The Road to Black Ned's Forge

A Story of Race, Sex, and Trade on the Colonial American Frontier

Turk McCleskey

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780813935836
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Primordi della storia americana

In 1752 an enslaved Pennsylvania ironworker named Ned purchased his freedom and moved to Virginia on the upper James River. Taking the name Edward Tarr, he became the first free black landowner west of the Blue Ridge. Tarr established a blacksmith shop on the Great Wagon Road from Philadelphia to the Carolinas and helped found a Presbyterian congregation that exists to this day. Living with him was his white, Scottish wife, and in a twist that will surprise the modern reader, Tarr's neighbors accepted his interracial marriage. It was when a second white woman joined the household that some protested. Tarr's already dramatic story took a perilous turn when the predatory son of his last master, a Charleston merchant, abruptly entered his life in a fraudulent effort to reenslave him. His fate suddenly hinged on his neighbors, who were all that stood between Tarr and a return to the life of a slave.

This remarkable true story serves as a keyhole narrative, unlocking a new, more complex understanding of race relations on the American frontier. The vividly drawn portraits of Tarr and the women with whom he lived, along with a rich set of supporting characters in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia, provide fascinating insight into the journey from slavery to freedom, as well as the challenges of establishing frontier societies. The story also sheds light on the colonial merchant class, Indian warfare in southwest Virginia, and slavery's advent west of the Blue Ridge. Contradicting the popular view of settlers in southern Virginia as poor, violent, and transient, this book--with its pathbreaking research and gripping narrative--radically rewrites the history of the colonial backcountry, revealing it to be made up largely of close-knit, rigorously governed communities.

Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

DB	Deed Book
MB	Minute Book
OB	Order Book
VB	Vestry Book
WB	Will Book
EJC	H. R. McIlwaine et al., eds., Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia
JCV	H. R. McIlwaine et al., eds., Journals of the Council of the State of Virginia
JHB	H. R. McIlwaine et al., eds., Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia
Alderman Library	Alderman Library, University of Virginia
APS	American Philosophical Society
Augusta CCC	Augusta County Clerk of Circuit Court
Augusta DB	Augusta County Deed Book, microfilm, Library of Virginia
Augusta OB	Augusta County Order Book, microfilm, Library of Virginia
Augusta Parish VB	Augusta Parish Vestry Book, photocopy, University of Virginia
Augusta WB	Augusta County Will Book, microfilm, Library of Virginia
BHS	Virginia Baptist Historical Society
BNA	British National Archives (formerly British Public Record Office)
CCP	Court of Common Pleas, South Carolina Department of Archives and History
Draper Mss.	Lyman Copeland Draper Manuscript Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society
FHL	Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College
HMWV	History Museum of Western Virginia
HSP	Historical Society of Pennsylvania
LCHS	Lancaster County Historical Society
Leyburn Library	James G. Leyburn Library, Washington and Lee University
LOC	Library of Congress
LOV	Library of Virginia
PCA	Philadelphia City Archives
Perkins Library	William R. Perkins Library, Duke University
PHMC	Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Archives
PHS	Presbyterian Historical Society
PRWA	Philadelphia Register of Wills Archive
SCDAH	South Carolina Department of Archives and History
Swem Library	Earl G. Swem Library, College of William and Mary
UPS	Union Presbyterian Seminary
VHS	Virginia Historical Society
Walker Papers	Thomas Walker Papers, Library of Congress
Winterthur	Winterthur Museum Library

INTRODUCTION

1. Augusta County WB, 3:227.

2. Fries, transl. and ed., “Diary of a Journey of Moravians,” 338–39. For an alternate translation from the original German, see Hinke and Kemper, eds., “Moravian Diaries of Travels through Virginia,” 147–49. Tarr’s possession of Berliner Reden is discussed in chapter 4.

3. Leyburn, The Scotch-Irish; Griffin, The People with No Name; Miller, “ ‘Scotch-Irish’ Myths and ‘Irish’ Identities,” 77; Miller, “Ulster Presbyterians and the ‘Two Traditions’,” 257; Taylor, The Civil War of 1812, 81.

4. Augusta OB, 2:351, 3 March 1750. For additional monetary details, see McCusker, Money and Exchange Rates.

1. THE YEOMAN

1. The earliest mention of Thomas Shute’s father is for his service as a juror for a Chester County court held at Upland on 14 March 1681/2. Lapp, ed., Records of the Courts of Chester County, 2:15–16. The census was ordered on 14 April 1683 by Philadelphia County magistrates in response to a directive from William Penn. The actual enumeration dates from sometime after the county order. Soderlund, ed., William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania, 212–13, 216n.

2. Entry dated 8 Sept. 1683, Hazard, ed., Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, 1:80. Rotchford was elected to the 1683 colonial assembly as a member for Chester County and sat on the committee to amend the charter of liberties. Soderlund, ed., William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania, 230, 255. For Rotchford’s occupation and residence, see note 5, below.

3. Samuel Carpenter to Thomas Shute, 25 Aug. 1690, Philadelphia County Exemplification Book, 7:441–42, PHMC.

4. Thomas Shute to John Lucken, 20 Dec. 1693, ibid., 7:442–44. Lucken paid sixty pounds, so Shute recouped his 1690 purchase price of twenty-five pounds, ten shillings, plus thirty-four pounds, ten shillings. “The First Tax List for Philadelphia County,” 98. The 1693 tax rolls of Bristol Township tally assessments of one penny per pound of value held in real or personal estate. Shute had no value recorded in the real or personal estate columns and paid six shillings in tax, the standard payment for all freemen out of service for six months.

5. Mary Rotchford to Thomas Shute, 1 March 1693/4, Philadelphia County Exemplification Book, 7:442–44, PHMC. Dennis and Mary Rotchford’s son confirmed this transaction over eleven years later for a nominal price of five shillings. Herriot Rocheford to Thomas Shute, 7 Sept. 1707, Philadelphia County DB, E-3, 6:243, PHMC.

6. Genealogical Data, Sadler–Smylie, Collections of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, HSP.

7. Thomas Shute and Elizabeth Powell first declared their intention to marry on 30 Oct. 1696, and their union was approved on 27 Nov. 1696. Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (Arch Street) Women’s Minutes, 1:14, FHL.

8. Hinshaw, Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, 2:420.

9. James T. Lemon reported that by 1750, the population of southeast Pennsylvania was about 108,000, and typical land prices in Lancaster County doubled between the 1730s and the 1740s. Best Poor Man’s Country, 23, 69. See also Wright, “Ground Rents against Populist Historiography.”

10. “Virginia Quitrent Roles, 1704,” 154. Early real estate records of King and Queen County do not survive, so it is impossible to know more about Shute’s investments in land there. At first glance, the county’s distance from Philadelphia might justify some skepticism about whether the name represented the same individual, but because Shute had another commercial interaction with a King and Queen County resident, it is likely the same man. Shute’s other connection developed in this way: William Penn gave one James Claypole a warrant for one thousand acres. Claypole sold the warrant to William Smith, a shipwright of Middlesex County, Virginia, in 1683. Smith in turn sold the claim to William Chadwick of St. Stephen Parish, King and Queen County, in 1714. Chadwick relinquished the warrant to William Allen and Thomas Shute, both of Philadelphia, by deeds of lease and release dated 29 and 30 Dec. 1718. These transactions are enumerated in Thomas Shute and James Steel, deed to Adam Van Fossen, 18 May 1720, Philadelphia County DB, H-14:305, PHMC.

11. James A. Henretta has argued persuasively that milling and other processing activities did not signal incipient industrialization but rather represented one aspect of yeoman agricultural activity. “Families and Farms,” 10–11.

12. For a price of £180, William Sluby conveyed 1,200 acres to Thomas Shute and Nicholas Waln on 22 March 1703/4. Philadelphia County DB, F-7:255, PHMC.

13. Samson Davis and Christian Shute publicly declared their intention to marry on 28 June 1717 when they appeared before the Arch Street women’s monthly meeting to request certification of their clearness, or spiritual fitness. Later that day, accompanied by the two female examiners, the couple repeated their publication before the men’s monthly meeting, which appointed two male inspectors. A month later both sets of investigators reported “that they know nothing to obstruct their proceedings,” and so on 26 July 1717, with the agreement of the family members, the men’s monthly meeting approved the marriage and authorized the couple to proceed. Entries dated 28 June, 26 July 1717, Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (Arch Street) Women’s Minutes, 1:105, FHL; entries dated 28 June, 26 July 1717, Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (Arch Street) Minutes, 1715–1744, 29, 30, FHL. For Shute’s conveyance to Samson and Christian Davis, see Philadelphia County DB, F-7:300, PHMC. In July 1718, Samson and Christian Davis announced their intentions to move to Moreland, completing the move b...