HENDERSON FAMILY
HISTORY
William Henderson, born about 1650,
was an immigrant from Scotland (refn 1792). One of his children was
also named William Henderson who was born about 1680 in the Virginia
Colony (rfn 1896). William had a son named John Henderson who was
born before 1707, Virginia Colony, America. He died on August 1783
in Orange County, Virginia and was buried in that country. (refn
448). He married Sarah Brockman and they had twelve children
(Joseph, Samuel, Richard, John Jr., Ann Mary, Sarah, Susannah,
Elizabeth, Isabella, Hannah, and Rachael).
Samuel Henderson was born about 1740,
Orange County, Virginia Colony. He died February 8, 1819 in Caswell
County, North Carolina (refn 224). He married Priscilla Miles on
December 18, 1768 in Orange County, North Carolina. They had
fourteen children (Hiram, Joseph, Sarah, Martha Patsey, Nancy,
Priscilla, John, Jacob, Mary Polly, Elizabeth, William, Samuel, Thomas,
and Hannah). Apparently, Priscilla, his first wife either died
or divorced him and he married Priscilla Nichols, had five children, James
Samuel, Harriet Eliza, Minerva Ann, Ludolphus, and Francis A.
In the early 1800's, North Carolina
was home to a relatively large free "colored" population. These
folk, including Henderson ancestors, most of whom were of mixed black and
white (and in some cases Native American) ancestry, were concentrated in
eastern NC. Free people were usually descended from freed slaves or
the freedom offspring of white women by black men. The Hendersons of
Dudley probably originated as offspring of Martha Patsey Henderson and an
unknown person of color.
In February 1821, Martha “Patsey”
Henderson appeared before the Onslow country (N.C.) Court of Common Pleas
and Quarter Sessions with her small sons, Bryan and James. Poor,
unmarried, and perhaps ill, Patsy requested that the boys be bound as
apprentices to a white neighbor. Like many other free people of
color (1) in rural North Carolina during the slavery era, Patsy was
hard-pressed to provide food, clothing, and shelter for her family.
There was little demand in rural areas for the skills she may have
possessed, such as sewing or laundering. Binding out her children,
heart-wrenching as it must have been, was a means to ensure that Bryan and
James (and her daughters Marenda and Martha) did not go hungry or naked.
The entry of this apprenticeship in
the court minutes is the only evidence we have of Patsey’s existence.
However from circumstantial evidence, we can infer that she was one of
several sisters born to unknown parents in Onslow County around the turn
of the 18th century. Of these sisters – Patsey, Nancy,
Susan “Sukey,” Naomi, and Mary “Polly” – we have the most information
about Nancy Henderson. Though she took in Patsey’s daughters, Nancy,
too, bound out several of her children after the death of their father,
Simon Dove. As was common among free people of color in that period,
Nancy’s children used both her last name and their father’s at different
times in their lives. Typically, a child of unmarried parents
used his mother’s name in childhood and assumed his father’s name as he
reached adulthood.
James Henderson, born around 1815,
was Jesse Gregory’s apprentice until 1823, when his indenture was awarded
to Jason Gregory. A year later, he was re-apprenticed to James
Glenn. Presumably he stayed with Glenn until his 21st
birthday, learning farming and mechanical skills. We know nothing of
his life during these early years. However, by 1835, James had
become romantically involved with the woman who bore his first four
children. We do not know her first name, but her last name was Skipp.
Their first child, Lewis, was born in 1836. James Henry, Mary, and
Eliza followed every two years.
James Henderson appears in the 1850
federal census of Onslow Country as a mechanic living in the household of
white farmer B.J. Koonce. As a mechanic, James made and repaired
farming tools. His children, who carried their mother’s surname
Skipp, lived nearby in the households of the men to whom they had been
apprenticed. Their mother does not appear in the census and
presumably was dead. Several related Henderson and Dove families
also lived in the area which is north of present-day Jacksonville, North
Carolina. In about 1851, James moved approximately 40 miles
northeast to Sampson County, where he married Louisa Armwood, daughter of
John and Susan Armwood. The Armwoods, like the Hendersons, were free
people of color.
By the time the 1860 census was
taken, James and Louisa Armwood Henderson had five children: Anna J.
(1852), Hepsie (1856), Alexander (1859), and John Henry (1860).
James’ older children James and Eliza resided with the family, while son
Lewis, his wife Margaret and young children Lewis T., James Lucian, and
Isabella J. lived nearby. James Henry, Eliza, and Lewis all bore the
name Henderson by 1860.
James and Louisa’s family continued
to grow. Nancy (named for James’ aunt), was born in 1865, Betty in
1867. Julia “Molly” in 1872, Edward in 1874, and Louella “Ella” in 1876,
forty years after the birth of James’ oldest child Lewis. The family
moved from Sampson to neighboring Duplin County in the late 1860s’.
James and Louisa remained in Duplin County until their deaths sometime
before 1900.
The family members descended from
James Henderson’s fourteen children:
LEWIS, JAMES HENRY, MARY, ELIZA, ANNA
J., SUSAN, HEPSIE, ALEXANDER, JOHN HENRY, NANCY, BETTY, JULIA, EDWARD, AND
LOUELLA
