Stephen L. Tankesley-Kennedy Jr.... Society of the Founding Fathers of Virginia... A story of my slave ancestors....

 For Reggie

Dedicated to Reggie Britton, who carried these women's names when the world forgot them.

There are names in this house that do not appear in any courthouse ledger, any census column, any deed of sale with a proper heading. No birth date. No death date. No last name anyone was allowed to give them. They exist only because somebody's granddaughter remembered. Because a family kept talking when the country stopped listening. Because a woman named Reggie Britton sat down and wrote what her people carried, and brought it into this house where we believe that every branch matters.

Reggie is the reason we know any of this. And this post belongs to her.

Ida.

We do not know when she was born. We do not know when she died. We do not know where she came from before Phillip Durell claimed her as his property in Virginia. What we know is this. In 1817, when Phillip Durell's daughter Cordelia married a minister named Daniel Davis in Charlottesville, Ida and her children were given to the new bride as a wedding present.

A wedding present.

That is not a figure of speech. That is not a metaphor. That is the legal, documented, socially accepted practice of handing a human being and her children to another human being the way you would hand over a piece of furniture or a plot of land. Virginia law in 1817 made that not only possible but routine. The 1662 Hereditary Slave Law had settled the question generations earlier — the status of a child followed the status of the mother. If Ida was property, everything she ever brought into the world was property too. That was the law. That was Virginia. That was the world Ida lived in and survived in and raised her children inside of.

Cordelia died young. What happened to Ida after that we do not know. Her fate is a blank page. She disappears from the record the way enslaved women always disappeared from the record — not because she stopped existing but because the system that surrounded her had no mechanism for preserving the existence of a Black woman who was not being transferred, sold, or inventoried.

Ida. Enslaved by Phillip Durell. Charlottesville, Virginia. 1817. Fate unknown.

That is all we have. And it is enough to say her name.

Rose.

Ida's daughter. Sold outside the family at the age of fourteen. Fourteen years old. Separated from her mother, separated from her sister, handed to strangers for a price we will never know, sent somewhere the family could not follow. Rose vanishes from the record at fourteen and does not come back. We do not know where she went. We do not know what happened to her. We know only that she existed, that she was Ida's child, and that she was taken.

Rose. Sold at fourteen. Charlottesville, Virginia. Circa 1817. Destination unknown.

Eliza.

Ida's other daughter. When Cordelia's widower Daniel Davis — the minister who had received these women as a wedding gift — eventually made a different choice, he freed Eliza. We do not know what moved him. Grief over his wife. Conscience. Faith. Something shifted in that man and he used whatever legal power he had to free one of the women in his household. Eliza stayed with the Davis family after her freedom came. She stayed until she was ready to leave on her own terms, until she married Reggie's third great-grandfather and built a life that carried forward into the present day.

Eliza is why Reggie exists. Eliza is why we know any of this. Eliza carried Ida's memory forward because she survived long enough to pass it down.

Eliza. Freed by Daniel Davis. Charlottesville, Virginia. Married into Reggie's line. The one who remembered.

Polly.

Reggie's fourth great-grandmother on another line. Enslaved by Jacob Cohen and Isaiah Isaacs — Jewish merchants in Richmond and Charlottesville, well documented in Virginia's historical record. Isaiah Isaacs died in 1806 and in his will he freed Polly. That is a documented Virginia deed of manumission. It exists. It is real. Polly walked out of bondage on paper the day Isaiah Isaacs died.

And then the world found another way to use her.

Even as a free woman she was rented out. Hired to a man named John Garner when she was around twenty years old. She had two children during that time. She named them Garner. She took that name herself. Because that was what she had. That was the only name available to her children in a world that still did not fully recognize her freedom as something that protected her from being used.

Think about that choice. Polly named her children after the man she was rented to because she was building the only identity available to her out of the only materials she had. That is not weakness. That is a woman doing everything in her power to give her children something to hold onto.

She was still living with the Garner family in 1850. Free, but not free in every way that mattered. Her son John eventually gathered his family and left for Philadelphia in 1853. He fought on the Union side when the war came. He carried himself and his children out of Virginia and into a different future.

Polly did not go with them.

We do not know why. We do not know if she could not travel, would not leave, was too old, was too tired, or simply could not bring herself to walk away from the ground where Lucy was buried. We only know she stayed.

Polly. Freed by Isaiah Isaacs, 1806. Rented to John Garner. Virginia. Still there as of 1850. Fate after that unknown.

Lucy.

Polly's mother. That is almost everything we know. Lucy was enslaved alongside her daughter by Jacob Cohen and Isaiah Isaacs. She appears in the record as Polly's mother and then she disappears. No freedom date. No death date. No destination. No story that survived the silence.

Reggie said it plainly. Lucy's story is a mystery.

That sentence is one of the most honest things anyone has ever written in this house. Because that is the truth of so much of this work. We chase the names and sometimes the names lead somewhere and sometimes they lead to a woman named Lucy who existed, who mattered, who raised a daughter who raised a son who eventually carried the family's freedom north on his back — and we cannot find her. We can only say that she was there. That she was real. That Polly came from somewhere and that somewhere was Lucy.

Lucy. Enslaved by Jacob Cohen and Isaiah Isaacs. Virginia. Mother of Polly. Everything else unknown.

These five women lived and died in Virginia. Some of them died free. Some of them we will never find. All of them were real. All of them mattered. All of them belong in this house alongside every planter, every Native grandmother, every indentured servant, every Huguenot refugee we have ever named here.

This is what the Slave Owners Project is for. Not just the names of the men who held the deeds. The names of the people the deeds were written about. The women who were given as wedding presents. The daughters who were sold at fourteen. The mothers who stayed behind when their children finally got free. The grandmothers who are nothing but a mystery and a name.

Ida. Rose. Eliza. Polly. Lucy.

They were here. They were Virginia. They belong in this house.

All the roots. All the stories. Every single one.

Share what you know, say what you will, listen to what you might learn, and make yourself at home.

Receipts over speculation. Always.

Stephen L. Tankesley-Kennedy Jr. "Nettopaw" 17th Generation Virginian Society of the Founding Families of Virginia 1607–1850— with Reggie Britton.

The Brittish come to Massachusetts...

 

Our Britton story begins in England

For a long time... 1999... I have been looking for my dads family... the Britton side of the family. Being so close to the Hudson river and New York City, I had assumed that the property we owned in Pawling NY in the 1800s was connected to the Brittons of Staten Island from the 1600s. There was a Peter Britton in New Rochelle NY in the 1700s and a John Britton taxed in Beekman (our property was on the line of Beekman and Pawling). I could not make a connection. Caleb, who died in Salisbury in 1850, was my earliest ancestor on the Britton side. In his will, he said that the property in New York was left to him by his brother. Not mentioning his brothers name, I could not find him or where the property was. I also still assumed that property was in Pawling. It was not. Other family trees on the internet, had posted in their trees that Caleb was born in New Hampshire. This Caleb had three brothers in New Hampshire. I looked them all up and followed their footsteps. Brother Archibald had moved to New York State out in Manlius and Dewitt near Syracuse around 1808. Archibald had left property out in Dewitt to his brother Caleb in Salisbury CT in his will. He passed over before Caleb. Mystery solved.

Now I have a new family line to track. Back in New Hampshire, Caleb was born to Phillip and Bathsheby Drake Britton in 1782. In 1790 through 1810, the family was in Surry NH.

Where we began... Gloucester England 1578 to Massachusetts...

Gloucester was originally a Roman colony in the year 97. By the 1500s, Puritanism had taken hold and would lead my ancestors to the New World, America. The Britton name is a Norman name. Normans were a Viking people who lived in France and conquered England in 1066 by William the Conquer. If we are of English decent, we most certainly are a combination of Celt, Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman. James Britton was born in Gloucester England in 1608. James came to Charleston Massachusetts in 1635 at age 27 with his wife Elizabeth Jane Bennett and moved to Taunton and then Woburn Massachusetts, where they had two sons, William and Peter. James died at the age of 47 and his wife Jane remarried and took the boys back to Charleston. There are no other children of Jane.

Son William was born in Taunton in 1635. He married Mary Pendleton, daughter of Captain James Pendleton and granddaughter of the famous Major Bryon Pendleton. The Britton line married into other families. So, in fairness, I have to track down this famous Pendleton too.

Mary Pendletons grandfather was Major Bryon Pendleton, born in England in 1599. There is much about him in the book, "Bryan Pendleton and his descendants on Google Books. He seemed to be involved in a lot of early decisions of land around Boston and Portsmouth, then called Strawberry Bank. He was involved in skirmishes with the natives in King Phillips war. He married Mary Palmer.

William and Mary Pendleton Britton had seven children. The oldest boy, William II born in 1678, was a mariner in Wells Maine, eventually settling in Taunton Massachusetts. William married Lydia Alden Leonard.

William II and Lydia's youngest son, Pendleton, had married Hannah Seeli and had 6 children in Easton. Their 5th child, Phillip, decided to move to Surry NH. I believe there were other members of the family there, uncles, aunts and cousins, farming in the small community just above Keene.

The Seele family, Washburns, Briggs and Mitchells, go back to Frances Cooke on the Mayflower.

The Seeli family.

Grandma Hannah Seele Britton hadleft land in Bristol MA upon her death in 1806 to her grandson, Caleb. See the caption to the right. An amusing way to describe boundaries in 1815, when Caleb resold the land inside the family to cousin Luther Britton.

Moves to New Hampshire to farm...

Caleb Britton was born in 1782 to Phillip and Bathseby Drake Britton in Surry NewHampshire. In 1810, Caleb was living in Salisbury with his first wife Mary and three of their children, Wife Mary was found in the Poughkeepsie land records (between the years 1800 and 1820), which is the only mention I have found of her. Children listed in 1820 were Fanny 24, Edwin 22 and Hiram 20. In a school pamphlet at the Salisbury Town Hall, there is an Orvil Britton listed. Orvil was born in 1815 and not mentioned again, I assume he was Caleb's son, but why was he not in the 1820 census when he would have been only 5… Would he have been in school at age 5? What date was the pamphlet? Wife Mary died between 1815-1820. I cannot find any mention of Mary, if that is Calebs first wives name. They could have married in New Hampshire or perhaps Caleb went out to Manlius with his family and then came back to Salisbury. I have to find his marriage info.

The Britton family were in Surry for many years and some still live there. Our Phillip lived and farmed at the base of Arrow hill. So named for the outline of an arrow carved in rock at the summit. The house is now gone, but the foundation is on a nature trial that goes around the hill.

To the west... New York State early 1800s...

The family were farmers and the land they had in Surry NH was a small cluster of farms surrounded by Mountains. I suppose the new land out in New York was flat and open and ready for cultivation. Phillips brother John may have been the one to move to Beekman in 1790. Caleb and his three younger brothers, Archibald, Jesse and Joel were all young men. They had 2 surviving sisters who married out in New York. Archibald had bought land, married, had two small children when he died at the age of 58. Archibald had acquired quite a bit of land, and the family must have been close since he left them all land in his will.

In 1820 Archibald, Jesse, Joel and Abraham were all living in Cicero, Onondaga, NY

In 1831 Caleb sold some of his land in New York to his son Hiram for $500,

In 1833 Hiram sold it back to his father for $500. Hiram moved to Pawling in 1837 when his first child was born.

Back to Connecticut and out to Pawling New York...

I assume Calebs 1st wife died because in 1826 Caleb married Pamilia Calkins in Kent, CT. There are no other records of his first wife, or Pamelia after their marriage.

His third wife, who may be the Pamelia his second wife, is in question. Amelia could be a Ellsworth a Sharpe or a Calkins. Caleb had a son Alfred born around 1832 in Salisbury, CT.

Caleb died in 1850 leaving his farm to his wife Amelia. He is buried on the Hotchess school grounds in Salisbury. Amelia died in 1853. Their son Alfred who married and moved to New Milford, CT.

Calebs daughter, Fanny, married Andrew Winters. They stayed in Salisbury and had 10 children. Two of their daughters married two Thorpe brothers. Fanny and Andrew had at least 33 grandchildren, 20 of them were born to her daughter Frances and Bradford Thorpe.

I am decended from Calebs daughter Fanny married to Andrew Winters who had a daughter Lucy Britton who, with my great grandfather Koon Decker, and had a daughter Amanda Decker who married my great grandfather Walter Britton.

Calebs son Hiram married Mariette Mann and had a son Walter Britton who, with Amanda Decker my great grandmother. (See the leaf chart for her family. ) , begat my grandfather John Britton. As a baby he was given Walter Brittons last name. Thus making Caleb and Mary both my 3rd great and 4th great grandparents. Intermarriages between family, especially cousins were common. Brothers of one family married sisters of another family. The population was limited, travel timely and many times cousins were the ones you met and fell in love with or was a conveniently arranged marriage. Confusing... right?

But it gets more confusing. Walter, after Amanda left him with my 1 year old grandfather John, then married Sarah Ann Olivett the 16 year old girl down the street. He was 35. They had 3 children. Sarah left Walter with the 3 boys, Arthur, Irving and Charles and remarried Isaac Morey, more her age, and they had 11 more children, not blood related. Walter stayed on in the Pawling/Beekman farm with his brother and the three boys and never remarried. I wonder why two of his wives left him?

Walters first "wife", Amanda, left him the year my grandfather John was born and married Charles Hart in Connecticut. Amanda and Charles had sixteen children together, my fathers half cousins. I never knew about the Hart family. They were all born about 12 miles away from Torrington in Plymouth CT. So I have a bunch of cousins I know little about. They were pal bearers at my grandfather Johns funeral, so they must have been close over the years. I have a family photo of the group, John may be in it, but I am not sure which one he would be.

It is thought that Hiram had a tavern of sorts on his mountain. This comes from a newspaper story of a theft and murder that took place in Pawling in 1883. Three local townsmen got involved in the theft of some cattle. They were about to be turned in by another resident who knew of the theft and decided to blow up the house the informants lived in so they could not report them to the authorities. They stopped by Hirams tavern and Hiram was overheard saying “They should make a good job of it and dont get caught”. This prompted his arrest and jail time but Hiram was later acquitted for lack of evidence that he was involved in the crime.

Hiram had five sons and one daughter. Lucy married or moved away.

In 1890 the older Hiram died in Plymouth Massachusetts after having moved there with his son Fred. After his death, his second wife Amelia moved in with his youngest son Frank in Torrington and died there in 1900.

Poor uncle Arthur. Meanwhile, Walters son Arthur had gone into the Spanish American war in 1898. Upon returning from the war, he had taken to spending time in the woods and had gone missing around 1902. After complaints that a wild man had been running around acting strange, naked and barking like a dog. He was captured with the help of his brother Irving and placed in the Hudson River State Hospital for the insane. He was only 40 when captured. He died at the home in 1953 at age 79.

By 1910, fifteen people were occupying the Pawling farm.. Walter, sons Irving and Charles and all Walters 10 grandchildren.

The Brittons had lots of children. They had been farmers in New York and traveled the Hudson river valley picking fruits and vegetables on commercial farms. Scrounging out a living, taking care of all those children and just getting by. The Industrial revolution in the mid 1800s prompted many young adult farmers to move to cities where work could be found in factories or running shops and such, which eventually brought most of them to Torrington. A line of the family still lives in Pawling, but the old farm on Penny Road was lost and torn down.

From farmers to the factories of Connecticut...

Torrington was originally two small towns. Wolcottville was on the west hill side of the Housatonic river and Torringford on the top of the hill toward Hartford. Downtown Torrington was called the Great Mast Swamp as the story goes because the tall trees along the river could be floated down to Long Island Sound and used for the masts of ships.

By the time our Brittons had started to find jobs and lives in Torrington, Wolcottville had been renamed Torrington in the 1800s and had drained the swamp, set up factories and employed hundreds to manufacture furniture, roller skates, needles (sock machine needles were made here). In the early 1890s, John Henry, my grampa born in Millerton NY, had married Ella Taylor of Falls Village and moved to Torrington to raise their 6 children. In 1907 Ella died, leaving John with 5 children. Sadie Laurie, their second daughter, had died age 2, leaving John with young children to raise. In 1908, John remarried the young Nellie Helen Klink. John was 43 years old and young Nellie, my grandma, was only 21. In 1909, oldest son Eugene Dorval, married Elizabeth Klink, Nellies older sister by 2 years.

John and Nellie had 8 more children, my dad Richard being the #14 child for John, 8 with Nellie, 6 by his first wife Ella. The family had a farm in Newfield, now a part of Torrington. John liked making pickles. The neighbor kids would all come over to ask for pickles. John died in 1938 when Richard was only 12 years old.

Richard Henry Britton was born in Torrington CT January 6, 1927. His mother remarried to Ernest Josch. Seems no one liked grampa Josch and my dad Richard, got his name in the papers at age 16 for shooting at his step father Ernest. Ernest was not hurt badly and dropped the charges, but to this day, aunt Evelyn says he deserved to be shot!

Little Edward, one of my fathers older brothers died when he was only four. I remember most of my uncles and one aunt from when I was small John, Howard, George, Ernie, Joe and Evelyn. The older half siblings are in old photos, but I do not remember them. We all got together on holidays and went on summer picnics. I stayed at gramma Josch's house when I was 6 and my little sister Donna was born. Gramma Nellie lived in Torrington, and died when I was in 3^rd grade at age 75.

My uncles were in WWII. Ernie survived the beaches of Normandy. My dad was too young to go to war, applied but stayed home, working on cars and made his living his entire life repairing, buying and selling cars when he was not fishing. Dad and grampa re-muddled the barn so dad could fix cars. The chain he used to hoist engines out of cars is still on one of the big beams. We lived most of the time with grampa Frank. My mom Phyllis, worked in the family greenhouse a few feet from our house on Albrecht Road. We had an extensive vegetable garden. Mom canned vegetables for the winter. We sold flowers and vegetable plants and a lot of cemetery boxes. More on my growing up in Torringford in a different chapter but that is how I got to be in Torrington from the original James Britton from Glouchester , England and the many other Norman, Celt, Anglo Saxon and Viking ancestors from England. Other family ancestors include, Cooke, Drake, Brett, Hewitt, Tisdale, Seele, Briggs, Poole, Holbrook, Turner, Edson, Byram, Hobart, Robbins,. Rosse, Fursdon, Roberts, Pitway, Cadbury, Pitt, Robinson, Martin, Simson, Gifford, Hinvckley, Cadebeck, Washburn, Mitchell, Throckmorton, Lewis, Neale, Bennett, Pendleton, Palmer, Leonard, Drake, Calkins, Mann, Decker, Klink and Albrecht who all married into the Brittons, who traveled from Europe to this land of America.

Glouchester England