Genealogical Reckoning - McCown Ancestors

Genealogical Reckoning

I reckon you were warned! This is called "Doug's Diversions" because I have no intention of staying on topic from post to post. 

A little before and certainly after my dad died in 2021 - I began in earnest to gather the family history he had collected over the years. Dad wasn't extremely organized, so he would find things, know things, but he didn't always document concisely or consistently.  I found information over time as I cleaned up his computer, paper files, and boxes of "things." In addition to what he discovered in his research, he was also the recipient of genealogy documentation done or collected by his father, aunt, grandmother, and great-grandfather. 

A couple years later I moved mom out of the house she and dad had lived in for the last several years. And she had stuff her parents had collected. Consequently, there was a lot to go through. (There were original letters from as early as 1857.)  After reading through all the stuff, I began to document, scan, organize, digitize, and share what I had assembled.  I also began my own research as the bug had now bitten me.

One of the things I found was this Confederate ten-dollar bill. Dad was from Ohio - so this bill was from my mom's side. Discovering the bill reminded me that genealogy also involves connecting your family to history.  This bill did that. The natural question that followed was: What parts did my family play in America's history of slavery?  And as Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. says on Finding Your Roots, "What's it like to see that?"

Having spent time researching and pinning census records, birth/death certificates, tax records, Wills, Deeds and sometimes history book references to ancestors, I have discovered some direct connections to ancestors' association with slavery in America.  The stories I have discovered, much like Mr. Gates' show, do not all fit cleanly into any narrative that we have been told. I'm going to tell some of those stories!

Caveat

While our family histories intersect with slavery, we carry no inherited guilt for the choices made by those who came before us. For me, I recognize that benefits accrued from systems of inequality may touch me, even if I never sought them. Similarly, I recognize that my family suffered losses —financial, reputational, and generational—inflicted not only by a war but by the ambitions of postwar politicians and opportunists. Discussions of reparations, though important, will never yield perfect justice, because guilt is and was collective and can never be fully or fairly parsed.

My 2nd Great-Grandfather McCown and His Ancestors

To look at this, I will examine the ancestors of my 2nd Great Grandparents, because they are the generation that were born before the Civil War. Monroe was my 2nd Great Grandfather McCown. He was born in what became West Virginia and he was living in Ohio at the time of the American Civil War.  There was slavery in the region that became West Virginia prior to the Civil War, but it was considerably less prominent than Virginia and Kentucky.

There does not seem to be any slave ownership in my McCown ancestors.  Neither the Will of his grandfather, Malcom, nor the Will of his great-grandfather, Francis, mention slaves. Both Francis (1706-1761) and Malcom (1745-1813) did farm large tracts of land. It is possible that Francis and/or Malcom made use of the leasing of slave labor.  That is unlikely for Francis – since he was dead before the practice began.  It is possible for Malcom.  We have little information about his farming behaviors or periods of farming.  It seems he did some farming in Rockbridge County – before the practice of slave leasing began (which was in the early 1800s).  After that he may have done some farming around the Charleston area.  We don’t know. At least one of Malcolm's children, Matthew, owned slaves - so he probably wasn't completely unattached to the activity.

Similarly, we don’t know about Monroe’s father, Sylvester (1804-1861), – who moved to Ohio. In Ohio, he didn’t use slave labor for his work – because Ohio was a free state. He did, apparently, educate Mr. Jenkins’ children at the Green Bottom Plantation, so he was connected to slavery. There is a family story I found on one of my dad's computer files with no clear authorship that says he transported via flatboat the Green Bottom slaves from Virginia to Kentucky prior to Virginia secceding from the Union. However, Virginia seceded in April of 1861 and Sylvester died in March of 1861. Timing was close.  It could have happened, but there is no clear evidence. It could also have been a different grandfather who was an in-law and friend of Sylvester's, James Terry. It could also have been just a complete legend. 

Monroe's maternal ancestors had definitely owned slaves. In the 1850 Census, Thomas Summers, was recorded with seven slaves. It is clear that after the war at least one of these remained with him as his Will in 1871 states: “Milly, my faithful Black woman shall be carefully and comfortably taken care of.”

I'm hesitant to confidently take family history back too far, but Thomas and his wife's family were from Old Virginia, some of whom arrived in the early 1600s. Slavery was certainly a integral part of the "Virginia Company."

Well...that is one line of the family. Going back to pre-1860 will take me on a journey of looking at fourteen other 2nd great grandparents and their ancestors.