Freed From the Archives: The Life of Emanuel Jones of Surry

This blog post was drawn from recent research into the remarkable but unknown life of Emanuel Jones, a man enslaved for the first 35 years of his life in early-19th-century Surry County. The investigators have different backgrounds, perspectives, approaches, instincts and insights, and their collaboration led to the discovery and better assessment of a great deal of information resting silently in Virginia archives about a man of color who leveraged what he received to live in a complex segregated society with ever-present potential for hostility. Emanuel Jones’ life experiences suggest a society that was capable of more nuance than is commonly known, and his footprints in Virginia history should be acknowledged.

Jones’ story is like buried treasure: invisible until a little piece of something sticks up and trips you. You don’t know what’s down there, or how far, or how big it is, but it’s interesting and you start to dig. You find things you don’t understand and try to learn context (who was here in the past, what happened here). You just keep at it until most of the questions are answered. Sometimes it’s just buried trash, but other times it’s something that’s actually pretty interesting – maybe even valuable in one way or another. I hope you agree that knowing about Jones and his times was the latter.

It started with an ancestor (John A. Selden, 1799-1868) — a sixth-generation Virginian who purchased an historic plantation (“Westover”) along the lower James River in Charles City County in 1829 and owned it (and enslaved people) until 1862. He kept records of loans, debts, and debt payments in his Accounts book, and he wrote entries in a farm diary (“Westover Journal”) almost every day for decades about things he wanted to remember or refer to.¹ Some of those manuscripts have survived, and the names of many people appear in them. Some names (in his “Journal”) are recognizable today to people who remember their U.S. History classes; others, mostly relatives, appear in his Accounts book. Some appear in both books; one, in particular, did not respond to internet search queries: Emanuel Jones. He loaned quite a bit of money to Selden in 1832, and his name appears fairly often in the “Journal” during 1841-48; and yet he is invisible today. That was the stick that tripped me, and the digging began.

The names in Selden’s papers point to a nexus of families, including his own, connected by marriage to Claremont Manor in Surry County, the ancestral home of the Allens, one of the wealthiest families in Virginia at the time. There were reports of an oddity regarding the Allen fortune at the death of William Allen (1767-1831), and it drew me to find his last will and testament.² The oddity was that, because he had been a bachelor and had no children (or none that he recognized), he left a large portion of his estate to his grand-nephew, William Orgain — a 3-yr-old, as it happened — on condition that the child’s surname was changed to “Allen.” His will also liberated 11 of the 700+ people he owned (4 adults and their 7 children, all named), and left cash legacies to them in different amounts. The person named first inherited a cash legacy of $6,000 ($220,000 today), nearly twice as much as the total amount left to all the others combined. His name: Emanuel Jones. That was surprising, to say the least.

Jones had clearly been important to William Allen. How important was clarified at the Surry County Court session in January 1833 when the sitting judges decided unanimously to grant Jones permission to reside in the county indefinitely.³ We would take that for granted today, but it was anything but normal in 1833 because of (1) Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in Southampton County in 1831 and (2) laws passed by Virginia’s General Assembly in 1806, 1816, and 1831 that required formerly enslaved people to leave the state permanently within 12 months. Legal exceptions were provided and decision authority given to county courts, but very few freed men or women were allowed to remain. In Jones’ case, testimony was provided by influential witnesses about what they had personally seen and heard of William Allen’s esteem, trust, and gratitude to Jones. The size of Jones’ monetary legacy and permission to remain in Virginia were very unusual.

In the Brandon area of northeast Prince George County, within two miles of “Claremont” in Surry, lay the plantations of other families related to the Allen family, including the Edloes and Harrisons. Carter Edloe was William Allen’s nephew and, apparently, admirer: he patterned his own will after Allen’s, releasing a woman, Harriett Barbour, and her children from enslavement,⁴ and leaving to her a large cash legacy ($8,000; $340,000 today) when he died in 1844. Edloe also used his will to free other enslaved people, but not as simply (chancery court action was required to effect that in 1847). One of them, Peter Randolph, later published his autobiography in Boston which included his memories of the time when he was enslaved in Virginia. Some of those memories involve the treatment of enslaved workers at nearby plantations, including Claremont, and Randolph claimed it was common knowledge that William Allen had freed his “colored sons” upon his death. That would point directly to Jones and James Walker (the other adult male freed by Allen’s will). We can verify other parts of Randolph’s published memories, which makes the claim of Allen’s paternity of Jones quite likely, with the implication that Jones might well be the genetic cousin of all nine of William Allen’s nieces and nephews, including Carter Edloe, Martha (Edloe) Orgain, and John Selden. So let’s re-visit Jones’ loan of “quite a bit of money to Selden in 1832.”

Although banks did exist in the 1830s, loans were usually made to businesses for commercial purposes. When wealthy people needed money, they normally turned to wealthy relatives. John Selden’s Accounts book reflects that practice, and on page 81 is his record of a $6,000 loan from Emanuel Jones on December 4, 1832. According to the accounting ledger recorded in Surry County’s archives,⁵ that was the day after Jones received his cash legacy from the executor of Allen’s estate (R.G. Orgain). In other words, Jones loaned to Selden every cent he had inherited from Allen – right after he received it.

Allen’s will stipulated that his estate be held together for five years in order to ensure time for all debts to be paid and all loans settled. Jones was paid a salary by Allen’s executor for unspecified services during part of that period, and continued to live at Claremont.

Things began to change in 1837 as properties in Allen’s estate were distributed to his heirs. Jones would need to fend more for himself, and Selden’s Accounts book shows that he made a large loan payment ($5,100) to Jones in April 1837. Eight months later, Jones purchased a 200-acre farm (“Goodmans”) along the James River, a short distance down-river from Claremont.⁶

Jones planned to grow cash crops on his farm. He’d lived and worked in that area for 40 years, and knew it was profitable. Deed records show that he added 186 acres to his farm in 1843 (for $1) and another 150 in 1849 for $1,000 – all in the area along the James River known, then and now, as “Pipsco.” Jones regularly violated a law passed by the General Assembly in 1832 that restricted free men and women of color from owning enslaved people who were not immediate family members (spouse and children). Tax records show that he owned a varying number of enslaved people (usually 6-10, infrequently as many as 20)7 between 1836 and his death in 1852, which means the County’s tax collectors were aware that Jones either had an unusually large family or (more likely) had bought and sold individuals to whom he was not related. And Jones probably knew what the law said, because he asked John Selden to sell an enslaved laborer for him in April 1847. He was, thus, a good example of selective law enforcement by county authorities at the time.

Two of the other people freed by William Allen’s will were “Sylvia” and “James Walker,” named in that order after Jones; Allen’s will bequeathed to them cash legacies of $1,000 and $2,500, respectively. Why Allen chose the specific people he did is an open question, as is the order in which the names were listed and the size of the various cash legacies. One possibility of “why” is that they were related to each other (Jane Tabb excepted). There is no doubt that Jones and Walker were related — even without Randolph’s statement about “Allens’ colored sons” — because Jones referred to Walker’s daughter Clara as “my relative” in his own 1852 will. Before then, the Surry Court named Jones to be her legal guardian at her request after her father’s death in 1840. And Jones provided the “security” for the marriage bond when she and Mitchell Hall were wed in 1847. But what about Sylvia? The question of her relationship to Jones is less clear-cut, but persuasive. It involves three men of Surry County with the same name (James Givens), who were unquestionably related to each other. Sylvia was related to two of them (husband and son) and Jones was related to the third, as witnessed by the language he used in the document that records his emancipation of that man in Feb 1840.⁸ Thus, Jones and Sylvia Givens were probably related, although precisely how remains unknown.

Jones’ name appears many times in the volume of Selden’s “Westover Journal” that covers 1841-48: visits to each other’s homes; sharing seeds, farm animals, and produce; help with fishing nets in the river at Westover; etc. As presented in Selden’s diary, their relationship seems no different than what we might observe between white peers, except that Jones was not white. Moreover, everything we know suggests the likelihood that both men knew they were related (and how), even if it was not discussed openly. Jones appears to have been extraordinarily patient with Selden concerning repayment of his five-year loan in 1832. Selden made several payments totaling $1,950 during the 1840s but still owed Jones nearly $3,000 by the end of the decade (17 years later). Jones’ tolerance may have been an indication of a familial relationship.

Selden was the executor of Carter Edloe’s estate after his death in July 1844. Harriett Barbour was freed by Edloe’s will, but she would have to leave Virginia and settle elsewhere if she had chosen to live openly as a free woman, and she couldn’t do that without access to the money from her $8,000 legacy. A chancery court ruling in December 1846 cleared the way for that, and Selden put $960 in her hands in early May 1847 at Jones’ home in Surry County.⁹ She moved her family to Philadelphia shortly afterwards, and at that point Selden had another problem: how to get follow-on annual interest payments of cash to her. Inter-bank transfers were still in the future; he did not consider the Postal Service secure enough to mail checks to her, and physical travel to Philadelphia was inconvenient. Jones was, again, the problem solver, and arranged to act as the trusted intermediary for the transfer of money from Selden in Virginia to Barbour in Philadelphia. Nothing has been found that documents how Jones made it happen, but he took care of it successfully through 1851.

The General Assembly continued to pass laws that made life more difficult for free people of color. In 1837, an act gave county courts the authority to revoke – “for any cause deemed sufficient by them“ — permission “granted to any emancipated person” to reside indefinitely in the county, and gives such person twelve months to leave the commonwealth.¹⁰ It also gave local authorities the duty to detain any person with residency permission who left and returned. An act passed in 1848 declared that “any free person of color who shall migrate from the state,” or temporarily leaves the state for education, or “for any purpose goes to a non-slaveholding state, shall no longer be entitled to residence in this state, and on returning may be proceeded against.”¹¹

Surry County authorities could have investigated Jones’ ownership of those he enslaved at any time over 15 years and charged him with breaking the law; but they didn’t (as far as we know).

We don’t know if Jones ever left Virginia and returned in the course of helping Selden to move Harriett Barbour’s money to her, but he might have. It would have been difficult for authorities to detect, and such trips didn’t take place often or with precise regularity. But they could have risked his continued residency in Virginia after 1837, and definitely would have after 1848. Again, they weren’t detected (as far as we know).

Selden personally carried Harriet Barbour’s annual payment to her in Philadelphia in March 1852. It is likely due to Jones being too ill to help, but other reasons are possible – perhaps a tip that county authorities were investigating him. In any event, Jones wrote and executed his will in May 1852 and was never again involved in moving money to Philadelphia. ¹²

Jones received a summons in June 1852 to appear at the July session of the Surry County Court, to explain why the Court should not revoke his residency permission (which dated to 1833). ¹³ Other Court business postponed his appearance until the August Court, at which he was absent and represented by counsel. By the end of the Court’s day, the judges had heard evidence from the prosecutor and counter-arguments by the defense, and voted to revoke Jones’ residency. He had 12 months to sort out his affairs and leave the state. The record of that judgment contains only the decision — nothing at all about the charge or the evidence.

What we do know is that a certificate required for the 1875 marriage in Surry County of one Nancy Scammell identified her mother as “Martha Scammell” and her father as “Emanuel Jones.”¹⁴ Various sources of information about her age indicate the strong likelihood that she was born in June 1852. If all of that is true, it could mean that Jones had crossed a cultural red line, and authorities could no longer look the other way. Martha Scammell was not a paragon of virtue, but she was white; Jones was a formerly enslaved man, regardless of his complexion. We will never know if the Surry County Court knew beyond a doubt in 1852 that Jones was the father of Martha Scammell’s child, but if they did, it was reason enough for their decision.

Jones may have been living at Selden’s Westover when the Surry Court met in August. He had written a clause into his will in May that forgave Selden’s remaining debt (nearly $3,500; $150,000 today). But he apparently met personally with Selden on August 4, 1852, and cancelled the remaining debt by presenting Selden’s bond to him as a gift.¹⁵ We don’t know where that meeting took place (and Selden’s farm diary for that period is not available to help), but Jones was terminally ill, and had only weeks to live. He would be buried at Westover.

The entry in Selden’s Accounts book contains no suggestion that Selden had traveled to Surry, so it very likely happened at Westover. The debt forgiveness was quite a gift. Selden had borrowed a total of $7,000 from Jones in the early 1830s and used those funds to complete his purchase of Westover. Emanuel Jones, 35 years a slave, had enabled Selden to own Westover.

Jones died in early September 1852 after a long illness. He was interred in the servants’ cemetery at Westover plantation on September 7 during a burial service conducted by William T. Leavell, the Rector of Westover Parish (Protestant Episcopal, Charles City County). Leavell wrote this entry into his “Private Register of Burials”:

“Charles City Co VA, Sept 7 [1852] , at Westover (Servants), Emanuel Jones (Col’d) of Surry County, Selden’s old friend, age 56, Bloody Cancer”¹⁶

That entry is unusual for Rev. Leavell. He buried many people of color over the course of 13 years, but their names rarely appear in his burial register. And the additional description of Jones (as “Selden’s old friend”) is essentially unique in the register.

Jones’ will was proved at the Court’s September session. It bequeathed modest cash gifts to his “relative” Clara Hall of Norfolk and Harriett Barbour of Philadelphia, both of whom were “family” and widows with children to care for.

It left nothing to Sylvia Givens, which suggests the likelihood that she had died. It left Jones’ clothes and $200 to a man named William Dewell, and forgave John Selden’s debt. Finally, and most surprisingly, he left the rest of his estate of every kind to his “friend” John Selden Jr., with the proviso that his “dear wife Mary” be cared for comfortably there until her death, and titles to his property would revert to Selden Jr. only then. It also requested that Selden Jr. give $15 every year to Ruebin Butler, a man enslaved by Jones, due to his past good behavior. The will made no mention of a Martha Scammell.

Selden Jr. sold Jones’ farm to neighbor (and former County judge) Edwin White in 1859 while Mary Jones was still living. The Census of 1860 lists her residence immediately after White’s, so Jones’ proviso about her care may have been respected and carried on by White. She did not appear in the 1870 Census and was probably deceased. Reuben Butler was living with his family in the Blackwater Magisterial District (southeastern Surry County) at the 1870 and 1880 Census. Edwin White sold Jones’ farm in the early 1870s to a Manhattan (NY) attorney who was a native of France, and that man soon engaged in selling the property – renamed “Selden Hall” – to his brother.

Nancy Scammell married in 1875, had many children with her husband, and lived into the 1930s; there is a good chance that she has descendants living today. And if Emanuel Jones actually was her father, then he does, too.

Thomas Baxter is a descendant of John Armistead Selden. Raymond Moore is a descendant of Sylvia Givens.