enslaved people

The estate of Edith Joyner Barnes.

Edith Joyner Barnes, widow of Jesse Barnes, was mother of several of Wilson County’s wealthiest men, including county founder, farmer, slave trader and military man Joshua Barnes.

Edith Barnes’ 1848 will included these provisions:

  • a negro boy named Tony to grandson Jesse Barnes, son of Dempsey D. Barnes

  • “old Negro man Isaac” had “the priviledge of choosing for his master either of [her] three sons Elias Barnes William Barnes or Joshua Barnes his wife Violet to go with him” with money from her estate to support them for their lifetimes

  • “two negroes named Judy and Toppy,” valued at $600, to son Joshua Barnes

Edith Barnes died in 1849, and her estate entered probate. At November Term 1849, her sons petitioned the county court for the partition of the enslaved people not named in Edith’s will — Harry Sr., Harry Jr., Elisa, Hannah, Violet, Short, Celicia [Cecilia?], Cherry, Cass, Anarchy, Squire, Bob, Ginny, Mark, and Eny.

The estate file does not contain the order responding to the petition, or a distribution per its terms.

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N.B.: Isaac Barnes and Vilet Barnes registered their nine-year cohabitation with a Wilson County justice of the peace in 1866. In the 1870 census of Stantonsburg township, Wilson County: Isaac Barnes, 35; wife Violet, 25; children Warren, 9, and Joseph, 4; Della Amerson, 21, and child Margaret, 1; and Larrence Barnes, 21. This young couple were children when Edith Barnes made her will in 1848 and could not have been the “old man Isaac” and wife Violet referred to.

Edith Barnes Will, North Carolina Wills and Probate Records 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com; Edith Barnes Estate File (1849), Edgecombe County, North Carolina Estate Files 1663-1979, http://www.familysearch.org.

The sale of Teresea, aged 16 or 17.

On 17 February 1821, Jonathan Ellis sold John Farmer “one negro girl about Sixteen or Seventeen years of age by the name of Teresea ….”

Recall that in 1853 John Farmer’s widow Nancy inherited a woman named Treasy from her husband’s estate. The Treasy named in John Farmer’s estate is likely the Teresea above, documented at the time of her purchase.

Dempsey and Jesse Barnes Papers, Hugh Johnston Collection, North Carolina Memory, lib.digitalnc.org.

Everett is given as a gift.

State of N.C. Edgecombe County }  Know that I Jesse Barnes of the County and State aforesaid do give unto my son in law Orren Bulluck of the County and State aforesaid one negroe boy by the name of Evarett about Eighteen years old. The above named negroe I give for the natural Love and affection that I Bare unto my son in law Orren Bulluck. July 27th day 1835 In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal. Joshua Barnes  Jesse Barnes

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In July 1835, after daughter Edith Barnes Bulluck’s death, Jesse Barnes gave his son-in-law Orren Bulluck an enslaved man named Everett. Jesse Barnes’ son Joshua Barnes wrote out the deed of gift and signed it as a witness. The Barneses lived in what is now Wilson County; Bulluck, on Cokey Swamp in Edgecombe County.

Perhaps: in the 1880 census of Lower Fishing Creek township, Edgecombe County, farm laborer Everett Bullock, 65, and wife Venus, 60.

Dempsey and Jesse Barnes Papers, Hugh Johnston Collection, North Carolina Memory, lib.digitalnc.org.

The estate of John Farmer (1852).

As Hugh B. Johnston put it, “John Farmer lost his mind in 1824 and had spells of irrationality until the end of his life.” “It is said,” he wrote, “that John Farmer was rather violent sometimes, and his family was then forced to chain him in the log corn crib near the public road a short distance east of Wilson on the present highway 42.” Until his death in 1852, Farmer’s affairs were managed by a series of legal guardians, the last of whom was Joshua Barnes. Despite allegation that an early guardian was a wastrel, by all appearances the estate was well cared-for, and Farmer’s healthy assets included twenty enslaved people.

On 3 January 1853, a committee met at James D. Barnes’ house in Wilson to divide Farmer’s enslaved people among his ten heirs — nine adult children and his widow. The value of each share was $1057.50, and getting as close as possible to that amount was the driving factor in determining who was paired with whom. Not kinship.  Surely some of the people named in this list were children, perhaps quite small, separated from their immediate families. (Overs and unders, by the way, were fixed with cash exchanges.)

  • Lot No. 1 — Henry and Fanny, $1450, to Arthur Bardin for wife Lency Farmer Bardin
  • Lot No. 2 — Dick and Minters, $1350, to Blunt Bulluck for wife Polly Farmer Bulluck
  • Lot No. 3 — Sarah and Amos, $1075, to Thomas Yelverton for wife Nancy Farmer Yelverton
  • Lot No. 4 — Peter and Caesar, $1025, to John W. Wilkins and wife Delphia Farmer Wilkins
  • Lot No. 5 — Joe and Ned, $975, to George T. Yelverton and wife Edith Farmer Yelverton
  • Lot No. 6 — Jim and Dorcas, $925, to Jesse Farmer
  • Lot No. 7 — Grace and Elvin, $1000, to John Farmer
  • Lot No. 8 — Julia and Penny, $900, to William D. Farmer
  • Lot No. 9 — Will and Cherry, $900, to Isaac B. Farmer
  • Lot No. 10 — Abram and Treasy, $975, to Nancy Farmer, John Farmer’s widow

Shortly after the distribution, Isaac Farmer, John’s son and administrator, paid Daniel Hocott ten dollars for “keeping Negro woman Julian while lying in with her child Penny.” Julia and Penny then, who went to William D. Farmer, were a mother and infant.

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To date, I have no evidence of family ties among the other distributed pairs, but we have met Henry before. He secured his own freedom by leaving Arthur and Lency Bardin’s farm, making his way to the coast, and enlisting in the United States Colored Troops.

Thomas and Nancy Yelverton and George and Edith Yelverton lived in the Pikeville area of northern Wayne County, North Carolina. Amos Yelverton married Martha Coley on 12 January 1867 in Wayne County. He and his family are found in the 1870 census of Pikeville township. Ned Yelverton enlisted with the United States Colored Troops in Goldsboro in April 1865. He married Gustin Faison; they are found in Wayne County census records.

Peter may have been Peter Wilkins, who married Julia Wilkins in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, on 12 August 1866. They are found in the 1870 and 1880 censuses of Sparta township, Edgecombe County.

Caesar Wilkins, son of Samuel Horn and Sarah Farmer, married Bina Barnes, daughter of Benjamin Barnes and Violet Barnes, in 26 January 1871 in Wilson County. (Caesar’s mother, perhaps, was the Sarah who went to Thomas and Nancy Yelverton with Amos.)

Abram, who remained with Nancy Farmer, was Abram Farmer, whom we met here and here. Abram Farmer was baptized at Toisnot Primitive Baptist Church in 1842 and joined the church about 1870. Abram Farmer and Cherry Bridges registered their 11-year cohabitation with a Wilson County justice of the peace in 1866. In the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farm laborer Abraham Farmer, 57; wife Cherry Farmer, 54; Jane Farmer, 16; Caroline Armstrong, 30, and her children Gray, 6, Thadeus, 4, and John, 2 months; and farm laborer York Gill, 35. (Was Cherry Bridges the Cherry who went to Isaac B. Farmer? Perhaps.)

John Farmer Estate (1852), Edgecombe County, North Carolina Estate Files 1663-1979, http://www.familysearch.org; Johnston, Hugh, “Looking Backward,” Wilson Daily Times, 2 January 1960.

“I haven’t freed you yet.”

Hugh B. Johnston, writing as “An Old Reporter,” wrote dozens of genealogy columns for the Daily Times and Rocky Mount Telegram. His piece about Jesse Farmer relayed two anecdotes highlighting the violent treatment of enslaved people.

In the first, after naming the eight people Jesse and Mary Batts Farmer enslaved near present-day Elm City — Nellie, Clarkey, Ailsey, Dinah, Jim, Jerry, Hilliard, and Cindy — Johnston recounts Dinah’s reaction to Emancipation. “I understand that I’d been freed,” she told Jesse Farmer. “Well, I haven’t freed you yet,” he responded, and beat her.

The second incident occurred during the Civil War. A free woman of color named Clarkey had just died, and her body lay in a cabin at the edge of the yard. Jim O’Neal, overseer on a neighboring plantation, arrived with several people enslaved by Dr. George Sugg. O’Neal accused Jerry of having stolen one of his hogs with Bill, an enslaved man standing “nearly naked and bound with leather straps.” Mary Batts Farmer defended Jerry and declared he would not be beaten. When O’Neal threatened to do so anyway, Mary Farmer told Jerry to defend himself. He grabbed an ax and walked away, and despite orders, the enslaved men with O’Neal refused to follow. O’Neal then took Bill under the lean-to of Clarkey’s cabin and forced the others to beat him with switches “until he almost smoked.”

Rocky Mount Telegram, 14 March 1956.

  • Jerry Farmer

In 1866, Jerry Farmer and Kate Sugs registered their two-year cohabitation with a Wilson County justice of the peace.

In the 1870 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: Jerry Farmer, 26, and wife Kate, 26.

In the 1880 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farm laborer Jerry Farmer, 37, widower.

On 10 January 1884, Jerry Farmer, 39, married Annice Pender, 23, at Abram Sharpe’s. Charles Barnes, Haywood Batts, and Haywood Pender were witnesses.

Daniel, freedom seeker.

Daniel, a tall, handsome, dark-skinned man, left William Barnes’ plantation near Oak Grove [Saratoga] on the night of 20 September 1834. Eleven months later, Barnes began running ads in the Tarboro Press, offering a $50 reward for Daniel’s capture. Despite specific details about Daniel’s physique, his mother and siblings (from whom he had been separated when sold by Asahel Farmer), and even his father (a blacksmith who worked nearly independently in Nash County), Daniel was still on the lam in May 1936 when this ad ran, and as late as April 1837, when the Press re-printed it.

Tarboro’ Press, 7 May 1836.

Four years later, Abner Tison, another Saratoga-area planter, offered a reward for a Daniel whose physical description closely matched the Daniel above. He’d been missing a year. Though the ages are off, this Daniel had some notable scars, and was said to have been raised in Pitt County, this is surely the same knock-kneed man, bound and determined to take his freedom.

Tarboro’ Press, 24 July 1841.

Connecting dots.

I’ve been at this a long time, folks. And sometimes it takes a long time to make the dots connect.

In 1986, renowned local historian Hugh B. Johnston Jr. told me he believed (1) Willis Barnes had been enslaved by Joshua Barnes (or some of “that set” north of Toisnot Swamp; (2) he was “suspicious” of Toney and Annie Eatmon as Willis Barnes’ parents; and (3) Cherry Battle Barnes “no doubt” had been enslaved by Amos J. Battle and lived on a farm owned by Battle’s wife.

This week, I made the connection that supports (3). In 1860, as a result of litigation arising from the settlement of the estate of Weeks Parker, a wealthy Edgecombe County planter, a trustee purchased from Alexander Eatmon an enslaved young woman named Cherry, who joined a group of enslaved people bequeathed to Parker’s daughter Margaret H. Parker Battle — Amos J. Battle’s wife. I found the bill of sale in deed books at the Wilson County courthouse.

The jury’s still out on (1), as the only evidence I have at this point is the proximity of Willis Barnes’ household (#180) to Joshua Barnes’ (#188) in the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County. As to (2), I have discussed freeborn Toney Eatmon elsewhere, and the strong DNA links I have to descendants of both Theophilus Eatmon, his putative father, and Nelson Eatmon, his putative brother. Annie was an enslaved woman who apparently died before 1870 and about whom I have no additional information.

Bill of sale for Syphax, Jim, Mose, and Cherry.

Deed book 1, pages 612, Wilson County Register of Deeds, Wilson, North Carolina.

Whereas at the Spring Term A.D. 1860 of the court of Equity for Wilson County NC a decree was made in the suit of Sabra Parker & others to the Court confirming the sale of Slaves Syphax Jim & Mose & ordering James W. Davis as trustee of the plaintiff another slave in the stead & whereas the said James W. Davis by & with the consent of the plaintiff has contracted with Alexander Eatman for the purchase of a slave by the name of Cherry as a substitute which bargain & purchase has been approved & confirmed by the said court of Equity Now therefore the said Alexander Eatman for & in consideration of the sum of twelve hundred Dollars in hand paid the receipt of which by the said Eatman is this day acknowledges has bargained sold & conveyed & by these presents doth bargain sell & convey unto the said James W. Davis trustee as aforesaid slave Cherry to have & to hold according to the decree of the court of Equity aforesaid & the said Alexander Eatman does hereby warrant the title to said Negroe & that she is sound  June 19th 1860  Alexander Eatman {seal}

P.W. Barnes

The Execution of the foregoing Bill of Sale is proven before me by P.W. Barnes the subscribing witness thereto August 14th 1860    T.E. Davis Clerk of Wilson Court

Record for Registration August 14th 1860  A.J. Brown Regr

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Some context for this transaction is provided in this post and post, but it is difficult to fully understand what is happening here. Edgecombe County planter Weeks Parker died in January 1844, leaving a widow, Sabra Hearn Parker, and three children, Margaret H. Parker Battle, Simmons B. Parker, and Henrietta Parker Battle. (Another son, Dr. John H. Parker, who had migrated to Florida, died while his father’s estate was in probate. Syphax, Jim, and Moses were among the 30 enslaved people Weeks Parker bequeathed to Margaret Battle, wife of Amos Johnston Battle. The Parker heirs fought amongst themselves and with the estate’s administrators over the handling of the estate, and Emancipation eventually intervened to prevent a final distribution of all of Weeks Parker’s immense wealth. In the meantime, there were partial distributions here and there, as well as sales of unsatisfactory slaves and purchases of replacements. That appears to be what happened in this situation, though it’s not clear who Cherry replaced. 

What I am fairly certain of, however, is that Cherry was my great-great-grandmother.

In 1986, I wrote legendary local Hugh B. Johnston Jr. for help tracing my enslaved ancestors, Willis Barnes and Cherry Battle, who registered their six-year cohabitation in Wilson County in 1866. Johnston wrote back promptly, opining that Cherry had been “a slave belonging to the noted Reverend Amos Johnston Battle of Wilson, whose wife owned a small farm north of Wilson not far from the [Joshua] Barnes plantation.” [More about this letter later.]

Willis and Cherry Battle went on to have at least nine children, whose marriage licenses and death certificates list their mother’s maiden name as Cherry Battle, but just as often name her as Cherry Eatmon. 

In 1860, Alexander Eatmon, a Nash County farmer, sold 18 year-old Cherry to a trustee, who passed her on to Margaret H. Battle. The young woman went to live at Walnut Hill, Battle’s farm just north of Wilson. Shortly after, Cherry married Willis, who is believed to have been enslaved on Joshua Barnes‘ neighboring plantation. Their eldest child, Rachel Barnes Taylor, was my great-grandmother.

The estate of Bennett Bullock.

Bennett Bullock lived in an area of Edgecombe County, North Carolina, now in Wilson County. Bulluck died in 1836, and his estate entered probate. In November Term 1838 of Edgecombe County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, widow Martha Bullock petitioned the court for the apportionment of three enslaved people — Dave, Rose, and Milly — that she and her minor children inherited as tenants in common.

Eighteen years later, in Wilson County court, William and Bennett Bullock Jr. received their shares of their father’s enslaved property. Bennett Bullock drew Dave; William Bullock, Milly.

Bennett Bullock Estate File (1836); Bennett Bullock Estate File (1855), Edgecombe County, North Carolina Estate Files 1663-1979, http://www.familysearch.org.

Commemoration and celebration at Scarborough House.

Black Wide-Awake has featured several of Wilson County’s remaining antebellum plantation houses, including the James Scarborough house, built circa 1821, just outside Saratoga.

Now an event space and bed-and-breakfast, “Scarborough House Resort is committed to a long-term and ongoing effort to more deeply understand and respond to the historic role this property contributed to the injustice of slavery, as well as the legacies of enslavement on the Scarborough Plantation. Through engagement with the members of the Preservation of Wilson, collaborative projects with our surrounding community, and continued initiatives of learning and research, the Scarborough House Resort resolves to memorialize and reconcile with the wrongs of the past. We aim to follow a path of love and respect for all humanity, creating an inclusive environment, where all people will feel welcomed.” The site goes on to request that anyone with information, photographs, documents or other artifacts pertaining to Scarborough Plantation or its residents, enslaved or free, to contact PreserveOldWilson@gmail.com or reach out to the Scarborough staff.

I am thrilled and honored that Scarborough House has engaged me to research the property’s African-American past, a first step toward respect and reconciliation. On 22 April 2023 Scarborough House Resort is hosting a tea party to benefit Preservation of Wilson. Guests will enjoy a tree-planting in honor of Earth Day, learn the history of the house and its original inhabitants, and join in the dedication of a bench memorializing the lives of enslaved people who worked its land.

Photo collage courtesy of Scarborough House Resort.