Links -- John Wesley Powell and Jackson, Ohio ... and Far Beyond

“John Wesley Powell . . . was one of the few who believed in evolution by endeavor and who fought for intelligent and scientific planning for the development of society. He believed that progress comes by increasing cooperation among men, and he dreamed of developing a science that would provide the knowledge whereby men could live together in peace and mutual cooperation.”

– William T. Pecora, Director U.S. Geological Survey

John Wesley Powell is a famous figure in American history. He is remembered mainly for his exploration of the Grand Canyon, yet his entire life is replete with historical significance. Powell has local ties – both to Jackson, Ohio and to the Lucas family, people so dear to the roots of the local community.

I hope to illustrate these connections in two entries. This is the first writing that deals with Powell, himself. A second will follow chronicling the importance of John Colton Sumner, grandson of Robert Lucas who served as Powell's guide during his celebrated trip down the Colorado River.

John Wesley Powell, the son of Joseph and Mary Powell, was born in Mount Morris, New York, in 1834. Joseph was a poor farmer, a tailor, and an itinerant preacher who had emigrated to the U.S. from Shrewsbury, England. Mary, his wife, was a missionary.

In 1830, John Wesley's family moved westward to Jackson, Ohio, when he was about four years old and lived there for eight years before moving to Walworth County, Wisconsin and eventually settling in Boone County, Illinois.

   Mary Powell                Joseph Powell

The Jackson, Ohio Connection

It was September 24, 1838 when the Powells purchased their home in Jackson, Ohio, located on the hill at the north end of Main Street between Portsmouth and Locust Streets. Mr. Joseph Powell was a Wesleyan minister. A native of Wales, he delivered his sermons in Welsh to the large contingent of Welch living in the area. Besides holding services in Jackson, he also preached in Winchester and McKendree in Gallia County.

Young John Wesley was an extremely precocious child. He displayed gifted tendencies very early in life. In the journal The Open Court, a publication devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea, it was written ...

“He (Powell) instinctively gathered every curious shell and pebble within his reach, and read a lesson in every leaf and flower. Yet, judging from the interest he took in his Biblical studies, it would have been more reasonable to predict for him future eminence as an ecclesiastic than the brilliant career as a scientist upon which he was destined to enter. He early committed to memory the entire Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, much to the delight of his father.”

In addition to being faithful, the Powells were politically liberal for the times, and in Jackson many were pro-slavery. “Wes,” as he was known, was bullied by his peers because of it. He was an intelligent boy who looked forward to starting school, but he was unpopular because of his father's devout abolitionist views. Young Powell was even stoned by his classmates for his family's anti-slavery stand.

After John Wesley suffered these attacks, the Powells decided that it was best to get a private tutor for John and found one in 300 pound “Big” George Crookham. Crookham was a self-educated scholar. He was a salt boiler, an educator, a geologist, a local historian, and an abolitionist. Thus, he became the perfect tutor for John Wesley.

One of Crookham's primary interests was the discovery of the region's pre-settlement history. To that end, he collected Native American and pre-historic artifacts and wrote a book on the history of the region. Crookham took young John Wesley to many of the areas where rock strata and other geological formations were present. He explained their origins and the geology of the area.

“Wes” was a quick learner. One of the favorite areas for exploring was the Salt Lick Creek gorge downstream from Jackson. Crookham's home and school were located about a mile north of the area. Here, Powell found his passion for studying rock formations and geologic curiosities – this proved invaluable later when John Wesley studied the Grand Canyon.

Crookham's tutelage of the young Wes greatly inspired Powell's interest in geology. Crookham emphasized learning nature firsthand, and Powell's interest in natural history grew during their numerous junkets to collect specimens of plants, animals, birds, and minerals.

George also taught Wes to be true to his own beliefs. One day Crookham took Powell to an area where Wes had never been. There, in the caves high above the water, Big George intoduced Wes to three men who had run away from enslavement in the South. The men were following the Underground Railroad to freedom in Canada. The caves were a station where runaways could get food, rest, and directions. Big George was a conductor on their journey north, a man risking his own well-being for the freedom of others.

And, there is evidence Big George did suffer mightily for this cause. Many of the artifacts that Crookham collected were lost in a fire when a group of local Jacksonians burned Crookham's home for his abolitionism.

Joseph Powell was on intimate terms with other men identified with the movement throughout the State, and the boy frequently saw Professors Finney and Williams, then of Oberlin College; Salmon P. Chase, who afterwards became Chief Justice of the United States; Joshua R. Giddings, who represented Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives, and other distinguished abolitionists.

To the people of Southern Ohio, many of whom had originally emigrated from Virginia and other slave States, anti slavery sentiments were extremely obnoxious. For several years an aggressive agitation was kept up; meetings were held in various portions of the State, and pamphlets in the interest of the cause were published and distributed.

At one time, a pamphlet “Thoughts on Slavery” by John Wesley, the early leader in the Methodist movement, was issued and widely circulated by a “coterie” of men living in Jackson. The result ...

“This publication led to a great uproar in the town, and four of the leading agitators were mobbed, and soon afterwards one of the professors of Oberlin College was assaulted on the street while on his way to the Powell residence. These years constituted a very exciting epoch in the boy's life. He was now old enough to appreciate the character of his father's course, and keenly felt the terrorism in which the family was constantly held.”

Historical Note – Wesley's pamphlet “Thoughts upon Slavery” opens with a definition of slavery. His first note of condemnation appears when he shows that slavery first originated in "barbarous" times and died out with the rise of Christianity in Europe. He proposes that it was only the discovery of America and the need for large amounts of inexpensive labor that brought it back. 

Wesley then moves on to refute the notion that slavery rescues Africans from the harshest of conditions, quoting from many authorities attesting to the great fertility of Western Africa. He also points out that African nations are highly organized and cultured, using examples from several major tribes and nations to prove his point. Given this evidence, Wesley cannot support the notion that slavery represents an improvement to the Africans. 

Wesley's third point discusses how African slaves are procured and brought to America. The details as he gives them are meant to be damning; he recounts numerous instances of fraud and violence, then describes the middle passage in some detail--again, in a clear attempt to condemn the practice as barbaric and cruel. He describes the inhumane treatment of slaves in the West Indies and other slave states (including the southern United States), providing considerable detail as to modes of punishment and the laws that allow punishments to be meted out without limit.

The local unrest about the issue of slavery caused many conflicts. The four main supporters of the abolitionist movement in Jackson were Powell, Professor W.W. Mather, Samuel Montgomery, and George L. Crookham. Bitterly condemned on one occasion when they were holding an abolition meeting on the court house steps, they were pelted with eggs and forced to take refuge in a nearby residence. It was this incident that convinced Rev. Powell to take his family elsewhere in 1846.

Jackson and John Wesley Powell Memorial

Historical Note – The John Wesley Powell Memorial is located in the John Wesley Powell Memorial Plaza at 201 Main Street in Jackson, Ohio. The John Wesley Powell Memorial is dedicated to the one time Jackson resident and geologist. The building contains artifacts pertaining to Powell, who was the first American to navigate the length of the Colorado River and explore the Grand Canyon in 1869.

John Wesley continued his adventurous natural pursuits wherever he lived. He loved the outdoors and had a penchant for wandering and exploring. He was an intense, ambitious young man obsessed with getting things done.

As a young man, he undertook a series of adventures through the Mississippi River valley. In 1855, he spent four months walking across Wisconsin. During 1856, he rowed the Mississippi from St. Anthony, Minnesota, to the sea. In 1857, he rowed down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi River, traveling north to reach St. Louis. In 1858 he rowed down the Illinois River, then up the Mississippi and the Des Moines River to central Iowa. At age 25, he was elected in 1859 to the Illinois Natural History Society.

Powell studied at Illinois College, Illinois Institute (which would later become Wheaton College), and Oberlin College, over a period of seven years while teaching, but was unable to attain his degree. During his studies Powell acquired a knowledge of Ancient Greek and Latin. Powell's restless nature helped solidify his deep interest in the natural sciences. In 1860, he switched his focus to military science and engineering in order to prepare for the looming Civil War.

Powell's loyalties remained with the Union and the cause of abolishing slavery. On May 8, 1861, he enlisted at Hennepin, Illinois, as a private in the 20th Illinois Infantry. He was described as "age 27, height 5' 6-1/2" tall, light complected, gray eyes, auburn hair, occupation – teacher." He was elected sergeant-major of the regiment, and when the 20th Illinois was mustered into the Federal service a month later, Powell was commissioned a second lieutenant. He enlisted in the Union Army as a cartographer, topographer and military engineer.

John Wesley Powell and his wife, Emma, in Detroit in 1862.

During the Civil War, he served first with the 20th Illinois Volunteers. While stationed at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, he recruited an artillery company that became Battery "F" of the 2nd Illinois Light Artillery with Powell as captain. On November 28, 1861, Powell took a brief leave to marry the former Emma Dean. At the Battle of Shiloh, he lost most of his right arm when struck by a minie ball while in the process of giving the order to fire. The raw nerve endings in his arm would continue to cause him pain for the rest of his life.

Despite the loss of an arm, he returned to the Army and was present at Champion Hill, Big Black River Bridge on the Big Black River and in the siege of Vicksburg. Always the geologist he took to studying rocks while in the trenches at Vicksburg. He was made a major and commanded an artillery brigade with the 17th Army Corps during the Atlanta Campaign. After the fall of Atlanta he was transferred to George H. Thomas' army and participated in the battle of Nashville. At the end of the war he was made a brevet lieutenant colonel, but preferred to use the title of "Major.”

After the war, Powell accepted a position as a geology professor at Illinois Wesleyan University and served as curator of the museum of the Illinois State Natural History Society, but declined a permanent position in order to explore the American West. Starting in 1867, he led multiple expeditions to explore the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado River.

The Grand Canyon and the Colorado River

John Wesley Powell became the leader of the first scientific exploration of the last unknown area in the continental United States: In 1869, Powell and his team became the first people of European descent to travel the length of the Grand Canyon – a journey of three months and more than 900 miles.

On their maps, 19^th century cartographers labeled it, “The Great Unknown” – a big blank space representing a vast expanse of territory in the heart of the United States, 200 miles wide and 500 miles long, covering the present states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. Native American folklore spoke of a “grand canyon” that was bottomless, a region inhabited evil spirits. Incredible as it seems, in 1869 the region was a section of the nation as mysterious to Americans as the rings of Saturn. Jack Pearl in his article “Fantastic Odyssey” (Boys' Life, May 1969) writes …

“Of its (the “Great Unknown”) many mysteries, the one that intrigued scientists the most was the Colorado River, the turbulent stream that had, over many centuries, cut a deep gorge through the middle of the wild, desolate country. A handful of anonymous white trappers and explorers had set out to navigate the Colorado River in earlier years; they vanished and were never heard of again. All of them, it had to be assumed, were victims of the treacherous rapids, crashing falls and boiling whirlpools of the river as it plunged deeper and deeper in to gorge.

During the trip, the team (which originally numbered ten men) rode the river through smaller rapids and portaged their four boats and supplies around larger ones. However, the journey was a difficult one through unknown territory. The team lost two boats and the bulk of their supplies to the river, and had no way of knowing what lay ahead of them.

One of the men left the expedition at a resupply stop after the first month. Several weeks later, at a place now called Separation Canyon, three additional members of the team decided the journey ahead was too dangerous; they climbed out of the canyon and started walking toward civilization. They were never seen again. Two days later, Powell and the remaining five team members reached the mouth of the Virgin River, where they were met by settlers.

Student members of Powell's Expedition

It was written by Martin J. Anderson in The Journal of Arizona History …

“No observer questioned Powell's courage, but one might have questioned his wisdom, for the trip had begun with a crew of ten. Twenty years after the voyage, when a reporter asked the Major how he was able to make it safely, Powell replied, 'I was lucky.' Powell's brother-in-law Almon Harris Thompson, fellow explorer and close acquaintance writes: '... as far as I know, the Major never had any idea of exploring the Colorado before 1868-69... I think the idea grew up with him in 1868.'”

The Lucasville Connection

John Colton Sumner, known as “Captain Jack,” was the guide and lead boatmen for Major Powell when he made his first trip down the Colorado River in 1869. Captain Jack had also served in the Civil War. He became a corporal and sharpshooter in the 32nd Iowa Volunteer Infantry.

Sumner was an excellent manager of the expedition’s lead boat. The status of his journal of the exploration has been controversial over the years, as various copies and transcriptions have surfaced.

Jack's grandfather was Robert Lucas. As we well know, Robert was twice governor of Ohio and the first territorial governor of Iowa. Robert also distinguished himself by keeping a journal of his experiences in the War of 1812. Robert's father, William, was a captain in the Revolutionary War. Jack's wife's grandfather, John Brown, also served in the Revolutionary War. And, Robert's brother John was the founder of Lucasville, Ohio.

Sources

Martin J. Anderson. “First Through the Canyon: Powell's Luck Voyage in 1869.” The Journal of Arizona History. Vol. 20, No. 4 (Winter 1979).

Mrs. M.D. Lincoln (Bessie Beech). “John Wesley Powell.” December 1902 The Open Court: Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea. VOL. XVI. (NO. 12.)

Michael Elsohn Ross. Exploring the Earth with John Wesley Powell. 2000.

“John Wesley Powell Memorial.” https://www.theclio.com/web/entry?id=59788.

“John Wesley Powell.” Remarkable Ohio. . . http://www.remarkableohio.org/index.php?/category/784. 

John Wesley Powell.” http://www.jacksoncountyohiogen.com/PDF%20docs/Brochures/John%20Wesley%20Powell.pdf.

The Lucas Family Sails to America and Settles on the Delaware

“Most of the people who heeded William Penn's call for settlement were English Quakers, who transformed Bucks County into a bustling community rich in farmland and centered around the market town of Bristol, which became the county seat in 1705. Penn himself established a country residence at Pennsbury Manor, a courtly estate in lower Bucks County.

Terry A. McNealy. Bucks County: An Illustrated History. Doylestown, PA:

Bucks County Historical Society, 2001.

The Lucas family moved from England to America long ago. They were a part of the early settlement of Pennsylvania, a place in America establishing the founder's "holy experiment” – a colony that would be free of the religious persecution they suffered abroad. Tracing the Lucas settlement to Bucks County sheds light on a noted pioneering family.

Robert Lucas (the original “Robert” from England) was born about 1630. He was the son of David and Amanda (Mehan) Lucas of Wiltshire, England. In 1651, Robert married Elizabeth Coggill (Cowgill) and lived in Longbridge, Deverill, just south of Warminster, Wiltshire.

Historical Note – The Religious Society of Friends, also referred to as the Quaker Movement, was founded in England in the 17th century by George Fox. He and other early Quakers, or Friends, were persecuted for their beliefs, which included the idea that the presence of God exists in every person. Quakers rejected elaborate religious ceremonies, didn’t have official clergy and believed in spiritual equality for men and women. Quaker missionaries first arrived in America in the mid-1650s. Quakers, who practice pacifism, played a key role in both the abolition and women’s rights movements. Many, but not all, Quakers consider themselves Christians.

However, as they moved throughout the colonies, they continued to face persecution in certain places, such as Massachusetts, where four Quakers were executed. The Boston Martyrs is the name given in Quaker tradition to the three English members of the Society of Friends, Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer, and to the Friend William Leddra of Barbados, who were condemned to death and executed by public hanging for their religious beliefs under the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1659, 1660 and 1661. Several other Friends lay under sentence of death at Boston in the same period, but had their punishments commuted to that of being whipped out of the colony from town to town.

"The hanging of Mary Dyer on the Boston gallows in 1660 marked the beginning of the end of the Puritan theocracy and New England independence from English rule. In 1661 King Charles II explicitly forbade Massachusetts from executing anyone for professing Quakerism. In 1684 England revoked the Massachusetts charter, sent over a royal governor to enforce English laws in 1686, and in 1689 passed a broad Toleration act."

In 1679, Robert Lucas embarked on the “Elizabeth and Mary” out of Weymouth and emigrated to Bucks County in William Penn's colony (Pennsylvania). He arrived April 4, 1679 and soon became a surveyor and farm owner along Falls River in Bucks County.

In the next year, Robert's wife and their eight children took the ship “Content” out of London. (A ship aptly named for a wife traveling to meet her husband.) Elizabeth and the children arrived July 1680 to join her husband.

Penn's ship - the "Welcome"

This means that the Lucases were in America before William Penn settled here. Penn sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on the ship “Welcome” that departed from Deal, England, on August 31, 1682, and arrived at the mouth of the Delaware River (now New Castle, Delaware) on October 27, 1682, completing the Atlantic crossing in 57 days which was slow by 17th century standards. On October 28, 1682, the ship anchored at Upland (now Chester, Pennsylvania) on the site that had been chosen by Thomas Holme, Penn’s surveyor general.

Where Did Robert Lucas Settle?

By 1670 civil government was well established, with Upland as the capital, and in the ensuing decade a number of English immigrants effected settlements on the west side of the river, especially in the vicinity of the falls.

Considerable land was taken up within the bounds of Pennsylvania by English settlers between 1674 and 1681, while Governor Edmund Andros ruled New York as the Duke's representative. According to Proud, "The first most considerable settlement in Pennsylvania proper is said to have been near the lower falls of the river Delaware, in Bucks county . . . some of the inhabitants having settled there by virtue of patents from Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of New York."

Thomas Holme’s 1687 map of Pennsylvania shows the tracts of land acquired by the First Purchasers. (Library Company of Philadelphia)

As you can see, Robert Lucas had a plot on the Delaware River just below the falls. (See the map just about where "D" is on "Delaware River")The "Falls of the Delaware" became the center of a little English colony several years before Penn's arrival.

Wayland Fuller Dunaway, PhD. in “The English Settlers in Colonial Pennsylvania” writes ...

“When West New Jersey came into the possession of William Penn and other Quaker proprietors, colonists of that faith soon began to arrive, settling Salem in 1675 and Burlington in 1677. It is estimated that by the close of 1678 at least 800 immigrants, mostly English Quakers, had settled in West Jersey. Some of these located in Salem and vicinity, but Burlington became the Quaker headquarters and chief center of influence.

“As a by-product of this invasion of West Jersey by English Quakers, a respectable number of the newcomers crossed over to the west side of the Delaware and added to the slowly growing number of the English within the bounds of Pennsylvania. This was the source of the Quaker settlements in the province before the arrival of Penn, and they located chiefly at the Falls of the Delaware,

“It is estimated that about 1400 Quakers, mostly English, emigrated to New Jersey and Pennsylvania before Penn's arrival, though the majority of these settled in West Jersey. Some, however, settled lower down the Delaware in and around Newcastle and Hoarkills. In 1681 a Yearly Meeting was established at Burlington, with jurisdiction over all the Quakers within the bounds of the present states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.8 Prominent among this group of early English Quakers was Eobert Wade, who settled at Upland, bought 650 acres of land and built the famous "Essex House," at which was held in 1675 the first meeting of Quakers on Pennsylvania soil.

“Thus it appears that before the founding of Pennsylvania proper under Penn's charter there was already within the present bounds of the Commonwealth an advance guard of English settlers, deriving their land titles from Governor Edmund Andros, the Duke's representative on the Delaware. These settlers were mostly Quakers, and were established principally at the Falls of the Delaware, Shakamaxon, Upland, and Marcus Hook, and vicinity.”

When William Penn arrived on the “Welcome” at Delaware Bay in New Castle, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 1682, with a hundred travel-weary Quakers and a charter granted by England's King Charles II, he traveled inland. Remember, Robert Lucas was already there with his family, as they had arrived a few years before.

Penn detoured to Chester to meet with Quakers and worship at a local Friends Meeting. Although he has been, on occasion, credited with the founding of Quakerism in Pennsylvania, several pioneering members of the Religious Society of Friends had settled in the region prior to his arrival. It is evident among the Quaker settlers were the Lucases.

Early records are spotty, but the first Quaker to settle in what is now known as Pennsylvania, according to historian Rufus M. Jones, was probably Robert Wade, who had emigrated from England in 1675. Wade not only helped establish Pennsylvania's first Quaker meetinghouse at Chester, but he also provided lodging for the proprietor when he arrived. A meetinghouse had also been constructed in Falls, now Fallsington in Bucks County, in 1680, two years before Penn's arrival. The colonists who established the meeting at Falls had obtained their patents for land from Sir Edmund Andros (1637-1714), governor of New York.

Particulars About the Lucas Family

Robert Lucas, as one of the residents of the new town near the Falls, signed an April 12, 1680 petition to the governor of New York requesting a ban on selling strong liquors to the Indians, and another dated 13 September 1680 charging neighbors Gilbert Wheeler and William Biles with selling rum to the Indians.


On September 13, 1681 Robert Lucas sat on the bench with others at the Upland Court, under Penn's deputy governor William Markham. And, in1683 Lucas was a member of the provincial assembly.

Robert surveyed and served at constable. On February 11, 1685 the Bucks county court appointed men to lay out a particular road "with the assistance of Robert Lucas, a surveyor.” In December 1685 Robert Lucas and “another” were elected high-constables. And, Lucas had at least one scrape with the law himself. In1692 a case was brought against Robert Lucas for his shooting an ox. No damages were awarded as the ox was so little harmed.
Robert Lucas obtained two tracts of land in Bucks county.

1. The first tract contained 177 acres, and its location can be seen on the Thomas Holmes map. The property fronted the Delaware River, about seven properties south of the Falls. According to Battle's book, starting in 1678 lands in this area were granted under the authority of Gov. Andros and the Upland Court, surveying began in 1680, and few records have survived, and Robert Lucas was located there soon after his family arrived in 1680. In 1684 William Penn confirmed that he had sold the land to Robert Lucas (Patent, Bucks Co. Deeds 2:173). In 1702 a warrant for the resurvey of the tract was recorded for Robert's son Edward Lucas.

2. The second tract contained 322 acres. It was located just south of the Falls, the third tract west of the Delaware. When townships boundaries were established in 1692, the northern most lands in Falls Township included that of widow Lucas. In terms of the Holmes map, it lay just west of the Jeffrey Hawkins tract. Robert Lucas had purchased it from William Penn. A warrant for a survey for 200 acres was recorded in 1682 (PHMC, Copied Survey Books, D-68, p. 91). A warrant for a resurvey of the 244 acre tract for Robert Lucas son of Robert Lucas was recorded 19th of 3rd mo 1702 (PHMC, Copied Survey Books, D-68, p. 123), and the survey was returned 18th of 9th mo 1702 for 322 acres (PHMC, Copied Survey Books, D-68, p. 134).
In December 1697 the heirs of Robert Lucas went in to court and had recorded on December 16th three Bucks county land transactions.

First was a patent, dated 31st day 5th month 1684, from William Penn confirming that he had sold to Robert Lucas a tract of land in Bucks county of 177 acres. The patent describes the land by metes and bounds; the land fronted the Delaware River, and adjoined that of Joshua Board.

Second was a deed, dated 4th day 10th month 1697, by which Robert Lucas sold to his brother Edward Lucas his half interest in the same 177 acre tract for £60, which half interest he had inherited by the terms of the will, dated 6th day 10th month 1687, of their father Robert Lucas. Robert [the son] signs by his mark.

Third was a deed, dated 6th day 10th month 1697, by which Elizabeth Lucas relict and executrix of Robert Lucas deceased and their sons Giles and Edward Lucas sold to Robert Lucas, the brother of Giles and Edward, a tract of land in Bucks county of 244 acres for £60, which tract Robert Lucas senior had purchased from William Penn and had given to his wife Elizabeth by his will dated 6th day 10th month 1687. Some adjoining properties are named, that of Jeffrey Hawkings to the north, Peter Webster to the east and William Dark to the south. Elizabeth signs by her mark, while Giles & Edward sign.

In short by these last two transactions: 1) For £60 Edward got full ownership of the 144 acres on the Delaware originally inherited jointly with brother Robert, and 2) Robert exchanged his half interest in the 144 acres for the 244 acres at Manenges[?] originally inherited by his mother Elizabeth, and 3) Elizabeth, John and Giles got £60 for the 244 acres.

Note – The Abstract of Will:

Robert Lucas, in co. of Bucks, written 6 day 10 mo 1687.
Gives my now wife Elizabeth 245 acres at Manenges[?].
Gives sons Edward & Robert plantation by riverside where I now liveth jointly.
Gives sons Giles & John jointly 200 acres lying between lands of William Brion & William Darke.
Divides personal estate equally between wife & all children.
Wife to be guardian of minor children, unless she remarries & then all sons.
Witnesses George Browne & Daniel Sleng[?].

Administration requested December 21 1703 by son Edward, wife Elizabeth declining.
(Philadelphia Will Book A, page 330, #122. Abstracted by compiler; will viewed on FHL Microfilm #21721.)

Sources:

J.H. Battle. History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. 1985 Spartanburg S.C., originally publ. 1887.

Bucks County Historical Marker. http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-18

Bucks Co., Pennsylvania, Recorder of Deeds; Deeds, 1684-1866; Index, 1684-1919. FHL microfilm series.

William W.H. Davis. A Genealogical and Personal History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Edited by Warren S. Ely & John W. Jordan. originally published as Vol. III of History of Bucks County Penn., 2nd edition NY & Chicago, 1905. Reprinted Genealogical Publ. Co. Baltimore 1975. Reprinted in two parts for Clearfield Co. by Genealogical Publ. Co. Baltimore 1994., Vol. 1, p. 66-7.

Wayland Fuller Dunaway, PhD. The English Settlers in Colonial Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania State College. https://journals.psu.edu/pmhb/article/viewFile/28141/27897

“A Partial List of the Families Who Arrived at Philadelphia between 1682 and 1687.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Oct., 1884), pp. 328-340., p. 228.

Philadelphia Co., Pennsylvania. Register of Wills. filmed at City Hall, Phila. FHL microfilm series titled 'Wills, 1682-1916; indexes to wills, 1682-1924'.

Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive ..., Volume 1 edited by Francis J. Bremer, Tom Webster. 2006.

“Quakers.” https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/history-of-quakerism

Society of Friends, Middletown Monthly Meeting, Bucks Co. Pa. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. FHL Microfilm 388,585., Item 1, Bucks Co. Quarterly record of births & deaths, p. 180.

Website: Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, State Archives, Land Records.

Sources For Further Inquiry

Ancestors and descendants of Robert Lucas, died 1740, of Burlington County, New Jersey, Bucks County, Pa., and Warren County, Kentucky

Record Source: Published Materials

Governor Robert Lucas : his ancestors and descendants

Author: Hall, Betty Porter.
Published 1989

Lucas genealogy

Author: Kemp, AnnaBelle, 1890-
Published 1964

Robert Lucas
Author: Parish, John Carl, 1881-1939.
Published: (1907)

Lucasville -- Before Ohio Beginnings

Shepherdstown, West Virginia, ca. 1861–1865

Like anything else, a town and its humble beginnings spring from deeper connections. To reveal a place's true history, one must examine its founders, the founders' family, and the family's first American environment. The Lucas family migrations from Pennsylvania to West Virginia predate the platting of Lucasville, Ohio in 1819. The Lucas story is a unique, colorful history.

Edward Lucas II was born December 24, 1710 in Bucks County Pennsylvania. He married Mary Darke, who was not Quaker. The marriage was not approved of and Edward was disowned for marrying out of unity. Edward and Mary moved in 1732 to northern Virginia where Edward had purchased land from Lord Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron.

The farm was located at Pack Horse Ford, about three miles from the settlement of Mecklenberg (Shepherdstown) on the road to Charles Town. It contained three springs on what was later called “Lucas Run” or “Rattlesnake Run.” Before a stockade could be erected, Indians burned the first log cabin. However, the family “had sought shelter at a nearby fort and were thus spared."

William Joseph Darke Lucas was the son of Edward Lucas II (1710 - 1777) and Mary (Darke) Lucas (1709 – 1743). William was born near Shepherdstown, Virginia (now West Virginia), on January 18, 1742.

William served in the French and Indian War, under William Darke (later General). He later served in the Revolutionary War as a first lieutenant in Captain William Morgan's company of volunteers that reinforced General George Washington in New Jersey (1777 or late in 1776).

It is written …

“William Lucas, among his companions in arms, had the character of being 'the bravest of the brave.' Colonel Morrow (Colonel John Morrow) often said that for coolness, self-possession, and true moral courage he had no equal in his regiment.”

William married Susannah Parker Lucas (Barnes), sister-in-law to James Rumsey, whose steamship experiments took place on the Potomic River, at Shepherdstown.

William Lucas built a large a large stone, L-shaped, 2-story house near Shepherdstown, known as "Linden Spring." The house is on the National Register of Historic Places.

William and Susannah moved to Ohio after the Revolution. They had two notable sons who figured in local history – Robert Lucas, who would become governor of Ohio and the first governor of the Iowa territory, and John Lucas, who would become the founder of Lucasville, Ohio.

Shepherdstown

Historians of Lucasville, Ohio have a keen interest in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, since it is the first home of the town's namesake. The Lucas family made a significant mark on history. Many of us would like to explore Shepherdstown and its direct historical relationship to Lucasville.

Shepherdstown sits above the Potomac River, directly across from Maryland, approximately a dozen miles northwest of Harpers Ferry. The town is positioned just a mile or so from a well-traveled ford (known as Boteler’s, Packhorse, or Shepherdstown Ford) which was attractive to 18th century travelers heading south up the great Valley of Virginia, and gave rise to the town itself.

Shepherdstown hosts a slew of federal enterprises, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Training Center. But its heart is its history. Woven into the local fabric, the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad all came early to this mountain site; the area retains poignant memories of Revolutionary and Civil War sacrifices. The whole town is a designated National Register historic district. Its residential area remains a quiet haven of 18th- and 19th-century houses tended by preservation-minded owners aided by the Shepherdstown Historical Commission.

Civil War

In 1860, the town was part of the Commonwealth of Virginia, but by 1863 that would all change with the admission of West Virginia as the 35th state in the Union.

And, by unfortunate circumstance, the town is also located around 4 miles south of Sharpsburg, Maryland. That positioning meant it was overwhelmed by Confederate casualties following the harrowing bloodshed at Antietam on September 17, 1862.

All of these geographic realities meant that the town sat on the border of north and south, in a politically turbulent region which found itself near a devastating fight. It was a recipe for chaos. Whereas many towns could point to one day as the "day of days" during the war, Shepherdstown may have had a hard time choosing. It was, as one resident wrote, "Like an awful dream."

Of Great Interest

The Historic Shepherdstown Museum is located in the Entler Hotel, at the corner of Princess and East German Street in Shepherdstown. In 1983 the Historic Shepherdstown Museum was founded to preserve and display artifacts, furniture, and historic documents that might otherwise have been lost.

Behind the hotel in a barn-like building is a half-size replica of James Rumsey's 1787 steamboat, built in Shepherdstown at the behest of George Washington. There are many tributes around town to Rumsey, whose ambition of creating a fleet of steam-propelled boats in America ended in England, where Rumsey was seeking patents and financing and died in his sleep.

Linden Spring – also known as the Captain William and Robert Lucas House – still stands. It was posted to the National Register of Historic Places on September 2, 1982 The Lucas house at Linden Spring is old, even by local standards. It is “ a fine heavy masonry which has invested the structure with longevity and value as a settlement-period example of the building arts.”

Linden Spring

"Hey, Chief, How Do You Get to Ohiyo?" -- Mapping Ohio History

I doubt if few local students have a clue that our area is so rich in history. Cartography is the creation and the study of maps and charts - the difference being that maps apply to land and charts are for marine areas. Tied to geography, cartography has a long tradition going back at least 4000 years.

This study is a valuable source for a wide range of academic disciplines. It stands on its own as raw data, but it can also tell you much about the people who compiled the map. Why was it compiled? How was it drawn? What was the motive for compiling it? Has it been embellished, and how? 

Early maps of Ohio reveal interesting detail about the natives and early explorations of our locale. Because of their dated geographical content and their print limitations, historians can overlook the significance of old maps. Suffice it to say that the Ohio and Scioto river valleys, from the beginning of their exploration and survey, became very important regions in the western settlement of America.

Let's explore some very old maps and establish their relevance to researching our past. I believe you will find the information these designs reveal is fascinating.

Map of Indian Villages and Trails in Ohio. 

Andrew Feight, Ph.D. This file appears in: William Crawford & the Destruction of Salt-Lick Town https://sciotohistorical.org/files/show/8

Several major aboriginal trails crossed the Scioto County. Depending upon the geography, they ranged in width from a few feet to a mere trace. (See Map) These trails were important to the settlement and development of Ohio. Along these trails, natives traveled from one part of the state to another whether engaged in warfare, trade and barter, or migration. Trails throughout the county connected to other trails and villages in Ohio such as Lower Shawnee Town (now Portsmouth), Hurricane Tom's Town (now Piketon), Chillicothe.

Later the trails served, together with navigable streams, as the only means of entrance for the white traders and settlers who pushed their way into the country west and north of the Ohio River.
Three trails transversed Scioto County. Here are the major trails in our immediate area:

I offer these two blog entries to further illustrated the rich history of the traces and paths. Click: http://allthingswildlyconsidered.blogspot.com/2017/07/native-americans-in-scioto-trails-towns.html and http://allthingswildlyconsidered.blogspot.com/2018/04/scioto-trail-what-do-you-know-of-this.html

1750 – Map of La Louisiane

CARTE DE LA LOUISIANE..., Par le Sr. Bellin Ingr. ordre. de la Marine. 1750. (McCorkle #750.1, 755.3; Sellers & van Ee #74, 75, 90, 91) This map shows the eastern United States west to beyond the Mississippi. It appeared in Remarques sur la carte de l'Amerique Septentrionale published in 1755 and possibly as a separate sheet. This image is from the Library of Congress.

This map of "la Louisiane" was published by French geographer Guillaume de l’Isle. It is the first detailed map of the Gulf Coast region and the Mississippi River, as well as the first printed map to show Texas (identified as "Mission de los Teijas etablie en 1716"). The map is also the first to identify New Orleans, founded in 1718 (see the inset detail of the mouth of the St. Louis River). De l’Isle obtained most data from French explorers and fur-traders traveling through North America.

A close examination of the map reveals the land routes of early explorers in North America. Each route is mapped out and identified with the explorer’s name and year of travel. The map represents the travels of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in Florida and the southeast in 1539–1542, Alonso de Leon in 1689, and French Canadian explorer Saint Denis in 1713 and 1716, among others. De l’Isle accurately identified the location of many Native American tribes, marked by a small hut symbol and a name.

De l’Isle’s map provoked outrage among the English for extending French claim over British-controlled areas and reducing the size of the English coastal colonies. He further angered the British by stating on the map that Carolina was named after French King Charles IX, instead of after Charles I, King of England, and by identifying Charles Town (Charleston) as "nommé par les Francois," although Charleston was actually named after Charles II of England.

Part of the Ohio River, showing the falls, the Great Conhaway alias Wood's alias New River, Monongaly River, Shurtees Creek, Fort Du Quesne, part of Lake Erie, etc. and the courses of Christopher Gist's first and second tours. Other title: Map of Christopher Gist's tours of western Pennsylvania. Manuscript Map. Copied by James A. Burt from the original in the Public Record Office, London [Board of Trade Maps Vol. 12, No. 6] for W. M. Darlington Esqr., April, 1882. Relief shown pictorially; Hand colored.

1752 – John Mercer and Christopher Gist Map

PART OF THE OHIO RIVER, SHOWING THE FALLS. This title is given to a manuscript map facsimile in the Darlington Library dated circa 1752. It also has the title "Part of the Ohio River, showing the falls, the Great Conhaway alias Wood's alias New River, Monongaly River, Shurtees Creek, Fort Du Quesne, part of Lake Erie, etc. and the courses of Christopher Gist's first and second tours;" and is also called "Map of Christopher Gist's first and second tours." The original is in the Public Record Office (or National Archives), London, in Board of Trade Maps Vol. 12, No. 6. It shows Gist's record of his travels into the Pittsburgh region and the Ohio country.

Christopher Gist was a Maryland surveyor and Indian trader who became an agent of the Ohio Company of Virginia in 1749. He made three important trips, of which he kept careful journals, which have proved of great value to historians of later years. Two of these trips were as an explorer in the interest of the Ohio Company, and one was as a guide to the youthful and inexperienced Washington, then only twenty-one years of age.

He accompanied Washington on his journey to Fort LeBoeuf in 1753. The fort was on the southern end of the portage road between Lake Erie and French Creek in present-day Lorain County. Gist is credited with providing the first detailed description of the Ohio Country to Great Britain's colonists.

Christopher Gist was a remarkable character of the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiers. He was capable, resourceful, and loyal, and was always just in his dealings with the natives. On each of these journeys he penetrated western Pennsylvania.

John Mercer’s manuscript map of Ohio Company lands made before November 6, 1752 shows Christopher Gist’s first and second exploring expeditions, the natural boundaries for the Ohio Company land grant, and the road from Wills Creek to a landing on the Monongahela River. Mercer created his map most likely after a manuscript map drawn by frontiersman Christopher Gist during his exploring expeditions into the Ohio Country in 1750 and 1751 for the Ohio Company. John Mercer was a founding member, secretary and general counsel of the Ohio Company of Virginia, a colonial land speculation company.

Christopher Gist's Journal – January 29, 1751

“The lower Shawanese Town was situated where the present town of Alexandria, opposite Portsmouth, at the mouth of the Scioto, now stands, and also on the south shore of the Ohio River, directly opposite, (In the present Green County, Kentucky.) to which the Shawanese on the north side were compelled to remove, within a few years after Gist's visit, in consequence of a great flood in the Scioto destroying the town at its mouth. George Croghan was there at the time; the water was near fifty feet above the ordinary level. (Croghan's Journal, in Appendix to "Butler's History of Kentucky," Second Appendix, p. 462.) This town was a noted place for Indian trade. ("Evans' Analysis of Map of 1755," p. 30.)

"One large store House on the Ohio opposite to the mouth of the River Scioto where the Shawanese had built their new Town called the Lower Shawanese Town, which House we learn by the Indians is now in the possession of a French Trader £200."

“The Shawanese removed to the plains of Scioto in 1758 and sent for those of their tribe, at Logstown, to join them. (Post's Journal." Dr. Franklin's Tract. "The Walpole Grant: or, Ohio Settlement, 1772," original edition, p 22.) On Hutchins' large Map of 1778 the town at the mouth of the Scioto is marked "Old Lower Shawnee Town," and the place to which they removed is laid down "Lower Shawnee Town," situated on both sides of the Scioto, on the "Plains." There it became known as Upper Chillicothe, or Old Chillicothe and "Pluggy's Town," four miles below Circleville, on the west side of the river. (Pownall's Map 1776. Evans' ditto, 1775. Dr. Mitchell's ditto. Note in Appendix to Colonel Smith's Narrative.) 

“Some of the log cabins and stone chimneys of the town, on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, were standing in June, 1773, when Captain Bullit and the McAfee Company passed down the Ohio. (Note on p. 53, Davidson's "History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky.") Dr. Davidson mentions it as a French village.” (Evans' Analysis of Map of 1755," p. 30.) Traces of this town were visible in 182o. (See Collins "History of Kentucky, 1874." Palmer's "Travels in the United States and Canada, 1817." p. 65.)

CAPTAIN SNOW'S SCETCH OF THE COUNTRY BY HIMSELF, AND THE BEST ACCOUNTS HE COULD RECEIVE FROM THE INDIAN TRADERS. 1754. This is a manuscript map of western Pennsylvania with parts of Maryland and Virginia. The Library of Congress, from where this image comes, also has the manuscript draft of this more polished map; both are illustrated in Brown #20-21. Sellers & van Ee #1301-2.

1754 – Captain Snow's Map

Scale ca. 1:6,300,000. Hand colored. LC copy imperfect: Portion of upper left corner missing and margins have been trimmed. Relief shown pictorially. "Engraved for Guthries new system of geography." Shows provincial boundaries, Indian villages and tribal territory, rivers and lakes, a few forts and place-names. LC Maps of North America, 1750-1789, 748 Available also through the Library of Congress Web site as a raster ... Contributor: Darton, William - Guthrie, William. Date: 1783.

Sometime around 1754 Captain Snow made this sketch of Western Pennsylvania and Maryland that details the locations of French forts, British forts and has some historical notes. For instance, it notes at Logstown, “Treaty with Indians by [British] Col. Lomax, Fry, and Patton” in 1752. It also shows where the French carried their canoes from Lake Erie to French Creek. The map is not drawn to scale; however, it is useful for understanding the layout and activities on the western Pennsylvania frontier.

I am making an educated guess that the cartographer referred to as “Snow” is Nathan Snow (1725-1803). He was born and died in Massachusetts. Snow was a Revolutionary War veteran.

1783 – Russell and Darton's Map

A Map of the United States of America Agreeable to the Peace of 1783. This map was drawn by John Russell and engraved in Tottenham (north London) by William Darton for the 1785 edition of Guthrie's New System of Geography. Russell's name does not appear on the map. Stylistically this map is far ahead of its time presaging the early 19th century work of Cary, Pinkerton, and Thomson.

John Russell (c. 1750 - 1829) was a British cartographer active in London during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Russell apprenticed as a goldsmith before turning to engraving and printing. He drew maps and engraved for several major publishers of his period including Alexander Dalrymple, Benjamin Henry, Robert Sayer, John Moore, and William Guthrie. Russell's apprentices included such prominent cartographers as Alexander Findlay and Samuel Clapp.

William Darton (February 2, 1781 - July 28, 1854) was an English publisher and engraver active in Tottenham London during the early part of the 19th century. Darton was the eldest son of William Darton Sr., himself a printer and publisher who co-owned the firm of Harvey and Darton. Darton, a Quaker, was educated at the Friends School in Clerkenwell, London and the Ackworth School in Yorkshire. Afterwards Darton apprenticed to his father where he mastered the part of printing and engraving. 

Around 1804 Darton opened his own shop, the "Repertory of Genius", specializing in maps, prints, children's books, educational publications, and other "works of merit" at 50 Holborn Hill, London. Cartographically Darton's most significant contribution is his 1823 publication, along with engraver W. R Gardner, of the first composite comparative mountains and rivers chart. Darton also published various maps for the 1802 Atlas to Walker's Geography and his own 1813 Union Atlas. Darton retired in 1851 leaving his business to his son, John Maw Darton, who partnered with Samuel Clark and published as "Darton and Clark".

An unusual c. 1783 John Russell map of the United States issued shortly after the American Revolutionary War. The map depicts the United States according to the 1783 Treaty of Paris that formally ended the War. These borders extended from the middle of the Great Lakes (sans Michigan) south to West Florida and from the Mississippi to the Atlantic.

Recognizable states are confined to those lands to the east of the Appalachian Mountains; however most are presented in an unusual and inexact early configuration. Vermont is shown as part of New York, usual at this juncture, and Pennsylvania controls most of western New York from Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania-Maryland border. Florida at this time was fully under Spanish control having been ceded to Spain by the British as a reward for staying neutral throughout the conflict. Louisiana, following Franco-Hispanic treaties dating to 1762 is also, at this point, a Spanish possession.

In northern Maine Russell adds the additional territory of Sagahadok. Sagahadok or Sagahadoc, is the legacy of an early 17th British effort to colonize North America. Technically Sagahadoc refers to the territory between the Kennebec River and Nova Scotia. In the few mid-18th century maps that actually show Sagahadoc, such as the present example, the region is depicted as a territory attached to the Massachusetts Colony. However, by this time it has been fully separated from Massachusetts and is drawn as a separate colony. The appearance of Sagahadoc may be related to a post-Revolutionary War British attempt to add this part of northern Maine to their Nova Scotia Colony, referencing an early claim to the territory dating from its original failed 1620 colonization attempt. Similarly, Vermont, through clearly identified in its present location, is here added to British controlled Canada.

The United States thus seen here lays claim to a vast stretch of unnamed Indian lands between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains and from the Great Lakes to West Florida. Throughout these lands various American Indian groups and villages are identified as well as river systems, trading posts, and former British fortifications. Curiously many of the states and territories that were created during the war are not present - including Kentucky and Vermont. Many other later maps did not include these states, but few went so far as to terminate the western borders of the former colonies at the Appalachian Mountains. We can think of only a few reasons why this may have occurred. One is that the cartographer was following earlier French issued colonial era maps dating to the French and Indian War, in which the French used similar borders to increase presumed French territory in Louisiana vs. British territories along the eastern seaboard. Perhaps Guthrie is in here advocating for certain European interests which may or may not have included sustained British or French interest in these lands.



Four fictive islands appear just south of the U.S.-Canada border in Lake Superior: Philippeux, Pontchartrain, Maurepas, and St. Anne. These islands were invented half a century earlier by the French historian and traveler Charlevoix, then subsequently immortalized by the cartographer Jacques-Nicholas Bellin. 

The islands were intended to honor Charlevoix' s personal patron, the Count of Maurepas, Jean-Frederic Phelypeaux. The largest of the three islands, Philippeaux, is named directly after the count. The second largest island, Pontchartrain, refers to Phelypeaux's family estate. The third island, which may in fact be a mismapping of the factual State Islands, is named after the count's seat, Maurepas. The fourth and smallest of the islands, St. Anne, references the count's patron saint. Charlevoix described the islands as being rich in minerals leading numerous explorers to search for them in vain. 

Bellin dutifully introduced the four islands to his map, and such was his influence that they were subsequently copied by most subsequent cartographers, including John Mitchell in his seminal 1755 wall map of North America. The highly regarded Mitchell map was used in negotiating the 1783 Treaty of Paris that formally concluded the American Revolutionary War. Therein, the apocryphal Philippeaux was assigned as a marker for the new United States - British America border, as seen here, thus setting the stage for later political strife.

1901 - Cram Map of Scioto County

George F. Cram (1842-1928), served in the U.S. Army during the American Civil War. After the war ended, Cram joined his uncle Rufus Blanchard's Evanston map business in 1867. Two years later, he became sole proprietor of the firm and renamed it the George F. Cram Co. which became a leading map firm and first American firm to publish a world atlas. It employed a relief process.

Notice the plethora of local locations and the turn-of-the-century names that existed for these places.

Interracial Couples: An American Primer of Miscegenation

“In 1967, only 3 percent of newlyweds were interracial couples. Today, 17 percent of newlyweds and 10 percent of all married couples differ from one another in race or ethnicity … By 1959, the overwhelming majority of white Americans then believed rejecting interracial marriage to be fundamental to the nation’s well-being. In 2017, in contrast, 91 percent of Americans believe interracial marriage to be a good or at least benign thing.”

– Current Events in Historical Perspective, Vol. 10, issue 12 - September 2017

Do these statistics amaze you? I assume young people today find the figures hard to believe given the common acceptance of interracial dating and mixed marriage. Listen, children and learn from history about the difficult struggle for equality. Love and race did not always mix.

For so long, miscegenation (reproduction by parents of different races, especially by white and non-white persons) was not only discouraged but also prohibited by law in America. Prohibited but surely not prevented … in fact, history records a very celebrated interracial union from the nation's inception.

The first recorded interracial marriage in American history took place between John Rolfe, English tobacco planter, and Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Indian confederacy, in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1614. Jamestown higher-ups blessed the nuptials, even though they viewed Indians with contempt. In truth, they saw a big advantage in having a Native American princess (and, perhaps, any male offspring) on their side.

Any cause for celebration was more likely for economic reasons than for the intermixing of two cultures, as the Virginia Company sought to present Jamestown as a palatable place to live. The presentation of Pocahontas to the court of James I seems now like a testimony that Indians could be tamed, that they could be convinced to adapt the Europeans’ idea of civilization.

John Rolfe and Pocahontas

No such mixed marriage took place in 17th century Massachusetts and only two more cases were recorded in Virginia before the legislature outlawed the practice in 1691.

On the other side of interracial relationships are the numerous affairs between the Europeans (slave owners and servants alike) and slaves. Skin color seemed to not matter when the very human need for mating is involved. In colonial America, the first biracial Americans were the children of the white-black, white-Indian unions. By the time of the American Revolution, somewhere between 60,000 and 120,000 people of “mixed heritage” resided in the colonies.

Anti-miscegenation policies continued … and continued … and continued. The prejudice was firmly established and laws supporting anti-miscegenation existed until the Supreme Court decision of 1967 and even until 2000. That's right, 2000 – if you lived in the deep South state of Alabama.

The laws were both racist and sexist from the first colonial days. While nowhere near as common as interracial relations between white men and black or mulatto women – white women, typically immigrant indentured servants, had relations and sometimes married black and mulatto male slaves. When these relationships were discovered, usually through the woman becoming pregnant, the penalties for the woman were harsh.

A double standard existed. White men who had mulatto children were not ostracized or penalized by their society. It was a colonial case of “boys will be boys.” On the whole, the court records are silent to their fate. The onus for such transgressions, as they were seen, lay entirely with the white mothers.

The frequent abuse and lynching of black men for allegedly raping or desiring sexual relations with white women, as well as the widespread rape and sexual abuse of black women by white men, played an integral part in the socio-historical construction of race and the rules of race relations.

The Loving Decision – Not That Long Ago

Fifty years ago the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia established marriage as a fundamental right for interracial couples, but 72 percent of the public opposed the court’s decision at the time. Many decried it as judicial overreach and resisted its implementation for decades. Yes, even in 1967, interracial marriage was widely denounced in the United States of America.

Loving v. Virginia brought down interracial marriage bans in 16 states centered on the aptly named Richard and Mildred Loving. In 1958, the pair were arrested in the middle of the night in their Virginia home after marrying the month before in Washington, D.C. Pleading guilty to “cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth,” they were offered one year imprisonment or a suspended sentence if they left their native state.

Historical Note – Nearby West Virginia and Kentucky and even Delaware were among the 16 states that banned whites from marrying blacks at the time. Ohio repealed its anti-miscegenation law in 1887. It was the last state to repeal its anti-miscegenation law before California did so in 1948.

Jessica Viñas-Nelson, historian, speaks of the Loving case ...

“The Lovings chose exile over prison and moved to D.C. but they missed their hometown. After being arrested again in 1963 while visiting relatives in Virginia, Mildred Loving wrote Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who in turn referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU appealed the Lovings’ conviction, arguing interracial marriage bans contradicted the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. Despite this line of argument, lower courts upheld the verdict because, as one jurist wrote, 'the fact that [Almighty God] separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

“After multiple appeals, the case reached the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Earl Warren’s opinion for the unanimous court declared marriage to be 'one of the ‘basic civil rights of man’…To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications…is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty.' Warren further ruled that interracial marriage bans were designed expressly 'to maintain White Supremacy.' The court’s decision not only struck down an 80-year precedent set in the case Pace v. Alabama (1883), but 300 years of legal code.”

Vinas-Nelson reports …

“If Asians and Hispanics are removed from intermarriage figures, intermarriage rates still remain extremely low. White opposition to a close relative marrying a black person has decreased dramatically, but still constitutes 14 percent of white views in 2017.”

Today Loving is as an example of racial transcendence and prejudice squashed. The Loving ruling can be celebrated as a wonderful achievement. It not only led to the end of interracial marriage bans in 16 states, but more recently aided the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized marriage for same-sex couples.

What Race?

Theories of physical anthropology will suggest that every human being has some African ancestry, yet since colonial times miscegenation had been banned in America. These laws were an American invention. There was no ban on interracial marriage in England at the time.

By the late 1800s, 38 states had anti-miscegenation statutes. As late as 1924 these laws were on the books in 29 states. Anti-miscegenation laws varied greatly in the way they defined whom one could and could not marry.

In a legal brief filed in Loving v. Virginia, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP) commented on the inconsistencies in these laws:

“In Mississippi, Mongolian-White marriages are illegal and void, while in North Carolina they are permitted. . . . In Arkansas, a Negro is defined as any person who has in his or her veins 'any Negro blood whatever'; in Florida, one ceases to be a Negro when he has less than 'one-eighth of African or Negro blood,' and in Oklahoma, anyone not of the 'African descent' is miraculously transmuted into a member of the white race.”

Historical Note – The unbelievable labeling of mixed race people throughout history is maddening. The following terms were formerly used to represent “degrees of blackness” ...

Mulatto - A person of mixed race who is half white and half black. Based on the Spanish word mulo meaning "mule," and implying that the person is sterile like a mule. (Another familiar misconception concerned the concept of “hybrid vigor,” the idea that breeding across difference, as with dogs, creates a stronger, and more attractive breed.)

Quadroon or Quarteron - A person with one white parent and one mulatto parent. Such a person would be 3/4 white and 1/4 black.

Octoroon or Metif - A person who has one white parent and one quadroon parent. Such a person would be 7/8 white and 1/8 black.

Meamelouc or Mamelouque - See sextaroon. sextaroon - Also called a meamelouc or mamelouque. A person who is 1/16 black. The parents would be a full-blooded white and an octoroon.

Demi-Meamelouc - A person who is 1/32 black. The parents would be a full-blooded white and a sextaroon.

Sangmelee - A person who is 1/64 black. The parents would be a full-blooded white and a demi-meamelouc.

Griffe – A person whose parents are a full-blooded black and a mulatto. Such a person would be 3/4 black and 1/4 white. The term is also used to describe the offspring of a mulatto and an American Indian, or any person of mixed Negro and American Indian blood.

Marabou - A person who is 5/8 black. The parents would be a full-blooded black and a quadroon.

Sacatra - A person who is 7/8 black. The parents would be a full-blooded black and a griffe.

A Brief History of Interracial Bans

The following overview was compiled largely from Tom Head's “Interracial Marriage Laws History & Timeline.” Head is a historian with a Ph.D. in Religion/Society who has authored more than 25 nonfiction books.

In 1664, Maryland passed the first British colonial law banning marriage between whites and slaves -- a law that, among other things, ordered the enslavement of white women who had married black men:

"[F]orasmuch as diverse freeborn English women forgetful of their free condition and to the disgrace of our Nation do intermarry with Negro slaves by which also diverse suits may arise touching the [children] of such women and a great damage doth befall the Masters of such Negroes for prevention whereof for deterring such freeborn women from such shameful matches,

"Be it further enacted by the authority advice and consent aforesaid that whatsoever freeborn woman shall intermarry with any slave from and after the last day of this present Assembly shall serve the master of such slave during the life of her husband, and that the [children] of such freeborn women so married shall be slaves as their fathers were. And be it further enacted that all the [children] of English or other freeborn women that have already married Negroes shall serve the masters of their parents til they be thirty years of age and no longer."

This left unaddressed two important questions:

1. This law drew no distinction between slaves and free blacks, and
2. This law didn't say what happens to white men who marry black women, rather than vice versa.

The next law answered these questions. In 1691, the Commonwealth of Virginia banned all interracial marriages, threatening to exile whites who marry people of color. In the 17th century, exile usually functioned as a death sentence:

"For prevention of that abominable mixture and spurious [children] which hereafter may increase in this dominion, as well as by negroes, mulattos, and Indians intermarrying with English, or other white women, as by their unlawful accompanying with one another,

"Be it enacted ... that ... whatsoever English or other white man or woman being free, shall intermarry with a negro, mulatto or Indian man or woman bond or free shall within three months after such marriage be banished and removed from this dominion forever …

"And be it further enacted ... that if any English woman being free shall have a bastard child by any negro or mulatto, she pay the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, within one month after such bastard child shall be born, to the Church wardens of the parish ... and in default of such payment she shall be taken into the possession of the said Church wardens and disposed of for five years, and the said fine of fifteen pounds, or whatever the woman shall be disposed of for, shall be paid, one third part to their majesties ...”

Leaders in Maryland's colonial government liked this idea so much that they implemented a similar policy a year later. And in 1705, Virginia expanded the policy to impose massive fines on any minister who performed a marriage between a person of color and a white person -- with half the amount (ten thousand pounds) to be paid to the informant.

Historical Note – It was advanced by Dr. Samuel Cartwright (1793–1863) of Louisiana that slaves suffered from two diseases:

(1) Drapetomania (Combining the Greek words for “runaway slave” and “mad or crazy”) – a disease that Cartwright claimed caused slaves to run away. Dr. Jonathan Miller, an English pathologist, had defined this term tongue-in-cheek as "a morbid desire to be free." Piling on, Cartwright concluded that the slaves, in fact, loved it on some subconscious level.

Cartwright did have a cure, which was “clearly implied, though not directly expressed” in the Old Testament, which he believed taught the “true art of governing the negroes in such a manner that they cannot run away.” There, they were apparently told to become, as Cartwright put it, “the submissive knee-bender.”

(2) Dysaethesia Aethiopica – a disease which Dr. Cartwright claimed made slaves apt to commit intentional acts of mischief or “rascality.” This rascality was, he insisted, not intentional, “but is mostly owing to the stupidness of mind and insensibility of the nerves induced by the disease.” The symptoms were many:

“Thus, they break, waste and destroy everything they handle,–abuse horses and cattle,–tear, burn or rend their own clothing, and, paying no attention to the rights of property, steal others, to replace what they have destroyed. They wander about at night, and keep in a half nodding sleep during the day. They slight their work,–cut up corn, cane, cotton or tobacco when hoeing it, as if for pure mischief. They raise disturbances with their overseers and fellow-servants without cause or motive, and seem to be insensible to pain when subjected to punishment.”

Unsatisfied with merely the outward symptoms of the malady, Cartwright also insisted that this “disease” gave the black people “lesions of the body discoverable to the medical observer, which as always present and sufficient to account for the symptoms.”

But reform, although painfully slow followed. In 1780, Pennsylvania, which had passed a law banning interracial marriage in 1725, repealed it as part of a series of reforms intended to gradually abolish slavery within the state and grant free blacks equal legal status. And, much later, in 1843, Massachusetts becomes the second state to repeal its anti-miscegenation law, further cementing the distinction between Northern and Southern states on slavery and civil rights.

Anti-miscegenation views remained – still strong and widely supported. In 1871, Rep. Andrew King (D-MO) proposed a U.S. constitutional amendment banning all marriage between whites and people of color in every state throughout the country. It was the first of three such attempts.

In 1883, in Pace v. Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state-level bans on interracial marriage did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling would hold for more than 80 years. It was perhaps the most devastating ruling against miscegenation since colonial times.

Historical Note – In southwest Ohio, about a mile from the Indiana state line, lies a long-forgotten town with a special place in African American history. In 1818, James Clemens, a freed slave from Rockingham County, Virginia, settled in Darke County, Ohio, with his wife Sophia Sellers and their five children, and began to farm. Smothers says some slave owners not only acknowledged the children they bore with slaves but also provided them with financial support. Such was the case with James and Sophia, who purchased land in Ohio with the help of Sellers' father, he says. The settlement at Longtown is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

According to W. E. B. Dubois, Longtown became a haven for interracial couples. Longtown is one of only two communities in Ohio to be considered tri-racial: persons of African-American, European and Native American ancestry lived here. The Clemens Farmstead, a two-story brick house, sits about 100 feet from Stingley Road, and the facade is a common bond brick pattern with classical Greek Revival details.

Daily Oklahomian, 1907

Then, in 1922, Congress passed the Cable Act marking the climate of anti-Asian xenophobia that defined the early decades of the 20th century. Asian Americans were also targeted in this case. The Cable Act retroactively stripped the citizenship of any U.S. citizen who married "an alien ineligible for citizenship," which -- under the racial quota system of the time -- primarily meant Asian Americans.

Finally, in 1964, in McLaughlin v. Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that laws banning interracial sex violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

McLaughlin struck down Florida Statute 798.05, which read:

"Any negro man and white woman, or any white man and negro woman, who are not married to each other, who shall habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room shall each be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twelve months, or by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars."

While the ruling did not directly address laws banning interracial marriage, it laid down the groundwork for a ruling that definitively did.

In 1967, the aforementioned Loving case saw the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturn Pace v. Alabama (1883), ruling that state bans on interracial marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

As Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the Court:

"There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy …

"The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men ... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

What lingered? In 2000, following a November 7^th ballot referendum, Alabama became the last state to officially legalize interracial marriage. The Alabama State Constitution still contained an unenforceable ban in Section 102:

"The legislature shall never pass any law to authorize or legalize any marriage between any white person and a Negro or descendant of a Negro."

The Alabama State Legislature stubbornly clung to the old language as a symbolic statement of the state's views on interracial marriage; as recently as 1998, House leaders successfully killed attempts to remove Section 102.

When voters finally had the opportunity to remove the language, the outcome was surprisingly close: although 59% of voters supported removing the language, 41% favored keeping it. Interracial marriage remains controversial in the Deep South, where a 2011 poll found that a plurality of Mississippi Republicans still supports anti-miscegenation laws.

Conclusion

I am using a skillfully written conclusion verbatim from Francis Wardle PhD. – Associate Faculty

Dissertation Chair, and Committee Member of the University of Phoenix – to end this entry. It looks toward the future with great hope that some day prejudice will die. Wardle ...

“It is critically important for intellectuals from outside the U.S. studying race and racial relationships in the U.S. to deeply understand the unique history, politics and current realities of race within the U.S. These unique elements include a history of White supremacy, the eugenics movement and the social policies it produced, the creation and maintenance of the one-drop rule and the rule of hypodescent, and historical and legal issues surrounding interracial marriage.

“Further, observers of race in U.S. society must understand the relationship of states’ rights to federal authority and control. For example, the one-drop rule, eugenics policies, and laws against interracial marriage were all state laws, and not federal mandates, as was the legal right to own slaves.

“Today the ridged boundaries between racial groups, adherence to the one-drop rule, and the rule of hypodescent are all under siege. While academics, diversity experts, multicultural writers, and those who profess to care for the equality of minority groups still religiously adhere to the old paradigms about race, much of U.S. society – particularly the young – are rejecting these ridged, limiting and outmoded constructs.”

Historical Note – Jim Crow laws were designed to keep blacks as second-class citizens, through rules that kept them from voting, having equal educational opportunity, and accessing public and private facilities, etc. While targeted to blacks, this law applied to most non-whites. Violation of Jim Crow laws produced an increasing number of court cases by people who did not believe they were subject to these laws – because they did not view themselves as black. These cases – including several U.S. Supreme Court decisions (which supported states’ rights) – upheld the one-drop rule – any amount of African blood made a person black. Thus, a white person cannot have any trace of any other blood (genes) anywhere in their background to be considered white.

The rule of hypodescent derived from the one-drop rule. This rule describes the way Americans classify race according to blood. It places racial identity on a continuum, from most preferred (White), through intermediate forms (i.e. Asian, Native American) to least prestigious (black), and assigns the status of a child from parents of two groups to the race of lowest status, regardless of their physical appearance. Thus all offspring – and subsequent generations – of one White and one Black person are considered black.

Sources

Bárbara C. Cruz and Michael J. Berson. “The American Melting Pot? Miscegenation Laws in the United States.” OAH Magazine of History.Vol. 15, No. 4, Family History. Summer, 2001.

Eric Foner. Give Me Liberty!: An American History, Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.

Tom Head. “Interracial Marriage Laws History & Timeline.” ThoughtCo. February 23, 2018.

“Miscegenation.” https://sharetngov.tnsosfiles.com/tsla/exhibits/blackhistory/pdfs/Miscegenation%20laws.pdf.

“The Peculiar Doctor Cartwright: Justifying Slavery Through Medical Quackery.” http://www.thiscruelwar.com/peculiar-doctor-cartwright/. September 28, 2016.

Jessica Vinas-Nelson. “Interracial Marriage in 'Post-Racial' America. Origins. vol. 10, issue 12 - September 2017.

Francis Wardle PhD. “Interracial Marriage in the United States of America.” The Center for the Study of Biracial Children. September 6, 2013.