 1860, working for the local white entrepreneur Dr. O'Ferrall

106Tucker v. Davis, reproduced in Moton v. Kessens. p. 473.

‘^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of John Coate (11-18-1910), p. 634; Deposition of Cyrus Long (4-24-1913), pp. 972-974. *Q^Celina Western Standard 8 Oct. 1857, reprinting from Piqua Enquirer.

348 Yarmer (Yarmouth) married an Essex White of Piqua and had several children, most of whom came to work as domestic servants. 473 Harry Head Black 5' 10', 40 years 474 Effy Harry's wife Black 5' 9 I/S' , 40 years The surname is Tucker. They appear to have joined the Hanktown settlement (though the I860 census found Harry in Marshalltown). Henry was one of the plaintiffs in Hanktown’s self-determination law suit,‘09 and was remembered as one of the Randolph freedmen who spoke of Mercer County lands.'*0 An 1875 plat map shows Harry owning Hanktown land adjacent to Geter Moton and Benjamin White. By 1880 Harry had died. Effy is the second tallest woman in the manumission register (if we trust the record's one sixth inch of difference between her and Esther Ryal's 5' 9 1/2"). In Ohio they had at least three children. 475 Othello Head Mulatto 5' 6' ,79 years 476 Sylla Othello's daughter Brown 5' 2/3” ,26 years 477 Clem Sylla's son Light Brown 4'4" , 11 years 478 Claiborne Othello's son Brown 5' 6 ” ,17 years Othello Bazell and his first wife Isabel are listed by Major Scott in the Middle Quarter in 1801. By 1810 Isabel had died, leaving Othello three children (Celia, Johnny, and Molly.) By the elusive time of Randolph's undated family list and supply list, Othello had remarried one Nanny (or Nancy, in the supply list — where it is noted she is among those few women not to receive stockings in the general distribution that year.) Sylla and her siblings here are the children of this second marriage, Othello having once again outlived a wife. Clem Bassell became a Hanktown resident ; white farmer G.B. Correy remembered him clearing land for the Correys.'"

'Q^Tucker v. Davis, reproduced in Moton v. Kessens. p. 472; Henry's land holdings are spelled out in the first page.

' 'QMoton V. Kessens. Deposition of John Coate (11-18-1910). p. 634.

" ‘Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of G.B. Correy (5-27-1910), p. 764.

349 479 Theodorick Head Light Brown 5' 7" ,23 years 480 Tamer His wife Black 5' I 1/3" ,19 years Theodorick Bazell is almost certainly a son of Othello Bazelland his second wife Nanny. Theodorick and Tamer became residents of Miami County's Monroe Township. Tamer became a servant to a white Piqua family named Dye, moving with them to Sidney in Shelby County by 1880. (Theodorick may have died by then.) 4SI Phillis Mother Black 5' ,20 years 482 Dilcey Phillis's daughter Black 3' 4 1/4" ,3 years 483 Jackson Phillis's son Black 3' ,3 years 484 Ange line Phillis's daughter Black 2' 2" ,1 year Phillis, also known as Phoebe, is the wife of the Ephraim Brown listed as Certificate 526 with his parents Essex and Caty Brown. This family became residents of the Piqua-Rossville region. Phillis had two more children, sons Julian (probably named for his father's brother Julius) and John. 485 Jordan Head Black 5' 6 3/4" ,38 years 486 Suckey Jordan's wife Black 5' 5 1/2" ,30 years The surname is Williams. Jordan Williams became a Rossville resident, eventually being buried in the African Jackson Cemetery. He left his "lot with a house" to his nephew. York Rial of the MOTON v. KESSENS case.“ - Suckey (or Susan) Williams (#486) was a daughter of Shadrach White ; she was a charter member of Rossville's Second Baptist Church. 487 Billy Head Black 5' 8" ,67 years Blacksmith 488 Maria Billy's wife Black 5' 5 ” ,40 years 489 Seymour Maria's son Black 5' 6" ,18 years 490 Jincey Maria's daughter Black 5' 1/2" , 14 years 491 Charles Maria's son Black 5' I" ,16 years 492 Maria Maria's daughter Black 3' 9" ,6 years

‘-Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910), pp. 843-844.

350 493 Littleton Billy's son Black 5' 2" ,18 years 494 Mary Baker Billy's daughter Black 5' 16 years 495 Buck Smith Billy's son Black 4' 7 1/2" ,12 years As a blacksmith, William Dickason appears in the 1810 court inventory with the high price of £140. He was a Middle Quarter slave ; often the listings identify him as "Billy Smith" to distinguish him from another artisan, "Billy Carpenter". The distinction in the above listing between William's children and Maria's suggests there may have been an earlier marriage for Maria, though "her" son Charles uses the Dickason surname in the Ohio censuses. Maria may have been the daughter of Simon and Effy counted in such earlier slave lists as the 1810 court inventory and Randolph's two undated enumerations. Seymour and Charles Dickason lived in Shelby County, though apparently moving about a lot within the county. Charles married a Phillis (who is probably Phyllis High, Certificate 350. since Fanny High lives with them at one point) and had a daughter Catharine. Their family lived in Sidney. John Jefferson identified him as someone who had spoken of Mercer County lands (though noting his preferred topic of conversation was hunting.)"3 496 Amey Black 5' I 1/4" ,33 years Nothing more is known of this person. 497 Syphax or Sye Head Mulatto 6' 1/3" ,30 years 498 Lizzy Syphax’s wife Black 5' 3" ,28 years 499 Celey Lizzy's mother Black 5' 2" ,50 years 500 Paulina Celey's daughter Black 5' 4 1/2" ,22 years 501 Fanny Paulina's daughter Mulatto 3' 9" ,3 years 502 Julia Ann Paulina's daughter Mulatto 1' 11" ,0 years 6 months 503 Susan Celey's daughter Black 4' 10 3/4" ,15 years

*^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of John Jefferson (4-21-1910), pp. 648, 670.

35 1 Syphax Brown, whose first name in Ohio became "Josiah", is here listed with an extended family linked by his mother-in-law Celey, whose two other daughters Susan and Paulina Jones (and Paulina's own two daughters) are counted together here. Celey may be Celia Bazell, the daughter of Othello Bazell and his first wife Isabella mentioned in the 1810 court inventory. Celey's daughter Paulina was the wife of Nathan Jones, who was entered alone earlier as Certificate 269. Nathan and Paulina lived in Troy, and had four more children in Ohio. Syphax Brown at first lived in Shelby County's Turtlecreek Township, but by 1860 had moved "just west of Piqua.""-* As a hostler at one point he tended the race horses at Piquas racecourse (in MOTON v KESSENS it was testified his favorite topic of conversation was horses, and that he had been an hostler at Roanoke)'". He spoke of the Mercer County mob to neighbor William Fox from 1895 through 1897, and to David Mitchell. 504 Amos Head Black 5' 10" ,65 years 505 Ned Amos's son Black 5' 8 1/2" ,26 years 506 Matilda Amos's daughter Black 5’ 5" ,22 years Amos Lee has already been frequently cited as another proof of the unreliability of ages in these white listings of blacks, since instead of the mature 20 year old the Charlotte Courthouse clerk's estimate of Age 65 here would give us in 1801, Major Scott reports a mere 13 year old in the Lower Quarter. The 1810 inventory identifies his parents as Mingo (Lee) and Dina (the latter dead by 1810).Although Mingo is for some reason omitted from that inventory, he and his son are listed right after one another in Randolph's own Christmas 1810 list. By the time of Randolph's later slave lists, Amos had moved to

''•*Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of William Fox (5-7-1914). p. 201.

"^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of William Fox (5-7-1914). p. 201: Deposition of William Fox (given 4-21-1910), p. 710. "^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of William Fox (5-7-1914) pp.202-207; Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), pp. 683. 706; Deposition of David Mitchell (5-18-1910), pp. 912-913, 921.

352 the Middle Quarter and married one Aga — apparently dead by the day of manumission "Ned" Lee became a Piqua resident, earning his living as a wood sawyer. One white Piquod recalled "Our earliest recollection of Uncle Ned was watching him. with his buck and saw. cutting up the then prevalent four-foot wood into stove lengths, and noting his odd motion in sawing. It was alternating a very short stroke with a very long one. and we have found by experience that this is much less tiresome than the ordinary manner of sawing.Ned Lee "with his push cart" was once a familiar sight on Piquas streets.'*® His 1852 wedding was reportedly a major Randolph Slave social event.*and he had three children before his wife died in the 1870's.*-° In appearance he weighed about 160 pounds and had chin whiskers.*-* One account is that he was a religious enthusiast who had the "practice of oiling his face on Sunday, for he believed that 'the Lord liked to have him make his face to shine.'"*-- Rossville schoolteacher William Fox identified Ned as one who had spoken of Mercer County l a n d s . *-3 Losing his sight in later years, he was cared for by a daughter until his death on Jan. 25, 1908.*--* 507 Gabriel Head Black 5' ,54 years 508 Dolly Gabriel's wife Black 5' ,40 years (blot!) Lucretia Their daughter Black 5' 2 1/2" ,20 years

**^"Ned Lee", in Rayner. The First Century of Piqua, p. 209. **®"Body Servant of John Randolph Died at Piqua", Mercer Countv Standard 31 January 1908. * •‘^Sherwood, "The Settlement of John Randolph’s Slaves in Ohio". 5 (1911): 55, citing Piqua Daily Call 28 January and 30 January 1908. *-**"Body Servant of John Randolph Died at Piqua". Mercer Countv Standard 31 January 1908.

‘-*Moton V. Kessens. , Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), p. 711. '--Sherwood, "The Settlement of John Randolph's Slaves in Ohio", 5 (1911): 55 citing Piqua Daily Call 28 and 30 Jan, 1908 (While not mentioning this specific practice, William Fox does testify about his religiosity.). ‘-^Moton v. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), p. 684 ; on p. 711, though. Fox says Ned Lee talked more of religion. *--*"Body Servant of John Randolph Died at Piqua", Mercer County Standard 31 January 1908 ; "Ned Lee", in Rayner, The First Centurv of Piqua, p. 209.

353 509 Moses Their son Black 5' 4 3/4" ,18 years 510 William Their son Black 5' I" ,16 years 511 Polly Their daughter Black 4' 10 1/2" ,l4years 512 John Their son Black 4' 2 1/2" ,10 years 513 Jimmy Their son Black 4' 5" ,12 years Another clerical error — obviously the clerk assigned Lucretia White the same number "508" as her mother Dolly, caught it in time to blot it out. but not to give Lucretia her own number. (Lucretia may be named for her paternal great-grandmother Lucy.) Gabriel White is another of the sons of York and Anna White, and his younger brother Shadrach's family is listed immediately below. (His daughter Polly White is probably named for her aunt by marriage, Shadrach’s wife.) He is another slave whose precise age is problematic — Randolph estimated him as being 14 years in the undated list, which clashes with the 1846 estimate of 54 unless we accept that earlier list was done in 1806! Purchasing a house in Rossville in 1847 (which may make him the first Randolph Slave to become resident there). Gabriel White and family shared that "double house" with Sam Rial's family.He worked in local stone quarries in the Piqua region. His wife Dolly (a daughter of Daniel's Toney and Caty) is also listed in the undated list — as age 16. which would make her the older spouse contrary to the 1846 estimates! Either Dolly or her daughter Polly was a charter member of Rossville's Second Baptist Church.'-^ She died sometime before 1880. Lucretia may have married Lott Green, in which case she too would have been a Rossville resident. William White in 1860 may be a domestic servant in a white merchant's Piqua home ; by 1880. though, he is a millworker residing in Rossville with a wife and children.'-'^

•-^Gilmore, The History of the John Randolph Freed Slaves, p. 27. '-^Oda. Piqua's Black Heritage, no pagination.

'-^Moton V. Kessens. Trial Testimony of William Fox (5-7-1914), p. 211.

354 His brother John White is definitely a domestic servant in I860. Gabriel White and his wife Dolly had one more son in Ohio, Gabriel White Jr. 514 Shadrack Black 5' 3 1/2" ,50 years 515 Polly Shadrack's wife Black 5' 6 1/2" ,40 years Shadrach White, whose Scriptural name often confounded the spelling abilities of slave enumerators ("Sedrach" in the 1810 inventory, "Shadrack" once by Randolph himself) is another of the sons of York and Anna White. While it is agreed he is younger than Gabriel White above, Randolph thought him a mere year the junior (i.e., age 13 to Gabriel's supposed 14), while the court clerks of 1846 thought him FOUR years less. This couple became Rossville residents, Polly being another charter member of the Second Baptist Church'-^ and Shadrach eventually being buried in the African Jackson Cemetery (between his son-in-law Jordan Williams and a nephew, Gabriel White Jr.) Shadrach may have been blind in his last years. Shadrach and Jordan Williams shared the piece of Rossville property eventually inherited by York Rial.'-^ 516 Little Othello Head Brown 5' 8 1/2" .44 years 517 Patience Othello's wife Black 5' 2 1/2" ,30 years Pregnant 518 Amey Their daughter Black 4' 2" ,11 years 519 Agnes Their daughter Black 4' 2 1/2" ,9 years 520 Mickey Their daughter Black 3' 3" ,7 years 521 Alice Their daughter Black 3' 1/2" ,3 years 522 Isabella Their daughter Black 2' 7" ,2 years John Bazell is first listed as "Johnny" Bazell in the 1810 court inventory with his father Othello and sister Alice (whom he named one of his own daughters after) ; although given the diminutive form of his father's name in this list, it is once again plain "John" Bazell

‘-^Oda. Piqua’s Black Heritage, no pagination.

'-^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). p. 844.

355 who turns up in the censuses of Ohio. His daughter Isabella is named for his own mother. John and Patience and most of their children are found in Miami County’s Monroe Township by the 1850 census. They had at least four more children in Ohio. John may have died by 1860. Amey Bazell in 1850 was the servant to a white family in Tippecanoe (later Tipp City) ; a laundress. 523 Essex Head Black 5' 8" ,70 years 524 Caty His wife Black 5' 3 1/3" ,50 years 525 Lobinda Their daughter Black 5' 4" ,30 years 526 Ephraim Their son Black 5' 9" ,22 years 527 Julius Their son Black 4' 6" ,15 years Essex Brown and his wife Caty had both been married before this. Both appear in the 1801 listing by MajorScott. Essex in the Lower Quarter and Caty as a 14 year old in the Middle & Ferry Quarter section. (This makes her 9 years older than the Charlotte County Courthouse clerks guessed at.) The 1810 court inventory finds Essex Brown married to a Jinny and already father of five children. (The Lobinda given certificate 525 above may be Essex & Jinny's daughter Louisa from that list.) Meanwhile, the now twentysomething "Katy" herself had four children by that time. Randolph's undated list identifies her husband as "Daniel's Toney", indicating that like her sister Isabella she was broadwife to someone on another plantation. The death of Jinny and Essex's remarriage to Caty took place sometime during between Randolph's last comprehensive slave listing and the manumission. Essex and Caty. their children and stepchildren, total 20 of the freedom registrations in the 1846 count. Essex and Caty took up residence in the Hanktown settlement, with their children Lobinda and Julius.Hanktown's black school

'^Qjucker v. Davis. (11-12-1864). reproduced in Moton v. Kessens. p. 474.

356 may have been on a lot owned by Essex.He died sometime in the late I860's.'32 Their son Ephraim's own wife Phillis and three children have already been mentioned. Their family became Piqua residents, and Ephraim was eventually buried in Rossville's African Jackson Cemetery. 528 "Bull” Abram Head Black 5' 5 1/2" .40 years 529 Patience His wife Black 5' 2 1/2" ,25 years 530 Lotty Their daughter Black 3' 5" ,4 years 531 Linder Their daughter Black 2' 9" ,2 years Nothing more known. 532 Paul Head Black 5' 8 1/2" ,26 years 533 Hetty His wife Black 4' 11" ,25 years 534 Susannah Their daughter Black 3' 11 1/3" ,8 years 535 John Foster Their son Black 3' 5" ,6 years 536 Calomine Their daughter Black 3' 2" ,3 years Nothing more known. 537 Michael Head Black 5 ' 5 " ,27 years 538 Queen His wife Brown 5' ,25 years 539 Drusilla Their daughter Mulatto 2' 6" ,3 years 540 Betsy Their daughter Black 2' ,1 year The surname is Cole. (Michael may. perhaps, be another son of Isaac and Elizabeth Cole.) Queen seems to have been "Queen Anne" in full, and thus in Ohio years would often be known as "Ann" rather by her first name. In Ohio she bore Michael five more children. Michael had died by 1880, Queen and her daughter Betsy living in the vicinity of Troy by that time. 541 "Tennessee" Isaac Brown 5' 7" ,50 years Nothing more is known of this individual. 542 Jeffrey Brown 5' 7" ,30 years

Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910), p. 576.

‘^-Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). pp. 543-4 (who identifies Essex as "the first dead men I ever seen").

357 This might be the second "Geoffrey" noted as a "Small Boy" by Randolph in his Christmas 1810 list (assuming another inaccurate age estimate by the clerks of 1846.) However, Clem Clay's trial testimony implies this person was his stepfather, "Jack Jeffrey" or "Doctor Jefferson".'^3 if so, he lived with Fanny Clay (Certificate 264) and her children in Union and Newton Townships as a farm laborer, dying sometime during the Civil War. Doctor Jefferson was also a preacher*^-* whose possible

literacy became a point of controversy in MOTON V KESSENS.'^^ 543 Jimmey Brown 5' 9” ,35 years Nothing more is known. 544 Davy Old Quasha's son Black 5'5 1/2" ,45 years Davy is a child of Quasha's first wife Molly, and lived in the Ferry Quarter. 545 Thompson Brown 5' 6" ,38 years Thompson Ryal was one of three brothers, the others being Isaac and Guy. He was an uncle of the York Ryal who would become a party to the MOTON VS. RESSENS suit at the turn of the century. (His son Ward took York's place as plaintiff when York died in 1913, also administrating his cousin's estate. )'36 William Fox remembered him as a "yellow man . . . with a heavy beard"'^7 who would saw wood for Fox's schoolhouse'“8and who spoke of the 1846 m ig r a tio n . A Rossville resident, he was a charter member of the Second Baptist

'33Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Clem Clay (5-6-1914). p. 1 12; Testimony of Fountain Randolph, p. 244, identifies "Jack Jeffries" and "Doctor Jefferson". ‘3-^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). pp. 577, 610.

'^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910). p. 578, and Testimony of Louisa Butler (5-6-1914). pp. 170-1. identify Doctor Jefferson as able to read, but the Testimony of Fountain Randolph (5-7-1914) denies he could. *36Moton V. Kessens. p. 1.

'3?Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), p. 711.

'3*Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of William Fox (5-7-1914), p. 208.

*39Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910), p. 686.

358 Church and buried in the African Jackson Cemetery. He and his wife Polly had many children in Ohio. He died sometime in the ISSO's.'-*^^ 546 Nelson Head Black 5' 2 1/2” ,33 years ”546” Pagey His wife Black 5 '2 ” ,28 years Slight seam or scar above right eye 547 James Their son Black 2' 11 ” ,3 years 548 Charlotte Their daughter Black 2' 2" ,2 years 549 Jenny Mother Black 5' 3 ” ,60 years 550 Jane Her daughter Black 5' 3 1/4” ,18 years 551 Phill Her son Black 5' 3 1/4” ,14 years 552 Thomas Her son Black 4' 9 1/4” ,10 years Another clerical slip at the very onset of the last day gave Pagey Cole the same number as her husband Nelson. Jenny is Nelson's mother, and Jane, Phill, and Thomas his siblings. (Another probable child is an Emma or Emily who married PaulLee, and in whose Rossville home Jenny lived for a time.) Nelson settled in the Piqua area, probably as another resident of Rossville. The tentative identification of his brother as the "Phillip Coles" buried in the African Jackson Cemetery makes this even more likely, and his son James was definitely in Rossville during the 1870 census. Nelson was a member of Piqua s Cyrene AME Church, and in 1867 participated in a black co-operative association. He and Pagey had many more children in Ohio. 553 Ben Head Black 5' 11 1/2” 38 years 554 Patsey His wife Black 5' 1 1/4” ,35 years 555 Milly Their daughter Black 4' 10” ,13 years 556 Nancy Their daughter Black 4' 4 1/2” ,12 years 557 Fanny Their daughter Black 3' 11” ,10 years 558 Spencer Their son Black 2' 7” ,2 years The surname is White. Benjamin White became a Hanktown resident, an 1875 plat map showing him as a neighbor to Henry Tucker. A(bel) Johnson, and

'•^^Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Goodrich Giles (5-5-1914). p. 35.

359 Freeman Harris.'-^* M.H. Davis remembered him speaking about the 1846 Mercer County mob "away before the war."'-^- He died in the 1870's his wife Pamela ("Patsy") having predeceased him by some

y e a r s . '^^3 The girl Milly is probably named for her mother. 559 "Buffalo'' Meshack Head Black 5' 4 1/2" ,40 years 560 Mary His wife Black 5' /" ,30 years Meshack White is brother to Gabriel and Shadrach White, and presents another problem of determining age, since the 1846 estimate would make him a mere 4 year old at the time of the 1810 court inventory (which would fit its evaluating him at a mere £35), whereas in his undated family list Randolph himself estimates as a mere year younger than his older brothers. The 1850 census found Meschack and Mary living in Troy with another Randolph freedman family, the Johnsons. 561 Roger Head Black 5' 8 3/4" ,40 years 562 Julia His wife Black 5' 3" ,31 years Pregnant 563 Robert Their son Black 4' 4 3/4" ,14 years 564 Abraham Their son Black 4' 1/2" ,7 years Left knee deformed 565 Billy Their son Black 3' 3 3/4" ,4 years The family name is Lee. If one believes Censuses, Roger Lee had a unique occupation in 1850 : "Fugitive". (This sneer may have been anything from a racist enumerator's opinion of all free blacks to some forgotten scrape.) For thirty years Roger lived in Shelby County, mainly in its Turtlecreek Township. He and Julia had five more children in Ohio. Abraham Lee had become an inmate of the Shelby County Infirmary (in Clinton Township) by 1910. 566 Diannah Mother Black 5' 2 1/2" ,40 \ears

‘•^'Tucker v. Davis. . reproduced in Moton v. Kessens. p. 472 ; Benjamin White’s property is spelled out on the first page.

*~*-Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (I 1-18-1910). p. 562; Deposition of John Coate (11-18-1910), p. 634, also identifies him as one speaking of the 1846 incidents. '-^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1910), pp. 536-537.

360 567 Albert Her son Black 4' 5" ,9 years 568 William Her son Black 3' 9 1/2” ,7 years 569 Hannah Her daughter Black 3' 5 ” ,5 years 570 Amanda Ann Her daughter Black 5' 2 1/2" ,25 years 571 Queen Amanda Ann's daughter M ulatto 3' 7" ,4 years 572 Paul Amanda Ann's son Black 2' 4 ” ,I years 573 Amey Diannah's daughter Black 5' I ” ,30 years Now pregnant 574 Louisa daughter of Amey Mulatto 3' 10 1/2" ,7 years Amanda Ann Crowder's husband Johnston, the father of Queen and Paul Crowder, was the second slave listed on the very first day (certificate #216). Her father-in-law Armistead Crowder's family comes right after this group which centers on her own mother Diannah Cox. Diannah lived with her daughter Amanda's family in Piqua in 1880; the 1850 census lists her in Hanktown (Her husband may have been named Samuel.) She attended a Baptist Church in Piqua. Rossville schoolteacher William Fox remembered her as a purported centenarian ("an old lady 115 y e a r s " ) . she died in 1895. William Cox lived in Marshalltown in the 1870's and 80's. but moved to the Piqua/Rossville area by the turn of the century. In Marshalltown his sister Hannah kept house for him. He had at least three children in Ohio. Amanda Ann Crowder lived in the Piqua area from the 1850's on, with her husband and ten children (six of whom were alive in 1900). She died in 1906 and was buried in Lot lOB. Section 442, of the Forest Hill Cemetery.'-*^

‘■^■^"Biographies", History of Miami Countv. Ohio. ed. Miller, p. 393. ‘■*^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox (4-21-1910). p. 689. ‘■^^"Randolph Slaves in Miami County". History of Miami Countv. Ohio, ed. Miller, p. 68. ‘■^^Mrs. Janet C. Martin to Ross Frederick Bagby, 26 May 1991.

36 1 Her son Paul Crowder, so young at the time of the migration that an I860 census taker assumed him to be Ohio-born, served in the famous all-black 54th Massachusetts regiment from January 1863 He only outlived his parents by a few years, dying in December 1913 and being buried in the Forest Hill Cemetery. Amey or Emily Cox was in Troy in 1860 with her daughter and one Henry W. Young, a day laborer. (Amey also used the White surname. Amey's daughter Louisa is the only mixed blood in the list whose white parent is known by name, one Jerry Griffith'^! ; that she used the maiden name "Giffon"'52 or "Griffin"'53 in Ohio, presumably a form of "Griffith", probably indicates how open this paternity was. She recalled moving back and forth between Troy andHanktown in her c h i l d h o o d .'54 she was a servant in Troy in 1860, but later moved to Springfield, Ohio, about 1867. She was married twice, first to one Fowler, then after his death to one Charles Butler whom she met in

S p r i n g f i e l d . '55 She lived to testify at the MOTON v KESSENS t r ia l.‘56 575 Armistead Crowder Head Black 5' 5" ,45 years 576 Teener His wife Black 5' 2 1/2” ,38 years 577 Dudley Their son Black 5' 6” ,19 years 578 Joseph Minton Their son Black 5' ,14 years 579 Sticky Their daughter Black 4' 7" ,10 years 580 Edward Their son Black 4' 1" ,8 years 581 Frederick Their son Black S' 7" .6 years 582 Tamer Their daughter Black 3' 1/2" ,4 years

'480da. Piqua s Black Heritage, no pagination. '4^Mrs. Janet C. Martin to Ross Bagby, 15 July 1990 '50Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Louise Butler (given 5-6-1914). p. 166.

'5'Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Louise Butler (given 5-6-1914). p. 166. '52”Giffon" — Moton v. Kessens. Deposition of William Fox. p. 689. '53 "Griffin". I 8 6 0 Census. Reel 1011. p. 282A. '54Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Louise Butler (5-6-1914). p. 167.

'55Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Louise Butler (5-6-1914). p. 168.

'56Moton V. Kessens. Testimony of Louise Butler (5-6-1914). pp. 163-172. (Page 164 has her mention her white father Jerry Griffith.)

362 583 Armstead Their son Black 2' 2" ,0 year 9 months Crowder's wife Teeney Brown was the daughter of Essex Brown and his first wife Jenny, and was named for her own father's mother. Her price (as "Tena") of £45 in the 1810 court list and being listed second among their children therein suggests she was older than the 1846 estimate. In Randolph's undated family list she appears as "Tiny" in the Middle Quarter. Dudley and Joseph Minton Crowder both lived in the Piqua area, and were both buried in the African Jackson Cemetery (Dudley in the 1870's, Joseph after the turn of the century.) Dudley married a Martha Jane Brown in the 1840's and had a large family. (Martha outlived him by several decades ; she may be a daughter of Sam and Dinah Brown.) Edward Crowder (Certificate 580 here) lived mainly in Hanktown (the 1870, 1880, and 1900 censuses). The 1860 Census shows him in the Piqua region living with his brothers Frederick and Armistead. He married Stephen Gillard's daughter Mariah Gillet and they had ten children. He is buried in Lot 3 of Rossville's African Jackson Cemetery. 584 Tiller Mother Black 5' 5 1/4" ,40 years 585 Camilla Tiller's daughter Black 4' 9 3/4" ,14 years 586 Peggy Tiller's daughter Black 4' 8 1/2" ,10 years 587 Jacob Tiller's nephew Black 4' 11 3/4" ,12 years Tiller White apparently married a Cole, since her daughters Camilla and Peggy here use that surname in Ohio. The age of 13 assigned her in Randolph's undated family list would place that document in the 1818/1819 range. Tiller herself was the daughter of a John White (Certificate 590 below) distinct from Randolph's butler. Tiller, her father, and children lived in Clinton Township of Shelby County in Ohio. 588 Martha Black 5' 3" ,30 years 589 York Martha's son Black 4' 4 1/2" ,9 years

363 Martha was the wife of Guy R y a l , >57 although he seems not to

have lived with his family in O h i o .>58 in later life she was "bewildered" and "subject to fits", accidentally burning to death in

Piqua while her son York was living at D a y t o n . '59 An only c h ild ,Y o r k Ryal would grow up to be one of the principal parties of the MOTON vs. KESSENS lawsuit. His own lengthy deposition indicates the periodic labor migration apparently typical for a black man of the time, from a period of eight to nine years in Dayton immediately after arriving in Ohio‘S' to many casual jobs for

Miami County w h i t e s ' ^ ^ and "a good many years" as a Sidney hod

c a r r i e r . '^5 pie married twice (first to a Bassell)*^-* and had at least one child, by his first wife'^s. In very poor health in his later y e a r s . h e died from complications after surviving the 1913 flood and was buried in the African Jackson Cemetery. His illiteracy is signaled by the original MOTON VS. KESSENS Petition bearing only "His mark" and the signatures of witnesses. 590 John Black 5' 5 ” ,65 years 591 Solomon John's grandson Black 5' 5 3/4" ,18 years This is a different John White from Randolph of Roanoke's manservant ; appearing in the first Roanoke slave count (Major

'57]vioton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (given 5-18-1910). p. 852; Testimony of Clem Clay (given 5-6-1914). pp. 115-116. '58Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). p. 876.

'59Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp. 838. 872.

I60^ oton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). p. 852.

Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910), p. 880 ; Deposition of Howard Scudder (4-23-1913). p. 1002. '^-Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp. 871. 1016; Deposition of Howard Scudder (4-23-1913). pp. 995. 1003. 1007. '^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp. 862. 868; Rial's white boss in the hod business testifies in the Deposition of William Getz (5-18- 1910), pp. 889. 897-898.

'^•^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). p. 856.

'^ 5 M o t o n V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). p. 857.

'^^Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). p. 855.

'^^Moton V. Kessens. Petition of Joseph Moton and York Rial vs. Gerhard Kessens. signed 7-5-1907; York himself admits his illiteracy at Deposition of York Rial (5-18-1910). pp. 856. 858-859.

364 Scott's in 1801) in the Lower Quarter, he was in the Ferry Quarter by the 1810 inventory (which priced him at £110) and married to another slave named Lucy. In Ohio this John White lived in Shelby County's Clinton Township, with his daughter Tiller and grandson Solomon.. His grandson Solomon was a Crowder. For the 1850 census he gave the occupation "Boatman". 592 Dick Mulatto 5' 6 1/2” ,42 years This may be the son of Simon and Effy priced at £60 in 1810. who lived in the Middle Quarter. 593 Archer Brown 5' 6" ,45 years A son of Old Milly Jones, priced at £45 in 1810. 594 Austin Bushy Forest John's son Black 5 ’ 9 ” ,37 years Bushy Forest was a property only 4 miles from the Charlotte County Courthouse, purchased by Randolph a few years before his death. The presence of this man among the Roanoke freedman. if we trust the clerks of 1846 enough to date his birth circa 1809. implies there was communication between the properties long before Randolph's formal purchase. Austin may be the "Austin Redman " working in a Piqua hotel in 1850. but that is a very tentative identification. 595 Peter Johnson Head Dark 5' 7 3/4" ,66 years 596 Jenny Peter's wife Black 5' 3” ,55 years Blacksmith Peter Johnson and his wife Jenny (short for "Virginia") are prominent among the Roanoke slave lists. Peter alone is listed by Major Scott as a Lower Quarter resident ; by the 1810 court inventory he has married Jenny, and they with their son Abel are probably living in the Middle Quarter. (As a blacksmith. Peter shares the highest slave price of £180 in the 1810 court inventory with carpenter Moses Jones). Peter and Jenny appear in all subsequent counts.

365 Peter and Jenny were among those found in Hanktown in the

1850 census. Peter continued to blacksmith in that c o m m u n i t y . Jenny is listed in her son Abel's Hanktown home in 1860 and in grandson Foster Johnson's Hanktown household in 1870. Peter was buried in Rossville's African Jackson Cemetery (Lot 48).

l68Moton V. Kessens. Deposition of M.H. Davis (11-18-1914), pp. 557-558, 560, 567-568; the smithy was on the northwest corner of Davis's family farm.

366 APPENDIX I

AFRICAN JACKSON CEMETERY REGISTER'

Plot# Slave/Child Name Born Died

1 Slave Lot 18 16 2 Slave Louis Masco 3 Slave Ed Crowder 4 Slave George R Rial 5 Slave Thompson Rial 18 14 6 Child of Slave George Smith 1 867 193 1 7 Slave Robert Anderson 8 Slave William Kendall 1 854 9 Slave Hardy Parsley 1821 1910 1 0 Slave John Cain Veteran, served 1 864 1 I Slave Phillip Coles 1 2 Slave Johnson Crowder 1824 I 3 Child of Slave William Rial 1882 1 4 Slave P. Mitchell 1 5 Child of Slave Minerva Rial I 6 Slave Isaac Rial 18 11 1891 I 7 Slave Nancy Tibbs 1 8 Slave Gabriel Rial 1789 1 9 Slave A. Giles 1800 1875 20 Slave Ephriam Brown 1834

'African Jackson Cemetery, National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination File (1982), Ohio Historic Preservation Office, Ohio Historical Society. Columbus. OH. Many of these individuals are not Randolph Slaves.

367 2 1 Slave J. Crowder 22 Slave Duly Crowder 1837 2 3 Slave J. Coles 24 Slave A. Butler 25 Slave John Taylor Veteran, 1 864-1865 26 Slave J. P. Wilson 1845 Child of slave 2 7 Slave James Coles 1876 2 8 Slave Critic Lee 1839 2 9 Slave John Lee 1839 19 1 1 3 0 Slave Paul Lee 3 1 Slave Clem Clay 1820 19 16 3 2 Slave Nero Randolph 1820 3 3 Slave Peter Jones 1820 34 Slave Daniel Fowlis 35 Slave M. White 18 89 3 6 Slave F. White 3 7 Slave Marshal Truss 3 8 Slave W adeReese 3 9 Slave Phillip White Veteran 1863- 1 866 40 Slave James White 1898 4 1 Slave R. Smith 19 19 4 2 Slave Gabriel White 1906 4 3 Child of Slave Richard White 44 Jordan Williams 45 Slave Shadrac White 18 16 46 Slave Queen Governor 1828 47 Slave WillisWhite 48 Slave Peter Johnson 1780 49 Slave Ed Lee 5 0 Slave J. Delany 5 1 Slave William Nickens

368 52 Slave Preston Huggard 53 Slave William Armstrong 54 Child Gillard 1896 55 Slave Robert Shipp 56 Slave John Bally 57 Slave Michael Roberts Veteran 1864- 1865 58 Slave William Williams Veteran 1865- 1868 59 Slave Arny Rocco 60 Slave Peter Bray 6 1 Slave Sidney Vicks Veteran 1864- 1865 62 Child of Slave George Smith 1867 193 1 63 Child of Slave Georganna Brown 1 889 19 1 1 64 Child of Slave Marian Brown 19 10 1911 65 Child of Slave Charles Clay 1891 1915 6 6 Child of Slave Raper Delany 1 850 1913 67 stillborn Johnson Baby 68 Child of Slave Edith Rial Hardin 1 862 1913 69 Child of Slave Priscilla Gillard 185 1 19 10 70 Child of Slave Bessie Hill 1875 1918 7 1 Slave Susan Hunt 1832 1913 72 Child of Slave May Johnson 1882 1917 73 Lee Baby 74 Child of Slave Frank Rial 1879 1913 75 Child of Slave James Rial 188 1 1914 76 Child of Slave Mable Rial 1 898 1914 77 Slave SarahAnn Roberts 1832 19 10 78 Child of Slave Philip Andrew White 1880 1919 79 Child of Slave Jabella Williams 1911 1911 80 Child of Slave Henry Clinton Blackburn 192 1 1921 8 1 Child of Slave Hanson Johnson 1 860 1928 82 infant Jones

369 83 Child of Slave Rosa May Langdon 1892 1928 84 Child of Slave William Langdon 1915 19 29 85 Child of Slave Charles Mitchell 1908 1925 86 Slave Benjaman J. Roberts 1839 1921 87 Child of Slave Dorothy May Williams 1926 88 Child of Slave Harold Edgar Williams 1928 1928 89 Child of Slave M ary Jane Brown 90 stillborn 9 1 baby Lee 92 Slave John Henry Jones 1 846 19 18 93 Child of Slave Ralph Lee 19 11 19 13 94 Slave Basil 95 Slave York Rial 1834 19 13 96 Slave Henry Clay Veteran, served 1864 97 Slave Robert Smith 98 Child of Slave Nelson Clark 99 Slave Gilbert Johnson 1 837 1909 1 00 Child of Groa Johnson 10 I Child of Isabella Johnson 102 Child of Josephine Johnson 103 Child of Margaret Johnson 1 04 Child of NathanelJohnson 1 05 Child of William Johnson 106 Child of Earl Jones 1919 19 19 107 Slave DavidHughes Veteran.served 1861 1865 108 baby Jones 109 baby Johnson 1 1 0 baby Johnson 1 1 1 stillborn 1 1 2 Child of Abbie Gillard 1870 1913 1 1 3 Slave James Gillard 1838 1913 1 14 Child of John Gillem 1853 1918

370 115 Slave Bourben Gillem 18 36 19 1 2 1 16 Slave Caroline Hill 1829 19 15 1 1 7 Slave Rick Parson 1843 1917 1 1 8 C. Brown 119 Child of Slave Nelson Clark 120 Slave Mary Ann Johnson 12 1 Slave Norma Roberts 122 Child of Theodore Lee 1868 1924 123 George Davis Veteran, served 1864- 1865

371 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archives — Virginia

Charlottesville. Va. The University of Virginia. Alderman Library. John Randolph Papers.

Richmond. Va. Virginia Historical Society. Leigh Family Papers.

Richmond. Va. Virginia State Library. Bruce-Randolph Papers.

Williamsburg, Va. College of William and Mary. Gregg Swem Library. Manuscripts Department. Tucker-Coleman Papers.

Archives — Ohio

Columbus. Ohio. Ohio Historical Society. Ohio Governors Papers.

Columbus. Ohio. Ohio Historical Society. Ohio Historic Preservation Office. National Register of Historic Places Inventory — Nomination File (1982) . African Jackson Cemetery.

Dayton. Ohio. Wright State University. Archives. Register of Free Blacks and Mulattoes, Miami County.

Newspapers

The African Repository

Celina Journal

372 Celina Western Standard

Cleveland Gazette

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