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Hi!
I have George Corn married to Dolly Luttrell! Have never heard anything of them being Indian! My research
leads toward German and English!
Hi beeleaf, I was reading your post and noticed what could be some of my ancesters. where it says peter rickman could this be peter hickman? peter (rickman) hickman was my grandmothers father. Her mothers name was mazariah or mazzie (rickman) hickman.I really dont know how to go about looking all this up but every little thing I find out is very interesting. My g-mother was jennie hickman richardson her husband was joe henry richardson.They were from the area called goinstown in rockingham county. debra
A word of caution on the Corn family genealogy….the people who have been researching it since the 50s…are stuck. The reason they are stuck is because they keep trying to find European ancestry in certain lines where there is none. The issue of the Corn family at Ft. Christiana is WHY they can’t find the lines. As far as I’ve been able to tell they haven’t gotten beyond the mythical Matthew/Molly or John Adam Corn. There is a reason for that. I am a direct descendant of John Peter Corn and I DO have NDA documented in many lines, not just the Corn…but the real clue is in the civil war pension applications of the Jesse Corn line where they explain the color in their skin by claiming to be black Irish and stating their grandfather came from Ireland..which is a lie. (you were not permitted a pension if you were black or Indian.) I have a photo dating to 1864ish and the Corn male is certainly Indian and several of my Corn great uncles look like they just walked off the reservation. They passed as white, plain and simple and for very good reasons.
I believe Haithcock had good reason to list John Adam as Saponi, but they were passing for white by then (1810), probably ever since Ft. Christiana. The names they took after being “christianzied” are reflected by the times, JOHN ADAM (hello) GEORGE (aka KING) they all took the names of Kings, Politicians, and Bible figures.
The original John Adam Corn was likely the chap listed as petitioning against one William Cockran for 357 pounds of tobacco in Albermarle county VA in March of 1745, a mere 35 years after Ft. Christiana. The John Adam Corn listed in the 1810 Patrick County VA census 65 years AFTER the 1745 John Adam and the tobacco affair and 100 years more or less after the Ft. Christiana affair were clearly NOT the same people. I’d suppose descendants of the original J.A. Corn, but not the same man. It appears as if the Corns were used to gain land (imported) and then took their “reward” and went their own way purchasing their own land and farming.
There are so many issues in the Corn geneology I wouldn’t know where to start but one thing is for sure, many of them freak out when they see Robert Brooks Corn listed as mulato without realizing that that could mean any mix of color, and they are very quick to deny that because they don’t want to be “black”. The name BROOKS is an important name in Indian history as many of the original “22” were called Brooks. The authoritarian way in which any NDA ancestry is dismissed when the evidence is clear, and the laughable “Cornstalks and Preachers of Corns of the USA” is put together is enough to chill anyone’s bones. The cobbled together “stories”, embellished war records and other issues in those books would never hold up in any way, and the patent ignoring of the Civil War pension applications and the meaning behind the “black Irish” is sad. The dark auburn hair that runs in the family should be clue enough…as well as their “work” among the Indians of NC. There was good reason to deny family blood lines after the Revolutionary War, and especially after the Civil War. When someone comes up with a verifiable line of the original John Adam back to Europe (transport records, birth/death/marriage records from the aulde country) then I will pay attention. Certainly in some Corn lines the NDA was mostly bred out by marrying with whites, but not in my line.
There is a reason they can’t trace THIS Corn line back to Europe…they are the Corn Clan 🙂 not the Corns of Ireland, England, Wales or (my favorite) Germany.
Very good and well said. It is sad that the prejudices and racism against Indians has turned people of Indian ancestry against their own culture. Killing them all would have been more merciful! The U.S. will answer for it one day!
Once people start realizing HOW the federal government decided on measurements of blood quantum I hope there will be an uprising. There are MORE of us unenrolled, for many reasons than there are enrolled..together we would make a powerful force to be reckoned with. Prior to the fed interference Indians didn’t recognize “blood quantum” at all. If you lived among them followed their ways, shared their languages and customs, you were one of them. Now you’ve got to prove something which is close to unproveable (as each “tribe” has different means by which they now decide if you are or can be “one of them”)…and they are, for the most part, wasting away, look at Rosebud, Pine Ridge…so sad. My family made a decision VERY early on that it was not a good idea to be Indian…we kept our land AND our families together, but we lost our culture. WE feel we did not sell our blood to the government, passive resistance? Those who did march the trail of tears kept their culture and lost the land. It is a toss-up as to who is the biggest sell-out..but in a recent article about Cherokee and blood quantum the comments section filled with non-enrolled Cherokees pretty much says the same thing “My grandfather said our blood wasn’t for sale”..and so on.
I have been investigating the social issues surrounding enrolled and non enrolled for a few months now. What I’ve found makes me ache…so much hate and discontent. What would the ancestors say? I know what they’d say about the obesity, alcoholism, diabetes, and other issues facing modern NAs who do not follow the old ways regarding diet, medicine, ect…or selling themselves in polyester regalia by the side of the road for photos with tourists…ceremony abandoned, community abandoned…the ancestors are not smiling on us now.
Just a note,
in spite of popular beliief to the contrary, actually there were literally hundreds of Indians in NC/SC who served in the Confederacy, and many of them recieved pensions. I have examined many of them myself. For many of them, service was essentially a ticket to white status in the local community. Many of these are people who were enumererated on the 1850/60 census as mulatto/Indian, and then later were white/Indian after their service.
This does not mean, of course, that specific individuals were not denied pensions because of the decision of some vindictive local official, but it was not a universal rule.
As far as them recieving pensions for Union service, I can’t really address that issue, as I have never looked at it.
If there is a specific family or community from NC/SC you are curious about, please let me know and I will check my records .
Forest
Thanks Forest, but did the Indians self-identify as Indians on the pension application? That is the key, not that they did or did not serve but rather if they identified themselves as Indian on the applications 🙂
Actually, from what I have seen of the pension application forms, there was no inquiry made regarding race; it was so widely believed even then that only “whites” could serve (true, legally for most of the war) Pension applications from Robeson County NC, however, generally identify the applicants as “Cherokee”, ones from Moore Co., NC as Croatan. Bear in mind that most of these Southern units were raised from local neighborhoods and so were the later Pension Boards. That is, it is very unlikely that the folks on either the recruiting or the pension boards didn’t know what an individual soldier was or was not. Some of the Revels from Robeson enlisted, served, eventually were discharged “on acount of mixed blood” went home, reenlisted (in different units), and served to the end of the war, and drew pensions
When compiling my tally, I actually left off MANY folks from SC whose names (Driggers, Sweat, Chavis, Hunt, etc.) would indicate they were Indian or mixed race, but who socially were accepted as white early enough that I could not document them as non-white. Especially in the border area of SC/NC Many of the contemporary Pee Dee Indians have ancestors who served; documenting them as non-white was the problem
The short answer is; some do, some don’t, probably more don’t than do. It probably also depended on if the party filling out the form thought it worth mentioning.
It’s a fascinating subject; and I hope to put the material together in written form in next few months.
Hope that answered your question. If not, I’ll try again
Thanks Forest. I wonder if it would be different for folks who moved into an entirely different state prior to applying for a pension. I’m guessing the reason for mentioning it at all COULD be that the “neighbors” didn’t know them and they put forth a story about where they came from in order to avoid questioning due to a hue in their skin the neighbors might have found otherwise uncomfortable without explanation.
That’s quite possible, altho’ most of the ones I’ve looked at were cases where the applicant had gone home to pretty much where he grew up. Some of the Robeson servicemen, when they die, are mentioned in the local Lumberton paper as having served, as well as being Indians.
I gave a talk on it year before last at UNC-Pembroke, and it raised a lot of questions. One older gentleman who I had known for years expressed what I think was the general opinion of the older generation when he told me “Forest, I don’t like it. But it’s part of our history and it’s something we need to know.” In the early 1900’s it was common knowledge, but had gradually been forgotten, replaced by the “all Indians hid out in the swamps or were forced to serve as slaves to the Confederacy” story. Some of that certainly did happen, but it is more difficult to document using primery sources.
Yes, I think that is the case in general, the soldiers returning to whence they came, but there was a LOT of movement post Civil War, understandably….maybe the new neighbors weren’t quite as welcoming? Hard to say, but I know in my family they changed the spelling of the name a bit when they moved 🙂 There are so many stories inserted into families…all in an effort to hide. It is so sad that people felt they could not be who they were.
Hello Cornstalk & Forest It is with great interest that I have been following this thread. I’m sure I have bored many of the residents of Saponitown with the story of my Mother, who hailed from Lawnsdale/Knob Creek NC by way of Georgia. She moved up north and married into a Yankee family in Connecticut. Her NA heritage was never revealed before or after her untimely death in 1955, and would have been lost forever had it not been for a word whispered in the ear of her youngest son when he was a little boy. I believe the thinking in 1910 North Carolina was, if you were white, you stayed white, given the conditions at that time, I can’t say I blame anyone. Just a bloody shame that it had to be hidden and unspoken. But in the end it was not lost, and my daughter is pursuing the old ways now. All based on a word many many years ago from Mother to son.
There is a picture of my Mother posted on my Saponitown profile.
Hi Cornstalk,
Not sure if you are responding to me? I did not mean to imply that there is no Indian connect to
the Corn family! Just that I had not heard and what i do have was leading to English & German! This
is my mom’s side of the family, I did not meet my mother till i was abt thirty, so did not get to be raised
with any of their family lore! My mother always told me we were black irish and french! So that told
me that she did not know much of the family history as the little i had said there was more to it!!! I
came on here mainly for my fathers side of the family and was quite surprised at my mothers family
being talked about! Now I have heard it said that the Dillon’s had Indian blood but have not seen anything
to back this up! My lines:
myself- Evie Thompson
parents- Herb Thompson & Clara Roach:
Clara is daughter of:
Calvin Roach & Tiretia Davidson
William Roach & Nancy Catherine Dillon
James Roach & Sarah Sowards
John Roach & Martha Corn
Martha is daughter of:
George Corn & Dolly Luttrell
Dillon line:
Nancy Catherine Dillon is daugther of:
John Wylie Dillon & Catherine Sowards
McCager Dillon & Mary Polly Callicott, i have heard it said that Mary is where the Indian comes into
it, so here is her line:
Mary Polly is the daughter of :
William Callicott & Elizabeth Ashworth
The Callicott family is pretty much documented and with several books that were published and to my
surprise with me listed in the one I have seen!
The Ashworth family is one of those confusing lines like the Corns!!! Here is a post I made a few yrs back
http://genforum.genealogy.com/ashworth/messages/2121.html
Now my fathers lines are the reason I became interested in coming here! I was partly raised by my
grandparents who were from the Appalachian areas. Granma was said to be a mountain woman and
my granpa was said to be Indian!
Harvey Thompson & Rosa Paletine Rice my grandparents!
Harvey was son of:
Lewis Anderson Thompson & Nancy Welch, here is a photo:
Nancy was the daughter of:
William Welch & Mary E. Brooks
Lewis was the son of :
William (Harvey) Thompson & Manerva Howell
Manerva was daughter of:
Anderson Howell & Elizabeth Stewart
Harvey was son of:
Lewis/Louis Thompson & Sarah Gilbert
I am not ashamed to have possible Indian ancestry, or any other, as my fathers lines are from
an area connected to the Melungeons!
Sorry photo above post did not go were I wanted! My Granpa is one with hat! here is a photo of him in later yrs as
I was growing up!
Here is a picture of William Harvey Thompson’s sister Margaret Thompson & James Elbert Fletcher,
so I am very interested in knowing my ancestry, no matter were it takes me and with no shame of
any!!!
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