- This topic has 2 voices and 4 replies.
-
Posts
-
Historical accounts are varied and sometimes conflicting, but all agree that Mary & Martha Coppock (Koppock) were sisters in a Quaker family settling on the frontier of the Carolinas in the mid 1700s. As young children they were taken in a raid some have attributed to Saponi and Tuscarora warriors. The Saponi it’s said has merged into the larger Tuscarora tribe at the time. 5-10 years later they were found and returned to their settlement. Martha married Marmaduke Coate. It is said Mary was known as Nowanee (Nooanee) Paleface in the tribe. My family story is that we are descendants of their brother Issac Coppock. I have two questions for the forum:
Has anyone else heard this story?
and
Does anyone know what Nowanee could mean?
Searching Saponi, Tuscarora, and Tutelo language resoruces I could make no sense of it. However looking at Siouan language resources for Catawaba it seems nowa=daughter and ne=face, but my understanding is very limited.
Historical accounts list between five and nine children of William “Moses” Coppock (b. May 2, 1708, Chester Co, PA) and Martha Lester (b. before 1721 Bucks Co, PA) who married Sep. 22 1740 in Burlington Co NJ. In some resources Martha is listed as having the name Scarr which may suggest she was a widow of a previous marriage. Some sources also suggest that Moses adopted children of a relative which could account for the discrepancies in the number of their children. Reports that they emigrated directly from England are incorrect.
Some sources list them as settling in Newberry Co, SC, but there is no evidence of this. There is evidence placing them in Granville Co, NC. My family records list their first child as being born in Granville County, James Coppock. Martha is alternatively listed as the older or younger sister of Mary (also listed as Mary Jane.) My family records show Martha as the eldest of the two with three children born between them. However, the most reliable consensus from Quaker records and family history seems to be the reverse.
Moses is listed as being killed in an Indian raid. Various years for the raid are given all falling between 1754 and 1767. It is said eldest son James survived by hiding. Mary and Martha were captured in this raid. Some sources also list their mother as being killed in the raid, but this has been proven not to be the case. The account that is closest to Quaker records suggests Mary was 7 years old and Martha 6 months old at the time of the raid. Accounts of Mary’s birth are between 1743 and 1748. Martha is referred to as Paleface Koppock in some resources, her sister as Paleface Nowanee (Nooanee.)
There are various accounts of the date of the raid and the tribe the warriors belonged to. Many accounts do not list a tribe and simply call them Indians. Others list them as Cherokee or Choctaw, but the most detailed account lists the raiding party as Tuscarora and Saponi. In 1754 it is said the Tuscaroras Tribe living near the Roanoke River in Bertie and Edgecombe Co was 100 warriors strong and the Saponi living in the western side of Granville Co north of Henderson were 14 strong and assimilated into the larger tribe.
The length of time that Mary and Martha lived with the tribe varies between 5 and 10 years, with more evidence pointing to a longer stay. Marmaduke Coate (Coates) is said to have rescued and married Mary in about 1763/64 which would make him about 25 at the time and would support a 9-10 stay for Mary and Martha.
The traditional account is that he traded a fine horse with saddle and bridle for Mary and then ran for their lives as he was afraid they would kill him and take her back. They travelled fast and hard by foot for five nights, building fires at night to deceive anyone following, and sleeping under piles of leaves. This would put Marmaduke’s home somewhere between 50 and 150 miles from the location he rescued her. At this time it’s said the Tuscarora lived in Granville County along the Neuse River near Knap of Reed’s Creek and in the northern part of the county between Grassy and Island Creeks.
Supposedly Mary and Marmaduke came across Martha living with a tribe of Indians and persuaded her to come home. But she wouldn’t stay and returned to her Indian husband. One account says she married the “half-breed chief” John Roose (Roos, Ross) of a Cherokee tribe. There are Quaker records of her marriage to William Tomlinson from the Bush River Monthly Meeting in Newberry County SC.
There was also another Coates who married a Coppock. There are multiple Coppock and Coates families who moved from NC and were among the earliest settlers of Miami County Ohio. Mary and Marmaduke had ten children and both passed in Newton Twp, Miami Co, OH. Mary on July 10 1833, listed at about 90 years old, Marmaduke on Sep 25 1822, listed as age 84. His birthplace was listed as Guilford Co, NC.
Martha died in High Pont, Randolph Co, NC on March 6th 1844, listed as aged 89. There is no record of children. An account from “I Have Called You Friends, the Story of Quakerism in NC” by Francis Charles Ancombe listed this account in Archdale, Randolph Co: “Wm. Tomlinson and wife Martha Coppock came to this section while the Indians were still inhabiting the forests. As a girl she had been kidnapped by Indians, lived among them for a while, but was eventually rescued and restored to her family.”
There are some questions to be raised in the account naming Tuscarora and Saponi. Both the Saponi and the Tuscarora had been vanquished and removed before the mid 70’s. It would havebeen unusual for the Saponi to have merged with the Tuscarora. They were from different language groups and were mortal enemies.
The Tuscarora were defeated in 1713, likely in a setup by the Brits to provoke them to war so that they could be defeated and their pine forests pillaged. These forests produced the finest ship masts in the world, and considering that this was also the time frame when Britain was securing her position as masters of the world by way of its fleet, their motivation to get at this forest would have been intense.
The main body of the Saponi left the south around 1720 to surrender to the Six Nations and be adopted by the Cayuga. By then, there were likely more Saponi living as captive adoptees among the Seneca (one of those nations) than at home. So in that sense they were joining with the Tuscarora, (the Sixth Nation) but that did not happen until after they’d both left the south.
This would have had to been remnants left in the mid 1700’s, I’d expect to be keeping a low profile. If it’s true, it would be interesting info on what was going on with remnants in that period, but there are elements that cast doubt on it. It would be nice to call in someone more expert in that history.
Well there are conflicting stories that they were Cherokee/Choctaw as well so one or more of these accounts has to be incorrect. It seemed like very specific information for that time period to me. To make matters more confusing there are also different accounts of the children born to these Coppocks. They were not the only Coppock family of that place and time. I’m actively searching for someone with more info on this.
One thing I failed to mention…
The Coppock story listing Saponi as part of the raiding tribe was the most detailed of the conflicting stories I’ve read. However if it were true it would mean a descendant of a family raided by the tribe, married a descendant of the tribe four generations later. That seemed unlikely to me, and if true a strange turn of events. What seems more likely to me, (and there is evidence to support it), is that my ancestor is a member of a second Coppock family in the same place and time and the tribe in question did not include Saponi.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
