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On this day in American history
On this day in 1835, my great great grandparents were married in Belmont County, Ohio. It is remarkable in many ways:
1. It is remarkable that I found the record to begin with around 2003; first in Salt Lake City and then again in Belmont County.
2. It is remarkable because their U.S. citizenship was in a state of limbo
3. It is remarkable because Virginia ordered all free black and free people to vacate the state
4. It is remarkable because Ohio required a $500 (that's 1830 dollars) surety bond for any black or free person of color entering the state
5. It is remarkable because the marriage was mentioned in my great great grandfather's 1886 obituary
As James Baldwin once wrote, "American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. "
1. It is remarkable that I found the record to begin with around 2003; first in Salt Lake City and then again in Belmont County.
2. It is remarkable because their U.S. citizenship was in a state of limbo
3. It is remarkable because Virginia ordered all free black and free people to vacate the state
4. It is remarkable because Ohio required a $500 (that's 1830 dollars) surety bond for any black or free person of color entering the state
5. It is remarkable because the marriage was mentioned in my great great grandfather's 1886 obituary
As James Baldwin once wrote, "American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. "
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Absolutely remarkable...
There is always a bit of a rush when you find these documents that give your family time and place. They fill in the gaps where family oral histories are lacking, they give credence to what are sometimes considered "tall tales" in family lore. They connect us to people we've never met.
And they help us see there are other families like yours and mine which share a connection if only through the same geography of grandparents, great grandparents and great-greats who migrated to Ohio, some settling there, others migrating to points beyond.
May 17, 2009 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good for you and congratulations! Persistence pays! You're exceedingly lucky to have any records or evidence of them at all, let alone something like a record of their marriage. Did you find a marriage license application or some other record where they might have signed for it? I think it's always cools to see their handwriting, assuming they could read and write (something we now take for granted). Most people could not read or write way back then.
Just curious, how old were your great great grandparents when they got married? They must have been born around the same time as Lincoln if they were marrying in 1835.If they lived until the late 80's they must have seen quite a lot in their long lives.
May 18, 2009 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think they just said, I do as the Justice of Peace performed the nuptials. I found it in an abstract when I was in Salt Lake City which pointed me to the Belmont County courthouse.
I estimate that they were in early twenties. The age of their children suggest they were a couple before they said I do. My great great grandfather's 1886 obituary said he was from Albemarle County, Virginia and had lived in Ohio for over fifty years.
This of course sent me on a research trip to Albemarle County. Albemarle County kept incredible detailed records. The clerk in the Historic Society recommended that I pick The Magazine of Albemarle County which has an incredible article by Ervin L. Jordan Jr., A Just and True Account: Two 1833 Parish Censuses of Albemarle County Free Blacks. After reading the article, I found that Sally Hemings and her family were living in
Charlottesville and that there were multitude of people in this area with my surname. I also looked in the Order Books (I guess they were the official minutes of the county) where a description of my kinsmen (height, color, distinguishing marks etc) followed by an oath before the County Commissioner that he (my kinsmen) is/was who he say/said he is/was. He was sworn in with several other men who share the surname. These men are in the two censuses presented by Mr. Jordan. Again the Hemings are in this census and took particular interest her youngest son Eston as he is a year older than my kinsmen.
This article also sparked an interest in the Hemings family because they lived so close. I am so happy that Annette Gordon-Reed did a family history and genealogy of the Hemings because American history is a more complicated than one might imagine. Gordon-Reed mentions Notorious in the Neighborhood by Joshua Rothman as a reference and I read his book before I read her book The Heminges of Monticello.
May 18, 2009 2:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Facinating! And exciting for you and your family I would imagine.
I'm curious, do you know the circumstances of how your ancestor/ancestors became free and when? It would be fascinating to know if they bought their way out of slavery or were freed for some other reason or by other means. I suppose conceivably they could have been indentured as opposed to held in permanent slavery status and could have worked their time and "earned" their freedom that way. It was less common for blacks than whites but it did happen to some blacks in America. One wonders if perhaps your great great grandfather might even have been born free though that would be amazingly rare. It is remarkable enough that you found and have such records, but that you ancestors were among the free population for any reason prior to the abolition of slavery is really extraordinary. And it was pretty long time prior to slavery's demise too! Do you know your ancestor's occupation? Was he a skilled craftsman or general laborer or what? Have you been able to visit the actual town or area he came from in Virginia? Are there any of your relatives still living there?
I love this stuff as you can tell. Hope you don't mind all my questions.
It is obviously incredibly important information for any family, but in the case of your family it is certainly no run of the mill story. Are you lucky enough to have photos of your Great Great Grandparents? That would be incredibly cool for your records. I was sniffing around records and the internet about 10 years ago and actually located a very distant relative in Vermont (nowhere near where I am) who provided me a copy of an old "tin type" photo of my great, great, great grandparents who were born around the same time as the ancestors of yours we're talking about. Sometimes I just stare at their solemn faces. Neither looks anything like me or my immediate family but I am just in awe that I can look at an actual photograph of ancestors born two centuries ago. Both of them died in the late 1870's.
I'm just delighted for you to have found this treasure trove of information that provides real context and information to your family history. Marvelous stuff!
May 18, 2009 5:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm curious, do you know the circumstances of how your ancestor/ancestors became free and when? It would be fascinating to know if they bought their way out of slavery or were freed for some other reason or by other means.
From the limited information that I have seen, he was born free. He was free--or I strongly believe he was free--because I have seen records linking him to people that were in Virginia since the sixteen-hundreds. It seems like he moved between two places: Albemarle and Louisa Counties. Louisa and Albemarle sit next to each other. In fact part of Louisa was cut along with another county to form Albemarle in 1774. Records show that my kinsmen's grandmother lived in Louisa County. The records also showed that he lived in Fredericksville Parish in the northern portion of Albemarle County.
One of the resources that has been helpful is Paul Heinegg's Free African Americans of Virginia, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware. As the title suggest, his work illuminates the genealogies of (free) black and people of color and it stretches back to the colonial era.
One of the books I want to read, A Mercy by Toni Morrison (even though it is fiction), drops the reader into this era in North America. This is the era when relationships between white and black people was anything but defined. Some black people like poor whites were indentured servants who bought and worked for their freedom while some blacks were slaves and probably weren't allowed to work for or buy their freedom.
As part of North America transformed itself into the United States, relationships between blacks (free and not free) and whites became more defined.
According to Ervin, L. Jordan's article, the most popular jobs in the area were Farmers, Carpenters, Housekeepers, Washer/Washerwomen, Blacksmiths and Seamstresses among others. He also gives a breakdown of the employed vs. the unemployed. I am guessing that he was a farmer because the family owned land in Fredericksville Parish. A good portion of this land came into the family after someone in family received his bounty for service in the Revolutionary War. I actually went to see the land. It is way out on a Virginia country road.
Are you lucky enough to have photos of your Great Great Grandparents
I don't have a picture of him but I have one of next generation. This is the generation that grew up in Ohio and or Michigan. It is a picture of my namesake's(this is where I get 1849) brother and his grandchildren. This generation also had brothers who fought in the Civil War. One lived and the other one was killed in Tennessee.
Correction: I said that my relative was a year younger than Eston Hemings. He is actually two years older than Eston and a year younger than Madison Hemings.
May 18, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow!
That is so incredibly cool! And rare! To think you descend from one of the small number of black people who were always free in a time when so few black people were is just extraordinary. What an amazing heritage you have inherited eh? And then for you to have found all this information from so long ago is just tremendous. You must be very proud.
One wonders how people all that time ago thought of themselves and their circumstances. I wonder if they saw themselves as the beginning of a great story and what did they dream of? What, I wonder, did they hope for, for their descendants like yourself, for the country and for the world? I guess we'll never know, but at least you have all this wonderful information and a record that anchors you deeply in the fabric of our national development. And that it is such a unique and unusual story makes it all the more fascinating.
I hope you find even more!
May 19, 2009 12:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great post. A lot of 'history' out there that many do not wish to discuss.
May 18, 2009 6:41 AM | Reply | Permalink