31 Day Genealogy Challenge – Day 14: Share an Estate, Probate, or Civil Record

Today I go to a collateral line to share a probate record from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania in 1825. The record in question mentions a former slave on that collateral line. This will was probated on July 25, 1825, 45 years after slavery was abolished in Pennsylvania. We know, unfortunately, that Cumberland County was one of the counties that didn’t go along with Pennsylvania’s abolition law. Charlotte Dedford, her husband, and her children, or as in this will where she is mentioned as Denford, was enslaved by David Sterrett, near Newville, Cumberland County as late as 1810 according to that year’s census. That is 30 years after the abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania.

On the 1820 Census, the Dedford family was counted as Free Persons of Color in Mifflin Township, Cumberland County. On that same census though, Charlotte was not residing with her husband and children. She was still residing at David Sterrett’s house.

Here is the blurb where she was mentioned in David Sterrett’s will in 1825:

• 

“…and she behaves herself well…” Did you see that part? When David Sterrett passed, for all intents and purposes, the Dedford family appears to have moved to Harrisburg, seemingly after Charlotte was “freed.”

Do you have a comment or addition? Try my email -cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #41: Context ~ Early 19th Century Slaveholders of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the Search for the Enslavers of the Dedford Family ~

This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks theme is Context. If I had researched outside of what I thought was the logical context for the time period in Pennsylvania, maybe I would have found the enslavers of the Dedford Family sooner. This post is a quick follow-up to my post #39 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Mapping It Out ~ Finding the Possible Slaveholders of David Dedford’s Parents Near Newville, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

I thought very wrong about the time period and researched incorrectly. What was I thinking? I thought the Dedfords were freed slaves from a larger Pennsylvania city that moved out to the rural Township of Mifflin in the early 1800s to work as laborers on farms for the Scotch-Irish descendants that had settled in that area. I envisioned them living in a small hut type structure with not much money, trying to keep to themselves, and working the only trade they knew. Locals I discussed them with told me they were likely runaway slaves. Because after all, the early 1800s were well past the 1780 abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania. Boy did I have all of that out of context. I was VERY WRONG.

Looking at the 1820 Census again from a different viewpoint, I had a feeling that the fact there was no older female (mother/wife) living with Pom Dedford was because she was the older female Person of Color residing with David Sterrett (1767-1825; who laid some of the first stones for the historic First Presbyterian Church of Newville) and she was the wife of Pom Dedford, and mother of the children living with Pom. Another clue crept in – David Sterrett died in 1825 and that is when the Dedfords went to Harrisburg. I decided to start with him to see if he was the enslaver of the family.

Then after years of using the card catalog on Ancestry and Family Search with no luck, the 1810 Mifflin Township Census I had been hunting for every few months appeared on Ancestry! Ancestry Card Catalog – I can’t stand you!

There were 13 slaves in the township that year according to the census and this graphic:

David Sterrett was the only slaveholder in the township with more than 2 slaves. He had 6. I knew I had the smoking gun.

The latest clue I have is the 1825 will of David Sterrett. He states in it:

It is my will and I do order and direct that Charlotte Denford is to be supported and provided for out of my Estate during her natural life, provided she lives steady in the family and behaves herself well she is to live with any of my family she chooses and they support her.

Pom Dedford’s son David named one of his daughters Charlotte. Denford is too close to Dedford to discount too. I suspect David Sterrett’s heir or heirs FINALLY freed her!

Looking backwards, on the 1800 Census, David Sterrett has a Free Person of Color living with him. I speculate that is Nead who was willed to him by his father in 1790 but am not positive.

The Sterretts are well-known in Cumberland County. Sterretts Gap is named for other members of the family. David Sterrett’s house was on the National Register of Historic Places before it burned down. Photos of the structure exist. That property is where the Dedfords lived/worked/were enslaved. David Sterrett’s father was an original settler of this Western area of Cumberland County and was one of the bigger slaveholders and property owners. Those facts should aid in the hunt for slave transfers/sales, etc. I am also hunting for the marriage record of Charlotte and Pom and plan to take a fourth look at the Cumberland County slave records.

Unfortunately I was looking at the area’s history in the most favorable context.

Do you have any corrections, additions, or comments? Please feel free to email me – cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.

#39 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Mapping It Out ~ Finding the Possible Slaveholders of David Dedford’s Parents Near Newville, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

POST UPDATED FEBRUARY 24, 2024:

NEW:  David Sterrett and his wife Isabella of Newville, Cumberland County enslaved the Dedford family.  Pom’s wife was Charlotte and in 1820 she was a slave residing in the Sterrett household.  Please see this post concerning David Sterrett’s will:  https://cinziarosasdescendantsblog.wordpress.com/2021/01/14/31-day-genealogy-challenge-day-14-share-an-estate-probate-or-civil-record/

Contact me at the email at the end of this post if you would like more information.

This week’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks them is Mapping it Out. For several years I have been researching and trying to find out more about the Dedfords, a Free Family of Color on a collateral line, living in Mifflin Township, Cumberland County in 1820. Today the closest town to this rural area is Newville. Pennsylvania outlawed slavery in 1780 but it called for a gradual abolition of slaves. Children born to slave mothers had to serve 28 years of indentured servitude to their mother’s master and then they were freed. Sadly, slavery lasted in Cumberland County into the 1840s before the state again made a law abolishing it in totality.

To the best of my knowledge, Pom or Palm Dedford was the head of the family and he was born around 1776, in Pennsylvania, according to his son on later censuses. On the 1820 census, it looked like Pom had three sons under the age of 14, including David Dedford, and a daughter under the age of 14. They were listed under the Free Colored Persons heading on this census. Missing though is an older female, whom one would assume to be the mother of Pom’s children. David Dedford’s sisters, those of which I can name, are Henrietta and Sarah. I do not know at this time how many siblings David Dedford actually had or if David was considered Free when he was born around 1810.

Around 1825, the Dedfords moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the state capital, across the Susquehanna River, at the eastern edge of this map in Dauphin County. David would eventually move back west, to Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, at the edge of Cumberland County, with his wife and children and have a barber shop on Railroad Street before the Civil War.

I do not know what became of his father Pom. David died in Shippensburg in 1886. David is the father of Charlotte Dedford who married Civil War Veteran Private Ovington Harris of the United Stated Colored Troops. As you may recall from that earlier post, David had three sons in the Civil War.

How do I find out more about the Dedfords when they were living in Mifflin Township? Well, I made a trip to the Cumberland County Historical Society and reviewed the original slave returns three times looking for anyone with a name similar to Pom. No luck. In 1810, according to the book Shadow of Freedom by John Alosi, there were only 3 Free Persons of Color living in Mifflin Township. Also according to the publication, there were 13 slaves living in the Township. In 1820, there were 35 Free Persons of Color listed on the census for Mifflin Township. No slaves were listed in Mifflin Township that year. (The census was only 5 pages for that township so I counted these myself.)

These statistics were a little helpful. I took this to mean that all of the slaves in Mifflin Township were now free due to the gradual abolition law from 1780. A few households listed Free Persons of Color living at their properties. Could they be the houses of former slaveholders? Definitely, since the law required 28 years of indentured servitude to children born to slave mothers, they were probably the former slaveholders. Other clues point to them owning slaves as well.

The following heads of households in Mifflin Township had Free Persons of Color living on their properties at the time of the 1820 census: David Williamson, Robert Barr, James Stewart, John Laughlin, David Sterritt (the correct spelling is Sterrett as in Sterretts Gap, Cumberland County), Joseph Thompson, Armon Hoff, Nathaniel Gillespie, William Potts, Joseph Jacobs, Adam Bratton.

Then I found this chapter online for the history Mifflin Township from the book called History of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, it was written in 1886. But I can’t discount that it lists settlers of the township that were slaveholders. The Nicholson family was one. They came pre-Revolution and when Pennsylvania outlawed slavery in 1780, they relocated to Kentucky. Other slaveholders that came to the township in 1776 were James, Robert, and Nathaniel Gillepsie, Adam Bratton, and William Laughlin. This list is not complete. I have already located one slaveholder they missed named David Sterritt/Sterrett, who, after slavery had been abolished, mentioned purchasing Negroes for his daughter, giving his Negro boy to his son David, and named three slaves of his widow in his Cumberland County will from 1797. His son was also named David and is the man mentioned in the preceding paragraph. Also note, that Nathaniel Gillepsie and Adam Bratton were mentioned in the preceding paragraph too as having Free Persons of Color living on their property in 1820.

I think that if I map out these mentioned men, their families, and the heads of households with Persons of Color living with them on 1820 census, I may figure out which family was the Dedford slaveholder.

Do you have any additions, corrections, or questions on my sources? Please email me: cinziarosagenealogy@comcast.net.