THE VIRGINIANS PART II

It is wise for us to recur to the history of our ancestors. Those who do not look upon themselves as a link connecting the Past with the Future, do not perform their duty to the world ~ Daniel Webster.

````

Champness Terry

We have good evidence that our first Terry ancestor in Virginia was James Terry (7GGF) who died in 1744. We have positive evidence that Champness Terry (6GGF), a possible son of James, was our grandfather. Champness was born ca. 1710 in Virginia, probably in Caroline County. By 1734, he was a resident of Hanover County. From Virginia deed records, we can find the approximate location of his property there. In July of 1734, Champness Terry of St. Martin's Parrish purchased for "pounds 30 curr. Money" a 150 acre plantation "near the main branch of Sedgey Creek..." Champness added to his property in 1743 when he purchased 300 acres for the bargain price of only £12.

There would be other land transactions for Champness in the coming years, the last in 1755. That year, he purchased 700 acres on the south side of Hickory Creek for £300. Champness lived about 80 miles north of the James River where most of our other Virginia relatives had settled.

(1) Caroline County (2) Sedges Creek (3) Hickory Creek (4) James River

In 1743, Champness married Christian Bibb. Careful study of his will and the marriage dates of his older children indicate that some of his children were born before his marriage to Christian. The timing of the birth of his son William (5GGF), our grandfather, makes it possible for either of Champness' wives to be his mother. No records still exist that give any information about Champness' first wife.

While we don't know Champness' father for certain, information on wills and other county records show that there were five men very likely to be brothers or at least first cousins of his. James (6U) is mentioned in Champness' will as a brother. Nathaniel, Benjamin, Stephen and Joseph, along with Champness and James, were the patriarchs of several Terry clans that spread throughout the southern states in the generations to come.

When Champness Terry died in 1758, he was a resident of Louisa County which had been formed from Hanover County in 1742. His probated will is listed in Fredericksville Parrish, Louisa County. Champness mentioned his five sons, Thomas (5U), Joseph (5U), William (5GGF), Henry (5U) and David (5U). His daughters were mentioned but none by name. Champness must have owned about a thousand acres when he died as he left 200 acres to each of his five sons. Our grandfather William received 200 acres that Champness had purchased from his brother James. Thomas and Joseph may have been the elder sons as they were both appointed administraters of the will.

Interesting facts: The unusual name of Champness was used prolifically through many generations of Terrys. According to Ancestry research, the name Champness and the name Terry most often appear in Virginia. Our grandfather Champness lived to be about 48 years old while the average lifespan for people in that area was 52 years. In Massachusetts the average lifespan was more like 70 years.

Note: One of Louisa County's few claims to fame is that Patrick Henry of Revolutionary War fame, was born in the section of Hanover County which became Louisa. He lived there for many years and actively supported the county when he was governor of Virginia.

the beginnings of the Hemings family saga

Most of the information I have about our cousin Francis Eppes IV (1C8X) came from a book called The Hemingses of Montecello by Annette Gordon-Reed. In 2009, Gordon-Reed won a Pulitzer Prize for her thorough investigation of the Hemings family. It was from this book that I discovered our family's connection to Thomas Jefferson and, in particular, to a family of slaves that he owned.

Francis Eppes IV was the nephew of our grandmother Mary Eppes Hardyman (7GGM) and the great-grandson of our immigrant grandfather, Francis Eppes I (9GGF). Francis IV is important to this story because he was the original owner of the slave who gave birth to Elizabeth Hemings. Elizabeth in turn gave birth to Sally Hemings who famously gave birth to six of Thomas Jefferson's children.

Francis Eppes IV was born in 1686 in Bermuda Hundred. According to Gordon-Reed:

By the time Francis Eppes IV took his place at the family seat in Bermuda Hundred, this group had firmly established an identity and way of life. Determined to smooth out the rough edges of their origins, they aspired to gentility. They built fashionably large houses, spent their leisure time visiting other members of their social set, and attended hunting parties and horse races...In sum, the Eppeses and their cohort sought to reproduce the accoutrements of upper-class life in England--to the extent that could be done in the still feral wilderness of Virginia.

Virginia's soi-disant elite imported thousands of people who looked nothing like them, spoke foreign languages and had cultures and religions that white Virginians could never have truly comprehended. The Eppeses and their kind thus led a fragile existence among people they had to subdue, uncertain whether that job could ever really be done.

This was the hostile world into which Elizabeth Hemings was born.

Elizabeth's grandson, Madison Hemings, was the son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. He told the story of his grandmother's early life in an article he wrote titled "Life Among the Lowly." The article was published in the weekly newpaper The Pike County Republican in Wavery, Ohio:

I never knew of but one white man who bore the name of Hemings; he was an Englishman and my greatgrandfather. He was captain of an English trading vessel which sailed between England and Williamsburg, Va., then quite a port. My grandmother was a fullblooded African, and possibly a native of that country. She was the property of John Wales, a Welchman. Capt. Hemings happened to be in the port of Williamsburg at the time my grandmother was born, and acknowledging her fatherhood he tried to purchase her of Mr. Wales, who would not part with the child, though he was offered an extraordinarily large price for her. She was named Elizabeth Hemings. Being thwarted in the purchase, and determining to own his flesh and blood he resolved to take the child by force or stealth, but the knowledge of his intention coming to John Wales’ ears, through leaky fellow servants of the mother, she and the child were taken into the “great house” under their master’s immediate care. I have been informed that it was not the extra value of that child over other slave children that induced Mr. Wales to refuse to sell it, for slave masters then, as in later days, had no compunctions of conscience which restrained them from parting mother and child of however tender age, but he was restrained by the fact that just about that time amalgamation began, and the child was so great a curiosity that its owner desired to raise it himself that he might see its outcome. Capt. Hemings soon afterwards sailed from Williamsburg, never to return. Such is the story that comes down to me.

Note: Amalgamation at that time was a union between the two races, white and Black.

Under Virginia law, even though Captain Hemings was the acknowledged father of Elizabeth, he had no right to her. Gordon-Reed explains that the system of bondage based on race required the English colonists "to break rather quickly with one important long-held tradition and understanding that they had carried with them across the Atlantic Ocean." The long standing heirarchal tradition in England determined a person's status by the father. But since colonial white men "were the masters of growing numbers of African women, owning not only their labor but their very bodies," a new system was need in order to keep "the lines between white and black absolutely clear," The new system held that, for slaves, the lineage passed through the mother. If she was a slave, all of her children were slaves regardless of who the father was.

Madison Hemings got the story of his grandmother mostly right except that, when Elizabeth Hemings was born, she still belonged to the Eppes family. Francis Eppes IV died right around the time of Elizabeth's birth. He bequeathed Elizabeth's mother and all of her progeny to his daughter Martha (2C7X) who was twenty-two at the time. Since Francis left five of his female slaves to Martha, no one knows which of those five gave birth to Elizabeth. Elizabeth grew up at the Eppes estate in Bermuda Hundred, taking her place as a working house slave when she was old enough. In 1746, when Martha Eppes married John Wayles, she took her "property" of inherited slaves, including Elizabeth, with her to her new home. Elizabeth would have been twelve at the time she became the property of John Wayles.

John and Martha Eppes Wayles soon had a daughter born to them, Martha Wayles (3C6X) . Twenty-four years later, Martha Wayles would marry the future president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. The year after his daughter's marriage, John Wayles died and the entire Hemings clan came into the possession of Thomas Jefferson.

The story of the Hemings family will continue in a future post.