The Narrative and the Newspaper

        My biological great-great-great grandfather Joel Layfayette Melson (1841-1906)

   (Authors note: Sometimes the details of one's family history simply have to be told.)

                                               As always unapologetically unedited.

I DON'T REALLY go here that much. It isn't that I shouldn't or don't need to. It's more that my 'privilege,' however humble in origin, has usually sought to keep me away. Recently though, when my sister asked me about the expression "Free White People" on an old census doc I was taken aback to give her the best answer I could. While it was easy enough to Google some form of an answer for that phrase on the 1830 census, getting her a personal answer about what it means regarding our own family history has proven to be a little more difficult. Getting my sister the right answer meant that I would need to take another look at my family's association with the enslavement of other people.

As a whole, our family's "privilege" has remained intact through the centuries. Oh, believe me, we weren't "woke" in 1776 any more than we were in 1850 or '60 - or for that matter any more than we are in 2025. (I'm not necessarily faulting us. It's just who we are.) However, in light of this, we can take some very false pride in knowing that the name of our ancestor John H.O. Record appears just above those of the black servants in both censuses (for 1850 and 1860) indicating our ancestors' indentured status as not much more than slaves. We can take an additional measure of false pride in that the census records are for "East New Market," and Cambridge, Dorchester County, Maryland," making our ancestors contemporaries and young lads, who, (in a reduced agrarian and tidewater population) were boys who probably had knowledge of and surely passed Miss Harriet Tubman on the streets. (East New Market was a prominent point on the Underground Railroad and Miss Tubman was from Cambridge, Dorchester County.) 

Above: 1860 U.S. Federal Census for the household of Stephen and Rebecca (Carroll) Andrews of Cambridge, Dorchester County, Maryland showing the [indentured] "John Reckards" and his brother George. They are shown adjacent to the two household Black servants.

                       

                         Above: Ms. Harriet Tubman of Dorchester County, Maryland

However, as I looked through the branches of both sides of my family tree, I found that for the most part, my ancestors were too poor, too religious, and largely too northern to have actively participated in the enslavement of other people. I don't doubt that they possessed all the biases and prejudices of the times, but I find no indication that most of them ever had the means "to own" anyone. This isn't to excuse anything, nor is it meant to judge them. Nor does come as some form of relief to know that "we" as a whole didn't generally contribute to the cruelty of slavery past our inherent participation in cultural mores or indirect economics. We don't get a pass here. We have in our family tree all the trappings of prejudice. You have only to consider "Uncle" Luke Schoolcraft, the famous "Negro impersonator" on my mother's side of the tree to let you know that being too poor or too religious or too northern didn't always apply.                 

However, in light of my sister's opening of Pandora's Box, I wanted to look a little further. I wanted to see just how close slavery did come to us. I wanted to know which one of our nearest ancestors had owned slaves, and well, to see what I could learn about the situation or circumstances. In doing so, I figured I wanted "the most near" and not "the most distant." As I mentioned, I am not writing this to judge them, only to get as close to slavery as possible. In my mind judging someone from 1750 makes little sense - but a clarification of judgment makes more so for say, 1860. 

Fortunately, I had trouble locating much of anyone who owned slaves on either side of my family tree. 

That is at least until I came across the name Thomas Melson.

Much of what I have recently learned about the Jones/Melson clan can be summed up anecdotally in this short essay written by my biological great-great-great grandfather, Joel Lafayette Melson. Below is his account of the Melson family history. It is an account that contains several embellishments that as of yet cannot be proven or can be labeled as genealogical fiction. Still, J.L.'s account gives us a good timeline of this branch of the family's entry into the New World. It is an account that also takes us back to that same name - that of Thomas Melson.           

     (And through Joel Lafayette Melson our relationship with Thomas Melson - his grandfather.)           

As they were by and large Virginians, the Melson family looks to have been associated with enslaved people early on. Interestingly enough, The Melsons are mentioned "by surname" in published slave narratives, most notably in the narrative of a slave named Solomon Bayley. Here he writes about how he had to purchase his wife from her master, "Brother Melson," but that he never seemed to be able to finish "paying for her." It is an interesting and well-written story of one man's truth and journey.

                               

A Narrative of Some Remarkable Incidents: The Life of Solomon Bayley (1825)  

The Melsons are also mentioned elsewhere, in the newspapers of the day:

The Norfolk Post, Norfolk Virginia, August 15, 1865

So as you can see, while the narrative and the newspapers do not mention our direct ancestors, it's pretty safe to say that these likely agnate branches of our Melson branch of the family tree (and thus our kinfolk) were well-versed in the practice of slavery. 

Now most of you won't know the name "James Melson Jones" - that is unless you've been stuck reading too many of my previous posts about locating him. James Melson Jones is my biological great-grandfather, the father of my paternal grandmother Katheryn (Ogle) Record (1914-1993). We've only recently discovered J.M. Jones through DNA connections, but it is here that I have found our most enduring connection to slavery - that's within the surname of "Melson" and our Melson ancestry. From this branch of the family tree, I was able to bring slavery unbearably close. 

As mentioned, this connection was via Thomas Melson (1788-1876).

My biological great-grandfather, James Melson Jones 1885-1966

The Melsons were very much connected to the Dents. The Dent Family was a wealthy Tidewater family in Maryland and Virginia and has given rise to notable people like First Lady Julia Boggs Dent, the wife of Ulysses Grant. The Dents were southern in their thinking, and by and large, it appears so was the Melson family. Our ancestor Thomas Melson mentioned above married Elizabeth Dent, and it is from them that we trace our most recent connection to slavery. I will include a brief pedigree chart from us to Thomas and Elizabeth (Dent) Melson. Below, is a biography of their son (and our direct ancestor) John Dent Melson that gives you a little background about their lives. 

Thomas Melson was a slaveholder. He did not hold vast numbers of slaves as the Dent family likely did. The census records record he and Elizabeth as having "one slave" in 1820, 1830, (not found in 1840) "two slaves" in 1850, and again, one in 1860, in Bedford County Virginia. 

I think the most disturbing image for Thomas is the 1820 census whereby he lists he has one slave, a girl, [listed] under the age of fourteen. It makes me wonder, was she a legatee? Was this girl a survivor of another "family" slave or a "recent purchase?" It makes me sick to think of this. I'm hopeful that Mrs. Melson just needed a maid and that the girl was well cared for. 

Right.

    

I think the last entry for Thomas Melson, that of the 1860 Slave Schedule where it shows he "owns" a forty-year-old unnamed man really shows the progression of the family in time - from needing a maid for Mrs. Melson to needing a manservant for an aging family. Needless to say, by 1870, there is no mention of any slaves or indeed of any black servants. I wanted to know though, Who was this slave? Sadly, I haven't been able to find out. As difficult as it is for enslaved people to trace their ancestry, it can be nearly as difficult for people like us to try and look back too and see just who these people were that our ancestors had enslaved. 

I thought I might find a Will for Thomas Melson, but Thomas lived until 1876 so any chance of a Will naming a former slave is probably negligible. By this time too, the Melson family had moved from Confederate Virginia to Confederate-sympathizing Missouri, so likely the Black manservant died by this time. I wondered: Was the "fourteen-year-old female slave of 1820 the mother of the forty-year-old man of 1860?" I really didn't expect to find out much about this legacy of slaves from the girl of 1820 or the forty-year-old man in 1860, but I admit, I would have at least liked to have found something as simple as a name.

I will no doubt keep looking though. I will return here from time to time to check stock of our spiritual ancestry and to see if down the line, there isn't some genetic tie between us, that is the Melson family, to a descendant of an enslaved person. The forty-year-old man, the fourteen-year-old girl...there is a story here in this line. I feel it.

As for the Melson family itself...The name Melson with all its sordid and curious past lives lives on. Below is a picture of my father's first cousin, Michael Melson Jones (1939-2016).                 

BY ALL ACCOUNTS, Michael Melson Jones seems to have been a good guy. I wonder if he knew about his (our) family's slave-holding history. I wonder if he had seen an account of slavery in an old newspaper or if he had ever read the old narratives.

I wonder if they all can rest easily or truly in peace.

I'm betting that somewhere a fourteen-year-old girl can't.

☮