OUR WILLIAMS COUSINS
- westmohney
- Jan 20, 2025
- 8 min read
Joseph Terry’s instruction that mulatto slave Sarah Martin was to go free. . .(while any children she might have remained in slavery) provides a glimpse of the complicated morality colonial settlers struggled with. ~ David Leatherwood
the Williams/Terry connection
Our uncle Joseph Terry (6U) was the brother of our grandfather Champness Terry (6GGF). The Terry family lived in Halifax County, Virginia. In 1767, the portion of the county the Terrys lived in became Pittsylvania County, the largest in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In 1755, Joseph's daughter Lucy (1C7X) married a man named married William Williams. Most of the information I have on our Williams cousins comes from a book called Dancing on the Dan by David Leatherwood.
About a year after his marriage to Lucy, William received a large land grant on the south side of the Banister River. Leatherwood writes that "[i]t’s unclear if this windfall. . .stemmed from the prominent Terry family or another source." The property was seven miles southwest of the town of Chatham, VA and about twenty miles north of the North Carolina border.
William and Lucy had seven sons, Joseph (2C6X), John (2C6X), James (2C6X), Thomas (2C6X), David Champness (2C6X), William (2C6X) and Doctor Crawford (2C6X).
Note: Two of William and Lucy's sons had Terry as their middle name. The couples's fourth son's middle name was Champness, after our grandfather who was Lucy's uncle. Champness was a common name in the Terry family and according to Leatherwood, "evidence of a long lost family connection."
the Virginia Terrys
Our grandfather Champness Terry was born and died in Pittsylvania (later Louisa) County in Virginia. All of his brothers and sons, with the exception of our grandfather William (5GGF) would remain in Virgina. William, who opted for the greener pastures of North Carolina, began the Carolina faction of our family.
The town of Peytonsburg was founded in 1759 specifically as a location for the new County Courthouse in Pittsylvania. Four trustees were appointed for the new town. One of these trustees was Champness' nephew, our cousin Nathaniel Terry (1C7X). Nathaniel, who was also one of nine justices of the peace designated for the new county, lived along Sandy Creek close to his brothers Joseph (1C7X) and Benjamin (1C7X).
Nathaniel was active in civic affairs, serving as sheriff, militia captain and a representative to both the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Revolutionary War conventions. During the French and Indian War, Nathaniel oversaw the building of three forts, Mayo, Trial and Blackwater. These were the southern most forts in a chain ordered by George Washington in defense of Indian attacks. In 1758, Nathaniel was paid £29 by the government for “attending the militia and building three forts.”
Nathaniel's dealings, however, were not always on the up and up. In 1770, the state of Virginia brought suit against him on various charges including overcharging for services rendered, “breach of duty in his office of Sheriff. . .riding a stray horse. . .by a false representation of facts did obtain an order from the Court of Halifax to be paid ten pounds out of the county levy for maintaining a bridge longer than his agreement he was obliged to do,”
In May of 1770, the House of Burgesses in Virginia began hearing testimony from 26 witnesses “relating to the character” of Nathaniel Terry. These witnesses were paid by “the public” in tobacco for their three days before the Committee. The total amount of tobacco paid for the trial amounted to 18,637 pounds.
Found guilty of the horse charge, Nathaniel "agreed to pay two pistols to accommodate the dispute on the said horse." As for the other charges, it appears he was able to wriggle out unscathed.
When he died in 1780 at age 55, Nathaniel owned " 21 slaves included Jack and Gregory whom he had inherited from his father in 1769." His estate was divided equally among his children.
the Cherokee "problem"
In 1775, a Cherokee faction in Virginia led by chief Tsi'-yu-gunsi-ni, aka Dragging Canoe, made a pact with other Native American tribes to join the British in their war against the rebellious colonists. The citizens of Virginia panicked. A visitor to the area wrote of what he saw:
There were several large plantations on the rich low grounds of Leatherwood and Beaver Creeks deserted, not a single inhabitant to be seen; the cattle, horses and other animals were wandering about their master’s habitations, conveying the most mournful, melancholy and dismal ideas that can be easily conceived.
Most of the settlers had fled to Fort Trial, built by our cousin Nathaniel Terry (1C7X), where they huddled in “the most woeful and unsanitary condition.” Finally, an expedition against the Cherokees was initiated in April of 1776. William and Lucy Terry Williams' first born son, Joseph Terry Williams (2C6X) volunteered to join the expedition.
Note: Many of our relatives in North Carolina were also involved in the Cherokee Campaign of 1776.
Joseph Williams was 20 years old at the time. He was serving as an Orderly Sergeant when his company, along with troops from North Carolina and Tennessee, attacked 30 Cherokee villages along the Houston River. They destroyed the homes, livestock and crops of the Natives.
When the Cherokee finally surrendered, they signed a treaty which forced them to give up over 5,000,000 acres east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The map below shows the gradual shrinking of the Cherokee lands.
After the Cherokee "problem" was satisfactorily resolved, Joseph was discharged and returned home.
William's death
In May of 1777, the Virginia General Assembly passed an act which required all male inhabitants above the age of sixteen to take an oath renouncing King George III. That same month, William and his son Joseph took the Oath of Allegiance in the mostly pro-Patriot Pittsylvania County. A song sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle became popular in those parts:
Cornwallis led a country dance/The like of which was never seen, sir/Much retrograde and much advance/And all with General Greene, sir/They rambled up and rambled down/Joined hands and off they ran, sir/And General Greene was like to drown/Cornwallis in the Dan, sir.
Seven months after signing the Oath, William wrote and registered his will. He died two years later. His brothers-in-law, our cousins David (1C6X) and Champness Terry (1C6X) were witnesses to the will. William left an 8th of his estate to his son Lewis from his first marriage. The rest was divided between Lucy and her seven sons, ranging in age from Joseph at 21 to Doctor at four years. (Doctor was another common name in the Terry family.) Lucy, only 40 when her husband died, faced the prospect of widowhood during wartime with a house full of children.
the "slave problem" in Virginia
According to David Leatherwood:
The related Williams and Terry families were among the many who fought for freedom, but also kept slaves. This contradiction was deeply ingrained over generations in the tobacco country of Pittsylvania County, where a disproportionate number of Virginia’s slaveholders were concentrated. William Williams, who passed away in 1780, was among the 89% of white Virginians engaged in the practice with fewer than 20 slaves.
At the time of his death, William owned five slaves, Phillis, Amey, Druer, Jack and Sis. These he left to his wife Lucy and four of his sons.
Lucy, left with 518 acres to maintain, needed all the help she should get. She was probably very grateful when, five years later, she received another slave in the will of her father Joseph Terry (6U) who died in Virginia in 1785. His will is notable only as a record of the cavalier way slaves were divided up after a man's death:
To my son David Terry (1C7X), one Negro woman named Kate and her increase. . .and one named Sarah and her increase. . .to my son Thomas Terry (1C7X), one Negro named Peter and one named Lucy and her increase also one Mulater boy named Harry. I lend to my son Joseph Terry (1C7X) one Negro man which he has in possession likewise one Negro boy named Jackson and Girl named Grace and her increase. I give to my daughter Anna (Terry) Barksdale (1C7X) one Negro Woman named Zilpha and one Mulatter Girl named Annato. . .I also give to my daughter Anna Barksdale one Mulatteer woman Named Sarah Martin for the term of six years and then she is to go free but if she should have any children, they shall remain and belong to the said Anna Barksdale. . .I lend to my daughter Lucy (Terry) Williams (1C7X) one Negro boy named Abram during her natural life and then to descend to her youngest Son, Doctor Crawford Williams. . .I give to my grandson Thomas Terry, one Negro Girl named Fillaceto. leave 230 acres of Land lying on the branch of Jeramins fork and one Negro boy named George to be sold. . .
About Joseph's bequests, David Leatherwood wrote:
Joseph Terry’s instruction that mulatto slave Sarah Martin was to go free after a period of six years (while any children she might have remained in slavery) provides a glimpse of the complicated morality colonial settlers struggled with. The fact that he identifies her with a surname is noteworthy, as is her mixed race.
"Mulater" slaves were obviously the product of one white parent and were generally more desirable for relations with white slave owners. Sarah Martin's children may well have been William's, yet he stipulated that they were to remain slaves.
Leatherwood also mentions an unusual bequest by the grandfather of Doctor Williams' wife's grandfather who allowed two of his slaves to decide for themselves who their master would be. Leatherwood commented, "These two favored slaves could choose their masters, but could not choose freedom."
Leatherwood wrote that:
While freeing slaves was rare in the late 18th century, it was not unknown. Some years later, in 1799, a John Terry (1C7X) emancipated 21-year-old Catherine Stevens, and her one-year-old daughter Lucretia Stevens, in Pittsylvania County. He specified that: “it is my Will and desire that the Above mentioned Negroes and all their progeny shall be a free people and enjoy all the liberties...that the laws of this County allows them.
There were very few "Free Negroes” in Pittsylvania County at the time but the county required those that were there to register with the authorities every year. In 1793, a Virginia law was passed requiring all free negroes to carry a certificate verifying their freedom at all times in order to “restrain the practice of negroes going at large.” Adamantly opposed to the freeing of slaves, the Virginia General Assembly "later passed a law directing that all emancipated slaves freed after 1 May 1806 who remained in the Commonwealth for more than a year would forfeit their right to freedom." Luckily, Catherine Stevens, freed by our cousin John Terry, "did not fall under the draconian statute, nor did her children."
Lucy's death
Our cousin Lucy Terry Williams, lived for 8 years following her husband's death. Though her six sons would have many children over the years, she only lived long enough to see the first of them born. Everything of importance in the family had been left to her sons when William died. An inventory of her estate shows that she, herself, had little of value other than her negro woman and child, to leave them:
Bed, furniture & sted, 3 chears, water can & piggon, cotton wheel, table, old case, tea kettle & tribett, spit, iron spoon, flat iron, candlestick & snuffers, knife box & 10 forks, corner cubbard, parcel crockely ware, 3 basons, dish, 3 spoons, earthen pott, chest, Dutch oven, skillet, pr. pot hooks, negro woman, negro child, old ax. . .
Lucy left the negro woman and child to her son David Champness. The rest of her estate was to be equally divided "by sale or division" among her six sons. Witnessing the will were her brother David Terry (1C7X) and her (and our) first cousin John Terry (1C7X).
We'll have more on William and Lucy's sons and their westward migration in a future post.
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