Joseph Ivy, a man in his 50s, and his
wife Elizabeth, settled in the western part of Union County about
1825 from Franklin County, IL. Although Ivy was not the head of a
household, he and his family probably are among the 13 "free
persons of color" listed on the 1818 census in Franklin
County as living with Major Locklier, recorded as a white man.
Major Locklier was from Bladen County, NC., where he owned land
and was taxed as a "mulatto." In 1806 he was living in
Robeson County, NC., from where he moved to Illinois. The
Locklears were a part of the people known as "Lumbee
Indians," of mixed African, white and Tuscarora Indian
ancestry.
The Ivy family is thought to be descended from George Ivie of
Norfolk County, VA., the son from whom he inherited 100 acres in
1689. Ivie petitioned the Virginia Assembly to reconsider passage
of a law prohibiting racial intermarriage. By the mid 1700s, the
Ivy family was in Robeson County, NC., and sometimes were counted
as white on the census and at other times as "persons of
color."
By 1820, Joseph Ivy was the head of his own household in Franklin
County, IL, but was still living next to Locklier. Ivy moved his
family to Union County about the same time as Beverly Brown and
Arthur Allen, but there is no proof that the families were
aquainted with each other prior to their settlement in Union
County.
Like the Allen family, the Ivys never produced certificates of
freedon nor were registered with the county clerk, as an 1819 law
required. This seems to have caused no problems for them and they
were accepted by many white settlers.
In 1831 the Union County commissioners awarded Joseph Ivy the
contract to build a bridge across Running Lake near where he and
his family lived. The bridge passed inspection in December 1834,
and Ivy was paid $368. As they did for white settlers, the school
commissioners loaned $50 with interest to Joseph Ivy, Jr. with
his father Joseph Sr. and a white man Calvin J. Price as
securities, to purchase 40 acres of land.
A small African-American community grew up around the Ivy
settlement in Union County, located only two miles east of where
Nathaniel Green had settled in 1805 with his slaves, and only a
few miles from the home of pro-slavery senator, John Grammer. In
1835, there were 35 free African-Americans living there, most of
them also having settled there from Franklin County, IL. By 1837,
Joseph Ivy and his sons owned 400 acres and a small gristmill.
In November 1837, Joseph Ivy sold his farm in Union County and by
1840 he and all other African-Americans who lived near him had
left Union County.
PROBLEM WITH THE LAW
The Ivy family was involved in a number of court cases during
their brief stay in Union County, Elijah was fined $3 in June
1831 for assault and battery. In November 1832, John Ivy and in
June 1834, Amos Ivy, paid the same fine for assault and battery.
In 1837, John Woolridge was fined for an assault "on the
body of Polly Ivy" and Amos Ivy was again fined for
assaulting a white man Ansel Walker.
The Ivy's problems with the law continued. On Nov. 4, 1835, Amos
Ivy Jr. was indicted for larceny and Amos Ivy Sr. and Joseph Ivy
Jr. were indicted, along with two white men, John Baker and
Jeremiah Pate, for a "riot." Baker, Amos Ivy, Elijah
Ivy, and John Ivy Sr. were also charged at the same time with
"assault with intent to murder" John Grammer and
Jeremiah Pate. The court records only reveal that when the case
came to trial in April 1836, they were all found to be not guilty
of the alleged crimes. The next year, the Ivy family left Union
County.
Except for the incidents with the Ivy family, which occured when
John Doughtery was state's attorney, almost every indictment
against a free African-American in Union County before the Civil
War was made when John A. Logan was the state's attorney.
John A. Logan was the son of Dr. John Logan, who moved to Jackson
County, IL., from Perry Co. MO., with his slaves in 1824. Early
in life Logan is said to have acquired a strong prejudice against
African-Americans. This bias followed him into his early
professional and political life, although the Civil War he became
friend of the African-Americans and led the way in passing Civil
Rights Acts through Congress.
Littleberry Allen, a son of Arthur Allen was murdered with a
knife and wagon hammer. Logan indicted Littleberry's
brother-in-law, John William Blackwell, a 32 year old native of
Tennessee, for murder. Blackwell had come to Union County,in
1845, and settled on a 130 acre farm near Arthur Allen and the
next year married Allen's daughter Sarah.
Blackwell was arrested on Christmas Eve 1854 by Alexander J.
Nimmo, Union County Sheriff. John Dougherty acted as Blackwell's
lawyer and helped arrange the bail. The bond was made by Matthew
Stokes, Needham Wiggs, Caleb Musgrave, Abner Cox, and Richard T.
Wiggs, all white settlers in Stokes Precinct and most from Quaker
families.
In May 1855, the case came to trial and Blackwell and Logan
dropped the charges, while the murder of Littleberry went
unsolved.
Blackwell remained in the county and when his first wife died, he
married her sister. Smithy Allen, in 1858. He died June 26, 1880,
in Union County, leaving his farm and small estate to be divided
among his ten children.
INTERMARRIAGE
Free African- Americans had some personal freedoms that slaves
did not share, but they were far removed from social equality in
the minds of most white citizens in the 1800s, Especially
intermarriage between the races were strictly forbidded by law.
Conrad Shearod was a young white man in his 20s when his wife
died leaving him alone with a small boy and girl to raise. He
married again May 14, 1833, in Union County, IL to 18 year old
Sally Ivy (Editors note: grandmother Lucinda Ivey Sessions
sister). Peter Woolf, a justice of the peace and nephew of
Dunkard preacher George Woolf, performed the ceremony.
In October 1833, Woolf was indicted in Union County for the crime
of "marrying a white man to a Negro" and the Shearods
were also arrested. John Dougherty served as defense lawyer for
Woolf when the case came to trial in April 1834, and Alexander P.
Field, who had been leader of the scheme to make Illinois a slave
state in 1823, represented the Shearods.
The jury returned the verdict of not guilty for all three. On the
1835 census, Shearod and his children are listed as white and
Sally is recorded as a free "Negro or Mulatto." Her
brother Amos Ivey, is recorded on the same census as living with
a white women, although there is no record of his marriage in
Union County, Another brother, Joseph Ivy, had crossed the
Mississippi River to Cape Girardeau County, MO., in 1832 to marry
Betsy Locklear. ( I do not know who she is to date.)
Marriage between the different races was illegal, as was
cohabitation. In September 1847, there were two cases in Union
County dealing with this crime. William Murray
"colored" and Mary Murray "white" and
Littleberry Allen and Harriet Sammons were each charged with and
fornication. The cases continued on the books until April 1849,
when the court finally decided not to prosecute. None of the
people involved were still living in Union County in 1850,
however, Littleberry Allen was murdered there in 1854.
Descendants of Lucinda
Ivey
Lucinda Ivey was born 1826 in IL, and died 1858 in Mountain Twp.,
AR. She married James Augustus Sessions Abt. 1840 in Probably in
AR, son of Robert Sessions and Patience Pattillo. He was born
1820 in Morgan Co., GA, and died 1858 in Mountain Twp., AR.
1850 Newton Co., Census Hickman Twp Waldron PO #86/86. Death
certificate of daughter Sarah Hollis states her mother was an
Ivey. This death certificate has the name spelled :Ivey"),
and died bet. 1860-1861 in Scott County Arkansas, supposedly in
an epidemic, perhaps the same one as James. She married James
Augustus Sessions Bet. 1838 - 1841 in Mountain Twp, Scott County,
Arkansas or Sallisaw Indian Mission, Ark. Territory, son of
Robert Sessions and Patience Patillo.
No other family has drawn more researchers to our county in the
past four years than the Sessions family. James Augustus Sessions
and his wife Lucinda Ivey, came by wagon, before 1840, settling
near Boles where some of their descendants now reside.
Now, the Sessions descendants are trying to reconcile legend with
fact. Did James and Lucinda come from Georgia and Florida on the
Trail of Tears? Did they have Indian Blood? If so from whom? Did
they have Negro blood? If so, from whom? Some possible answers
have been uncovered.
In 1896, when Eliza Jane Sessions Blackwell Ausmus, daughter of
James A. Sessions and Lucinda Sessions, applied for enrollment
with the Creek Nations in Indian Territory, she was denied. The
Goodspeeds' biographical sketch of Rev. Robert E. Sessions
contends that James A. Sessions was an Indian Agent to the
Creeks, but no Presidential appointments were made to this
effect, nor is it believed that a person only twenty years would
have been appointed.
In her membership application affidavit, Eliza Jane Sessions age
52, stated, "My father...drew money, clothing and dry goods
from the Government as if he was one of the Creek Indians, and
that she was thirteen when her father died." The application
gave the names of the children of James A. and Lucinda Loy
Sessions as: Robert E.; John T.; Sarah Ann Sessions Hollis, all
of whom reside in Scott County, Arkansas, and Patience P.
Sessions Blackwell, who resided near Whitfield in Indian
Territory.
Only recently did the Negro blood legend surface and it came from
two sources. One source was the Scott 1850 census enumerator who
noted Lucinda Sessions 24 was born in Illinois, a Mulatto (of
mixed white and Negro blood) as well as her children: Mary E., 9,
Eliza Jane, 7, Patience P., 3, and Robert E., 6 months, born
January 14, 1850.
James Sessions and wife came west during the time of the Indian
removal, 1838, as their first child was born in Arkansas in 1841,
and no Sessions are listed in Arkansas 1840 census, they could
have been in the east or west in Indian Territory.
If you have African American heritage, you may want to contact
the energetic, dedicated Lori Husband, who has founded the
African American Genealogical Research Institute (AAGRI). She can
be reached at P.O. Box 2142, Chicago, Illinois 60690-2142. She
has undertaken the monumental task of developing a national data
base for individuals with African American heritage.
The Rev. Robert E. Sessions, the son of James A., homesteaded
land in 1880, about four miles down the Buffalo Road, and he also
served in the State Legislature. His wife Zelpha Elizabeth Womack
Sessions, died in 1861 and she could be buried in the Lamb
Cemetery where she and Robert donated one-half of an acre for a
graveyard in 1889, or in the Buffalo Cemetery where some of their
children are buried.
The 1850 Scott County, Arkansas census ;
James A. Sessions, white
Lucinda Sessions, Mulatto
Mary E. Sessions, Mulatto
Eliza J. Sessions, Mulatto
Patience P. Sessions, Mulatto
Robert E. Sessions, Mulatto
Eliza Jane Sessions (daughter of James Augustus Sessions and
Lucinda Ivey) married David Ausmus, they had Rachael Mary Ausmus
who married George Farris Womack, my great grandfather. I
remember my grandfather Earnest Elijah Womack telling me when I
was a child that he was part Black Dutch, I think we can assume
at this point that the Dutch part of the equation may have been
incorrect.