Mightier Acorns

Not everyone will make you proud

My maternal grandfather, Russ Clark, did not like to talk about his family history. He loved to tell tales of growing up in Depression-era Arkansas and Kentucky, but he rarely said anything specific about his family. He had one brother, Jerry, who he seemed to like, but all he would say about the others was that they were drinkers and smokers, and lived “rough lives.”

When I set out to research my ancestors, I fully expected to find that somebody would prove to have been involved in the “peculiar institution” that has poisoned America’s history since its earliest days – and I suspected that since my other three grandparents were descended from Northern families with prominent Union ties, I would find those slaveholders in the ancestry of Russell Clark.

Indeed, we have talked before about how John Shaw May (who went on to be a Confederate soldier) was named as a suspect in the murder of his father-in-law, Thomas West, an ardent Union supporter:

On Russ’s paternal side, we find his grandmother’s family, the Bellamy family of Virginia.

Matthew H Bellamy was born in 1774 in Albemarle, Virginia, and by 1810, he and his wife, Nancy West1, were raising their three sons in Lynchburg, in Campbell County. At some point before 1830, several Bellamy families moved west to Cabell County, which would eventually be one of the counties that would break off from Virginia to form the state of West Virginia in 1863.

Finding Enslaved People

The issue of whether to secede or support the Union was hotly debated, and the separate issue of whether to abolish slavery was only a part of that debate. Without writing to tell us how individuals felt about the relevant political issues of their day, we rely much on what official records can tell us about their actions. The U.S. Census records list the following enslaved people in the Matthew Bellamy household in Cabell County:2

1830 – 2 male slaves under 10 (born after 1820)

1840 – 7 slaves listed:

• 2 females ages 24 thru 35 (1805-1816)

• 1 male under 10 (after 1830)

• 4 females under 10 (after 1830)

In 1850, slaves were counted separately, in the Slave Schedules; they appear under the name of the slaveholder by age, sex, and “color”. Matthew H. Bellamy’s Wayne County, Virginia, household included:

• Female, Black, age 44 (b. 1806)

• Female, Black, age 49 (b. 1801)

• Female, Black, age 13 (b. 1837)

• Male, Mulatto, age 13 (b. 1837)

• Female, Black, age 12 (b. 1838)

• Male, Mulatto, age 9 (b. 1841)

Matthew Sr. died in 1856, possibly in Greenup County, Kentucky. In 1860, his two surviving sons, Bennett and Matthew Jr., were listed in Boyd County, Kentucky, near Catlettsburg. There are no records that show Bennett held slaves, but Matthew Jr. might be the “M Bellamy” listed in Boyd County in 1860 with 5 enslaved people. This record gives names of the enslaved people in his household, in addition to their age/sex/color:

• Judy, 32 (b. 1828), female, Mullatto

• Clarry, 18 (b. 1842), female, Black

• Edward, 11 (b. 1849), male, Mullatto

• John, 4 (b. 1856), male, Mullatto

• Andrew, 4 (b. 1856), male, Mullatto

There are no obvious connections between the enslaved people listed in these records; nobody seems to have remained in the same place from decade to decade. I have also found no wills for any of the Bellamys that could tell me what happened to the slaves after Matthew Sr.’s death.

Drawing Conclusions

I don’t know what conclusions about my ancestors’ feelings about slavery I can draw from the evidence or lack of evidence. At least two of them (Matthew Sr. and Matthew Jr.) are on record as slaveholders. The fact that Bennett (my third-great grandfather) does not may indicate that he favored abolition—or it may simply indicate that he was too poor.

America is still trying to come to terms with that history, so I don’t expect any tidy answers. It is worth considering events like the 1831 Insurrection led by enslaved preacher Nat Turner and how these events might have affected the way the Bellamy family, who lived 400 miles away at the time, might have reacted.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about these families; I don’t have any records outside of The Bellamys of Early Virginia3 to support some of the basic facts. I may need to return to the Ashland area to look for death records and wills for these folks.

When I do, I need to make sure I document as much information about the people they owned, so that if their descendants are looking for them, I can help them find closure. If you are looking for enslaved ancestors, and you think they might have lived in this part of the country at that time, please let me know how I can help. (“mightieracorns” is my Gmail address, or you can leave a comment.)

Finding out that my ancestors were directly involved in the more shameful parts of our national history isn’t something I’m proud of, but it is an unavoidable part of our shared history. The least I can do as a researcher is document what I can and take some responsibility to acknowledge what my ancestors did.