Excursus: Maryland, My Maryland: Marriage Licenses Issued to African-American Couples in Oakland (Garrett County) MD 1872 - 1902 (including residency)

I thought it might be useful to post the marriage license list again with the residences of the groom and bride included. The default residence is Garrett County, meaning that if no residence is indicated for either or both parties, the residence should be presumed to be Garrett County.

Excursus: Maryland, My Maryland: Marriage Licenses Issued to African-American Couples in Oakland (Garrett County) MD, 1870-1902

The small African-American community of southern Garrett County of the late 19th and very early 20th century remains elusive. We know they are there because their names are in the federal censuses, there are references to their church activities at Oakland's Bethel AME church in the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, and there are references to two "colored" schools in the annual reports from the county board of education to the Maryland State Department of Education.

It occurred to me to go through the marriage records for Garrett County to see if African-American couples are explicitly identified as such. And indeed they are. So I've been going through the Garrett County Circuit Court records to see what more we can learn about this community.

Cheesy Grits: Levels of Risk

The attached clipping is from the 9 Nov 1848 Charleston Southern Patriot. It reports the arraignment and subsequent guilty plea of one Susan Marshall, a Free Person of Color, who had left South Carolina and then returned, which was a violation of state law. Marshall was fined $300 and ordered to leave the state by December 10, unless she had been pardoned by "the Executive," which I take to mean the Governor. Should she have remained in South Carolina, she was threatened first by corporal punishment, and, in the event of continued recalcitrance, sale at public auction as a slave.

Cheesy Grits: Historic Preservation on Edisto Island: the Hutchinson and Thorne houses

The post-Civil War period on Edisto Island produced two heros for the African-American community there: James Hutchinson and John Thorne. Both men entered into cooperative agreements with the formerly-enslaved residents of Edisto Island to pool their funds in order to purchase former plantations. The land was then subdivided with the subdivisions then sold back to the investors/residents based on their contributions to the "pool." Both Hutchinson and Thorne retained some land for themselves and their families as well. Almost a century later, the two men were still remembered. Sam Gadsden identified them to Nick Lindsay as "The Two Black Kings of Edisto Island." (I blogged about John Thorne earlier, starting here.)

So what remains of the Hutchinson and Thorne "kingdoms"? Certainly there is a lasting legacy of continued land ownership on Edisto Island. An example would be our friend (and a friend of this blog) Deborah Robinson, whom we initially met through her search for more information about John Thorne. She wanted to know more about the man who had enabled her family to purchase the land on Edisto that they still call home.

But are there personal remnants of Hutchinson and Thorne? The answer is "Yes!", but it's a qualified "Yes."

Cheesy Grits: The Other Desverney Brother

I was pretty excited to have discovered the very strong possibility that one of Valeria's first cousins on the Thorne side, Arthur Desverney, played with James Reese Europe's Clef Club Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1912, 1913, and 1914. I mean, how can you top that?

But if I've learned one thing from doing family history, it's that you never know what you're going to find next. In this instance, it was Arthur Desverney's older brother, Broughum Desverney.

I'll confess to having been lulled by the description of Broughum's occupation in the 1910 census as an "elevator runner" in an office building. Aside from documenting the kinds of occupations available to black men in NYC in 1910, there wouldn't seem to be much to get excited about his occupation.

Cheesy Grits: Carnegie Hall, Here We Come—Part II

James Europe was not aiming for a place within the European orchestral tradition and repertoire; rather, Europe intended to use only African-American musicians and, further, intended to perform African-American music, whether traditional or composed.

Nor was the Clef Club Orchestra what we think of as the small ragtime ensemble. Europe placed more than 100 musicians onstage. The instruments initially included guitars, mandolins, violins, cellos, double basses, grand pianos and percussion, plus some less common instruments like bandurris (a type of Spanish guitar) and harp guitars (our Thorne cousin, Arthur Desverney, is listed as playing one of these). The Orchestra's repertory included songs, rags, shuffles, and a few show tunes, including some composed by Europe himself.

This kind of concert hadn't been heard anywhere before. At that time, the European tradition of composing and playing orchestral music ruled the serious, i.e., non-vaudeville stage. African-American music was largely dismissed as undeserving of a wider hearing, much less further study. Fortunately for all of us, Jame Europe knew otherwise.

Cheesy Grits: Carnegie Hall, Here We Come!—Part I

I suppose I should have guessed that in following the Thorne descendants to New York City, we might eventually end up at Carnegie Hall. But I didn't, so the discovery of a cousin who almost certainly performed there was a wonderful surprise. And it came out of the blue.

The starting point was the off-hand mention by my otherwise-unidentified interlocutor "Mr. Robinson" that another of Valeria's relatives, her Aunt Hattie, had also come to Manhattan.

Cheesy Grits: Valeria's sister Cecelia/Lillian

Sometimes people just seem to disappear from the documentary records. Gone. Disappeared. No idea where they went. We genealogists always celebrate when that long-missing sibling or cousin suddenly shows up, sometimes having been living, as it were, just out of plain sight the whole time. Such was the case with Jane's great-great Aunt Cecelia, also known as Lily.

Cheesy Grits: And the Thornes just keep on coming....

Since my last post—which was indeed some time ago—I've been on the trail of some other of Philip and Elizabeth Weston Thorne's descendants. Regarding the ones who moved to New York City. I've been prompted in part by a series of exchanges with a reader who calls himself "Mr. Robinson." What I've been doing is documenting the hints and clues he gave me.