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Welcome Elkriver, and thanks for informing us about that.
PappyDick, you seem to be quite knowledgeable on Church history. Maybe you can help us with something. Felicia’s family and extended community, in the 19th century, had a church near the Roanoke in Bracey, NC, that was built with funds donated by the Presbyterian church, part of the Catawba Synod, a mission officially to African Americans, but from what we’ve seen, it appears these churches seemed to be targeting isolate communities with largely Indian descent. It would make sense that, not being freedmen, they may have been a neglected segment that this church decided to target. That’s our theory anyway. It would be a significant effort to research this, as it does demonstrate the existence of an organized community. It was also their school. These are clearly Indian people, ostracized as ‘people of color’ living within 15 miles of Fort Christanna, the last known location of the Saponi, eastern Siouan tribes. They called themselves ‘Blackfoot.’
Linda wrote: PappyDick, you seem to be quite knowledgeable on Church history.
I got an MA in it (Vanderbilt 1971), but it was a long time ago; and most of my interest in the subject since then has focused on camp-meetings and related revival movements — in which Presbyterians were not much involved after about 1810, except for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
There are a bunch of different branches of Presbyterianism, maybe not so different from each other now as they were 150 or 200 years ago. The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (often called ARP) is now a tiny group, but used to be quite strong in South Carolina. I don’t know about Catawba country, specifically. A place to look would be
Burke, Rev. D.G., The Catawba Story. A Brief History of the Catawba Presbytery, [Historical Committee of the Catawba Presbytery, 1981].
I pasted in that citation from a footnote (#48) in this online essay:
http://cmhpf.org/surveyafricancontext.htm
There are other things afoot, such as which other race (or races) the Indian people in question were marrying. As late as the formation of the Catawba Presbytery (and later Synod), i.e. post Civil War, those who had stayed in the Carolinas seem to have become pretty thoroughly Africanized; but it was the homeland of these Siouan peoples, and they also appear to have maintained more of their native traditions (especially crafts, folk medicine, and such things as were not restricted to maintenance of the original Indian languages and mythology). Those who had moved away pretty early (long before the Civil War), such as the Melungeons and their extended kinship network, seem by the mid twentieth century to have been both less African and less Indian, genetically as well as culturally.
I’m sure there are those who disagree with this, and will let me know it, but that’s the way it looks to me. Particularly in regard to the Catawbas and their turf — I’m not really talking about the VA-NC border country, though the trends would be similar (in large part because of Plecker, and others with a similar social agenda).
If some specific branch of Presbyterianism had a mission of sorts to some specific Indian remnant, in the Carolinas, there would probably be a record of that — but it might be hard to dig up, and you’d need to know where to look (i.e., whose archives to explore). I don’t know this.
Linda wrote: Welcome Elkriver, and thanks for informing us about that.
PappyDick, you seem to be quite knowledgeable on Church history. Maybe you can help us with something. Felicia’s family and extended community, in the 19th century, had a church near the Roanoke in Bracey, NC, that was built with funds donated by the Presbyterian church, part of the Catawba Synod, a mission officially to African Americans, but from what we’ve seen, it appears these churches seemed to be targeting isolate communities with largely Indian descent. It would make sense that, not being freedmen, they may have been a neglected segment that this church decided to target. That’s our theory anyway. It would be a significant effort to research this, as it does demonstrate the existence of an organized community. It was also their school. These are clearly Indian people, ostracized as ‘people of color’ living within 15 miles of Fort Christanna, the last known location of the Saponi, eastern Siouan tribes. They called themselves ‘Blackfoot.’
Linda,
I’ve begun delving into this.
Do you have a name of the specific school?
Is there an exact known location?
If so what currently occupies the space?
Are there any buildings from it standing or ruins?
Could there any cemetaries?
Do you have a more specific time frame in the 1800’s?
I’d sure love if Felicia would share any family stories associated with this Church and School.
A likely family source for my Susannah Goldberry in my family with the Blackfoot story was in Guilford Co before going to OH and a Goldsberry shows up in Brunswick Co very early 1800’s and then many mulatto Goldsberrys.
Wondering if this Church and School might be listed on the USGS Map Site……
Using the USGS Map search, Bracey doesn’t come up in Feature Name. However; entering Roanoke River brings a list of Maps where it occurs, one of which is Bracey.
Entering “Bracey” in the Topo Map Name (7.5’x7.5’): box and clicking Send Query brings up a list of 54 features near Bracey, 4 of which are historical schools:
http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=108:1:6143502665801702030::NO:::
The following link is the entire list of 54 items near Bracey: You can sort by Class (Church, School) however it reverts to pages you need to move between.
http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=108:2:6143502665801702030::::::YES
Here are 5 historical schools. Many Churches are listed.
Feature Name/ ID/ Class/ County/ Latitude/ Longitude/ State/ Map/ Ele(ft)/ BGN/ Entry Date/
Saint Johns School (historical) 1500807 School Mecklenburg 363413N 0781303W VA Bracey 364 – 01-JUN-1995
Red Lawn School (historical) 1500796 School Mecklenburg 363722N 0781353W VA Bracey 308 – 01-JUN-1995
Roanoke School (historical) 1500799 School Mecklenburg 363406N 0781119W VA Bracey 292 – 01-JUN-1995
Cotton Creek School (historical) 1500670 School Mecklenburg 363422N 0781415W VA Bracey 348 – 01-JUN-1995
Caroll Boyd School (historical) 1500641 School Mecklenburg 363540N 0780819W VA Bracey 361 –
01-JUN-1995
Now I’ll get to reading on the Catawba Synod.
Is it possible this Bracey is in Mecklenburg Co. VA? I can’t find a Bracey in NC on either of my atlases or online maps? Thanks.
Yes, Bracey is in Mecklenburg County. It was the Roanoke School, I believe. It’s still standing, though the roof has caved in in one spot and it’s of course, rotting away. There’s a cemetery in back. Felicia has more info on the dates. We found a legal document at the Courthouse regarding the money that was loaned by the church to have it built, and who the trustees were.
The story in the family is that there was a lady in the family who had married a white doctor in South Hill and that the land had been donated by him.
This particular community was very much an isolate. Though categorized as mulatto or black legally, they did not associate much with the surrounding black population, which was difficult given how small the community was. It wasn’t until the 50’s and 60’s that most of the young people moved up to New Jersey. Some are now returning.
BTW, that link to the history of Mecklenburg county is referring to Mecklenburg County North Carolina, not Virginia. Thanks anyway. I was surprised to see such scholarly interest in our county, and I was right.
Linda wrote: BTW, that link to the history of Mecklenburg county is referring to Mecklenburg County North Carolina, not Virginia.
I know that; but in the cited essay (on what you are considering the wrong Mecklenburg County), there is considerable discussion of the Catawba Presbytery and Synod. Your original question was about that, and it’s the right Synod. The school, etc. that you and Felicia are interested in was not in territory that was ever (as far as we know) populated by Catawba Indians; but the Catawba Presbytery (and later Synod, a larger jurisdiction) had arisen much farther to the SW, in their neck of the woods.
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