FAMILY HISTORY is much like a game of fifty-two-card pick-up. You know the old game where you toss the cards up into the air and see where they land or which card falls out. However, in truth, and as a researcher of such things, I wouldn't have it any other way. You see, for as much as we all crave those ancestral and genealogical connections to this President or that, to some Magna Charta Baron, Salem witch, or a Mayflower Pilgrim, it's often the most normal life, the most random card that falls from the deck - and the one that can be the most intriguing of all.
As a genealogist, or rather as a wannabe family historian (and as a human being, duh...), my connection to the random far outweighs any connection to the notable. In family history, I have learned to revel in the lives like that of my insane Uncle John Sage locked up for poisoning livestock, and in my third cousin Harrison Lee who lived a life of mountain solitude because of his epilepsy, and especially that of my wife's step uncle, a soldier who never made it home from the Battle of the Philippines in '42. These are the ordinary ones. These are the lives to be researched and celebrated. (No offense to those notable kin, or Magna Carta Barons, but these are my folks) Truth too, is that all those Magna Carta Barons in the world ain't got nothin' on the very ordinary life lived by my dear old Aunt June.
But as usual, I digress.
Aunt June
Recently, I was researching a line for a friend of mine, Paige, who is hoping to complete her DAR application. Her's is a DAR line that leads to a Revolutionary War patriot, one James Brown, out of South Carolina. Paige's family has proved interesting to me, and I'm actively seeking to learn what else is out there in her family's branches. Are there more Revolutionary War soldiers to be found here? The likelihood of this is usually pretty good, and I've started perusing her tree looking for anyone of note or anyone that might catch my eye.
I'd like to tell you what it is that I've been looking for in particular, or what exactly it is that might catch my eye, but unfortunately, I can't. It can be the simplest thing, like a date or a place out of whack, or a curious lack of connection, or, quite often enough, it can be as simple as someone's name. With a plethora of branches and hundreds of names to crawl through - believe me, this can take a bit. Remember, too, like my crazy Uncle John Sage, it's the ordinary lives that we need to learn about, and the ordinary lives we need to celebrate.
However, it was about then (in the doing all of that falderal) that something did catch my eye in Paige's family lines.
It was the name of Sampson Babb (1766-1851).
Okay, call me crazy, but how cool is a name like "Sampson Babb?"
I had to know more.
I quickly did a once-over and could see that Paige's great-great-great-grandmother was possibly a woman by the name of Lucinda Catherine (Babb) Adams (1826-1898). Long story short, the hero of our story here, Sampson Babb, may have been Lucinda's grandfather.
Checking out more on Sampson Babb, I was able to find those extra Revolutionary War patriots I had been looking for. They are the parents of Sampson Babb. They are even cooler in that they are a "dynamic duo" of a husband and wife team who fought and supported our new United States. How cool is that? Even more so, how rare it is to have a woman who is also an acknowledged patriot through the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Dang, I think I'm glad I stopped and took a look at the ordinary life of Sampson Babb.
These are likely Paige's several times over great-grandparents:
Hey, at this point I figured I was done, right? I'd found a cool team, a dynamic duo of husband and wife ancestry. What more could there be to learn?
It was about then that I stumbled upon the "Estate of Sampson Babb."
Jesse, property of Sampson Babb
Ruh-roh.
Now I am not a historical apologist. I do not generally subscribe to revisionist history of any kind, at least insofar as beyond making sure that grave markers are periodically cleaned of excess moss. If what I am about to write sounds like some "enlightened agenda," I can only tell you it isn't. I have no ill will for those who are, but I can surely tell you that I am most certainly not "woke." What follows is a very incomplete story about an ordinary life lost in obscurity. It is an unexpected story, though in truth not an unanticipated one. This is the South. It is the story of an ordinary life.
It is the story of Jesse Babb (1814-1886).
What I immediately noticed was that a lot of people were still looking for Jesse, a slave of Sampson Babb.
Now I wouldn't have known anything about Jesse Babb, or really would have bothered to look at any of the Slave Schedules. This is the antebellum South, and beyond anything glaringly interesting or relevant when it comes to slavery, I tend to not notice. It's not that I don't feel bad for the enslaved people of the times, I do. But their stories, like those of the Mayflower pilgrims, or my Cousin Harrison Lee, who went to live in the mountains alone due to epilepsy, or even crazy Uncle John Sage, are just lives lived. They are tragic, but they are, on many levels, also quite ordinary. They are American stories. We all have them.
And yes, they are the lives to be celebrated.
Okay, enough said.
Yes, Jesse Babb caught my eye. Not so much because he was listed along with seventeen other poor souls in Sampson's estate papers, but because people were (and still are) trying to learn just who Jesse was. There are many out there presently still discovering, learning, and researching the life of Jesse Babb.
Allow me to digress...
The Babb family is very well researched. What's more, from its earliest origins in colonial Maine through its various migrations into the South, it is a family that's very much still being actively researched. Part of that research is telling the story of any Babb - Jesse included.
Yes, the story of another extraordinary ordinary life - that of Jesse Babb.
Now the Babb Family Association, which my friend Paige would certainly be a part of by extension, is guarded by a paywall but has several free blogs and publications. One of these deals with the subject of the parentage of Jesse Babb. The author, researcher and webmaster of "all things Babb" has determined after some fairly extensive investigation, that slave Jesse Babb is likely the grandson of Sampson Babb via his son James Kellett Babb.
From: https://babbunabridged.com/2023/08/19/jesse-babb-an-enigma-wrapped-in-a-mystery-shrouded-by-slavery-part-2-of-3/
This makes Jesse Babb possibly Paige's several times over great-great-uncle.
Remember though, this isn't yet proven.
Okay, that's well and good, and likely there are DNA tests that have been run on the many Babbs, but what about the other end? What about the descendants of Jesse Babb? Are they out there looking for Sampson? Have they run their own DNA tests? Have they stumbled upon the Babb Family Association much as I have?
There's good reason to believe they have.
A descendant of Jesse Babb
It's a bittersweet story, one filled with the need for much more research, testing, and yes, communication. But my, what an American story it is!!! It's painful, it's tragic, it ordinary and maybe it's even healing.
Now, some of this is speculative. Some of it is very anecdotal. There are still many verifications, etc., to be done - nonetheless, it's a tale worth investigating and, surely, one worth telling.
So sometimes you just never know what you might find amongst the ordinary branches.
Just people.
So here's to you, Jesse Babb, whoever you were, you were a grandson of patriots.
May you rest in peace.
🕊️
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