The Tax Protests of John Read of Culpeper County, Virginia and His Relatives, John, George, and Lawrence Washington

I spent a lot of the last year researching the John Read[e] family of Culpeper County, Virginia. It will be a book soon, but I haven't finished it yet. Sometimes there's no bottom to it! He was my 6th great grandfather. He was also a plantation and slave owner; he was definitely a man of his times.

He lived in York, Gloucester, King and Queen, Spotsylvania, Orange, and Culpeper Counties, in colonial Virginia. The county names changed faster than he moved. He was born before 1692 and he died in 1765 in Jeffersonton, Culpeper County. He was married to Winifred Favor. And while his own life seems quiet in comparison, he was the grandson of Col. George Read[e], the great grandson of Nicholas Martiau, and a cousin to George Washington and to Thomas Nelson, Jr., who all took their places in Virginia history. Here is a link about Nicholas Martiau, one of the first American patriots: http://www.jamestowne-wash-nova.org/NicholasMartiau.htm.

The laws of Virginia and actual practices were in flux during the colonial period. But in general, since the state was also the Church of England, the Anglican parish church vestries decided and imposed local tithes, basically county taxes on property, and provided public and social services. Attendance at church services, military service, public services, and payment of taxes were often adjudged to be mandatory. Public services could include road construction/maintenance, local court actions, and the keeping of birth and death records. The church vestries also provided public charity for widows, orphans, and those who could no longer support themselves; the working indigent could become indentured though the vestries, laborers under contract. 

In general, too, the vestry boards were initially elected by and from freeholders, that is, white, male landowners. This also applied to leaseholders for an interval of time: "The law made clear in 1684 that tenants with life leases, not just outright landowners, could also participate in elections and that a person could vote in any county in which he held land" (http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Elections_in_Colonial_Virginia#start_entry). By 1736, the law was more restrictive:

The Colony of Virginia voting law of 1736 defined a Freeholder as a white male 21 years of age who owns at least 100 acres of unimproved land or 25 improved acres with a house and a "plantation". Any qualified Freeholder who failed to vote was subject to a fine of 200 pounds of tobacco. Any non–Freeholder who attempted to vote was subject to a fine of 500 pounds of tobacco (http://www.milaminvirginia.com/glossary.html).

However, after and between initial elections, boards often appointed their own replacements. In Virginia elections, "wealthy planters won nearly all of these political contests" (http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Elections_in_Colonial_Virginia). As a result, members of wealthy, influential families sat on the vestry boards (Bruce 1910, 62-72; see also http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Church_of_England_in_Virginia#start_entry).

During the 1720s, there was an economic depression in Virginia, tobacco production had been limited in 1723, and in "1724 a drought followed by a storm ruined the tobacco crop, destroying 34,000 harvested hogsheads, and the following year also  produced a low yield (http://www.san.beck.org/11-9-VirginiaEtc1664-1744.html).

On 23 December 1726, John Read was present at Petsworth Parish vestry, with Capt. John Washington in attendance. When the levy of the annual tithe on tobacco was discussed, "Capn/. John Washington Desired that It might be Entred that he Doth not Consent to the Making the Abosd/. Order by Reason he Doth not Agre to the laying of the levey this present Year" (Chamberlayne 1933, 192).

Washington's comment is immediately followed by the note, "At this Vestory, Mr/. John Reade Struck his Name Out of the Vestory Book And Would Stand No longer Vestory man" (192). This may have been peaceful or it may have been a resignation in protest, in that it immediately followed Washington's protest. "Struck" connotes a more forceful action. There exists an earlier vestry page, an oath of office signed circa 1714, where John Read's signature is partially crossed out (Petsworth Parish, 127).

Individual vestries set their own local tax rates each year to cover operating expenses in the parish, thus potentially creating financial burdens for local landowners, who were already challenged by conditions. The feud noted above with the Petsworth vestry was a symptom of a more generalized resentment among taxpayers. However, the vestries wielded substantial power. If "county residents thought that the county levy was set too high, they had little recourse other than to move away" (http://www.virginiaplaces.org/taxes/taxcolonial.html).

The wealthy and influential were definitely in charge in Virginia from the beginning, benefitted from their families' wealth and previous connections in Great Britain, and consolidated their positions over time through intermarriage and interconnections in Virginia. Immense land grants were made in the colony's history to people with substantial connections, including the Fairfaxes, below. In addition, the early system of head rights provided the opportunity to accumulate immense properties by sponsoring new colonists; the system is acknowledged to have been abused (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headright).

George Washington was upwardly mobile and very well connected. He inherited property from his father and acquired property, some through his early connections to the Fairfaxes, one of the most powerful families in Virginia, and through his marriage to Martha Dandridge Custis. Her wealthy late husband was only recently buried when Washington courted her--he didn't waste the opportunity, as unmarried women, particularly wealthy ones, were a valuable commodity in the Virginia colony. By the time of his death, George Washington owned an immense amount of property, over 52,000 acres. Undoubtedly, he helped to finance at least part of the Revolution. It was indeed a tax revolt, run by the wealthy who could keep it going.

Lawrence Washington, George's half brother, is known for his tax protest against the minister of the Truro Parish, whom Lawrence sued because of the minister's alleged sexual improprieties with Lawrence's fiancée, Ann Fairfax. Lawrence eventually lost the case, but he married Ann. Since taxes were controlled by the parish vestries, it was a very political power struggle wrapped in honor and personal vengeance. Like George, Lawrence was also marrying up, into the Fairfax family, who controlled the grants of the Northern Neck Proprietary, over five million acres under a royal grant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Neck_Proprietary).

Here are some more references:

Bruce, Philip Alexander, 1910. Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: An Inquiry Into the Religious, Moral and Educational, Legal, Military, and Political Condition of the People Based on Original and Contemporaneous Records. Vol. 1. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Chamberlayne, C. G., trans. 1933. The Vestry Book of Petsworth Parish: Gloucester County, Virginia, 1677–1793. Richmond, VA: Library Board, Division of Purchase and Printing. Accessed September 28, 2013. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001263677.

Henriques, Peter R. 1992. Major Lawrence Washington versus the Reverend Charles Green: A Case Study of the Squire and the Parson. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 100, no. 2 (April):233-264. Accessed October 5, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4249277.

Petsworth Parish (Gloucester County, VA).Vestry Book, 1677-1793. Accession 19992. Church records collection. Library of Virginia, Richmond VA.

The Mystery of Rev. Nehemiah Evitt and Rosana Emiline Andrews

Nehemiah Evitt (20 December 1836-18 January 1891), also known as Miah, and Rosana Emiline Andrews (1 May 1836-18 June 1924) were my maternal grandmother's maternal grandparents. Emiline carried the maternal line DNA that was eventually passed along to me--she was my mother's mother's mother's mother.

We visited relatives in Georgia from time to time when my brother and I were young. My mother, Frances, drove east to Georgia from Texas like a migrating bird in the summers, heading out and back in the heat and humidity. Sometimes Grandma Lillian was with us. We would go to visit family--they were descendants of Nehemiah and Emiline, too, more mtDNA. On the way we would tour battlefields and antebellum homes, see kudzu and cannons, eat ham and grits, and then return before school started in the fall. Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, Chickamauga, Lafayette, and Vicksburg were registered in my memories, along with the homes of two of my grandmother's sisters, Dessie and Theresa.

I heard conversations about Nehemiah and Emiline, but I couldn't put the pieces together. Certain things seem to have been unsaid. Family photographs of Emiline, taken when she was older, looked serious and stern. A photograph of the two of them together, much younger, was intriguing. I couldn't gauge her expression; she seemed to be squinting. Nehemiah looked very intense and different, with dark hair and piercing eyes. They were mysteries to me--I eventually looked for the clues they left behind.

Nehemiah was the son of William Evitt (1804-1875) and Rebecca Rippetoe (1810-1886). William and Rebecca married in Bledsoe County, Tennessee, where she lived and where Nehemiah probably was born. By 1841, their family is reported to have settled at Ooltewah, in Hamilton County, close to Chattanooga and the Tennessee River:

Rebecca was one of the 30 charter members when the Rev. Hiram Douglas organized the Ooltewah Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1841 . . . William and Rebecca named one of their sons Charles William and another Nehemiah. They also had William Jr., Malinda, George H., James, Samuel and Minerva. Samuel was killed by a bulldog when he was 11 (Wilson 2002). 

I have no evidence at present besides this from Wilson to support this list of other children of William and Rebecca. There is an online note of another child, Nancy Jane (19 March 1836-17 October 1921), listed as daughter of William Evitt, who married John W. Thurman. Her date of birth listed would make her a very close sibling of Nehemiah (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=dfl&GRid=9616965), as she was just nine months older.

One mystery was that Nehemiah was a Confederate cavalry soldier, who fought and was wounded in the Civil War. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Nehemiah enlisted in the Confederate army 7 August 1861, in Cleveland, Tennessee in the First Tennessee Cavalry, Company B (Carter's). Nehemiah's younger brother Charles W. Evitt (b. ca. 1839) also enlisted 17 October 1861 at Ooltewah in Company K, 43rd Tennessee, then was in Company B, First Tennessee Cavalry (Carter's) as of 1 June 1862 (Hughes and Wilson 2005). They apparently served in the same company after that date, and they both saw action in the South. In 1864, their regiment "fought at the Battle of Piedmont, or New Hope Church, and in the subsequent campaign in the Valley of Virginia" (http://www.tngenweb.org/civilwar/csacav/csa1carter.html). Nehemiah was hospitalized in Charlottesville, Virginia, in June of 1864 (Hughes and Wilson). Federal records indicate that he had been a sergeant and was paroled as a private (http://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-regiments-detail.htm?regiment_id=CTN0001RC01). The brothers had blacksmithing skills, which they may have acquired or used during their service with the cavalry (Hughes and Wilson).

A majority of the population of Eastern Tennessee was strongly in sympathy with the Union cause as war was declared and enlistment in the Confederate army became mandatory: "It is rather a remarkable fact that East Tennessee in 1861, with a male population of forty-five thousand between the ages of twenty and fifty, should furnish for the Union army thirty-five thousand volunteers—not a conscript among them" (Carter 1902, 18). Many men fled to Kentucky to enlist in the Union army to avoid this conscription. Whether Nehemiah and his brother voluntarily enlisted is unknown.

While there were multiple company and regiment name changes in the course of the war, lots of Carters to confuse the issue, and even a Company B, First Tennessee Cavalry (Carter's) in the Union army, which is the subject of W. R. Carter's volume (1902), I believe that the company and regiment given for them first above is accurate information. Nehemiah and Charles served in Captain Snow's unit, First Tennessee Cavalry, Company B: "[Charles W. Evitt] was transferred to the cavalry company of his neighbor, William Snow, on June 1, 1862. He was paroled at Washington, Ga., in May 1865. Nehemiah Evitt also joined the Snow unit" (Wilson 2002). This was a local recruitment in 1861: the "first cavalry organization in the County for Confederate service was recruited by Captain William Snow among the farmers living near Snow Hill, Ooltewah and the section along the Tennessee River" (Armstrong 1993, 295).

The Union Army reportedly burned the Evitt home in Ooltewah, during one of several campaigns. The Chattanooga campaign extended from late August to late November, 1863, at which time the Union's 4th Michigan Cavalry raided the Ooltewah area. Other military actions were recorded in Ooltewah 21 January 1864, 18-19 February 1864, and 4 February 1865 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooltewah,_Tennessee; Hamilton 2012). William and Rebecca Evitt moved their family south across the state line into Walker County, Georgia, to the McLemore Cove area (Wilson 2002), around Lookout Mountain and Pigeon Mountain.

After the war was over, on 6 December 1866, Nehemiah married Rosana Emiline Andrews Beaird, a widow, in Walker County. Emiline had already borne at least one child, perhaps two more, and had possibly lost one during the war. She was born in Orange Co, North Carolina, the daughter of William (Billy) Andrews (8 February 1797-1877) and Martha Carroll (3 May 1802-1861). Emiline had a large extended family, some of whom settled in Walker County.

The Civil War was hard on the women who were left at home alone with their remaining families. Armstrong wrote, re Tennessee:

The Union women of [Hamilton] county and a few who held to Union sympathy in the town were in deplorable straits. In many cases they suffered from actual privation. Nowhere in America during the war was the fortune of women so desolate as that of these Union women in Hamilton and the other counties of lower Tennessee (1993, 11). 

This is likely also true for a wife of a Confederate soldier left behind in an adjoining county in Georgia.

Her first husband, Edmond S. Beaird, served in the Confederate army, Co. G, 9th Regiment, Georgia Infantry. He was wounded and captured at Gettysburg 2 July, 1863 and died of dysentery in the Point Lookout prisoner-of-war camp in Maryland 6 February, 1864. Company G was known as the "Lafayette Volunteers" (http://9thgeorgiainfantry.org/gcompany.html), so Edmond and Emiline must have been in the Lafayette area before the war. Marilyn Houser reported online that the Beairds "came from Arkansas before the Civil War to Pigon Mt in Walker Co Ga." (http://genforum.genealogy.com/beaird/messages/499.html, citing Gibbs 1984).

With Edmond, Emiline had children, Calvin Whitfield Beaird (April 21, 1858-1928); possibly Martha (1855-1862); and Edna (4 July 1862-29 August 1938). With Nehemiah, she had William E. (1867-1875); possibly Lenelle (b. 1869); Cora Rebecca (4 May 1870-5 January 1904), m. Rev. William (Will) Rudicil Williams (4 September 1868-9 July 1845); and Alfred Miah (7 July 1873-25 March 1931).

Front: Rosana Emiline Andrews (Beaird) Evitt; Rear: I believe these folks are (right to left, Calvin Whitfield Beaird, his wife, Mary Elizabeth Stout Beaird, and their son, Edmond Eason Beaird.

Nehemiah and Emiline lived in Independence County, Arkansas for a period of time. Cora was born there in 1870, Alfred Miah in 1873, and William E. died there in 1875. Emiline's father, Billy, died in Arkansas in 1877. Emiline also had relatives from the Andrews family who lived in Arkansas. For an outline of her immediate family, see http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/r/e/Nanalee-Wrenn-NC/GENE1-0008.html.

At some point, Nehemiah and Emiline returned to the McLemore Cove area, in Walker County, where they had a farm and a small store.

Another mystery was that Nehemiah was a Baptist minister. Wilson reported this, likely based on newspaper articles at the time, below. I could not find a record of where Nehemiah studied or served. He and Emiline were associated with the Antioch Baptist Church at Cedar Grove, and they are buried in a church cemetery there. I believe that Rev. William R. Williams, Cora's husband and my great grandfather, and Rev. Marshall Lucien Crowder, my Grandaunt Theresa's husband, both served at the same church later on, but I have no written evidence of this.

A bigger mystery was that Nehemiah was murdered. On Saturday night, 17 January 1891, he was asked to open the store by Roscoe Marable, a black and an "ex-convict" (Davis 1982, 354), and possibly one other man. Marable had been helping Nehemiah with hog butchering and delivery that day. Per Marable's confession, on their way from the house to the store, about seventy-five yards away, they argued over Marable's account at the store. Marable then knocked Nehemiah down and struck him in the head with a "stick." When Nehemiah failed to return, Emiline searched in the dark, found him unconscious in a gulley. His skull was fractured, and he died the next day. It was suspected that the killer had used a sledge hammer and had robbed Nehemiah. Marable escaped by train, but he was arrested 25 August 1891 in Hampton County, South Carolina (not Florida or North Carolina, as reported), where he was working with a group of laborers under an assumed name. A reward of $150 was given by the Governor of Georgia to W. J. King, the man who found and arrested Marable. At trial, King testified that Marable had confessed to him. Emiline testified that Nehemiah had between $240 to $260 in his pocketbook, which was discovered empty, except for receipts, in the same area two months later. Cora was a witness as well, testifying as she was pregnant with my grandmother. Marable was found guilty of murder. On appeal, the verdict was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Georgia 13 June 1892 (Marable v. State. 89 Ga. 425, 15 S.E. 453). Roscoe Marable was executed by hanging 6 October 1892 in Walker County.

Sensationalized news articles of the murder, trial, and hanging were found in newspapers in Atlanta and as far away as Pennsylvania and New York. The Atlanta Constitution (20 January 1891) claimed that "two negroes" were involved in the murder of "Rev. Nehemiah Evitt" and that the murder weapon in "this most heinous crime" was a sledge hammer. At the time of the arrest, the same paper declared, "Marable will surely hang" (1 September 1891), and, when there was a last-minute announcement of an appeal, "A great many people will be disappointed[,] as they will come expecting th[e] hanging to take place" (28 October 1891). The Altoona Tribune, from Pennsylvania, reported on the execution, "On the scaffold he protested his innocence" (7 October 1892). The Havana Journal, from New York, reported that "twenty-five hundred persons were present when the drop fell" (15 October 1892). The Wilmington Morning Star, from North Carolina, noted that "seven thousand persons were present" (8 October 1892, 4).

The Atlanta Constitution's account reported that the crime occurred along the Chattanooga Southern railroad line (20 January 1891). Another source mentioned the murder of "Mira [sic] Evitt near the tunnel on Pigeon mountain about 1895" (Sartain 1932, 313). A train tunnel was completed through Pigeon Mountain in 1890-91 (http://railga.com/oddend/tagtunnel.html). At the time of the murder, there was a convict camp in the vicinity of the Evitts' store, "defendant worked for some time near" the store, and Marable helped that day to slaughter hogs and to deliver the pork to the convict camp. When Marable was arrested, he was working with a labor crew in South Carolina "working on a trestle" (Marable v. State 89 Ga. 425, at 427-428). It is possible that the convicts' camp consisted of laborers working on railway construction and that Marable was associated with them. If the camp were a prison gang doing forced labor, money from a robbery would have enabled Marable's escape.

Rosana Emiline Andrews Evitt

Emiline endured through the Civil War and the death of two husbands and many others in her family. It was no wonder that her photographs looked the way they did. She lived to 1924, long enough to see some of her great grandchildren born. When we visited her granddaughter, Theresa Williams Crowder, around 1961 in Georgia, she showed us a long, white apron that had belonged to Emiline. A rolling pin that was made for Emiline by Nehemiah was passed down to me.

Emiline, Nehemiah, and his parents are buried at the New Antioch Baptist Church Cemetery, Cedar Grove, in Walker County. Emiline's mother, Martha Carroll Andrews, is buried at the Old Antioch Baptist Church Cemetery there. Her father, Billy Andrews, is buried at the Mahan Cemetery in Sharp County, Arkansas.

Gravesite Links:
Nehemiah Evitt:  
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=58494715

Rosana Emiline Andrews Evitt:  
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=65885333 

Rebecca Rippetoe Evitt:  
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=99215978

William Evitt:  
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=50296066

Martha Carroll Andrews:  
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Andrews&GSiman=1&GScnty=528&GRid=82209544&

William (Billy) Andrews:  
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=43747821

References:
Altoona Tribune. 7 October 1892, 1. Accessed February 15, 2014. 
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/56698760/.

Armstrong, Zella. 1993. The History of Hamilton County and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Vol. 2. Originally published 1940. Johnson City, TN: The Overmountain Press.

Carter, W. R.. 1902. History of the First Regiment of Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry in the Great War of the Rebellion [Union Army]. Knoxville, TN: Gaut-Ogden Co., Printers and Binders. Accessed February 6, 2014.
http://www.archive.org/stream/firstregiment00cartrich#page/n5/mode/2up.

Davis, Robert Scott. 1982. The Georgia Black Book: Morbid, Macabre and Sometimes Disgusting Records of Genealogical Value. Vol. 1. Easley, SC: Southern Historical Press.

Gibbs, Sherman D., ed. 1984. Walker County Georgia Heritage 1833-1983. LaFayette, GA: Walker County History Committee and the Walker County Historical Society.

Hamilton, Chuck. 2012. Civil War Engagements in the Chattanooga Area. Chattanoogan.com, July 2. Accessed February 11, 2014. 
http://chattanoogan.com/2012/7/2/229448/Civil-War-Engagements-in-the.aspx.

Havana Journal. Saturday, October 15, 1892. Accessed February 15, 2014. Search s.v. Roscoe Marable at http://fultonhistory.com/.

Hughes, Nathaniel C., Jr., and John C. Wilson. 2005. Hamilton County Confederates, D-F. Chattanoogan.com, August 16. Excerpt from Hughes, Nathaniel C. Jr., and John Wilson. 2001. The Confederate Soldiers of Hamilton County, Tennessee: An Alphabetical Listing of the Confederate Soldiers Who Lived at One Time in Hamilton County, Tennessee. Signal Mountain, TN: Mountain Press. Accessed February 6, 2014. http://chattanoogan.com/2005/8/16/70953/Hamilton-County-Confederates-D-F.aspx. 

Marable v. State. 89 Ga. 425. Accessed February 15, 2014.
https://archive.org/details/reportscasesarg488courgoog.

Marable v. State. 15 S.E. 453. Accessed February 15, 2014. 
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Southeastern_Reporter.html?id=NAI8AAAAIAAJ.

Sartain, James Alfred. 1932. The History of Walker County Georgia. Vol. 1. Dalton, GA: The A. J. Showalter Company. Accessed February 8, 2014. 
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ga/county/fulton/walkerhistory/.

The Atlanta Constitution. 20 January 1891, 1. Accessed February 15, 2014. 
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/26831432/.

The Atlanta Constitution. 1 September 1891, 2. Accessed February 15, 2014. 
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/26883379/.

The Atlanta Constitution. 28 October 1891. 3. Accessed February 15, 2014. 
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/26868388/.

Wilmington Morning Star. 8 October 1892, 4. Accessed February 15, 2014.
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/54456855/.

Wilson, John. 2002. Evitts Were Among Earliest Ooltewah Settlers. Chattanoogan.com, February 17. Excerpt from Wilson, John. 2001. Early Hamilton Settlers. N.p.: Sheridan Books. Accessed February 6, 2014. 
http://www.chattanoogan.com/2002/2/17/18127/Evitts-Were-Among-Earliest-Ooltewah.aspx.

Searching for Identity and Heritage

I grew up thinking I was Southern. My mother described her family generally as Scots-Irish. She said that the family was both "poor" and "genteel." I labored under these ideas for most of my lifetime. I thought I must have descended from dirt-poor farmers and pioneers--all dour, well-behaved ancestors. The truth of the matter was far more complex than that.

My mother, Frances Morrison Fauteck, born 19 June 1923 in Red Oak, Oklahoma, labored under similar ideas, and she wanted to break through them to the something else she suspected or wanted to be there. She researched her family's histories for many years in old books and public records, in bibles and family stories, leaving meticulous notes and a family pedigree chart behind her, markers to follow. The chart showed ten generations in some family lines, to Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia colonies; it showed lengthy gaps in other lines. She died 14 July 1994 in Davis, California, just as computers and the Internet had started to make it easier.

Her first cousin, William Mann Morrison, had published an extensive family genealogy in 1977, The Morrison-Williams Register, which she was building upon. My grandmother Lillian knew some of the family tree by heart, and it differed in places from the Register. So did my mother's chart when she was done.

I read my mother's work, was curious about it, but didn't explore it seriously until 2012. It wasn't quite what my mother said. She was a Southerner, that was true. Culturally, I was close to Southern, but half of my heritage wasn't--my father, who was Swiss, German, English, Welsh, and Unknown--had lived in New Jersey most of his life. There were a few initial surprises--her family was dotted with Protestant preachers. Genteel. People of faith. Soldiers and pioneers showed up in her research and The Morrison-Williams Register. Feisty. Hardy. And many of my ancestors weren't Scots-Irish, although a few were. Dour went out the window.

Her father, John D. Morrison, was born 1 January 1883 in Mt. Vernon, Jefferson County, Illinois. His father, Rufus Adlai Morrison, born 20 December 1842 in McNairy County, Tennessee, fought in the Civil War in the Union Army and was a farmer. A brother, Samuel Bartlett Morrison, was a preacher. John D.'s paternal grandparents, Adlai Sharpe Morrison (b. 13 October 1808, Wilson County, Tennessee) and Mary Bartlett (b. 17 May 1811, Hardin County, Kentucky), had fled from Tennessee to Illinois with their family during the Civil War. Rufus Adlai had fought in the Civil War for the Union army.

My maternal grandmother, Lillian Agnes Williams, was born 1 January 1892 in Walker County, Georgia. Her sister, Theresa Ethelma Williams, married a preacher, the Rev. Marshall Lucien Crowder. My grandmother and her sister were daughters of a preacher, the Rev. William Rudicil Williams, born 4 September 1868 in Chattooga County, Georgia, and his wife, Cora Rebecca Evitt, born 4 May 1870 in Independence County, Arkansas. Cora Rebecca, in turn, was the daughter of another preacher, the Rev. Nehemiah Evitt, born 20 December 1836, probably in Bledsoe County, Tennessee, and his wife, Rosana Emiline Andrews, born 1 May 1836 in Orange County, North Carolina.

When I dug a little deeper, beyond dates and places, to find the substance of their lives, I began began to understand that there were bigger stories in my family, stories that had fallen between the cracks of time. I was looking at the legacies of colonization and slavery, war and migration, religious beliefs, and economic and political realities, among other things. The history of my family suddenly became very real and far more complex than I had expected.

White Roads and Other Paths to Walk

In naming this blog site, I was inspired by what is known as the white road, the sacbe, plural sacbeob, found in Mayan lands in Central America. Originally paved in limestone stucco, these paths are estimated to have been created over time since 1800 BCE. The white roads were holy roads, peace roads, that pilgrims walked to visit sacred sites, walking sanctuaries where they were not subject to attack. The roads were also used for trade and other peaceful interchanges between communities. 

It is claimed in the literature that a white road once extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific, across North America. There is established evidence that an extensive trade network existed historically across the Americas. The network included paths, together with extensive waterways and portages. It was discovered and used by colonists in the conquering and settling of North America. Major segments were eventually incorporated into what became contemporary highway systems. Historically, the paths were sometimes paved and often marked in particular ways. Directional markers often existed as petroglyphs, pictographs, carving on trees, and bent trees. 

Clear evidence exists in some locations of a separate, collateral system of roads, the red roads. These were war roads, war paths, and when people walked them, it was a signal that they were declaring war. Being on the warpath. I have wondered if early Europeans walked the wrong roads and placed themselves in danger as they explored into the interior of this continent, not knowing the systems in place. 

Contemporary usage has reversed and replaced the idea of white road. The phrase red road now is widely accepted as a Native American spiritual path or lifeway; it is often known as the good red road. The path of the warrior has been deemed in many lifeways to be good, but the historic racial distinctions between "red" people and "white" people may have precipitated this change. 

White roads and red roads. Some people are peaceful, and others seem to be warriors. A warrior gene has now been identified by geneticists. What if somewhere in our DNA there is also a peacemaker gene? Appreciating the sacred is said to be a result of chemistry, and it also has been said that we inherit the spiritual beliefs of our mothers, not out fathers. At least some of our attitudes seem to be rooted in our genes.

To know a people's and a family's lifeways and the evolution of those lifeways over time is important to be able to understand why we are the way we are, why others are the way they are, what we have in common, and what we do not seem to share. This is the nature of cultural histories. 

So why look at our ancestry? Ultimately, it can illuminate who our ancestors were and what they left us as an inheritance, who we became, or who we could become. It is valuable information about an individual and about their family of origin. In researching my family history, I am on a path that's both familiar and mysterious, exploring who we were, who we are. It is good to know what road we're on.

Building Families with Our Stories

I've created this blog to share my family's stories, at least some of them. There are a lot of stories to share. Doing this builds family. Maybe my family will read them and pass them along. It may hold us together better. And maybe I'll find relatives I don't know I have.

Once I retired from a nine-to-five job to take up my academic research in earnest, I started doing genealogy research as well, and for the past year, it has trumped my academic searching. Now I'm addicted to hunting and gathering names and dates, vital information. My mother had taken it on, too, prior to her retirement, and steadily built her charts over twenty years. She was building on her cousin's work. I, in turn, am building on hers. This is what a family does, builds itself on our shoulders. A family tree house.

A few years back, I briefly worked with a woman, with whom I found some rapport and things in common. We stayed in touch infrequently, as we could in the midst of our busy lives. In this past few years, both of us, independent of each other, gravitated to family research. And we have found that we are cousins in multiple lines, descended from some of the same families. In this past year, I have found many more cousins, some distant, some close.

Some of them have helped me build my family tree house over the past year and showed me which of the ropes/family lines to swing on. My thanks for this go particularly to Patrick Jones (http://jonesandrelated.blogspot.com/) and Norm Pritchett, who were so very helpful when I was first coming up to speed.

Notes on Family History

Every family has a history, not one person's history, but a history of everyone we are descended from and ancestors to, all our relations. It can go years or decades or centuries, stretching backward and forward in time, with multiple tributaries and branches. It is past, present, and future, but it is constantly changing, currents in a flowing river of time.

And for every person, family history is different, with different sets of ancestors. For myself and my brother, at least, it's the same set of ancestors and probably many of the same genes, but for everyone else in what I call my family, the possibilities are shuffled and redealt. My children share all my family ancestors, but it's only half of what they hold as heritage. My first cousins share half of the same family history and many of the same genes. Beyond those relationships, to third cousins and grandsons, so many other currents affect them differently that it is a wonder how we hold together this thing we call family.