Pat Spurlock Elder Contact?

Hi Rockhound,

Be glad to answer your question here on the board if you like.

Best wishes,

Pat

RH said: you mention Moses Riddle lived next to a Goins and Ned Sizemore in Granville County, NC in 1755. I have read that Moses and Mary Riddle are listed on the tax list, but nowhere have I seen who they lived near. Does the actual source give an indication of who was whose neighbor?

REPLY: The tax list, which I had in microfilm format from the original North Carolina list, shows the taxables in enumeration order. Thus, it shows which folks were neighbors. It can be tricky deciding if they were next-door neighbors, however, since it takes some study of the region to know which direction the enumerator took on his route.

In some counties and/or certain years, the taxpayer came into court to pay taxes rather than have a tax collector come through the neighborhood. On those tax lists, the taxable is listed in alphabetical order so they won’t show who lived near whom. In other cases, even if the enumerator came to each home he still listed the taxable in alphabetical order. It really pays to study the neighborhoods and their histories.

The Granville County, North Carolina, website may have the tax list on-line on the USGenWeb if you want to check there. I recently donated most of my microfilm to a local library so I can’t offer to check. You may want to know that in 1755, Moses Riddle was taxed as a mulatto according to Paul Heinegg but by 1767 he was taxed as an Indian according to Frances Hallam Hurt, “An Intimate History of the American Revolution in Pittsylvania County, Virginia” (Danville:Womack Press, 1976).

RH said: Do you think his proximity in Granville county gives any indication to Moses’ ancestry because of his close neighbors?

REPLY: I wouldn’t commit to an answer on that without studying the families again but it is likely that someone in his neighborhood is related to him or his wife or both. Families traveling together was the custom then (and later too).

RH said: Sizemore is thought to be Nansemond, right? Did these people live as white men in homes on farms or were there accomadations more basic? Were the Riddles, Goins, and Sizemores far from the Gibsons and Collins in the county?

REPLY: Old Granville was a little far west to be close to the Nansemond (who lived more east near the Dismal Swamp). I never came to a firm conclusion in my mind which tribe but the evidence seemed to me to point toward the Catawba. Many of Ned’s descendants claimed that Ned came from Cherokee (see Sizemore applications in the National Archives or abstracts in Cherokee by Blood). Cherokee County North Carolina is Cherokee country but since there is no convincing record that Ned ever belonged in the Cherokee tribe, the best other choice for the time would be the Catawba. The Catawba were Siouan speakers but many of them were adopted by the Cherokee. If Ned’s mother were Cherokee, he would’ve been Cherokee regardless of what his father was, however, I think the Eastern Cherokee records would show evidence of that if it were true.

As to your second question, evidence would suggest they lived as whites lived since they were paying taxes and being enumerated on censuses and buying and selling land through white courts. Indians living in tribal situations at that time were not taxed or enumerated and their land system was different (very different, but that’s a different topic) :). Many Indians lived in log structures (or wooden-framed structures) long before any influence by whites so it is hard to say which came first, the chicken or the egg.

RH said: Also, it seems that you don’t consider Moses Riddle or his descendants to be Melungeons, right? Does that mean that Mary, his wife, was not connected to the Collins or Gibsons or is that just not clear enough to say one way or another?

REPLY: I don’t have any evidence indicating Moses was considered (or called) a Melungeon. Without researching his descendants, I really couldn’t say whether or not he had any Melungeon descendants. I do know that by 1850 or so, the Hancock County Goins/Miner with connections to Moses Riddle were thought of as Melungeons in some cases but was that appelation acquired or original? I don’t know. And, as you said, it isn’t clear to me either what Mary’s ancestry was.

It seems the original people identified as Melungeons were Collinses and Gibsons and, perhaps, some Williamses, Boling/Bolton/Bolens and maybe a couple of others, who settled in Hancock County along Blackwater Creek/Vardy Valley. Some folks of similar backgrounds, after coming to what is now Hancock County, seemed to have become Melungeons based on similarities or what I call “neighborhood thought.”

Dromgoole and Lewis Jarvis both state that the Collins and Gibsons were the first. The answer is not really that simple.

I’ve never found any reference to Melungeons by any spelling outside of or in or near Hancock County until later years when, naturally, people migrated to more and more places. The Stony Creek Church reference does not list the names of who was being referenced as the “harboured” “malengins.” The minutes could have referred to any one of several families or, since the word “malengin” was in common use at that time, it could have referred to anyone who was considered a highwayman or traveling thief but wasn’t, in reality, a “Melungeon.” One thing for sure, they didn’t call themselves by that name and it was definitely derogatory.

Hope this helps and thank you for the kind words about my book. I am also an amateur rockhound with maternal lines from Missouri so we might be kin 😎 .

Best wishes,

Pat

Pat, good to see you at Saponitown. I own some of old Tom Collins Granville co land. My Daniel and Isham Meadows were chaincarriers for Thomas Person and acquired several thousand acres on the Flat River. We still hold some of this land. About 20 years before the Collins, Gipson, Bowling, Bunch group left the area, a large influx of mixed bloods from Isle of Wight, Va had begun to trickle in. My research is not quite ready to be made public but what I shared with Helen Roundtree greatly interested her. Some of the surnames I am working with are; Meadows, Newton, Clements, Bass, Beasley, Atkinson, Dickins, Clack, Hayes, Fleming, Goss, Hobgood, Jones, Day, …just to name a few. There was Nansemond blood already in old Granville well before the Collins, et al left.

On another note, there were no sawmills in the area in that timeframe so all cabins would have been log or leanto. ….. and these ndns had learned the euro real estate rules and played them like a game.

Thank you for the welcome Dreaming Hawk. You are so lucky to still have ancient land in your family’s possession. Please put me on your notification list when your publication is available.

Regards,

Pat