J. REGARDING THOMAS H. PITTS AND THE PROBABLE SOURCE OF SOME OF MY AFRICAN AMERICAN DNA COUSINS, INCLUDING A FILING TO THE FREEDMEN’S COURT IN 1868
(Thomas H. Pitts was the oldest brother of my second great grandfather, George Richardson Pitts. George was the father of Ellen Nancy Pitts Allen, my father’s grandmother, so Thomas was her uncle.)
Although Thomas H. Pitts (THP) was my great granduncle and not in my direct line I notice that his name appears quite a bit throughout the above sections. In brief, he was the oldest son of my third great grandfather, Thomas Pitts. Born in 1793 in Essex County, Virginia, he married France Bernard Lambeth shortly after he returned from fighting in the War of 1812. He was 19 and she was only 15 at the time. Over the course of the next 29 years, he and Fanny had five children who survived to adulthood, three girls and two boys. Although only the names of heads of house were listed until the 1850 U.S. Census, the count from the 1820 Census shows THP and his wife and children living in Essex County, Virginia. I will mention 12 people he counted as his slaves as it shows what was considered a measure of a person’s wealth at the time. In the 1830 U.S Census, still in Essex County Virginia, the count indicates his wife and children were living with him and he now had 14 individuals enslaved.
Initially when I began looking into this family, I thought that THP had died because his wife Frances B. Pitts appears as the head of house in Nelson, Kentucky in 1840, living next to her son-in-law William M. Randolph, husband of her daughter Mary, with tallies for her other four children. However, a nudge from niece Elena Beeck’s family tree led to further investigation which shows THP living out the rest of his life without his family in Essex County, Virginia. Considering that in 1840 he is listed with no family and only one slaved person, some great reversal of fortune must have occurred. (In the 1850 and 1860 U.S. Censuses he is also the only member of his household.) The next year, in 1841, his father Thomas Pitts, my third great grandfather, wrote the following in his Last Will and Testament:
I consider that I have already given to my son Thomas H Pitts his full portion of my Estate having given to him upwards of 400 acres of land, two likely negroes, several head of cattle, and yokes of oxen, cart etc. I therefore give him nothing save an equal portion hereafter to be named in the residuary clause of my will.
Add to this the fact that his father did not name him as the executor of his Will, but instead named David P Wright, the husband of his second oldest daughter Mary Emily Pitts, and a rather interesting picture is painted of Thomas H. Pitts: wife and children left, down to one slaved from 14 ten years prior, as eldest son not named executor of his father’s will … what was going on in this man’s life?
In my chapter “My Family’s Contribution to the “Ten Million Names’ Project” I mentioned how my sister Sharon and I had discovered one of my African American DNA cousins with a Pedro Pitts listed as her great grandfather, which is as far back as her tree went. Ancestry.com has a tab to see what DNA matches we have in common with another DNA match and through this I found that someone had posted a copy of the following handwritten filing to the Freedmen’s Bureau from 1868 (three years after the end of the Civil War):
To General O Brown
Chief of Freedmen’s Bureau
Your complainants Elizabeth Hudson and her daughter Marcella Nelson, wife of Carter Nelson all of the County of Essex, Virginia respectfully represent that they are persons of color, ever respectful in their deportment towards all classes and ever obedient to and ready peaceably to abide by the laws of the land. Your complainant Elizabeth Hudson states that she is the daughter of one Mildred Hudson deceased who in her life time more than 30 years ago purchased a tract of land containing twenty-three acres situate in said Essex County which she had deeded to her for her life and then to her children that soon after a white man, one Thomas H Pitts took a lot of this land four or more acres to hold and occupy for the purpose of his business during the life of said Mildred Hudson and no longer that from the death of the said Mildred Hudson perhaps 30 years ago the said Thomas H Pitts to the time of his death during this present year has by various pretenses and invalid claims continued to remain upon a portion of said land to the great disturbance of the rightful owners, his claims and demands causing a law suit between one of his children and your complainant yet pending in the Circuit Court of Essex County. Your complainant states that from her brothers and sisters she and her children have derived the title to the whole of this land as held by her mother at the time of her death. Your complainant respectfully submits the foregoing statement to you as chief of the Freedmen’s Bureau in order that you may the better understand her complaint which is that because of her color (or certainly if not because of that some other cause) justice and protection seems to be denied to her. Since the death of the said Thomas H Pitts one Benjamin F Pitts [Junior, the son of his deceased brother Benjamin Franklin Pitts who is mentioned in Kitty’s letter as “brother Franklin”] of said County his nephew as curator of his estate appointed by the County Court of Essex has from time to time entered upon the premises and instead of waiting for the keys has broken into the house injuring and defacing windows doors and locks and other portions of the building carrying off everything to his own home including among other things taken away some freehold fixtures as well as property not belonging to the decedent and for these violations of law and justice your complainant can get neither redress nor remedy from the Civil authorities the just demand of your complainant and her family against the estate of the decedent for services and maintenance in his protracted illness (he was 73 to 75 years old) require that proper care and disposition be made of his personal effects yet this curator has removed all the live stock in his hands depreciating the other perishable property wasting while the said Benjamin F Pitts curator claims all refuses to have a sale and your complainants are without remedy. Your complainant states that the said Benjamin F Pitts often invades the premises using the most threatening language and in one instance using great violence upon the person of complainant Marcella Nelson by knocking her down from a barrel used as a water barrel injuring her severely and allaying as his only cause that the barrel was a barrel of vinegar belonging to the estate whereas the most reliable evidence could be tendered (if an opportunity could be had) to the contrary for this act of lawless violence this assault and battery committed upon your complainants premises they apply and plead in vain to the justices for redress and protection the violation of the law is admitted but your complaints cannot have the law enforced and when this case was taken before the Grand Jury of the County Court with competent colored witnesses to prove it the said Benjamin F Pitts was allowed to go before the Grand Jury and exculpate himself and now under the encouragement thus given him he pursues his own way the said Benjamin F Pitts demands from your complainants possession of the lot with the principal dwelling upon it arousing his determination to take possession forcibly if not peacefully given up to him as before stated there is for the rightful possession of this lot a suit pending your complainants will abide the decision in the meantime they require protection from the unlawful proceedings of said Pitts and pray you as the accredited protector of our race to take and use the necessary means for our safety and protection in order that we may not be compelled in defense of our homes and property and our persons to endeavor to repel force by force and we pray you that all the matters contained in this complaint be enquired into, and as in duty bound to be.
Elizabeth Hudson
Marcella Nelson
George C Nelson
Essex County to wit
This day Elizabeth Hudson, Marcella Nelson and George C Nelson personally appeared before me a Justice of the Peace for the said County and made oath to the truth of the above statement and I further state that I know of my own personal knowledge that it is so.
Given under my hand this 7th day of September 1868.
A.H. Garnett J.P.
____________________________________________
Hd. Qrs. Asst. Com’r Dist. Of Va.
Bureau R.F. and A.L.
Richmond Va. Sept. 10, 1868
Respectfully referred to James Johnsons Sub. Asst. Com’r. 6th Sub. Dist. for thorough investigation and report. If necessary application will be made to the Military Com’r to place the parties herein complained of under bonds to keep the peace towards the complainants.
By order of O. Brown
Asst. Com’r.
Will A. Coulter
Ret. Capt. U.S.A.
A.A.A.G.
__________________________________
Bureau R.F. & A. L.
Hd. Qrs. 6th Sub Dist of Va.
Fredericksburg Va. Sept. 11, 1868
Respectfully referred to H.R Wentworth A.S.A.G. for compliance with endorsement of Asst. Com’r. This paper to be returned with report and action noted.
James Johnson
Sub. Asst. Com’r
___________________________________________
Bureau R. F. & A. L.
Office of A.S.A. Com’r. 3rd Dist., 6th S. Dist.
Tappahannock Va. Oct 19, 1868
Respectfully returned to Col James Johnson S.A.G. Upon investigation I find the within complaint to be true. There is a suit in Court to be tried next month to see who the owner of this land is it will probably terminate in favor of the colored people, if so, then they can recover through the Court the property taken from the land by Mr. Pitts. As soon as the Military Com’r returns from Leave of Absence I will be obliged to have Mr. Pitts bound over to keep the peace.
Watson R Wentworth
A.S.A. Com’r
Currently I am trying to find the case in the Circuit Court of Essex that is referenced to see how it was finally decided. I hope in favor of the rightful owners of the property.
But from this filing it appears that THP was basically a squatter on Elizabeth Hudson’s property after Mildred Hudson’s death thirty years prior, around 1838 – 1840, and that Elizabeth and her children rendered “services and maintenance” during THP’s “protracted illness” to the property and/or to THP himself and were repaid with violence and theft from Benjamin F. Pitts, Junior, the nephew of THP. Benjamin F. Pitts, the only son of THP’s deceased brother Benjamín Franklin Pitts, was about 28 years old at the time, unmarried and living with his mother Susan and two sisters, Zela and Roxanna (this family plays a prominent role in the following section) in the same post office area as the Hudsons: Lloyd’s Post Office in 1860 and Miller’s Tavern Post Office in 1870. (I don’t believe they all moved, but that the Post Office was managed in a different location.) Now, maybe Benjamin F. Pitts believed the Hudsons were squatting on his uncle’s land. Who knows what story THP had told. Nevertheless, his violence towards them is inexcusable and the case over who the land belonged to was already in the Circuit Courts. Again, in the final section of this chapter, F. below, there is more about Benjamin Franklin Pitts and particularly his sister Mary Emily Pitts Philips whose husband, during this same time, was on trial for her murder.
Interestingly, the name and birthdate of THP are written in the family Bible of his cousin Colonel George Wright who was born and died in Essex County, Virginia. Colonel Wright’s mother Mary Pitts was the sister of Thomas Pitts II, the father of THP (THP was possibly Thomas the 3rd as his grandfather was also Thomas Pitts, but without the H.). THP’s sister, another Mary Emily Pitts (not the one murdered by her husband, described below in Section K), married her second cousin David Pitts Wright (whom Thomas Pitts II named as executor of his Will after seeming to largely disowning his eldest son THP). The Wrights and Pitts families apparently frequently intermarried as the mother of David Pitts Wright was Mary “Polly” Pitts whose father David Pitts was the brother of Thomas Pitts I.
Here is an abbreviated family tree to help with clarity.
*NOTE: My 5th great grandfather David Pitts (1698-1783) fought in the American Revolutionary War and has the Daughters of the American Revolution numbers of A205701 and A089426 through which we can trace our lines for anyone interested.
Looking back at the 1850 U.S. Census after reading the filing to the Freedmen’s Bureau, guess who was living next door to THP … one Elizabeth Hudson, 33, along with Camella Hudson, 50, Marcella Hudson, 14, Madison Hudson, 8, and Pedro Hudson, 5, with their “color” listed as “M” for mulatto, meaning not white, but not black either. Pedro is an interesting name … and familiar from the great grandfather of my DNA cousin! Elizabeth Hudson and THP continued to live next door to each other; in the 1860 U.S. Census THP is again listed next to Elizabeth Hudson, 42, Marcella Hudson, 21, Madison Hudson, 18, and T P Hudson, 16.
As we know from the Freedmen’s Bureau filing, THP died in 1868. In the 1870 U.S. Census Elizabeth Hudson, 48, is now living next door to Pedro Pitts, 26, whose color is listed as “m”. (Possibly in the house formerly occupied by THP, but it’s impossible to tell for sure because street names were not recorded on the U.S. Censuses in this part of Essex County, Virginia until 1910 and even in 1920 there were still no house numbers. On an interesting side note, the “color” choices for the 1870 census taker are now White, Black, Mulatto, Chinese, or Indian.) Also living with Pedro Pitts are Martha Johnson, 21, Thomas Johnson, 3, and Nora Johnson, 1 month. The race of the Johnsons is listed as “B”.
I mention the Johnsons because ten years later, in the 1880 U.S. Census, Pedro Pitts, now 37, is listed as single and living next to Martha Nickens, 30 and single, with the following children living with her: James T. Nickens, 12, Mary N. Nickens, 10, and Marcella J. Nickens, 5 months. Even though there are differences, particularly the last name of Nickens, not Johnson, I believe this is the same family. The first name of the female head of house is the same and the two older children’s ages are similar. Although the names are different, I know from looking at many census records that first names were often used in one census and middle names in another. Thomas in 1870 is now James T. and Nora is now Mary N. Also, last names sometimes changed, Hudson to Pitts as an example, and possibly also Johnson to Nickens. Sometimes if the mother’s last name changed the children’s did as well. Unfortunately, most of the 1890 U.S. Censuses were destroyed in a fire so we can’t get any clues from there and Pedro Pitts died in 1894. (There is today a Pedro Pitts Road in Caret, Essex County, Virginia, which is just south of Occupacia.) But in the 1900 U.S. Census we find in Occupacia, Essex County the Black family (I believe the mulatto designation was no longer used) of Thomas Pitts, 32, (listed as Thomas Johnson in 1870 and as James T. Nickens in 1880), his wife Bette Pitts, 19, Thomas’s sister Marcella Pitts, 19, (Marcella Nickens in 1880) and brother Pedro Pitts, 15. This Pedro Pitts, the grandson of Elizabeth Hudson, who I believe to be the great grandfather of my DNA cousin, later married Dolly Gaines a single mother with two boys. They moved to New York City and had three girls together, including Faustina D. Pitts, the grandmother of my DNA match.
Through Ancestry.com I have been able to find quite a few African Americans who put Thomas H. Pitts as a forefather. (One tree even has THP’s full name as Thomas Hudson Pitts, but I can find no documentation to back that up.) However, not all of my African American DNA cousins come from the Pitts line. Many others of my forebearers from the Allen side owned those who were enslaved and either they or some of their legitimate children found a way to have offspring out of wedlock, “by force or persuasion”, as Karolyn Smardz Frost says in her book I’ve Got A Home In Glory Land. Further in her book Ms. Frost quotes a former enslaved person who in 1937 said, “One of the saddest, darkest and most pathetic conditions that existed during the period of slavery was the intimate mingling of slave owners, in fact many white men, with negro women … Very often a slave was sold who was the direct offspring of his or her owner.” Ms. Frost went on to write, “Slave owners had almost total power over the women in their slave quarters, so even wives and mothers had not recourse for rejecting their advances. As for the white wives of the philandering men, as Mary Boykin Chestnut, the eloquent diarist who was wife to Senator James Chestnut of South Carolina, wrote, ‘Any lady is ready to tell who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody’s household but their own. Those she seems to think drop from the clouds.’” Henry Bibb, a man formerly enslaved, wrote, as quoted in Ms. Frost’s book, “Licentious white men, can and do, enter at night or day the lodging places of slaves; break up the bonds of affection in families; destroy all their domestic and social union for life; and the laws of the country afford them no protection.”
Although Mildred and Elizabeth Hudson were free Black women many years prior to the signing of the emancipation proclamation by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and these quotes from Ms. Frost’s book speak mainly of the relationships between male slave owners and the enslaved females, free Black Americans were most often treated not much above the status of the enslaved in those days, especially in the South. In a blatant and horrifying declaration of the sentiment towards free Blacks in the antebellum era Judge John B. O’Neall of the Court of Appeals of South Carolins in State vs. Harden (1832) wrote, “Free negroes belong to a degraded caste of society; they are in no respect on an equality with a white man. According to their condition they ought by law to be compelled to demean themselves as inferiors, from whom submission and respect to the whites, in all their intercourse in society, is demanded.” This attitude would translate to the sexual exploitation of free Black women by some unscrupulous White men. There is also the fact that – even setting aside racial, cultural, and class differences – it is nothing new for men who are of that nature to force or coerce women to have sex with them.
I concede it is possible that THP is just “getting the blame” for fathering other children than the five children of his wife resulting in the DNA connection to the Hudson family. It could have been another of his brothers and even his father, I suppose. But, the actions of his wife, the Last Will and Testament of his father, and the independent family trees posted by others on Ancestry.com that point to him, do make a compelling case. I also do not know whether it is Elizabeth Hudson or her mother Mildred who connects us to that line. As DNA becomes more refined and as more links are made I’m sure the number of these DNA cousins will increase, which may make it easier to trace the parentage to the correct forebearer.
I would also like to momentarily play the devil’s advocate. Through my research, as I have presented above, it is quite clear that sexual assault by a white man against a black woman, whether free or enslaved, and children resulting from those assaults, were quite common. It also appears from the Freedmen’s Filing by Elizabeth Hudson that her mother Mildred had agreed to allow THP to “hold and occupy” a small portion of the land that Mildred owned “for the purpose of his business during the life of said Mildred Hudson”. The occupying of this land took place about the time that THP’s wife Fanny left for Kentucky with the children. Unfortunately, Mildred died soon after and THP continued to occupy the land with what appears to be not a very good relationship with Mildred’s daughter, Elizabeth, who would have been about twenty one at the time of her mother’s death, as it was stated in the filing that THP “by various pretenses and invalid claims continued to remain upon a portion of said land to the great disturbance of the rightful owners”.
If a white man serially sexually assaulting and having children with a black woman was common practice and the facts of the matter ignored, would that be enough reason for Fanny Pitts to permanently take the children and leave her husband? However, the consensual relationship between a black woman and a white man would have not only been seen as egregious and immoral but was possibly also illegal. Perhaps this was the case with THP and Mildred, a secret consensual relationship out of which was born a daughter. Elizabeth Hudson was born about 1817, between the births of the two oldest children of Thomas (THP) and Fanny Pitts. Perhaps after twenty years Thomas could no longer keep it a secret and his father and wife found out and this was the cause of his separation from his wife and his father not naming his as the executor of his will. Mildred invited him to move on to her land during her life, but she died too soon. Perhaps he had alienated himself from most of his family and manumitted most of those he had enslaved, choosing a life of secrecy and potential poverty, and then Mildred had died and there was no one to confirm his claim, that they had been a couple and Elizabeth was his daughter. Perhaps Elizabeth didn’t even know, or maybe she did but had to make the claims to the Freedmen’s Bureau after his death in order for the land not to be given to his nephew an executor, Benjamin Franklin Pitts. It may be farfetched, but it was not altogether an unheard of scenario. An article in The New York Times published on October 21, 2018, titled “Was Interracial Love Possible in the Days of Slavery? Descendants of One Couple Think So” confirms that this type of relationship did happen, but secretly and with great potential peril.
However, I do concede that that scenario was most likely not the case. So, then we’re left with – Thomas H. Pitts: lost his family and fortune, squatted on a free Black woman’s land, spread his “seed” around the county, as eldest son was not named as executor in his father’s will … and then I discovered that the year before he died his niece, Mary Emily Pitts, was murdered.
Mary Emily was the daughter of THP’s deceased brother Benjamin Franklin Pitts, Sr. and sister of THP’s nephew, Benjamin Franklin Pitts, Jr. who was named by the courts as administrator of THP’s estate and acted so horrendously to the Hudsons as addressed in the filing above. The story of this murder follows in the final section of this chapter below.
familyties3.com 