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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Northern Ireland was the temporary home from which most of our Scots ancestors came. |
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.
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| 1855 Slave Sale in Lewis County, Kentucky |
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| 1857 Maryland award notice for the capture of a runaway slave |
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.
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| Pulaski County, Kentucky |
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| 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 . . . .
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| 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.
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| Lexington, Kentucky advertisement wanting to purchase slaves, likely to be sold into the cotton fields of the Deep South. |
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
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