It was a spectacular autumn day in the Piedmont of Virginia. The trees
were all dressed in their finest reds, oranges and yellows. The day was
warm and I was stunned by the beauty of hilly Virginia countryside. I
was there in part to follow up on some abstracts that I found with the
assistance of various resources on and offline. There was one record,
my great great great grandfather's 1886 obituary in Ohio that pointed
me in the direction of Charlottesville; and I wanted to know more. I
am terrible at long distance research. I went and needed to go Central
Virginia to orientate myself with the topography, the sounds, the
smells and the crimson soil. I needed to do this so that I could and
can better image/understand the people with whom I strongly believe I
have kinship. I needed to understand the descriptions the records
etched in my mind.
One of the first stops on my trip was the
Albemarle Historical Society in Charlottesville. The historical society
occupies the McIntyre Library and sits on 2nd and E. Jefferson Streets
next to or around the corner from the Jefferson Madison Regional
Library. The Jefferson Madison Regional Library resides at 201 E. Main
Street. Both of these libraries are just down the street from the main
square in Charlottesville. That part of Charlottesville displays some
of it's historical past with wonderful restored brick buildings. One of
those nicely refinished buildings is the Albemarle County courthouse; a
library unto itself. I am sure that this building was restored because
the brick housing along with the brick pavement is immaculate. Anyone
doing family history or any other type research about the area is lucky
because this area lends itself to being actually what it might have
been like during a certain period in American history. In other words,
someone gets a since of history in this place. Researchers are also
lucky to have so many records with so much history within such a small
area. To prove this point, there are even more records and history at
the University of Virginia. It is just up the road a bit and they have
some of the oldest records--thrid only, I believe to the State Archives
in Richmond and William and Mary College-- about Virginia's history and
and ultimately themes in the history of the United States and North
America. I took full advantage of the surroundings. Though it may have
been just a bit too much, I made it up to the little mountain upon
which Monticello sits to see that small dome that faces the great green
expanse of the west lawn. Visiting the cellar of Monticello is a
history lesson waiting for any American ready to have their beliefs
about the country and nation challenged.
It is really easy to
get caught in bigger story of American history in that place. It was
difficult to stay focused because the history is everywhere.
Still,
the main reason I was in Charlottesville was to find any traces of my
family in that place and the remaining traces are in vertical files and
history text among several libraries in Virginia. Again I used the
McIntyre Library or Albemarle Historical Society records, the Albemarle
Courthouse records and made a trip the University of Virginia to get a
better sense about this place and its people through records. There was
so much to digest in a short span of time from a period that has long
past. I was spread thin between the State Archives in Richmond, the
University of Virginia and copious records at the Historical Society
and Charlottesville's Courthouse .
I did do a little bit of
homework before making that fateful trip from California to Virginia.
One of the steps I took prior to arriving in Charlottesville was to
write the Albemarle County History Society to request a 1995 copy of
The Magazine of Albemarle County History; and they complied. This
helped tremendously. I requested this particular edition because Mr.
Ervin Jordan, Jr. penned one of most incredible articles I had ever (at
that point) read about black people in antebellum America. The article,
A Just and True Account. Two 1833 Parish Censuses of Free Blacks takes
inventory of the lives of people with whom I strongly believe my great
great great grandfather shares kinship . The Parishes of
Fredericksville and St. Anne's are the focus of Mr. Jordan's(
Charlottesville was included because it is in Albemarble county too)
article as the State of Virginia required its counties to take censuses
of any and all black people and or free people of color. What Virginia
was trying to do was "
persuade" Afro-Virginians to remove to
Liberia. And one of the reasons Virginia wanted to decrease its black
and freed people of color populations resides in the fact that the
state was trying avoid rebellions like the ones inspired by Nat Turner
and Gabriel Prosser, both in opposition of slavery.
According
to Mr. Jordan only a few blacks (if any) and or free people of color in
Albemarle County took the persuasion to leave the area seriously. My
ancestor(s) was/were one of few who left Virginia. I found an abstract
of my great great great parents 1835 marriage record in Ohio. A few
years prior to my trip to Virginia, I found the abstract at the Mormon
library in Salt Lake City. This lead me to look for any other records
in that Ohio county and I found my great great great grandfather's
obituary that told me to continue and look east. I believe my great
great great grandfather was in his early to mid-twenties when he left
the Commonwealth. I don't know if he left with family, friends or just
others in the vicinity. The 1850 Ohio Census shows a high concentration
of free people of color in Ohio who said or it was reported that they
said, Virginia was from whence they came. Still many black and or free
people of color refused to live their families and home(s). I
understand. They, after-all, some of them, fought in the American
Revolution and some of them earned the land they owned in Virginia
through service. Why would they give it up? They like native Americans
help forge what we know as the United States. Another reason I believe
many black and free people of color refused to leave or even decided to
leave--yes leave-- has to do with the size of their families; a good
number of the families in Mr. Jordan article are huge. My surname
listed in that famous 1833 Census, is one of most prolific in the area
according to authors like Carter G. Woodson. I believe many remained
in the vicinity despite the enormous pressure from the state because
they formed tight knit families and sometimes these families ties
crossed state, county, ethnic and legal lines; for example I have a
lead on my great great great grandfather's grandmother in Louisa County
which is Albemarle's neighbor to the east. Once again and at the same
time, some black Virginians--as the 1840 and 1850 Ohio Censuses
indicate--decided to try to establish homes west of the Ohio River.
These cross-state ties were important to the people in those documents
and it is important to me because a line--a very straight line-- can be
drawn directly to place in which I was doing research.
While I
was doing this tedious leg work, I could not help but notice
some of the attributes about some of the families in the area. Mr.
Jordon's article opened a whole new line of inquiry. He piqued my
interest because I was never taught in official American history
courses to question the official narrative. After reading The Magazine
of Albemarle County History and
comparing that with some records at the State Archives in Richmond, I
noticed that many families were multi-ethnic families. When I say
multi-ethnic, I include native Americans under that banner. I must say
that the whole Jefferson-Sally Hemings affair was like tip of this
historical iceberg. After reading Annette Gorden-Reed's, The Hemingses of Monticello, I learned how complicated families were in antebellum Virginia. Gordon-Reed delves into the genealogy and family history of Sally Hemings' mother Betty. She had extra-legal relationship with John Wayles that produced seven children.. And as if this couldn't not get any more complicated Sally Hemings, according Gordon-Reed was one of Martha Wayle's,( Thomas Jefferson's wife), seven half siblings.
With all the records and Mr.
Jordan's article, I seized upon the story of the West family. It is one
most fascinating families in Central Virginia. Again, the West family
was a multi-ethnic, multi-generational and multi-racial family that
took on a life of its own in my research. The West family- at least the
members of the family that were considered persons of color-- appear in
Mr. Jordan's 1995 article because the State of Virginia in the 1830s
specifically
required counties to count the non-white population in every town and
hamlet in order to push emigration; what is interesting about the West
family is that Jane West's ( a woman of color) parents were in and
created an extra-legal household. Jane's mother Nancy West and from all
indications her father David Isaacs, were two people who dared to have
a relationship across the entrenched color line. Although Mr, Jordan's
article
doesn't and couldn't note this detail, I learned about it later after
reading
Joshua Rothman's
Notorious in the Neighborhood. It is also
important to note that Nancy West's father Thomas West, a white man,
had children or even may have set up a household with a black woman he used
to own named Priscilla. Remember all of this is happening in antebellum Virginia.
Mr. Rothman, who again wrote
Notorious in the Neighborhood
believes Thomas West along with the two brothers David and Isiah
Isaacs (who happened to be Jewish immigrants from Germany) were
trading partners in Charlottesville. It is very reasonable that the
Isaacs brothers were familiar with West family and certainly Mr. West's
daughter Nancy. David Isaacs
and Nancy's father know each other through business dealings.
Isaacs is important to this story because again he created a household
with Nancy West which wasn't apparent just looking at Mr. Jordan's
work. Isaacs and
Nancy West were ( for all intents and purposes) common law spouses
without all the benefits and
privileges that comes with that status. Nevertheless Isaacs and Ms.West
set up house or houses in the area and it was one of the one of the
most unusual
and extra-legal households to appear in both the area and some records
which Joshua Rothman illustrates in his book
Notorious in the Neighborhood.
Notorious in the Neighborhood
fills in the gray areas and details of the 1833 Census discovered at
the University of Virginia by Mr. Jordan. Mr. Jordan specifically
talks about Jane West, the daughter of David Issacs and Nancy West in
his article. Until I read Mr. Rothman's book, my imagination took off
to far away places when it came to trying to figure out how Jane West
came to own property in Charlottesville at the time. Mr. Rothman again
gave the answers to the questions dancing in my mind. According to
Notorious Thomas West died and David. Isaacs was a signee or witness to Thomas West's last will and testament. In his will, I believe the
story goes that Mr. West leaves real property--land in downtown
Charlottesville--to his daughter Nancy. I believe Mr. Isaacs made it
known before Thomas West's death, that he fancied Ms. West and surely Mr. West had some say in his
daughter's domestic affairs. The Nancy West---David Isaccs arrangement
takes on a quasi-marriage insofar as the laws disallowed
households and marriages between people like themselves to exist in
the open. These laws were remnants of colonial America and grew stronger
and probably applied to a great number of people in a great number of cases.
Even
though the weren't legally married, Nancy West and David Isaacs set up
an extra-legal household.
Notorious in the Neighborhood points out that Nancy West took up residency on land "she purchased with the
money from her inheritance on lot number 46 near Charlottesville's
southern boundary." Her partner Mr. Isaacs, according to
Notorious had
a house
one block north and two blocks west on lot 36 ." The 1820 Census shows
that " David Isaacs was the head of household with ten free people of
color living with him in downtown Chalottesville. So they eventually
combined households as she purchased property closer to his and
dismissed what others might have thought. She also had enough property
to run a business as a baker and rent space to others. It was quite an
arrangement. They managed to have some sort of co-habitation
arrangement which allowed him to be counted as head of household . "
The map in the book
does a great job of depicting how close they lived to each other.
Notorious says
they had seven children--Jane being the one that appears in Mr.
Jordan's article--and they managed to make a family under the
circumstances. Those circumstances resided more in the minds of
individuals who would tried to enforce the strict color line. The color
line was an unwritten law that
required blacks and whites who might become couples and start
families cease from co-habitation. They
were playing the game they had to play to live as a couple under this
ridiculous scheme. This story became even more interesting as West and
Isaacs settled into their extra-legal arrangement and life in
Charlottesville.
Mr. Rothman writes that there were economic jealousies that prompted someone to
put Mr.Isaacs and Ms.West's domestic business in the unpaved streets of
Charlottesville. The Charlottesville authorities convened a grand jury
where, West and Isaacs were presented with the charge of
"umbraging
the decency of society and violating the laws of the land by cohabiting
together in a state of illicit commerce as man and wife." According to
Notorious in the Neighborhood
a grand jury requested West and Isaacs prove they were
not committing crimes against society. This was of course a heavy
burden since Isaacs and West were a "mixed-raced" couple with seven
children. How do you hide this in plan view?
West and Isaacs
hired an attorney who stunned the court in Charlottesvile with the
truth that in fact they had set up a household but "he questioned
whether the state could prosecute on a fornication charge at common
law." I am sure they could hardly deny, seven human beings running
around the vicinity as free people of color, who looked like one or
both their parents. The Charlottesvile court
referred the case to the General Court in Richmond. According to
Notorious, the court in Richmond ruled "that the State
of Virginia could not prosecute Isaacs nor West and the court in
Charlottesville followed the higher courts lead." This meant that the
couple could return to their life as unusual in Charlottesville; as
long as they lived their lives as couples as out of the public view.
Up
ahead and the on
the road in this relationship, their private lives entered the
public domain again. This time, after they had been an unusual and well
established couple, living in Charlottesville, Mr. Isaacs' nephew Hays
Isaacs found
himself in trouble. Some where between what was about to transpire and
the life and subsequent death of David's brother Isiah, the former
became the executor of his brother's will. This meant that David Isaacs
was responsible for any financial trouble Hays Isaacs might get into.
According to
Notorious
trouble for Hays Isaacs came before his inheritance did. He was in
debt before he received his father Isiah's estate. This was a problem
for David Isaacs because he was responsible for his nephews finances.
It wasn't not only a problem for Isaacs but for his common but illegal
wife Nancy.
The creditors came calling. They made demands of
David Isaacs. More financial demands than Isaacs and West probably had
as individuals and almost more than they had as an extra-legal couple.
They had to be creative to fight off the creditors pursuit of Hays
Isaacs, the son of David's dead brother Isiah. I believe West and
Isaacs had to sell some of their assets--the ones they owned together--
to satisfy a small bit of the large appetite of the creditors. Someone
noticed their coordination and sure enough the legal authorities came
into the picture again. This time the law--or the people pretending to
uphold it--questioned how Isaacs and West could jointly own what they
owned without being married or at least co-habitation. The case was
sent to the Grand Court in Richmond but they refused to press charges
because the circumstances of the charges failed to prove that any law
which seemed to be left up to the whim of person bringing the charge,
was broken. In other works there was no actual evidence that West and
Isaacs had sexual relations in public. That left the whole case on
shaky ground at best. Once again the Grand Court of Richmond found no
reason to punish the couple without fail-safe proof of breaking the
accepted societal norms. The couple had to pay strict attention to
how they conducted themselves in the company of others.
The
West--Isaacs relationship was an interesting tour of American history
and detour as I continue to follow the trail of my ancestors in Central
Virginia. I think learned more about American history than I ever learned in
two and a half decades in American schools. I can't wait to get back
to Charlottesville and dive deeper into the records. I really enjoyed
looking at those late 1700 to early 1800 documents in those huge
portfolios at the Courthouse in Albemarle County. I haven't had the
chance to properly scrub the records Louisa's County Courthouse.
Paul Heinegg's Free African Americans of the South with a
forward by Ira Berlin
