elopement

They have abandoned their families and eloped.

Wilson Advance, 25 February 1881.

As he wound his way through Crossroads township, Wilson County, in 1880, the census taker encountered farmer Tarrell Parker, 45; wife Minerva, 18; and children Trecy, 5, Jesse, 3, and Mancy Ann, 1.

A year later, Parker placed a notice in the Wilson Advance, offering a reward for anyone bringing to justice his wife Minerva and Ruffin Rowe, who had run off together.

Rowe [whose surname appears in early records as Rose] was married to Tilithia Locus, and they appear in the 1880 census of Crossroads, too: farmer Ruffin Rowe, 31; wife Tillitha, 26; and children James William, 5, David, 3, and John Hardy, 1. [A fourth son, Ruffin Haywood Jr., was born 1879-80.]

Tarrell Parker lived the remainder of his life in Wilson County. I find no further record of Minerva Parker and Ruffin Rowe Sr. Rowe was omitted from his father David Rowe‘s will, and his wife was described as divorced in the 1900 census.

An elopement from Robeson County.

Wilmington Morning Star, 2 September 1902.

In 1902, Charlotte Sanderson, a white married Cumberland County mother, ran away with C.A.P. Overby, an African-American man (with a reddish-brown, or “ginger cake,” complexion). With several of Sanderson’s children in tow, the couple made it as far as Kenly, where Overby apparently realized the enormity — and impossibility — of their actions and abandoned the family. Sanderson rode the train one town further, into Wilson County, where she disembarked and found work for herself and children. After writing to a friend to ship her goods to Lucama, Sanderson was arrested and returned to Fayetteville to face charges of … what?

The Daily Times noted that Sanderson was “fairly good looking, but illiterate.” The Lenoir, N.C., Weekly News described Sanderson as “very ignorant and debased,” as any white woman who engaged in an intimate relationship with a Black man would be, per the social restrictions of the time. Her husband, on the other hand, was “industrious” and “respectable.” The Sandersons did not divorce, however, or at least not immediately, as they are found together in the 1910 census.

I have not been able to determine the fate of Overby.

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In the 1900 census of Lumberton township, Robeson County, North Carolina: Alexander Sanderson, 36; wife Charlotte, 30; and children William C., 11, Nannie Lee, 9, Alice C., 7, Maggie, 5, and Alexander, 2.

In the 1910 census of Lumberton township, Robeson County: farmer Sandy Sanderson, 46; wife Charlotte, 40; and children Alice C., 17, Maggie B., 15, Sandy, 12, Clarence, 9, and William C., 21.