An American Travesty

One of the best parts of genealogy and dna genealogy is meeting new cousins. Sometimes you discover that you are related to someone you already knew, but not as a relative. That is the basis of this post.

For several years we had the pleasure of having as neighbors this wonderful young couple. I called them "kids" as they were the same ages of my older children. The husband, I had already known, as he was a schoolmate of my children. They're not kids, obviously, and have a  beautiful and growing family of their own. 

The story began one day after they were blessed by their second Ginger daughter together, their 5th child. I made a joke to the husband as his Irish roots were showing, insinuating the common misconception that Irish people had a higher ratio of red-haired citizens than most populations. He wanted to know what I meant. I proceeded to give him a mini-lesson on the behavior of recessive genes, using my white German Shepherd as an example. 

You see, the father in this family is African American. He could not make a convincing Leprechaun in the school play, let's say. His wife doesn't look particularly Irish either, however, she appears to be of European decent. Having raised German Shepherds for decades, I explained to him that for a recessive gene to appear in an offspring, both parents must be carriers of that recessive gene. As in my White German Shepherd, Coco, who was born to two black and tan parents. His breeder was in an uproar, and hasty to get rid of him, as white dogs are a disqualification in AKC showlines. They're beautiful dogs,  very intelligent and loyal, just outside of the realm of breed standards. I found a white Great Grandmother in his pedigree on his mothers side, but on his father's side, I had to go back 10 generations to find a white dog in his pedigree list. 

I explained to my neighbor that Ginger traits were a recessive gene, and for him and his wie to have two red-haired, freckle-faced daughters, both he and his wife had to carry it. As red-hair is not a typical African trait, he probably had European roots as well. Many African Americans do.

Well, I semi-forgot about that conversation, but apparently something about it stuck with him. A few months later, as I am about to drink my morning coffee and check the computer, I notice I have a new message on ancestry.com. It's from my neighbor, short and sweet, "Hi Cuz". 

Now, fully aware that I am tri-racial, however, it being that I'm 80 percent European, most of my cousins are also European-Americans. And I do know the link to two different groups of my relatives who are considered black, despite being also tri-racial (of mixed European, African and Native American ancestry). One is the sister of my Great Grandmother, as their family were known to be "Indian" and her younger sister married a man whose father was of Scottish heritage and his mother of African heritiage. Then going back one generation, to the mother of these two sisters, she too had a sister, whose children were by an African-American man who had been born a slave. Having cousins pop up not looking anything like me was no surprise. So, I started digging in his tree. Of course, it was a distant connection, so I was not going to find anything in the first few generations. He had done well on his tree, and had it several generations back. Then I found the connection.

He was descended from both Frank and Ben Davis. And I knew exactly who Frank and Ben Davis were. I had came across their names in old deeds between my ancestors and them. I had also read their names in census records, and in wills. See, my mother was a Davis. And I cried. 

Before, the connection between myself and my African American cousins was a maternal line, wherein a woman, called Indian, but accepted by society as white and with everything that entailed, had jumped social norms and chose to have children with a man of a darker hue than herself. That was not the case in the connection between myself and my neighbor. 

Job Davis, the 4th Great Grandfather for whom I named my blog, was born in Mecklenburg County, Virginia in 1773, migrated to this part of North Carolina at the age of 19 with some relatives and other families, and settled upon the Rocky River in Southern Stanly County, NC. He married a young widow with 4 children who was born the same year in the same county as he was, just a different month, and together they had four more children, all boys. 

The Davis Planstation was a sizeable one for the area, and Job even owned property in Anson and Cumberland Counties. And as did most plantation owners did in his day, Job Davis owned slaves. 

I first came across the names of Ben Davis and Frank Davis in the wills of Job Davis and his wife, Sarah.

Job Davis passed away on 

His will was probated in February of 1853. One portion of it reads'"I leave this place to my wife as long as she lives and everything everything (sic) she, all household and kitchen, shop and tools within be sold, all cattle hogs and horse and nothing sold without her consent."Grammar errors his own, it continued:

"I leave her Dennis, Jim and Jack and Nance and Harriett and Betsey, all divided up".... Jack, but no Ben, not yet.

Probate papers revealed that Job had not mentioned everyone. His next to the youngest, but most dominate and civicly-minded son, Edward Winfield Davis, whom he fondly referred to as "Neddy", was the administrator of the estate. The estate papers are rather lengthy, despite having already distributed several properties to his sons and stepchildren. But they eventually get into the putrid affair of naming people; "The following are the negroes belonging to the Estate of the said Job Davis to wit, Perry, Dennis, Jim, Green, Lucy, Charlotte & child, Columbus, Jack, Mary, Ben, Anna, Austin, John, Dockery, Liz, Fanny & child, Nancy & child, Martha, Bob, Charles, Harriet, Clarissa, John, Bettie, Maria and Frank. The foregoing personal property was left to the widow of Job Davis by his last will and the above negroes, named Dennis, Jim, Jack, Nancy & child, Harriett & Betty were also given to her. The other negroes to be divided as the will directs. 

Job Davis died on November 8, 1852. His wife, Sarah, outlived him by 4 years. . . She wrote her will on January 24, 1855, probably due to a decline in health. She lived for another year and a half afterwards, passing away on June 10, 1856. She mentioned all of her living children, including her oldest son, Peter Howell and her only daughter, Charlotte Howell Stancil, who were by her first husband, Richard Howell. The two middle sons of this marriage, Jordan and John W. Howell, had predeceased her. She also mentioned several grandchildren and her 4 Davis sons, E. W., James, Henry and Marriott F. Davis. 

In the will, she left the human chattel left her by Job to son Edward Winfield Davis; " To my beloved son Edward Winfield Davis: negroes: Jim, Dennis, Jack, Nancy, Harriett, Sarah, Betty & George."

The next documentation we come in contact with is the 1860 census. While enslaved people were not listed by name, there came with the census a few schedules that can give a glimpse into the breakdown of who were in each new Davis household.

The Probate files of Job Davis listed 29 slaves.

In 1860, his son Edward Winfield Davis reported having 29 slaves. His list was not only the largest in the Davis family, he also had the oldest. Teens and adult males in E.W's list included the ages: 62, 58, 56, 45, 28, 22, 21, 45, 16, 16, 18 and 15. Women: 70, 65, 44, 35, 18, 15, 15. In small children he reported boys aged 3, 2, 2, 1 and 2 months old, in girls; 14, 11, 10 and 2. E.W. Davis was still a bachelor at this point and lived in his parents home. Hampton H. Davis was the son of his brother, Henry and Allen Carpenter was a neighbor. 

Henry Davis only listed a 60 year old man. Henry's oldest son, Benjamin Franklin Davis,  had 3 slaves, a 28 year old woman and 2 children, probably hers, a 6 year old girl and a 4 year old boy. 

James M. Davis, who owned land in both Stanly and Anson County, some inherited through his wife's family, the Lees, also probably had slaves that were part of John Lees estate as well. He reported 14 people, four men: 40, 36, 30 and 20 and women 40, 27, 25 and 17 and five children, boys 9 and 4 and girls 7 and two 2 year olds. 

The youngest Davis son, Marriott Freeman Davis, reported 17 slaves, mostly children: Two men, aged 44 and 40 and three women, all three 30 years old. Boys were 15, 7 and 1 while girls were 10, 10, 8, 8, 5, 5 and 1.

Location of Davis Lands, Rocky River, Coopers Creek, Jack's Branch on right., Richardson Creek convergence on other side of the river where the John Lee and George Turner property was.

The next big event that gives us a glimpse into the lives of these families was the Civil War. All of Job Davis's sons seem to have skipped direct combat during the war. Henry died in 1862, and was buried just across the river in the John Lee cemetery, his brother James M. Davis's father-in-law, James was too old and E. W. and M. F. seem to have signe up for the militia, the Home Guard, in which E. W. was a Colonel. Several of the Davis grandsons fought, however, includinge Henry's 4 oldest sons, Benjamin Franklin, John Edward, Hampton Henry and Horton Hampton. 

The 1870 census of Stanly County show most of the people listed in the estate papers of Job and Sarah Davis living near and around the 3 surviving Davis sons.

The collective question in our minds are why did they not leave?

They were freed into a landscape devastated by war. The populace had between reduces to a neighborhood of Widows, orphans, the handicapped and the elderly. What soldiers returned, often returned broken men, mentally and physically, sick with missing limbs and crazy from the effects of war. I've come across several stories of men who made it home, but died shortly afterwards, some withing days. Some who made it out alive did not turn homeward, but westward, leaving it all behind, including wives and children.

The slaves were freed, but to what? They owned nothing, not even the clothes on their backs. They didn't know the road, and would find no help upon it. Everyone was as hungry as they were. They would meet varying levels of hostility along the way, even in the North, had they made it. Some tried and made it, many failed, and never made it, disappearing like the wind. It would be the next generations that were more successful in migrations to the cities and to the North.

So the Davis Freedmen did what they knew, they farmed and land records show within a few years they bought their own lands and it was not very many generations at all, that several children and grandchildren from these families found success in the world.

Living next to the youngest Davis son, Marriott Freeman Davis, is the family of Dennis Davis, 70 and Jack Davis, 52. Dennis Davis is not among the two family lines I am looking at here, but he is notable because his name does occur in the Will of Job Davis and the estate papers, and he is among the over 100 people buried still on family lands in the Old Job Davis Cemetery. Not many stones remain, or are legible, but Dennis's is and is remarkable.

" Dennis Davis (died) Febuary 15, 1888  Said to be age 109 years old."

As Dennis was 70 in the 1870 census, and 81 in the 1880 census, he was propably born in 1799 or 1800, making him 89 or around at the time of death, so 109 was a bit of an exageration. He must have looked really old after a hard life. Being 60 or 61 in 1860, Dennis would have had to be living with E. W. Davis at that time, as he was the only one to have a man of that age in his household, which makes sense, as Sarah Winfield Davis left Dennis to E. W. in her will.

Living with Dennis, however, were two children, Atlas and Mary Turner, who may well have been his grandchildren, but as M. F. Davis and his son, Millard, had inherited from George Turner, Marriott's first father-in-law, in his will, the Turners probably originated with M. F. Davis.

Living near James M. Davis were Frank Davis and Ben Davis, both subjects of this post. Also close to James and family were Green Davis, 40, with his large family, another familiar name from the estate papers, but also to be noted are Harry Randall and William Easley, also Jacob and Daniel Turner with their families. 

Harry Randall plays a part here, and has a very interesting story within the anuls of Stanly County history. The Turners likely came from the George Turner estate originally. 

Edward Winfield Davis, Sheriff, Justice, Mason, Colonel, Whig and Businessman, finally gave up his bachelorhood at the age of 56 and had married Rebecca Hathcock, a child bride. By 1870, their daugther, Sarah Hortense Davis was born. Also living on the old Davis Estate was Horton Hampton Davis, his nephew, and a son of Henry Davis, who had lost his leg in the Civil War. E. W also hosted Mary Hathcock, 16, his sister-in-law and hired Priscilla Legrand and George Crump, both black, as a housekeeper and farm hand, respectively. 

Most of the freedmen living around E. W. seemed to have been Crumps, and true to form, a large number of Crumps are buried in the old Job Davis Cemetery. These were people who likely originated with the Stephen Crump family, who were some of the largest cotton producers in the Cottonville area in the years before the War. One of James daughters had married a son of Stephen Crump and E.W's widow, Rebecca, so many years his junior, would also marry a Crump after his death.

Tombstone of Edward Winfield Davis

But now we no longer have to look at the Davis brothers to cull information on Frank and Ben Davis. 

Franklin D Davis had serendipitously married Judith "Judie" Easley in December of 1868. Fortunately for us, in this document, Frank named his parents, Jack and Mary Davis. It was probably supposed to have been Jack and Nancy, but Jack may have had a previous wife named Mary. I had mentioned Jack earlier as living next to M. F. Davis. Living with Jack and Nancy (the 'Nance', no doubt, mentioned in Job Davis's will), are Martha, a likely daughter and 4 young children, probably their grandchildren. But of most interest is 89 year old Jincy (Jenny is a transcription error), who was born in 1781 in Virginia. Did Jincy arrive as a child from Virginia when Job, the Floyds and a few other related families arrived in the early 1790's? 

Judith Easley was the daughter of Celia Easley and Harry Randle, mentioned earlier. I plan to tell the entire story of Celia Easley and Harry Randle, as best as I can, in another post, although their story has been told before. A quick rundown is that Celia was a free woman of color, therefore, her daughter Judith, was born free. Celia Easley owned her own land and ran her own farm. She was of mixed race, and connected in some fashion to the Miller Easley family (and the rest of this set of Easley's), who lived in Tyson Township in those days. Celia loved and started a family with Harry Randle. Harry Randle was her common law husband. Harry was a slave, and as Celia was free, she was not allowed to marry him. She did, however, buy him and actually used him as collarteral in later loans she took out to run her farm. Being free, all of Celia's children were also born free. She did not live to see the 1870 census, when Harry himself is free, but he did. 

Being free people, Judith Easley, her mother and her siblings, appeared in the census records before the Civil War.

In 1870, Frank and Judith Easley Davis are shown living near the James M. Davis family with their firstborn son, John Wesley Davis. It is from this child that my neighbor descended. 

The 1870 census finds Ben Davis, the other subject of my search living nearest Marriott Freeman (M. F.) Davis. Also near them are Green Davis, with wife Jane and a family of 10 children; Daniel Turner 22 and wife Sarah, 30, with children, Jacob Turner 30, with wife Lydia and son, John Davis 26, and wife Celia, 20; 70 year old Dennies Davis, with wife Mary, 45 with 6 Davis children and Atlas and Mary Turner, both children; Daniel Davis, 28, with wife Jane, 3 children and a 35 year old Ann Davis living with them; and finally Charles Davis, 29 with wife, Clementine 27, and 4 children.

The Turners no doubt came from the George Turner estate, and from there to M. F. Davis and his son, Millard,as George Turner was Millard's grandfather and had made provisions for the boy in his will. Millard would move west to be a  Cowboy, first to the Chicago stockyards, then to Oklahoma and Texas. I am in contact with some of his descendants. 

Ben Davis also has an older lady named Lucy Davis in his home who was born in Virginia about 1790. Perhaps she had arrived as a toddler with Job and the Floyds from Mecklenburg County in 1791. Here, he has a wife named Fannie, 45, and a son named Marvel, daughters Eliza and Emaline and a 5 year old, James.

It appears the surviving sons of Job Davis alotted to each head of household a piece of property and provisions to operated their own homestead, within the area of the Davis Plantation. Jack, Frank, Green, Dennis, Daniel, Charles, Benjamin and John were the heads of household, along with a Joseph Turner. Within 6 or 7 years, mortgages were being taken out with loan sharks or loan companies, I'm not sure on how that situation worked. In the summer of 1873, both Frank, (Book 9 Page 13) and his father, Jack, (Book 9 Page 12), took out loans with M. L. Barnhardt of Anson County. They mortgaged their coming crops of corn and cotton. Jack also included one 'red-star' cow and calf, and an unnmaed number of hogs and pig. Frank put up a Spotted Oxen and household and kitchen furniture.

The next year, in August of 1874, Frank (and Dennis in the next deed), took out a mortgage with a company calle Harris and Lanier, (9 -369). Frank would later sell some cows, a cart and other property to a Robert Ross.

A few years later, in 1876, Ben Davis takes out his first mortgage with his sons, Marvel and Daniel Davis, (Book 10 Page 402) to W. H. Hill.

In Book 11 Page 42, Ben mortgages a 'White no name Cow and white yearling" to J. M. Wall along with a crop of wheat.

Fannie, the wife of Ben Davis, must have died before September of 1875, because in that month, the Rev. K. Harris married Ben, now age 62, and a lady named Zilphia Cockram or Cochran, aged 46. The wedding took place at the Harrisville Church in Tyson and was witnessed by Sidney Threadgill, John Colson, and Daniel Curry. I've never heard of a Harrisville Church in this area. There is an area in the County known as Harristown, which lies along Hwy 740 between Badin and New London, and is within Harris Township, but not in Tyson. I wonder if the Cottonville AME Zion Church began as Harrisville Church?

Zilphia did not list any parents, but Ben Davis knew exactly who his parents were: Ben Lee and Hannah Nance. Ben Lee came from the farm of John Lee, the father of James M. Davis's wife, Rowena. There were several Nance households along the Rocky River area, on the Anson side as well, so it appears Ben Davis was very likely born in Anson County. Ben is listed in the 1853 estate file of Job Davis next to "Anna". I wonder if Anna was really his mother, Hannah, and if Job Davis had acquired the two from a Nance. We have such little to go on in African American genealogy.

Zilpha Cochran had her own story. Her parents and past were unknown, but she had a number of children with various fathers. Her known children were:

1852  William M. Cochran by Jacob Cochran who married Harriett Howell 1st and Patsy Lee Christian 2nd.

1854  Harriett by father unknown, who married Daniel Crump, son of Dock Crump and Sarah Threadgill.

1859  Dilsey by Harry Randle, the father of Judith Easley Davis, who married Peter Brooks.

1860 Steve by Dock Crump, father of Harriett's husband, who married Isabell Spruell.

1875  Calvin by William "Buck" Howell, who married Ella Threadgill.

1865 Martha Jane by Unknown, who married 1st John Davis, son of Jack and Nancy and 2nd Ralph Gould.

In 1880, Ben and Zilphia are living in Cottonville with two of his children, James Wesley and Elizabeth.

Frank and Judy are also living in Tyson Township and their family has grown considerably. The 20 year jump between 1880 and 1900 was a big one, but Ben Davis, now 85, made to 1900.

We don't know anything of him after that, however, or where he was buried. He may very well have been buried in the Old Job Davis Cemetery, because there are a lot of  stones there that have faded with time, or crumbled into nothingness.

His wife, Zilphia, evidentally passed away in 1908, as the County bought a coffin for her. She was known again as Zilphia Cochran, not Davis. It was her, because the only other one was her Granddaughter, daughter of William M. Cochran, who married a Hudson and was very much alive. 

Frank and Judy Davis, being younger, were in the 1910 census, living with a teenaged daughter they had adopted.

In 1920, Frank, now 75,  is living alone. His wife, Judy died December 5, 1915, and is buried at the Cottonville AME Zion Church Cemetery. It's a very old church that had its beginnings in the mid1800's. 

The address shows Norwood, as Cottonville no longer has a  Post Office, as it once did, many moons ago.

Frank Davis died on June 23, 1929 in Cottonville, North Carolina.

The history of these Rocky River families are inevititably tied together. Though I am not sure how I am related to my neighbor, I am sure it is through these Davis ancestors. Whether one of the 4 sons of  Job Davis, or either Job, himself, are ancestors of Jack or Ben Davis, I can not know. What I do know is we are one family.