Will of Nicholas Currell (1801 Virginia) - A Friend of Friends Friday

My husband's 5th great-grandfather Nicholas Currell of Lancaster County, Virginia died in the spring of 1801 leaving a large estate. His will named most of the slaves he bequeathed to his children and grandchildren. Those men and women who already working at his son-in-law Thomas Lee's plantation were not named.

In the name of God amen. I Nicholas Currell of Lancaster county being sick and weak of body, but praise god of sound sense and memory and knowing the uncertainty of this life, and divine appointment for us mortals to die, do constitute and ordain this my last will and testament: first I give my soul to almighty god who gave it me, hoping through the merits of christ our saviour to find eternal rest with god, my body to the earth to be buried at the discretion of my executors hereafter named, and as for what wordly goods it hath pleased God to bless me with I give and advise as follows viz:


I give and devise to my son James Currell my Kentuckey land to him and heirs forever also the following negroes, Patty and all her children, Kendall, Spencer Hanna, Rachael, Richard and Lettice and their increase forever.


I give and bequeath to my son in law Thomas Lee all the negroes that he has in his possession that formerly belonged to me, forever


I give and bequeath to my daughter Ann Ball the following negroes viz Oliver, Sarah Lavinia, Susanna, Eliza, Patty, Hiram, Ailce, Henry, Mariner, Spencer and Samuel, Henry, Daniel, Fielding, David and Agatha and their increase forever
also 1 of the best feather bed, and furniture 1 pied cow and calf 1 yoke of steers my gray horse, five silver table spoons & 1 case with bottles and 1 silver headed cane, forever,


I give and bequeath to my grand daughter Margaret Steptoe Lawson the following negroes viz: Robin Solomon and Sarah, 1 of the best beds and furniture 1 mare the second choice of a yoke of steers forever


I give and bequeath to my grand daughter Ann Currell Lee, the following negroes viz. William, Thomas and Henry, and 1 horse colt to her heirs forever


I give and bequeath to my grand daughter Margaret Steptoe Ball one negroe girl named Mary and her increase forever


It is my desire that my three old negroes named Hannar, James and Esther be free, and in case they should not be able to maintain themselves they shall be maintained out of my estate


I give and bequeath to Jane White Ford 1 heifer


All the rest of my estate not before given in three parts, one to my son one to my daughter and the other to my two grand daughters, Margaret Steptoe Lawson, and Ann Currell Lee after my Just debts are paid


And I do hereby nominate constitute and appoint my two sons in law Joseph Ball and Thomas Lee and Capt. Henry C. Lawson my executors of this my last will and testament. I hereby revoke all my former wills.


In witness whereof I have set my hand and seal this sixth day of May and of our lord one thousand eight hundred and one
Signed sealed and acknowledged                  his
in presence of Geo. Ford        Nicholas {X} Currell [seal]
                         Henry Lawson                       mark
                         Lawson Hathaway


At a court held for the county of Lancaster on the 15th day of June 1801, This last will and testament of Nicholas Currell deceased was proved by the oath of George Ford, Henry Lawson and Lawson Hathaway the witnessses thereto and ordered to be recorded --


                                                            Teste
                                                                       James Towles cler


Notes: Currell's will has been abstracted and those abstracts appear in on-line family trees and message boards. The abstracts suggest that Jane White Ford was a granddaughter and that Henry Lawson was a son-in-law. Henry Lawson was, in fact, married to Currell's granddaughter Margaret Steptoe (Lee) Lawson. I am unsure who Jane White Ford was (I suspect a goddaughter), but since the other granddaughters were clearly indicated, and her inheritance was so much smaller than the others, I believe she was not Currell's granddaughter. 


The will makes clear that Currell's wife, Margaret Steptoe Lawson Currell and daughter, Elizabeth Currell Lee had already died. 


Source: Lancaster, Virginia, Will Books, 28: 49-50, Nicholas Currell; Library of Virginia, Lancaster Reel 21. 

Margaret Lee's Petition for Freedom, 1795 - A Friend of Friends Friday

On my summer travels I was able to spend two days reviewing late 18th and early 19th century court records in Washington County, TN. Much of the material was dry and of little use, but there were enough fascinating papers to keep me motivated.

One case struck me immediately - to the point where I photographed both documents in the file and started some quick research on the spot. It has haunted me since. One of the few blessings of my decision to publish all possible slave records from my family is that this is NOT a case related to my family. I'm sure as I work through the records I will find other especially tragic and troubling records. But none could be more explicit or horrifying than the case of Margaret Lee who in 1795 begged the Superior Court of Law in Washington County for her freedom.

The court records are owned by the Archives of Appalachia and I do not have permission to publish the photographs or a full transcription of the documents. Fortunately Loren Schweninger's The Southern Debate Over Slavery: Petitions to Southern county courts, 1775-1867 (University of Illinois Press, 2008) includes Margaret Lee's petition on pages 59-60 and is available on Google Books. It is embedded below.

Briefly, Margaret Lee's petition states that she was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Thomas and Descinda Lee (her mother's name could also be read as Lucinda) who "altho' of a Black hue, had the Happiness to be born free people" and that in about 1774 she was kidnapped from the town docks by Samuel Latin, chained, and thrown into the hold of a ship he commanded. She was taken to Maryland where Latin enslaved her. When she attempted to make the case that she was freeborn, Latin sold her to George Johnson who in turn sold her to Francis Hawkins who in turn sold her Dutch Boyles of Frederick County, Maryland who in turn sold her to Samuel Gammons of Sullivan County, Tennessee. During her 20 years of slavery Margaret Lee bore at least two children, Abraham and Maria, who are named in her petition and in the order to Samuel Gammons to appear before the Court.

It's not difficult to deduce that Margaret Lee was anything but compliant. Nor that the consequences to her demands for freedom had been repeated sales to new slaveowners. Her 1795 petition was dated September 18th. The order to Samuel Gammons to appear before the Superior Court of Law in Jonesborough on the third Tuesday of March, 1796 was dated the third Tuesday of September, 1795. There are no further records, which to me is the most horrible element of the case. Samuel Gammons does not appear in any Tennessee records that I could find. A free Margaret, Abraham or Maria Lee do not appear in any Tennessee census or United States census that I could find.

I've tried to find records that support Margaret Lee's story. A Thomas Lee appears as the head of family in the 1790 U.S. census living in Salem, Massachusetts. He and the other two members of his family are listed as "all other free persons" rather than white. He does not appear in 1800. The New England Historical and Genealogical Society's American Ancestors site contains records that could belong to Thomas Lee, but I no longer belong and could not access them. I could find no record of a Samuel Latin, though a Samuel Litton appears as in Harford County, Maryland records. A Francis Hawkins appears on the same 1783 tax list. A George Johnson and a Francis Hawkins appear in Queen Anne County, Maryland records, but these are such common names. A Francis Hawkins is also found in Charles County Records. I found no record of a Dutch Boyles in Frederick County, but suspect he was from one of the German speaking families settling the area at the time. Even as I speculate this, I found no record of him in my book of Frederick County Lutheran marriages. A number of people enumerated as Beall in the 1790 census are slave owners, as is a Daniel Boyle.

It would be easy to obsess over the tragedy of Margaret Lee. I've already spent days thinking about her, admiring her courage and hoping against all reasonable hope that she found freedom. I can only pray she found peace.

Source: Washington District, Territory South of the Ohio, Superior Court of Law and Equity, 1785-1811, 3:117, Lee Margaret in behalf of herself and her two children, Maria and Abraham (freedom),1795; Archives of Appalachia, Johnson City, TN.

The Southern Debate Over Slavery: Petitions to Southern county courts, 1775-1867 (University of Illinois Press, 2008)

Abstract thoughts

I've relied for many years on published abstracts of wills, marriages and deeds in my research. I don't live anywhere near the places I've needed to research and it's only in the last few years that original documents have become more available online. As I worked through the thousands of names in the family trees I inherited, validating the information and adding rudimentary sources, the abstracts were heaven sent.

I'm now in Virginia - ground zero for much of my family and my husband's. I'm visiting houses, cousins, graveyards and my personal Mecca, the Library of Virginia. Four days there doesn't seem nearly enough time, but I shall make the most of it. 

Saturday I plowed through Lancaster and Northumberland records, looking for the wills I've been citing, looking for estate settlements, inventories, other deeds and indentures. And I found them. Dozens and dozens of them. I haven't dared count how many pages I'm going to copy to my flash drive on Monday.  

And I saw what I'd known in the abstract - the names that are missing from those lovely, easy abstracts. There are dozens and dozens of them, as well. Names like Sam, 42 year old male. Annie, 16 year old female. Stepto, 27 year old male. (These aren't specific people - just examples.) I looked away several times. I was more exhausted than I've been the entire trip. I can't possible copy them all. But I will copy everyone of "ours" that I can get to. And over the next months I will transcribe every name and publish them all. 

In the meantime, if you're seeking enslaved ancestors from the Northern Neck and believe they might have been owned by the following families please contact me after August 1st. I'll be glad to send you copies of anything I've found. 

Slave Owners naming Slaves in 18th & 19th c. Northern Neck Records

Corbin

Currell

Gibson

Lawson

Lee

McTyre

Meredith

Palmer

Yerby

These other families may also have left records naming slaves, but I have not seen them so far. I will, however, be copying records so may have information on them later.

Conway (Northern Virginia)

Dobyns (Northern Virginia)

Doggett (Northern Virginia)

Holt (Amelia and Campbell Counties)

James (Wythe and Smyth Counties)

Mason (Campbell County)

Porter (Fauquier County)

Turner (Northern Virginia)

Williams (Wythe, Grayson, Smyth Counties)

They voted. Did you?

One of my favorite source documents is a copy of an election poll for the House of Burgesses held at the Lancaster County (VA) Court House on July 18, 1758. Included in the list of voters for the winning candidates (William Ball & Charles Carter) are many ancestors and relations. A generation later their children fought for independence. 

On August 7, 1826 my husband's 4th great-grandfather William A. Clark(e), who emigrated to the United States shortly after its independence, voted at the court house in Springfield, Illinois. 

My great great-grandfather Archibald Sawyer(s) was a registered voter in Jefferson County, Tennessee on July 19, 1865. He had moved his family further into the mountains to try and escape the violence of the Civil War. It is not clear that he actually voted. 

But this morning I did.  

Wordless Wednesday: Thomas Lee Land Division

Survey of Thomas Lee Land Division,  Lancaster County, Virginia  1834

From the Library of Virginia.  Digital image is available at http://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/full_case_detail.asp?CFN=103-1834-003#img

Madness Monday: Just ‘Cause it’s in a Book Don’t Make It So

When I began researching my husband’s Northern Neck family I referred to several published genealogies.  His family claimed ties to the Lees of Virginia through their paternal grandmother, and I admit I was skeptical.  There aren’t many more well documented families and none of the books I examined supported the stories they gave me.  Turns out they were right and books were wrong.

Published genealogies are helpful in outlining complicated relationships or suggesting avenues for research.  But they are also obstacles when, as will happen, they contain erroneous information or assumptions.   The family information was that paternal great-grandmother Margaret Meredith’s mother was a Lee and that her father was Thomas Lee of Lancaster County, Virginia.  But two of the most respected (deservedly so) genealogies contained information contradicting that family information. 

One, Chester Horton Brent’s The Descendants of Hugh Brent… (Rutland, Vt: The Tuttle Pub. Co., Inc, 1936) had Margaret as the daughter of John Meredith and Ann Steptoe Brent (p. 134) and cited an 1834 Lancaster County suit naming Ann Brent as Meredith’s widow and Margaret as his daughter.  Seemingly strong evidence.  Several years of  sporadic and fruitless research went into finding a Lee connection through Ann Brent.  The second, Edmund Jennings Lee’s Lee of Virginia, 1642-1892 : biographical and genealogical sketches of the descendants of Colonel Richard Lee… (Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co, 1974) listed a Thomas Lee in the Cobbs Hall Line (p. 568)

"Thomas⁵, the only son of Charles Lee⁴ (Charles³, Charles², Richard¹) and Joannah Morgan, his wife, is said to have married and left a son Thomas⁶, who was born in 1795 and died in 1851 ; was married, in 1818, to Margaret Ormand, and had five children: James Ormond, Elizabeth, Ann, Elizabeth Ormand, and Sarah Ann Lee⁷."

Lee is clear that his information on Thomas is not confirmed, but as further research pointed to this Thomas Lee as the grandfather of Margaret Meredith this entry caused me considerable concern. 

Proving that Margaret was not the daughter of Ann Steptoe Brent and was the granddaughter of Thomas Lee was easy once I found the suit for final division of Thomas Lee’s estate abstracted in Virginia Land Causes: Lancaster County 1795-1848; Northampton County  1731-1868 by Stratton Nottingham (Baltimore: Heritage Books, 1991), p. 17.

"Robert T. Dunaway, Guardian & c; vs.

Suit for Division.

Henry C. LAWSON, et ux, et als.

 Bill of complaint --- Humbly complaining; ... Robert T. Dunaway, guardian and next friend of Eliza & John TOWILL, That Thomas LEE died about 1809 or 1810, intestate, and possessed of considerable land and personal estate, leaving a widow and three children, namely John, Margaret and Ann;  Margaret intermarried with Henry C. LAWSON and Ann intermarried with Thomas TOWILL.  That by an order of the County Court of Lancaster ... divided the said real estate of the said Thomas LEE among his heirs as follows: To the widow 113 ¾ acres; to John LEE 75 ½ acres; to Henry C. LAWSON, in right of his wife who was Margaret LEE, 71 ½ acres; to Thomas TOWILL, in right of his wife who was Ann LEE, 71 ½ acres, and to LAWSON & TOWELL 7 ½ acres jointly being woodland  John LEE died under the age of 21 years, without issue and intestate; Thomas TOWILL is also dead, and the widow of Thomas LEE has also long since died; Ann TOWILL, who was Ann LEE,  the widow of Thomas TOWILL, intermarried with John MEREDITH, she the said Ann MEREDITH, who was Ann LEE, is also dead and left four children by her first marriage, namely Charles, Ann, Eliza  and John TOWILL, and two by her last marriage, namely Margaret and Thomas MEREDITH…"

"21 April 1834"

Scanned copies of the original documents are now available online through the Lancaster Chancery Court records of the Library of Virginia. 

This information clearly shows that Brent was in error assuming Margaret was the daughter of Ann Steptoe Brent based on the 1834 dower case.  It was reasonable, but wrong.  Of course, because Brent’s work has been used so extensively over the years, it’s an error that lives on in many online genealogies. 

Nothing so definitive has turned up to prove that this Thomas Lee was the son of Charles and Joannah Morgan Lee cited by Edmund Jennings Lee and in other Lee genealogies.  However, a timeline of Lees appearing in Lancaster County records between 1789 and 1800 coupled with Charles Lee’s will probated in 1792 and the 1834 final estate division of Thomas Lee’s estate supports the thesis. 

1789 Lancaster County Tax List  (scanned images posted online by Binns Genealogy)         

Charles Lee, owns 300 acres.  

Hancock Lee, owns 400 acres

Thomas Lee, owns 30 acres

1792 Probate of Charles Lee’s will (quoted in Lee of Virginia, p. 565)

Divides land between widow and son, Thomas 

1797 Lancaster County Tax List (scanned images posted online by Binns Genealogy)

Johannah Lee owns 150 acres

Thomas Lee owns two tracts, 30 acres and 150 acres

1800 Lancaster County Personal Property Tax List   (scanned images posted online by Binns Genealogy)
Johannah Lee 0 white tithes, 5 black tithes, 7 young blacks, 1 horse 
Thomas Lee 1 white tithe, 2 black tithes, 6 young blacks,  2 horses

1810 U.S. Census (Ancestry.com database entry for Tho Lee, Lancaster, Lancaster, Virginia)         

Thomas Lee Household of 5 with 20 slaves

1834 Lancaster County Chancery Court Case (scanned images posted online at the Library of Virginia's Virginia Memory website)

Final division of Thomas Lee’s estate refers to 339 ¾ acres of property

This supports my belief that Thomas Lee inherited 150 acres of land upon his father Charles Lee’s death and another 150 acres and 12 slaves upon the death of his mother, Joannah Morgan Lee after 1800.  I do not know the source of the additional 9¾ acres he held at death, but don’t feel this hinders my assumptions regarding Thomas and his parentage.

So who is the Thomas Lee who married a Margaret Ormand referred to in Lee of Virginia?  I don’t know.  I’ve had no luck finding sources supporting his existence.  If he was born in 1795, he would have been a minor when Thomas died around 1810 and ought to have been included in the original estate division referred to in the 1834 Chancery Court case.  He was not.  The elder Thomas Lee was married in 1780, so perhaps he was older and had already received property from his father.  It’s a mystery.

But I am comfortable stating that Charles Lee and Joannah Morgan had a son Thomas who was the father of Ann Currell Lee Towell Meredith and the grandfather of Margaret Meredith.  The irony is that I’m relying on Edmund Lee’s work and that of other genealogists for the trail back to Richard the Immigrant – until someone proves them wrong.