High Treason at Henry VIII's Court: Our 13th Great-grandparents, Edward Waldegrave and Joan Acworth

Possible surviving miniature of Queen Catherine Howard, c1540. All of her images were destroyed after her execution.

I will tell you a tale of the times of King Henry VIII (a very distant cousin of ours through his maternal grandmother) and how, during his bloody reign, our 13th great-grandparents, Edward Waldegrave, gentleman (1514-1585) and Joan Acworth (1519-1590), heiress descended from knights of the realm, nearly lost their heads because of allegations of adulterous high treason brought against another distant cousin, Queen Catherine Howard, 5th wife of Henry VIII, who was beheaded in February 1541, while our ancestors languished in the Tower of London, having been interrogated regarding her conduct. 

But, first, here is how Edward and Joan are related to our family. William Clopton (1655 County Essex, England - c1730 New Kent Co., Virginia Colony), our 9th great-grandfather, immigrated to Virginia before 1673, the year he married Anne Booth. Their daughter Anne Clopton married Nicholas Mills in 169l. Their daughter Anne Mills married Thomas Jackson in Brunswick County, Virginia, about 1720, and had daughter Mary Jackson (b. 1724), who married in about 1746 William Rainey (b. circa 1723), becoming our 6th great-grandparents. 

Going back to that 9th great-grandfather, William Clopton, the Immigrant, whose Clopton lineage is traced  back to the Domesday Book of 1086 (a survey of land ownership), his great-grandparents were William Clopton, gentleman (1551-1615 Suffolk Co., England), who married Margery Waldegrave (c1558-1616) in 1578. Margery's parents were Edward Waldegrave, gentleman, and Joan Acworth, the subjects of our story. Much of my information comes from the nonfiction Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII by Gareth Russell, Simon & Schuster, 2017. It's a fascinating and well-documented biography of Catherine Howard's short life amid Tudor times, available on Kindle. Our ancestors were intimately involved in Queen Catherine Howard's story.

A younger Henry VIII (1491-1547)

Catherine Howard (1523-1542), second cousin to Anne Boleyn (2nd wife of Henry VIII, whom he had beheaded in 1536), came from a large family. When her father Edmund participated in the coronation of the young Henry VIII in 1509, he bested the king in jousting - and was never invited to joust with the king again - nor was he granted court appointments, as were his more thoughtful brothers, William, and Thomas, the future 3rd Duke of Norfolk. The monarchy was the font of all patronage and potential wealth and only through service to the Royal Family could a family hope to achieve or protect their greatness and social position. Unable to care for his large family, Edmund farmed Catherine out to his stepmother, Agnes the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who lived in Norfolk House in Lambeth, now a south London suburb. The Duchess had other female wards and all the girls slept in curtained beds in a large room. 

How Joan Acworth (our 13th great-grandmother) came to be under the care of the Dowager Duchess Agnes is unknown, but she was distantly related to the Howards, and her grandmother was a Broughton, connected to the Howards. Joan's father, George Acworth, was a member of Parliament in 1529, but died in 1530 and her mother Margaret remarried. Joan, a gentlewoman, born 1519 at Luton, County Bedfordshire, could read and write, and she soon acted as Catherine Howard's companion and secretary, composing her correspondence.

County Bedfordshire, England

The girls being educated in dance and manners under the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk's care were in their teens, as were many of the males in the Duchess's large household. The young men began sneaking into the girls' chamber late at night with fruit and wine.  In the spring of 1538, it was allegedly through Joan's praising of her former amour, Francis Dereham, that Catherine took a fancy to him. He was "confident to the point of arrogance, a rule-breaker who possessed a blazing temper, which Catherine initially chose to regard as thrilling proof of his affection for her." Eventually, behind the bed curtains they had sexual intercourse, and Dereham apparently believed he and Catherine would eventually marry. If Catherine had agreed to this, it would have been a binding pre-contract to marry. Notes, poetry, and gifts were exchanged, and their affair continued into the new year. All this time the Duchess, often at court, was unaware of their behavior. 

Smallbridge Hall, County Essex, where our 13th great-grandfather, Edward Waldegrave, was born

Francis' close friend was Edward Waldegrave, our future 13th great-grandfather, also in the Duchess's service, who helped arrange the nighttime trysts in the maidens' bower. Born in 1514 at Smallbridge Hall, County Essex, which had been in the Waldegrave family since about 1402, he was also related to the Howards.

County Essex, England

With so many witnesses to Catherine's behavior, the Dowager Duchess was eventually informed of the goings-on, but Catherine and Dereham braved their way through her accusations and their denials. A harmless flirtation, they claimed. One afternoon the Duchess walked in on Catherine and Dereham "wrapped in each others' arms, chatting with Joan Acworth, who was acting as Catherine's woefully inept chaperone." The Duchess slapped each of them, but still she kept Dereham in her service. Although Catherine played the game of their calling each other 'husband' and 'wife', she gradually grew weary of Dereham's possessiveness and volatile temper.

Catherine's uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, portrait by Hans Holbein

 

Catherine's father died in March 1539. Her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, knowing that King Henry would marry Anne of Cleves, had Catherine enter the royal household as her maid of honor in the autumn of 1539, months before Anne of Cleves arrived from the Duchy of Cleves in what is now Germany. When Catherine bade Dereham goodbye, she failed to make it clear that she would not marry him. 

Anne of Cleves, 4th wife of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein

 

Joan Acworth left the Duchess of Norfork's household in 1538 to marry William Bulmer, a member of a prominent land-owning family in York. Joan's mother, Margaret Wilberfosse/Wilberforce, was the 2nd wife of George Acworth (our 14th great-grandparents) with Joan her only child and heir. When Margaret died c.1538/9, Joan inherited numerous estates in Durham and elsewhere, including the manor of Eggleston (20 messuages, 300 acres of land 100 acres of meadow, 500 acres of pasture with appurtanances in Eggleston and Nesbet). The Bulmers were neighbors of Margaret's Wilberfosse family and trustees of her estates, indicating earlier family connections.

County Durham, England

 

Edward Waldegrave also left the Duchess's service and entered the household of the infant Prince of Wales (b. 1537), the future Edward VI, son of Henry and his 3rd wife, Jane Seymour, who had died after giving birth.

Jane Seymour, 3rd wife of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein

 

It was Thomas Cromwell who arranged King Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves, sight unseen, just as he had managed Henry's break with the Roman Catholic Church and the divorce from Henry's first wife, Katherine of Aragon, so the king could marry Anne Boleyn. But Henry did not like this new Germanic bride. The marriage lasted only a few months. Henry had already fallen in love with young Catherine, maid of honor to his new queen. He divorced Anne of Cleves. 

Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein

 

Assisted by the Duke of Norfolk, the king had Thomas Cromwell tried as a traitor on trumped up charges. On the day Cromwell was beheaded, 28 July 1540, Henry married Catherine Howard in a private ceremony.

Parish of York in northern County Yorkshire, England

 

When, up in York, Joan Acworth Bulmer discovered through a visit from Sir George Seaford that Catherine was to become queen consort of England, she wrote to her old friend in July 1540, asking permission to join her in London, revealing her unhappy marriage. The letter's spelling has been modernized:

If I could wish you all the honour, wealth and good fortune you could desire, you would neither lack health, wealth, long life, nor yet prosperity. Nevertheless, seeing I cannot as I would, express this unto you, I would wish these my most hearty salutations might you to know, that whereas it had been shown unto me, that God of his high goodness hath put unto the knowledge of the king a contract of matrimony that the queen hath made with another before she came unto England and thereupon there will be a lawful divorce had between them;and as it is thought that the king of his goodness will put you in the same honour as she was in, which no doubt you be worthy to have, most heartily desiring you to have in your remembrance the unfeigned love that my heart has always borne towards you, which for the same kindness found in you again hath desired always your presence, if it might be so, above all other creatures, and the change of fortune that hath brought me, on the contrary, into the utmost misery in the world and most wretched life. Seeing no ways, then, I can express in writing, knowing no way out of it, without you, or your goodness, will find the means to get me to London, which will be very hard to do; but if you write unto my husband and command him to bring me up, which I think he dare not disobey, for if it might be, I would feign be with you before you were in your honour; and in the mean season I beseech you to save some room for me, what you shall think fit yourself, for the nearer I were to you the gladder I would be of it, what pains soever I did take. I would write more unto you, but I dare not be so bold, for considering the great honour you are towards, it did not become me to put myself in your presence; but the remembrance of the perfect honesty I have always known to be in you, and the report of Sir George Seaford, which hath assure me that the same thing remains in you still, hath encouraged me to this.

Whereupon I beseech you not to be forgetful of this my request for if you do not help me, I am not likely to have worldly joys. Desiring you, if you can, to let me have some answer of this for the satisfying of mind, for I know the queen of Britain will not forget her secretary, and favour you will show.

Your humble servant,

With heart unfeigned, 

Jone Bulmer

Although most historians believed Joan was brought into Catherine's household, no record of her employment there has been found. She may have remained in York, perhaps because she knew too much about Catherine's past indiscretions. And yet, others from Catherine's past found places in her household. In the surviving 1541 interrogations or notes taken from them, persons are described as "now servant to the Queen" or "now chamberer to the Queen," but Joan is described as "young Bulmer's wife." When Joan was questioned in 1541, she was  asked only about Catherine's life before her marriage, not during her queenship. Although others from Catherine's earlier life found places in her household, it's probable that Joan was fobbed off with a promise of a future invitation. When later questioned, Joan exhibited no clear animus toward the queen. 

Francis Dereham, Catherine's earlier lover, was unable to gain a place in a royal household, so before Catherine was married, he left one hundred pounds in her care, and went to Ireland, where he appears to have worked as a merchant for most of 1540. When he returned to London, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, fearful that the king would divorce Catherine if evidence of Catherine's liaison with him came to light, demanded all proofs Dereham had that a possible precontract for marriage existed between Catherine and himself - ballads, poems, notes, - and these were locked in a chest in the Duchess's Norfolk House, the key retained by Dereham.  Dereham wanted a place in Catherine's household. Either refusing him or accepting him could be dangerous, for he was "impulsive, besotted, possessive and loquacious." 

The Countess of Bridgewater (b.1499), a daughter of the Dowager Duchess Agnes and the 2nd Duke of Norfollk and Catherine's aunt, was one of her ladies in waiting. A widow in her thirties, her husband had been beheaded for treason a few years earlier. She convinced Catherine to grant Francis Dereham an audience and perhaps show him some sign of her favor. Catherine did so, but did not bring him into her household.

Henry VIII in later life

 

Thomas Culpeper, a member of the king's privy chamber, a promiscuous young man Catherine had flirted with at court before the arrival of Anne of Cleves, re-entered her life. A favorite of the king, he was young and handsome and the king was fifty, enormously fat (by his death a few years later he weighed over 400 pounds); and Catherine was afraid of him. More murderous then ever, Henry was condemning clerics of various religious persuasions to be hanged and quartered or burned at the stake, aristocrats and members of the gentry, too. No one could be certain which was the religious philosophy the king adhered to, he was so changeable. 

Catherine's lady of the privy chamber, Jane Boleyn, Dowager Viscountess Rochford, assisted in reuniting Catherine with Thomas Culpeper in the spring of 1541. Lady Rochford had been married to George Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's younger brother, who was convicted of incest with Queen Anne on no evidence and beheaded the day before the queen's execution in 1536. Lady Rochford chose to remain at court.  On their first meeting Catherine gave Thomas a velvet cap, but begged him to keep it hidden under his cloak until he was back in his chambers. And thus began late night conversations behind locked doors, with only the Lady Rochford in attendance, which raised eyebrows among Catherine's ladies. Later, Catherine and Culpeper admitted they had exchanged words of love for one another, and that Culpeper kissed her hand, claiming it was the only physical intimacy he would allow himself. Catherine was in love with the arrogant, risk-taking womanizing Culpeper, which made her take risks. 

While Catherine and Henry were on a four-month tour of the north, Francis Dereham returned from Ireland and argued with the Dowager Duchess, who threw him out of Norfolk house; he headed straight for Catherine, who was staying at Pontrefract Castle in Yorkshire.

Pontefract Castle in County Yorkshire, destroyed during the English Civil War

 

In a dilemma, Catherine, not wishing to alienate him, had little choice but to find him a place in her household as a gentleman usher. He proved to be a braggart and boorish, failing to adhere to proper household etiquette, lingering at table after meals, intimating that he'd known her well before she came to court. She gave him money, begging him to 'take heed' of his words.

One love letter Catherine sent to Thomas Culpeper survives, in which she ends, "Yours as long as life endures." It was discovered in 1541 when his rooms were searched.

Hampton Court Palace, where Queen Catherine lived in the autumn of 1541

 

In late October 1541 a former servant of the Dowager Duchess, Mary Hall, revealed to a relative, who suggested she petition to enter the queen's service, that Catherine had been "light, both in living and conditions," and then revealed Catherine's relationship with Francis Dereham. The relative carried word to Archbishop Cranmer, who left a letter of details for the king on All Souls Day. The king was at Whitehall, the queen at Hampton Court. The king never saw Catherine again.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer

 

Interrogations began. Francis Dereham readily admitted he'd had sexual relations with Catherine numerous times at Norfolk House, and his old companion, Edward Waldegrave, verified his story.  The Dowager Duchess broke into the chest containing Dereham's correspondence, and possibly destroyed some of it. She turned the rest over to her stepson, the Duke of Norfolk, perhaps hoping the outcome would be only the annulment of Catherine's marriage to the king, premarital sex not being a capital crime, and that her granddaughter would come home to her. 

Tower of London

 

The imprisonment in the Tower of London and questioning of former servants and old friends of Catherine was well underway before Catherine knew what was happening. When a delegation led by Archbishop Cranmer confronted her with information that she had entered into a precontract to marry Francis Dereham, she at first denied it. On one of Cranmer's subsequent visits, while she sobbed in terror, he told her if she confessed, the king would be merciful, Catherine finally admitted her early transgressions, but denied promising to marry Francis Deneham. She recounted gifts given, words said, and then she made a tragic mistake. Speaking of when Dereham came into her royal household, she said, ". . . [H]e then asked me if I should be married to Mr. Culpeper, for so he said he heard reported. Then I made answer, 'What should you trouble me therewith, for you know I will not have you; and if you heard such report, you heard more than I do know.'" Questioned again, to show his innocence since her marriage, Dereham stated that Thomas Culpeper had succeeded him in the queen's affections.

Thomas Culpeper was questioned on November 12th, when he returned from hawking. That same day Catherine was questioned about three nocturnal meetings with Culpeper during the summer while on tour of the North. She blamed her lady-in-waiting, Lady Rochford, for pleading that she speak to Culpeper, whom she claimed had only good will toward her. It was all Lady Rochford's doing, these meetings. When questioned the following day, Lady Rochford allowed that it was the queen who initiated the meetings and requested silence about them. She admitted she suspected they had known each other carnally. Lady Rochford was sent to the Tower and her goods inventoried, usually a Tudor indication of approaching death. And there she lost her mind.

 Culpeper's rooms were searched and the love letter from Catherine found. He admitted everything, but denied committing treason with Catherine by having  sexual intercourse, which would have interfered with the succession. He confessed, however, that they both expected to do so in the future, perhaps thinking his honesty would save him. But misprision of treason pertained to the intention to commit the act. Culpeper was sent to the Tower and his goods and houses inventoried.

Wanting more information about the goings-on before Catherine's marriage, Joan Acworth Bulmer was summoned to London. She and eight others appeared before the Duke of Norfolk and Sir John Gage, comptroller of the royal household and constable of the Tower of London.

Sir John Gage, interrogator of our 13th great-grandmother Joan (Hans Holbein)

 

Joan corroborated only what the government already knew.  Edward Waldegrave and three others were questioned by the Earl of Herford and Sir Thomas Audley, whose daughter was married to the Duke of Norfolk's heir, the future 4th Duke of Norfolk. 

Sir Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor of England

 

Francis Dereham was tortured numerous times, probably on the rack, but never admitted he planned to resume sexual relations with the queen.

Catherine's household was disbanded on November 14th and she was moved with four gentlewomen and two chamberers to the disused Syon Abbey across the Thames. Afterward her jewelry was inventoried.  None of the six dresses she was allowed were garnished with pearls or jewels. Catherine's uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, was determined to have her condemned, just as he'd supported the condemnation of his other niece, Queen Anne Boleyn. He said aloud that he wanted Catherine burned at the stake.

Culpeper's and Dereham's trial was on December 1st. They pleaded not guilty to the treason of intending to commit adultery with the queen, but once the jury brought back a verdict of guilt sufficient to warrant the death penalty, they followed the rote of changing their pleas in the hope for mercy from the king. They were sentenced to death by hanging, drawing and quartering. The Duke of Norfolk is reported to have laughed when the sentence was read. Francis Dereham was submitted to another round of torture.

Joan Acworth Bulmer was brought back for three days' of questioning over a nine-day period regarding what she knew of the Dowager Duchess's knowledge of Catherine's affair with Dereham. Edward Waldegrave was again questioned about Dereham's intentions toward Catherine and his actions after she became queen. The Dowager Duchess Agnes was ordered to be moved from Norfolk House to answer questions and her palace was inventoried. The Duchess denied all knowledge of Catherine's affair with Dereham. In the middle of December, the Duchess, Joan Acworth Bulmer, Edward Waldegrave and nine others, some who were members of the Howard family, were sent to the Tower. "[E]veryone was expected to to have their worldly goods and possessions confiscated as a prelude to 'their bodies [sentenced] to perpetual prison'."

Dereham's and Culpeper's executions were carried out on December 10th. Francis Dereham was hanged, cut down before unconsciousness, castrated and disemboweled, before being beheaded. Then his body was quartered, its parts to be displayed in various parts of the kingdom.  Culpeper was mercifully allowed to be beheaded and buried, no doubt because he had been a favorite of Henry. Their heads were stuck on pikes on London Bridge, which Catherine passed under as her barge carried her to the Tower. 

On December 22, three of the aristocratic Howard family, and eight others, including Joan Acworth Bulmer and Edward Waldegrave, were arraigned for misprision of treason. The Duchess and her daughter, the Countess of Bridgewater, were arraigned later. Eventually they all pleaded guilty and received sentences of life imprisonment and confiscation of property.

Catherine declined a trial, throwing herself figuratively at her husband's feet to beg for mercy, which he withheld. On February 10th Catherine was taken by barge to the Tower. In a panic, she struggled and was manhandled into the barge. When told she would be executed the following morning, she asked that the block be brought so she could practice laying her head upon it. It was the same block on which her cousin Anne Boleyn had been executed. She was beheaded on the morning of 13 February and, after her, her lady of the privy chamber, Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, who had regained her wits, was similarly executed. Catherine was not yet twenty-one.

Henry VIII died at age 55 in January 1547, morbidly obese, with ulcerated legs, likely suffering from type-2 diabetes. His death saved the life of the imprisoned Thomas, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, who had been condemned to death.

And what of those sentenced to life imprisonment? All were pardoned and set free, most by May 1542. Edward Waldegrave managed to return to the service of the Prince of Wales (b.1537), the future Edward VI. 

Edward VI, c. 1550

 

By 1545 Edward had sufficient standing at court for Henry's last queen, Katherine Parr, to refer to him as "our well-beloved Edward Waldegrave, servant to our most dear and entirely beloved son the lord prince." After Joan's release, her husband William Bulmer refused to reconcile with her as of October 1542.  Joan had petitioned the Privy Council in March 1542 for redress regarding her husband, perhaps while still in the Tower, or just released. There is a record of Bulmer being ordered to return her lands to her; his failure to follow through on this landed him in Fleet Prison in London in February 1543. They were officially separated by June 1543.They never had children.

When William Bulmer died in 1556, Joan and Edward Waldegrave married. It's likely they had been together for some time and had daughter Ann before their marriage. In 1550, Joan transferred some of her property to her brother Thomas, who transferred it back to her and Edward Waldegrave jointly and their heirs, although they had yet to marry.

Lawford Hall, County Essex, England, somewhat renovated from Edward's and Joan's original home

 

Edward purchased a reversionary interest in Lawford Hall from the Crown in 1560 and, after obtaining a lifetime lease of the manor, he entirely rebuilt the hall, where he died in 1585 and Joan in 1590.  Their children were Edward, Ann, Mary, Bridget, and Margery, the latter our 12th great-grandmother. Their graves and a marble and alabaster memorial are in the Church of St. Mary, Lawford, County Essex, bearing the inscription : The End of the Just is Peace. 

Memorial for Edward and Joan Waldegrave

Church of St. Mary, Lawford, Essex, England

 

We'll finish with a lute version of Greensleeves, which was not composed by Henry VIII as some think, but became popular in the 1580s, while Edward and Joan Waldegrave were yet alive.

Correction to Identity of Our 5th Great-grandfather Raney/Rainey

Our 5th great-grandfather was not Peter Rainey, as I originally thought, but his brother William Rainey (1750 Albemarle Parish, Sussex Co., VA - 1799 Northampton Co., NC). Never quite comfortable with Peter as our ancestor, and unable to identify his wife's family through DNA matching, I took an in-depth look at Peter's brother William. He did have a son named James, but because they were living in Northampton County, North Carolina, why would James have traveled up to the old home grounds of Sussex County to marry Martha Parham in 1800? Why not marry the girl on the next plantation? We have strong DNA matches to descendants of the Parhams, so I'm certain of that match.

Sussex County, Virginia

Northampton County, North Carolina

In an experimental mood, I changed our family tree by making our 4th great-grandfather, James Rainey (c1775 - 1838/40 White Co., TN), the son of Peter's brother William Rainey and his wife Catherine Hall Vaughan (1745 (VA or NC - 1836 Warren Co., NC). It then fell into place. DNA matches I couldn't figure out turned out to be to the descendants of Catherine Hall Vaughan's ancestors, the Vaughans (who came out of the Surry/Sussex counties of Virginia to Northampton County) and the Poindexters. I feel certain this is correct. It doesn't change the identity of our 6th great-grandfather, another William Rainey (c.1722 Surry [future Sussex] Co. - 1765 Sussex Co., VA).

So, our new-to-us 5th great-grandfather, William Rainey, was born in Albemarle Parish, Surry [future Sussex] County, Virginia Colony on 26 January, 1750, the 2nd child and first son of William and Mary Jackson Rainey. 

Greensville County, Virginia

Earlier, in 1742, William's grandfather, Thomas Jackson (1793-1751) (father of his mother Mary Jackson Rainey and our 7th great-grandfather) patented about 300 acres in what became Greensville County, which he transferred to the Wainwrights, who failed to pay quit rents on the property, as did the Jackson heirs, Peter Jackson and his sister and her husband Mary Jackson (1724-1774) and William Rainey (1725-1768), so that in 1766 Mary's and Peter's brother Ralph made suit and obtained the right to the property, which he assigned to his nephew, our 5th great-grandfather, 16-year-old William Rainey. The property was re-surveyed and found to contain 312 acres rather than 300. Perhaps William sold off some of that land, but he kept at least seven slaves on a plantation of 110 acres there, even after he moved across the border to Northampton County, North Carolina, probably because that was where his bride's family the Vaughans lived. The North Carolina Provincial Congress passed a ban on importing slaves from Virginia into North Caroline in 1774, believing increasing the number of slaves in the colony would increase the number of runaways and free blacks. We'll get back to that Greensville plantation a little later.

Catherine Hall Vaughan's mother, another Catherine Hall Vaughan, our 6th great-grandmother, died shortly after her daughter's 1745 birth; her father William Vaughan (1722-1794) remarried and provided her with numerous half-siblings.

 William and Catherine had sons Hall, William, James (our 4th great-grandfather), Edmond, Thomas Hall, Daniel, Polly, Betsy Patsy, Catherine Hall, and Maria Ann, all named in William's will in that order, so we'll assume James was the third son, although at least one sister may have been older. 

Fatally ill, William prepared his will in March 1799 in Northampton County. It's an interesting Last Will & Testament, if only to show the family's lifestyle. Most men gave their wives control of their property only if they remained widows, normally indicating it be sold for the children's benefit if the widow remarried, but William didn't do that, and it would  cause trouble in the future. He left his personal and real property to Catherine, which included the 110 acres in Greensville, Virginia, and the seven slaves Cherry, Betty, Violet, Ellick, Lilly, Harry and Serena.  Northampton County was becoming a race horse breeding area, home to the famous stud Archie, ancestor of Man o' War. William left Catherine two horses, a gray and a sorrel, nine head of cattle and twenty head of hogs. He designated that she obtain for the three youngest sons, Edmond, Thomas Hall, and Daniel, each a horse when they reached the age of twenty. Because James was not included, we can assume he was already age twenty or older, which would put his date of birth at 1775 or earlier. 

The household items were nothing of value: four beds and furniture (bedding); two tables; seven chairs; one riding chair and harness; four iron pots; a kettle; a Dutch oven; three pewter dishes; eight plates; three basins; six spoons; six earthen dishes; 18 earthen plates; two teapots; one tea kettle; three earthen bowls; small quantity cups and saucers; one ox cart; five plow hoes; five weeding hoes; three hilling hoes; two grubbing hoes; two chests.

When the youngest son Daniel reached twenty years, William's will decreed that "the whole of my estate after the sons having had their horses, to be equally divided among my wife Catherine and all my surviving children" in "equal proportions." He then listed the ten children. He named Catherine and his son William executors. William's will was probated at the 1799 December court of Northampton County.

William Rainey's actual signature on his 1799 will, spelling it Raney. When the clerk copied it into the county Will Book, he changed the spelling to Rainey.

 The following spring our 4th great-grandfather, James Rainey, traveled up to Albemarle Parish, Sussex County, Virginia, where his father William had been born 50 years earlier, perhaps where he also had been born, and married Martha Parham on 3 April 1800. As a third son he had little to offer. Many of his siblings were still children - his sister Maria Ann born just before his father's death - so there was little chance of the plantation and slaves in Greensville County being sold and the proceeds divided. All we know at present is that James appears on the 1810 census for Pulaski County, Kentucky, with a wife and family. I doubt he and Martha made the move alone, but for now we don't know what extended family members, if any, traveled with them to Kentucky. 

About 1811, back in Northampton County, William's widow Catherine married Benjamin Putney. She yet had minor children in her household. Her son, Thomas Hall Rainey, was an ambitious man, who had married in February 1808 Elizabeth Gray, daughter of a wealthy plantation owner. Family myth says that after her father forbade the marriage, they eloped over the frozen Roanoke River, no doubt on a fine horse. It appears he feared his new stepfather was up to no good regarding the plantation in Greensville County, so he entered his mother's house and carried off the paperwork in the form of bonds, which were required in any sale of that property. Benjamin Putney and his mother sued him for the return of the paperwork, which Thomas claimed in a deposition, after swearing on the "Holy Evangelists" (the New Testament), he'd taken to protect the rights of his brothers and sisters and his own claim on his father's estate. Eventually the suit was settled and he returned the papers. Thomas Hall Rainey owned a mill for wheat and possessed slaves to work his cotton fields. He also was a money lender as some wealthy men were, banking not trusted by many. After a long illness - his doctors' bills were enormous for the time, running into the hundreds of dollars - he died in 1826, leaving his estate in trust for a son and three daughters, with  Elizabeth as guardian. Elizabeth insisted the children be sent to private boarding schools, the expenditures for which she had to report to court-appointed guardians after her own guardianship was terminated for her being a spendthrift.  And because of it we have a record of how an upper-crust daughter, such as Nancy Rainey, our fist cousin 5X removed, then about age 11, was outfitted for boarding school in 1829.

c1830 children's clothing

All clothing was handmade. Yards of various types of cloth were required: Indian cotton, cambric, calico, check cloth, flannel, muslin, dimity, linen, lace, ribbons; spools and balls of threads; bunches of pins. Other items were: a cashmere shawl; a veil; a hat and a band box; leather shoes and a finer pair of Morocco leather shoes; boots; a bandanna handkerchief and a silk handkerchief; silk gloves; three pairs of stockings and a pair of garters and belt; a fine comb [its teeth close together, likely for combing out lice nits]; 2 tortoise side combs; one strand necklace; a pair of scissors and scissors chain; a silver thimble; a belt clasp; a quire of paper; ink powder; a pen knife. The cost of board and room itself for Nancy was $40.00.

Warren County, North Carolina

Our 5th great-grandmother Catherine's husband, Benjamin Putney, died in 1825. In the 1830 census, Catherine was living at Six Pound in northern Warren County, North Carolina, next door to her daughter, Catherine Rainey Riggan. In fact, three of William and Catherine's daughters married Riggan brothers.  Catherine died in 1836. If our James's last brother Daniel was born in 1793, he would have reach age 20 in 1813, received his horse, and then the Greensville County plantation and slaves would have been sold, and the profits dispersed to all ten children. Did our James get his share? And how would he get it in Pulaski County, Kentucky?

 W-e-l-l, via the U.S. Postal Service, of course. No rural delivery was yet available, but there was a post office at a home or a store by 1803 in Somerset, James' nearest town. No postal money orders were available until the Civil War, but monies could be sent through the mail. 

Below is a video "Save Our Post Office" produced by People for the America Way, the song sung back in 1958 by Alabama shape note singers, a very old manner of singing in America. 

As of June 2020, 671 high-volume mail processing machines were ordered removed from sorting facilities across the U.S.

Be aware. The United States Postal Service is enshrined in the Constitution as a core priority of the federal government because it provides an irreplaceable service. It’s part of the lifeblood of our communities. By making sure that all Americans, regardless of where they live, can be in contact with one another, the Postal Service knits together the fabric of our community. It unites all of us.

With startling reports that the USPS is cutting back on services because they are stretched for revenues, we simply can’t afford for the USPS’s role to be diminished, particularly as we become even more reliant on meeting our needs in this time of the COVID-19 crisis.

Our Raney Family Ancestors: Were They Slaveholders?

1828 Slave Auction advertisement, Richmond, Virginia

 Our cousin, Pat Raney, told me he once asked his dad, Paul Raney, whether our ancestors had possessed slaves, and Uncle Paul said, "No." Uncle Paul was partly right, but his knowledge of our ancestors went back only so far.

In our Raney family ancestry, we have four distinct groups: Grandma Mary Smith Raney's French family; Nancy Dyson Raney's ancestors, who originally settled in Maryland Colony before heading west into Kentucky and finally over the Ohio Rivier into southern Indiana; Nancy Jane Dougan Rainey's ancestors who came from Ulster to Pennsylvania Colony, then down to North Carolina, before resettling in Tennessee and then in southern Indiana; and our Rainey ancestors, some of the earliest of Virginia Colony's landholders. 

Slave and free states in 1854. Indiana was a free state.

Our grandmother Mary Smith Raney's people came from the Franche-Comté part of eastern France in the 1830s and the early 1850s to settle in Darke and Shelby counties, Ohio, and later in Wilson County, Kansas, where Grandma met and married in 1910 our grandfather Frank Whitman Raney. Grandma's family were never slaveholders. Nevertheless, Grandma absorbed either the Kansas view or more-likely Grandpa's attitude toward African-Americans. When Mom came home from Alcott school in Spokane to say a Negro girl was in her third grade, Grandma admonished her, "Be nice to her, but don't play with her." Mom told me she felt bad seeing the little girl standing on the edge of the playground watching the children play, never invited to join them, but Mom would never have disobeyed her mother or suffer the ridicule of her fellow students.

Northern Ireland was the temporary home from which most of our Scots ancestors came.

In the 1730s the ancestors of Frank Whitman Raney's grandmother, Nancy Dougan Rainey, came to Pennsylvania from Ulster (Northern Ireland). By 1764 a large family group emigrated down to North Carolina Colony, in time for the American Revolution. It was a bloody conflict of attrition in which Carolina settlers took sides, forming militias and waging war against one another. Our 5th great-grandfather, Colonel James Dougan (1756 Lancaster Co., PA - 1837 Franklin Co., TN) was a merciless leader in this rebellion, making a name and rank for himself, afterward  granted 1000 acres in western Tennessee for his service - land he never saw. His mother's people, the Kerrs, and his wife Hannah's family, the Grahams and Sharps (her father, our 6th great-grandfather Edward Sharp [1744 Lancaster Co., PA - 1789 Randolph Co., NC], also a colonel in the American Revolutionary War), came to Pennsylvania from Donegal, Monaghan, and Tyrone counties in the north of Ireland, then down to North Carolina. Staunch Scots Presbyterians, their people had left Scotland for resettlement in northern Ireland in the early 1600s during the reign of James I, as the British crown pressured the lowland Border Scots to resettle there as it forced Catholic Irish to the west.

In the North Carolina census of 1790, Col. James Dougan possessed no slaves, although his brother Thomas possessed nine. After brother Thomas' death in 1795, and before1820, numerous of his offspring eschewed slavery and moved their families to Indiana so their children would not to be "contaminated" by it.  Col. James Dougan's son, James Dougan, Jr. (1782 Randolph Co., NC - 1827 Dyer Co., TN),and Anne Cross Dougan (died 1827 Dyer Co., TN), our 4th great-grandparents, settled on his father's bounty land in Dyer County, Tennessee, shortly before their deaths and likely did not possess slaves. 

However, Anne's father, Zachariah Cross (1761 Baltimore Co., MD - 1838 Illinois), another 5th great-grandfather, who served in the Revolutionary War, possessed 2 slaves in the 1810- and 3 slaves in 1820 censuses in Logan County, Kentucky, and 4 slaves in the 1830 census of St. Louis County, Missouri.

1855 Slave Sale in Lewis County, Kentucky

Direct ancestor of our great-grandmother, Nancy Dyson Raney (1867 IN - 1938 Gibson Co., IN), was our 5th great-grandfather Maddox Dyson (1744 Charles Co., MD - 1814 York Co., SC), a Revolutionary War soldier, who possessed one female slave, 56-year-old Prilly, in 1776, and two slaves in the 1790 census for Montgomery County, Maryland. He must have taken them with him when he moved down to York County, South Carolina, for his 1800 census there shows possession of two slaves. When he died in 1814 in York County, he left his personal property to his second wife, mother of his last three children. It was unnecessary for him to mention any slaves, for they were considered "personal" property.

1857 Maryland award notice for the capture of a runaway slave

Maddox Dyson's son by his first marriage, our 4th great-grandfather, Bennet Dyson (1768 Montgomery Co., MD - after 1840 Union Co., KY) possessed no slaves in the 1790 census for Montgomery County. Between 1800 and 1810 he moved his family to Henderson County, Kentucky, and farmed without slaves. His last census of 1840 in Union County indicates no slaves. His daughter Ann married a man in 1816 who possessed 8 slaves in the 1830 Kentucky census, so we can't say that Bennet inculcated anti-slavery beliefs into his children. His son, William Hill Dyson (1801 St. Mary's Co., MD - 1870 Warrick Co., IN), our 3rd great-grandfather, married in 1826 Alice Julian, daughter of  Methodist minister Samuel Denton Julian (1780 Rutherford Co., NC - 1851 Warrick Co., IN) and moved with that family to southern Indiana by 1830. Neither he nor his father-in-law possessed slaves.

This 4th great-grandfather, Samuel Denton Julian, married Mary Condry in 1806 in Rutherford County, North Carolina. Her father, Claiborne Condry (b.1754 Rutherford Co., NC) was not a slave-owner. Only one of his four sons acquired slaves after he resettled to the north in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

William Turpin (1650 England - 1685 Somerset Co., MD), our 8th great-grandfather, arrived in Maryland in 1661. A few generations later, Solomon Turpin, our 6th great-grandfather, left Maryland Colony for what would become West Virginia, where he died in about 1779. Neither his son Moses (1757 future WV - 1816 Pulaski Co., KY), our 5th great-grandfather, nor his other three sons, possessed slaves.

Pulaski County, Kentucky

Our 4th great-grandfather, Moses Turpin (1812 Pulaski Co., KY - 1892 Decatur, IA) left Kentucky for southern Indiana, where he married Frances Utterback/Otterbach in 1834. "Frankie" as she was called was descended from founders of the first German colony, Germana, established in Virginia in 1714 to mine for silver and iron. They soon switched to farming. This family owned no slaves. Their daughter Elizabeth "Ella" Turpin (1841 Owen Co., IN - bef. 1870 IN) married, in 1858, Whitman Hill Dyson in Warrick County, Indiana, and they became our 2nd great-grandparents.

Burke County, North Carolina

Our 6th great-grandfather, Arthur Erwin (1738 Bucks Co., PA - 1821 Burke Co., NC), a captain in the Revolutionary War, was an ancestor of our 2nd great-grandmother, Nancy Dougan Rainey, who married Everett Raney/Rainey in 1865 when he returned from serving three years as a Union soldier in the American Civil War. The Erwins, originally from Scotland and Presbyterian, arrived in Pennsylvania from Ulster about 1738 and thence down to North Carolina before the outbreak of the rebellion. In the 1790 census he possessed nine slaves. Here are selected parts of his Last Will & Testament:

Will of Arthur Erwin, Burke County NC, 27th of August, 1821:  In the name of God Amen. I Arthur Erwin of the County of Burke in the State of North Carolina . . . hereby devise and bequeath unto my well beloved wife Margaret Erwin . . . my Negro woman Linda and girl Sally, daughter of Nancy, during her life and no longer and then to be divided as hereafter directed. . . I do devise and bequeath unto my son William my Negro man Frank to him and his heirs forever. My will is and I do devise and bequeath unto my son James my Negro man Jim, a sorrel mare and sixty dollars, which two latter articles have been long since delivered to him and to him and his heirs forever. . . My will is and I do devise and bequeath unto my son John a Negro man called Ben which I delivered him long since to him and his heirs forever - My will is and I do devise and bequeath unto my grandchildren, children of my [deceased] son Alexander [our 5th great-grandfather], my Negro man Jo which I delivered to my son in his lifetime, to them and their heirs forever - My will is and I do devise and bequeath unto Arthur, Robert, William [our 4th great-grandfather], Cyrus and Marcus, the five sons of my son Alexander Erwin, all that tract of land situated on the forks of the Upper Creek called the Harbinson place containing three hundred acres to them and their heirs forever, share and share alike - . . . I do devise and bequeath unto my daughter Polly Patton the two Negro women I gave her heretofore named Nelly and Bina and their increase to her heirs forever and also a Negro girl Sally left to my wife during her life and at the death of my wife to my daughter Polly Patton to her and her heirs forever. My will is and I do devise and bequeath unto my grandson Adolphus L. Erwin my Negro woman named Mary and her increase which Negro woman I delivered sometime ago to him and his heirs forever - . . . My will is and I do devise and direct that all my Negroes not disposed of in this will and by me held be valued by men chosen indifferently as to relationship (if they cannot be divided without) and allotted equally among my three sons as to their value, William, James and John, and kept by them, or if they should think proper to sell them to let those of the family who may be able to purchase them have them as it is my wish that they should not go out of the family, the property when allotted to be the holders of the said John, James and William and their heirs forever.. . .  In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal this 18th day of February A D 1819 ad 43 year of American independence. . . .

Arthur's son, our 5th great-grandfather, Alexander Erwin, possessed slaves at his death in North Carolina in 1816, but his son William Erwin, our 4th great-grandfather (1790 Burke Co., NC - 1850 IN), did not. He may have left North Carolina before his father's death, for he married Elizabeth Whittinghill in 1816 in Ohio County, Kentucky. They settled by 1818 in southern Indiana.  Elizabeth Whittinghill's father Peter, who served in the American Revolutionary War, and her mother's family, the German Gabhardts, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1731, then moved down to Augusta County, Virginia, and later to Lincoln County, Kentucky, did not possess slaves.

Our 4th great-grandfather, John Roberts (c.1771 Fincastle Co., VA - 1857 Pulaski Co., KY) did not own slaves. His wife Jane's Scots-Irish Patton family, who had come from County Donegal in the early 18th century to Pennsylvania, then down into western Virginia, did not appear to possess slaves, either. John Roberts' daughter, Milly Roberts and James Rainey married in 1832 in Pulaski County to become our 3rd great-grandparents. They did not posses slaves. Nearly all of these branches of ancestors left Northern Ireland and Germany for economic reasons, wanting a life of farming the basics so they could rear their families without want.
 
And that brings us to our Rainey/Ranye forebears and their kin, the early English planters of Virginia. So many Virginia records were destroyed in courthouse fires before and during the American Civil War, few records of our ancestors' Last Wills & Testaments remain extant.  These direct ancestors lived in Tidewater Virginia for two hundred years - from about 1620 to shortly after 1800, when our newly married 4th great-grandfather James Rainey (c1778 Sussex Co., VA-1838/40 White Co., TN) and his bride Martha Parham Rainey (c. 1780 Sussex Co., VA -1817/20 Pulaski Co., KY) set off from Sussex County, Virginia, for Kentucky without slaves.

James' father, William Rainey (1750 Sussex Co., VA - 1799 Northampton Co., NC), our 5th great-grandfather, possessed six slaves at the making of his will in 1797, which he kept on a plantation he owned in Greenville County, Virignia, not where he lived in Northampton. He named them in his will: Cherry, Betty, Violet, Ellick, Lilly, and Harry.

Our 4th great-grandmother, Martha Parham was the product of Stith Parham's second marriage to Lucretia Sturdivant, widow of a Parham cousin. Neither parent lived to see Martha married to James Rainey. In the 1790 census Stith Parham possessed 30 slaves. The following year Stith gifted to his son Matthew Anderson Parham the "following Negroes: Rodger, Tom, Ephraim, Hartwella, Pat, Ussey, Charles, Julley, Argain, Cate, Fred, Sarah, Sucy and Scott." In Stith's will of June 1793 he described himself as a citizen of South Carolina, but presently back in Virginia. He left his plantation in South Carolina and all his slaves, but for two, to his son Stith, Jr., who had possession of them, and left the two named slaves, Nick and Beck, and the remnants of his Virginia lands , to son Matthew Anderson Parham.

Sussex County, Virginia, carved out of Surry County in 1754, both having been part of Prince George County earlier.

Stith Parham was not a self-made man. His father William Parham (1696 Virginia -1758 Sussex Co., VA), our 6th great-grandfather, was a cotton grower, as attested by a large amount of cotton seed in his probate inventory. Sussex County on the Virginia-North Carolina is the northernmost area for growing cotton. It was labor intensive, as was the tobacco raised by most of our Virginia ancestors. William left his wife Anne Stith Parham the use of the plantation during her lifetime and most of his 11 slaves. He left the plantation and some slaves to his son Thomas. To his son Stith Parham, our 5th great-grandfather, he left some slaves and the lands he owned in Dinwiddie County, which Stith must have sold, for he remained in Sussex County.

 Stith Parham's wife, Lucretia Sturdivant Parham, was the daughter of  Henry Sturdivant (1706 Surry Co., VA -  1772 Sussex Co., VA), our 6th great-grandfather, who made his will shortly before his death, leaving his son John the land he lived upon containing 165 acres, one negro woman Cresse and her children Phebe and Cloe and one negro girl Sally, which slaves the son had in his possession. Also, one negro named Old Jemmy and a negro boy named Stephen. 

I'm unable to locate the will of our 6th great-grandfather, William Rainey, Jr. (c.1722 Virginia - after 1769 Sussex Co., VA), but I have found the will of his father, our 7th great-grandfather William Rainey, Sr. (c.1690 Virginia - 1768 Sussex Co., VA ) of January 1766. The pertinent parts are:

In the name of God, Amen, I William Rainey . . . give to my Son William Rainey [our 6th great-grandfather] . . . a Negro man called Hector to him and to his heirs for ever . . . I give and Devise to my Son Nathaniel Rainey . . . a Negro man named Caesar . . . to him and his heirs for Ever . . . I Give and Devise to my Daughter Mary Baley one Negro woman named Jane and her increase to her and her heirs for Ever . . . .

Fayette County, Kentucky advertisement offering cash reward for a runaway slave.

When William's father, our 8th great-grandfather, William Rainey/Ranye (c1660 Belfast, Ulster - 1722 Prince George Co., VA) [whose land became part of Surry and later Sussex Co.] made his will in 1722, he made no disbursement of slaves. Did it mean he possessed no slaves, or that he had already gifted them to certain of his children? He was a merchant, but also bought and sold land.

 
Going farther back in our ancestry, a pair of ancestors of Martha Parham were our 9th great-grandparents Christopher and Mary Addy Branch, who arrived at Jamestown in 1620 aboard the ship "London Merchant."  Christopher Branch (1598 England - 1681 Henrico Co.,VA) was a tobacco planter, a tobacco viewer, and a burgess. At the time of making his will in June 1678, he possessed an English indentured servant, Joab, and a slave referred to as "the Negro." Half of the "Negro's" labor was to go to his three orphaned grandsons to help build their houses and clear cornfields sufficiently fenced to keep out hogs and cattle.

Our distant cousin, President Thomas Jefferson

It is through the Branches and the Ishams that we are related to President Thomas Jefferson, our 3rd cousin 7x removed, who owned 130 slaves at his death in 1826. He was so in debt that all of his slaves were sold, except Sally Hemings and her family.  It's interesting to note that Jefferson's grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph (1792-1875), our 4th cousin 5x removed, after the Nat Turner slave rebellion of 1831, introduced a post nati emancipation plan in the Virginia House of Delegates that would have provided for gradual emancipation of children born into slavery after they served an apprenticeship and came of age. It was defeated. Randolph, who was Thomas Jefferson's executor, was the person who told the historian in the 1850s that the slave Sally Hemings, half-sister to Jefferson's dead wife Martha, was not his grandfather's mistress and the mother of his children, but that Randolph's uncle had fathered those children who so resembled Jefferson. That was believed until DNA has proved otherwise.

The Virginia House of Burgesses passed a law in 1662 that  included the principle of partus, to prevent slaves with English fathers from claiming freedom. Other colonies quickly adopted the principle. It held that "all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother," meaning that white fathers were no longer required to legally acknowledge, support, or emancipate their children by slave women. Men could sell their children or put them to work.Virginia planters encouraged their slaves to produce offspring, masters, their sons and overseers assisting in the procreation. By 1790 Virginia reached a point where the slave population was 292,627 compared to the white population of 442,117.  It was about this time that plantation owners began selling their surplus slaves "down the river," to the cotton fields of the Deep South. 

Lexington, Kentucky advertisement wanting to purchase slaves, likely to be sold into the cotton fields of the Deep South.

After the American Revolutionary War, Methodists and Quakers preached that slavery was wrong and pressed their planter neighbors to release their slaves. One such Sussex County planter, a nephew of our 5th great-grandfather Stith Parham, who was also named Stith Parham (1749 future Sussex Co., VA -1806 Sussex Co.) was baptized into the Methodist church in 1779. He freed some slaves in 1784: 

I Stith Parham of Sussex County Virginia being fully persuaded that freedom is the natural right of all man kind, and that it is my
indispensable duty to do unto all men as I would have them do unto me in the like situation And having under my care 4 Negroes whom I have heretofore held as Slaves of the following names & ages viz't. Simon aged Thirty four years, Cesar Twenty two years, Nanny forty, Tabb thirty seven, I hereby Emancipate and sett free all & every of the above named Slaves and I do for my self my heirs Executors & Administrators Relinquish all my right title Interest and claim or pretension of claim whatsoever either to their persons or any estate they may hereafter acquire. 

And I having also six more Negroes now in their minority of the following names and ages viz't. Fanny aged sixteen, Fanny fifteen, Nathan eleven, Nanny eight, Matt five, Fredrick two, all and every of whom also I hereby Emancipate and sett free. Yet I believe it right for me to act as a guardian over them until the males arrive to the age of twenty one years and the females Eighteen, and I do for myself my heirs Executors and Administrators relinquish all my right title Interest and claim or pretension of claim whatsoever either to their persons or to any estate they may acquire after they shall attain the ages aforesaid which will be the following times Fanny 3rd September 1785, Fanny October 1786, Nathan August 1794, Nanny March 1794, Matt November 1799, & Fredrick September 1803. All the above said Negroes and their posterity to enjoy their full freedom without any interruption from me or any person for by or under me in witness whereof I have hereunto sett my hand & seal this 15th July 1784.

He must have held some slaves back, for later he drew up another writ of emancipation in 1789:  

I Stith Parham of the town of Petersburg being deeply conscious of the impropriety of Negro Slavery, and having in my possession Sundry persons whom I have for sometime held in a State of Slavery do by these presents emancipate the said slaves in the following manner, agreeable to an act of the General Assembly. Gilly (a woman) to have her liberty immediately, Billy (a boy) in the year 1797, Clarissa (a girl) 1799, Cate in 1803, Mary in 1805 and George in 1807. Signed 7 January 1789 and proved in court 1 April 1789.

And again, in 1797 he released the male slave Pick. But he wasn't done yet. In his will of 1806:

My will and desire is that my three young Negroes vizt. Ben, Burwell, and Jimmy have their freedom when they arrive at the age of twenty five years. He transferred the claim he had to these slaves to Edmund Jones and Hill Jones, who ministered from the Methodist Chapel Jones' Meeting House in Sussex County and left $50 to trustees of Jones’s Meeting house toward repairing the same – 15 Jan 1806 – recorded 6 Feb. 1806. This relative must have wrestled with his conscience over and over, for the emancipation of a slave was a money loss, although likely they continued to work for him until they could afford their own land. 

My son Donovan on his father's side is descended from some free people of color granted their freedom from various white planters in Virginia and North Carolina, mulatto children of these planters.

Our Raney family match DNA with numerous distant cousins of African-American descent, whose white forebears are our forebears, too. So, when you see African-Americans marching for equal justice under the law, realize they may well be your kinfolk. 

We'll end with "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," composed in 1873 by James Bland (1854 NY-1911 PA), one of the best known American black composers of the 19th century. Although born a free man, he understood the plight of unwanted blacks who could not find employment in the northern U.S. after the American Civil War. It was the state song of Virginia from 1940 to 1997. Song performed by Tom Roush. HERE