Who's Your Grammie?: February 2015

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Joseph Norris (1729 - 1813)

Joseph Norris signed to the Oath of Fidelity and Support on April 17, 1779 before The Worshipful Joseph Chaplin, a Magistrate for Washington County, Maryland in accordance to the Act of Maryland Assembly of February 5, 1777. There is a DAR Record of Service naming him a Patriot. He is Ancestor #: A084418. The Sons of the American Revolution also has a Patriot file for him.

Joseph married Mary Moody sometime around 1750. Their twelve children: Elizabeth, Eleanor, John, William, Ruha, Mary, Lydia, Sarah, Nancy Ann, Ruhannah, Jane, and Joseph all were born in Frederick County, Maryland where they lived before coming to Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.

Joseph owned a considerable amount of property as this Tax record from 1788 shows. His name is near the bottom of this list followed by his son John who owned 200 acres.
Pennsylvania, Tax and Exoneration, 1768-1801. Name: Joseph Norris    Year:1788    Town or Ward:Hopewell   County:Huntingdon     Archive Rollname:327
390 acres   2 Negroes 2 horses 2 cows   State Tax 1   1 0

The 1790 and 1800 censuses both note the Joseph Norris owned 5 slaves, but by the 1810 census he no longer has slaves. Ronald McCall, Ph.D, speculates that , "before Joseph Sr.’s 80th birthday, he made and acted on a decision concerning his slaves. Perhaps because slave holding in Pennsylvania was not that popular, but more likely because of faithful service given by the folks who were his property and because other “colored” in the county were freemen, Joseph gave up ownership."    I am happy that Joseph decided to give freedom to the people he had owned.

Larry Dean of Vancouver, Washington found microfilm records containing Bible inscriptions as follows: "Joseph Norris, b. 11 Jan 1729 and d. 18 Mar 1813 aged 84 y, 2 m., 6 d and Mary Moody Norris his wife b. 11 Dec 1730 and d. 17 Dec 1817 aged 87 y, 6 d.." followed by the names and birthdates of twelve children. According to U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, they moved the graves of Joseph and Mary from the Norris Family Cemetery before they filled the reservoir behind the Raystown Dam. Ron McCall says "the Norris Cemetery graves were moved to the White Church Cemetery, that is, at Jacob’s Church, about three miles from the original family plot."

Find A Grave Memorial# 89910204

Find A Grave Memorial# 34587241

Their daughter Jane married William Enyeart, whose Revolution participation story I have told. Of the 16 children of Jane and William Enyeart I have blogged a tale of their daughter Rachel who married John Heffner, my 3rd great grandparents. Rachel and John had a son named Ben who married Ann Eliza States, whose story I have also written. Their daughter Ella May married Rev. Howard Long and they were my great grandparents. Their daughter Eliza married Homer McEwen.

Sources:
McCall, Ronald M., http://woodcockvalley.webs.com, "The First Norris Family in Huntingdon Co.", August, 2012
McCall, Ron, http://woodcockvalley.webs.com/norriscemetery.htm, "A History of the Norris Cemetery, Shippensburg, PA, August, 2012
Smith, Cynthia, "Heffner Family: Descendants of this family settled in Hunterdon Co.", http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~chsmith/heffner.html, 2009
Dutton, Dick, "William Enyeart", http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&id=I214419&db=dickdutton
Find A Grave, Joseph P. Norris, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=89910204
Fisher, Debbie, “White Church Cemetery",
http://woodcockvalley.webs.com/whitechurchcemetery.htm

Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission; Records of the Office of the Comptroller General, RG-4; Tax & Exoneration Lists, 1762-1794; Microfilm Roll: 327

Please see this list of all My Revolutionary War Ancestors.

Copyright

Send email to chsmith47@yahoo.com

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Henry Lloyd (1709 - 1802)

It is most probable that Henry Lloyd provided some kind of service to the War for Independence. The Daughters of the American Revolution shows him credited with Patriotic Service and Civil Service, which means that he signed an oath of allegiance in the DAR file ancestor #A209959. Mention is made of Henry Lloyd in the affidavit of John Shaver for pension. Even though I have found this DAR reference, no card was found on the Revolutionary War Military Abstract Card File,
which would help to substantiate his service.

Walker Township map, 1856.

Henry was likely born in Wales and came to Virginia around 1744 where he married Judith Pemberton and together they had a family of 10 or 11 children. Of these children, Henry Jr. was born about 1756 and came with his parents to Bedford County, Pennsylvania before 1774. (Africa) The place where the Lloyds settled later become Walker Township, Woodcock Valley, in Huntingdon County.

The Lloyd house was described in Direct Tax List of 1798 as a two story log house, containing eight windows. The house measured 18 by 23 feet with two out buildings: a kitchen and a barn. An impressive layout for that time and place.

The 1779 tax list for Bedford Co., Pennsylvania for Henry Lloyd shows that he had 500 acres of land, 4 horses, 9 cows, 1 stille (distillery), and 5 negroes. He is the largest land owner in this list and the only person who owns slaves. I was surprised to learn that my ancestor was a slave holder. When Henry came to Pennsylvania from Virginia via a route through Maryland he brought his slaves with him. I found this account in the History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties Pennsylvania – 1883; "Walker Township Pioneers... "Henry Lloyd and his wife Judith came from Virginia and brought a number of slaves with them, and settled in the upper part of Woodcock Valley. The white members of the Lloyd family several times forted at Standing Stone, leaving the Negroes on the farm, as the savages did not manifest a disposition to molest them." (Africa) WOW, just reading this made me shutter!

I had always thought that Pennsylvania was a free state, but I have learned that it wasn't until 1779 that Pennsylvania passed the first law for abolition. However, this law did not really free any slaves because a person who was a slave on March 1, 1780, the day the law went into effect, remained a slave until the day they died. Any children born to an enslaved woman after the law took effect would remain slaves until adulthood. It was not until 1847 that total abolition occurred.

This note shows the registration of the slaves of Henry Lloyd in 1780. In 1802 the inventory of Henry Lloyd's estate provides the names of nine slaves. Africa notes on page 385 that a number of the descendants of the Lloyd family slaves remained in the county, among them being Morrell's of Porter.

Henry became a large landholder, as the 1779 tax list for Bedford Co. shows. He also operated a distillery which was most likely used for the making of whiskey. It was much easier to produce and market whiskey from the grain grown on the land than to take tons of grain to a market. Henry was a Justice of the Peace. He died at the age of 93 in 1802 and is buried on the homestead with Judith who died about 1814. Descendant Richard W. Watson Jr. posted a photo of the gravesite on Find A Grave.

Henry and Judith had a son named Henry who settled on the farm and was married to Rachel Davis, of Bedford. Henry was born about 1756 and lived until at least 1820. He may also have given service in the Revolutionary War. Henry and Rachel had nine children, of whom Catherine became the wife of William States, of McConnellstown. Catherine and William States were the parents of Abraham who married Catherine Mumper and they became the parents of Ann Eliza States, my great, great grandmother. Eliza States married Ben Heffner and had a daughter named Ella Mae who married Rev. Howard Long. They had a daughter named Eliza who married Homer McEwen, my grandparents.

Source:

Revolutionary War Military Abstract Card File, http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us/archive.asp.
Christy, William, Directory Map of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, from Recent Surveys,1856. online at http://www.ancestortracks.com/HuntingdonCoResources.html.
Africa, J. Simpson. History of Huntingdon and Blair counties, Pennsylvania. Walker Township Pioneers. Published 1883. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24143417M.
http://www.pa-roots.com/bedford/history/huntingdonco.html
Bedford County, Prothonotary  Records of Negro and Mulatto Slaves, 1780, 1798. Online at http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/bah/dam/rg/di/r47-SlaveRecords/r47-SlaveRecords-Bedford/r47-SlaveRecords-Bedford1stGroup.htm.
Find A Grave Memorial# 64367933 for Henry Lloyd.
James B. Lloyd & Richard W. Watson Jr. An updated Lloyd genealogy has just been published by James B. Lloyd & Richard W. Watson Jr.
Manuscript Group 262: Special Collections Microfilm United States Direct Tax of 1798: Tax Lists for the State of Pennsylvania. http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/genealogy/3183/census_records/385521.

Please see this list of all My Revolutionary War Ancestors.

Copyright

Send email to chsmith47@yahoo.com