Scotland Saints

More of my posts these days are to report on small DNA matches to me who also have GILLESPIE in their family tree. No matter how small the DNA match, I check what I can of the match's family tree to see where the Gillespie name might fit in. Even though I have yet to confirm with genealogical proof that the Gillespie surname is the source of the DNA matches I mention here, these slim matches have nevertheless lead to some unexpected, interesting, and even amazing stories. Here is yet another.

This story starts in 1820 in western New York with a man named Joseph Smith. Smith had a religious vision that lead to the establishment of a new American church in 1830, one called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and known by the public as Mormonism. By 1838, two native Scots living in Ontario, Canada, converted to the new religion, which they then introduced to Scotland on a trip back to visit family. They began preaching in Glasgow in 1840, and one decade later, several thousand Scots had joined the new religion.

Now for the Gillespie matches. The family trees of two small DNA matches to me trace back to Robert Easton (b 1751) and Ann Gillespie (b 1760). This couple apparently lived in New Monkland, Lanark, Scotland, an area 11 miles northeast of Glasgow and part of a municipal burgh called Airdrie. Large beds of coal and ironstone were mined from this area throughout the 19th Century. Here is one description of nearby Coatbridge in the 1840s:

"There is no worse place out of hell than that neighbourhood. At night, the groups of blast furnaces on all sides might be imagined to be blazing volcanoes at most of which smelting is continued on Sundays and weekdays, day and night, without intermission. From the town comes a continual row of heavy machinery: this and the pounding of many steam hammers seemed to make even the very ground vibrate under one's feet. Fire, smoke and soot with the roar and rattle of machinery are its leading characteristics; the flames of its furnaces cast on the midnight sky a glow as if of some vast conflagration. Dense clouds of black smoke roll over it incessantly and impart to all the buildings a peculiarly dingy aspect. A coat of black dust overlies everything."

Robert Easton and Ann Gillespie had a son, Robert Easton, Jr., born in 1796. In 1814, Robert Jr. married Elizabeth Laird, and they had 10 children before Robert Sr. died in 1849. According to the 1841 Census of Scotland, his occupation had been in the coal mines.

Now comes the amazing part, or the beginning of it. On 2 Mar 1850, a ship called Hartley sailed from Liverpool with 109 Latter-Day Saints on board, including Elizabeth Easton and two of her children. On 2 May 1850, the ship arrived in New Orleans where the passengers then traveled up the Mississippi River to St. Louis. There they met other of Elizabeth's children who had departed for America earlier. The family worked in coal mines as they had in Scotland until they had what they needed for the trip west to establish Zion. They traveled on what is now called the Mormon Pioneer Trail, which extended 1300 miles from Nauvoo, IL, to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah.  Some of the Eastons settled in Utah, and others continued to California.  Elizabeth Easton died in Gilroy, Santa Clara, CA in 1860 at the home of her son, George -- over 5000 miles from the coal mines of Monkland, Lanark, Scotland.

So for all my wondering about the religious associations of our Gillespie clan, we have never considered that a faith started in America might have also contributed to Gillespie migration away from Scotland. But maybe converting to Mormonism was more about existing religions of the time giving little help or hope to those living in poverty and despair, while a faraway vision espoused the idea that earnest goodness was enough to recognize simple people as saints. Whatever the true impetus for launching such a remarkable journey, the power of believing in something better had everything to do with finding Gillespie DNA traces among LDS descendants today.

Reflecting on this story gives me pause in our own trying times. With or without theology, what is it that inspires us to endure the worst and believe in the best, to reach beyond ourselves and our circumstances into the unknown? If the only promise of life is that being alive makes a difference, then the ancestors embraced that promise with their own determination. I want to be in that number.

Juneteenth

This post comes about because of a faint DNA match between me with 0% African ethnicity and somebody with 75% African ethnicity. Her family tree points to a direct ancestor named Gillespie, and while the reason for the match between us might not relate to that surname, the story I am uncovering is beside the point of how we are related. This story is about all of us, and for that reason, the story deserves much more detail than I can put in this blog post. But today is one of those days, and I want to talk about it.

This story is set in Wayne County, Kentucky in the 1800s, in the years surrounding and including the American Civil War, 1861-1865, which still stands as America's bloodiest conflict. Kentucky was a border state between the North and the South and when the War Between the States broke out, the KY governor issued a proclamation of neutrality in the spring of 1861. But a shadow government favoring KY secession was formed, which then was accepted by the Confederacy in Dec. 1861 as the 13th Confederate state.

The dual governments in KY caused many family divisions with some sons fighting for the North and some for the South. About 100,000 Kentuckians served for the Union, and between 25,000-40,000 for the Confederacy.  In January 1862, the Confederates were defeated in the Battle of Mill Springs, which is geographically at the heart of the story being told here. 164 souls died there that day, another 611 were wounded or missing.

And now to the Gillespies. From my research, two Gillespies, James and Robert, both white, came to Wayne County just before 1820. They may have come from either VA or NC, and why they settled in Wayne is unknown. Based on a study of the records, I surmise that James and Robert were probably brothers, or they were otherwise closely related.

Robert Gillespie had a son named William, 1808-1855, who married the daughter of James Cowan, Nancy. This William Gillespie left a will which named the slaves apparently in his possession at that time:

• Perry & his wife Rebecca, and their children Isaac and William
• Rose & her son Louis
• Lucinda & her child Green (?)

William's will stated that these slaves should go equally to his sons and daughters upon their mother's death. William also gave some additional instruction about the slaves:  "regarding the negros comfort and well being it is further my will that the negros belonging to me be kept in the family as long as they behave well and if any should become refractory and ungovernable, then it shall be the duty of my executors to hire such refractory slaves for the best price that can be had until they make amends."

At this point, I can hardly bear to continue this research because of the painful reality of white Gillespies directing so casually the fate of black Gillespies, who never chose the Gillespie name to begin with. But white William Gillespie gave us some important clues, the given names of his slaves. Do these names tie into the family tree of the black DNA match?

The black Gillespie family tree goes back to William Gillespie, born abt 1846 in KY; married to Lucy Jane, and by 1870 (post Civil War) appeared living in Mill Springs. In 1880, his children included Mary C., Rebecky J., Marthy T., Lueverney, Eddy J., and William P.  Lucy appeared in 1900 as a widow with two children: Perry, age 20, and Otho, age 18.  Lucy was last enumerated in 1910 at the age of 72 living with two sons, Perry W., 32, and Issac O, 23, and two grandsons, Ira M., 7, and Odis, 4.

Here's what I think. Given the names that appear in the black Gillespie family group, I believe the name patterns are repetitions from the slaves named in white William Gillespie's will in 1855:  Perry, Rebecca, Isaac, and William. If this is true, the child slave named William, the one recorded in white William Gillespie's 1855 will, was the same black man named William Gillespie who was free after the Civil War and then started his family with Lucy Jane.

Can we back this idea up with evidence?

• The 1850 Slave Schedule for white William Gillespie does not show a male slave who would have been the right age to be black William Gillespie, and yet by 1855, white William Gillespie recorded a slave child, William.  Here's how I think that happened.  Remember James Cowan, father of William's wife, Nancy Cowan?  The 1850 census showed that Cowan had 11 slaves, one including a male around the age of 5 -- just the age of the slave William we are looking for. Cowan's will specified that his slaves should go to his wife, and after her death to his sons-in-law James R. Wilhite and William Gillespie. I contend that white William Gillespie probably inherited the slave child named William from the Cowan family.
• The 1860 Slave Schedule for white Nancy Gillespie (widow of William) recorded 9 slaves, including one male, 15, mulatto. I contend this might have been black William Gillespie.

Oh, but there is still more. After April, 1864, African American soldiers were recruited and about 24,000 black Kentuckians joined the fight for their freedom.  I found documentation dated 1 Aug 1864, showing one William Gillespie, age 20, black, farmer born in Wayne, KY enlisted for 3 years. In the remarks we see "Owner Billy Gillespie." This black William Gillespie served the duration of the Civil War in the 6th US Colored Cavalry.  There is also an index entry for a pension application made by Lucy Gillespie for a William Gillespie of the 6th USCC. That William Gillespie was declared an invalid in 1891 (which is maybe why he was not enumerated in 1900), and Lucy was noted as a widow on 8 May 1906. Thus ended the life of a remarkable man named William Gillespie who had been born into slavery, and was known by an owner's name. But no matter the origin of his name, black William Gillespie joined the ranks of those fighting for freedom, which he ultimately gained and independently lived for another 40 years.

Summarizing this story does not provide half the justice due to the black Gillespies, nor does it answer all the questions. Even if the white Gillespies inherited the black Gillespies as slaves from the Cowans, where did the slaves come from originally? Who were their families and what were their stories? Is it still possible to find out? And what about Billy Gillespie, the owner who let black William Gillespie enlist to fight for the Union?  As far as I can tell, Billy must have been the son of white William and Nancy Gillespie, William K. Gillespie, 1844-1905. But it's still hard to piece this puzzle together. White William was about the same age as black William. And certainly Nancy was still alive in 1864, and I'm not sure that William K. at age 19 or 20 would have been able to authorize the enlistment of black William, especially given that there was no signature of the owner on the enlistment papers. I haven't found any evidence that the white Gillespies served for the militia of either side, so we don't know where they stood. Were white William and black William friends, having grown up together? Or did white William enlist black William for manumission and thus expect some compensation for black William's service? Or maybe black William just ran away to join the Union army. So many questions about what really happened.

And then there's the slight DNA match between the black Gillespie family and mine. Whatever that means, surely it includes my own desire to atone for the captivity and degradation and violence forced upon generations of black Americans, then and now. Most importantly for today, Juneteenth, I write to raise my voice in a flawed and still struggling America to honor the memory of all our ancestors and to strive for the continuing realization of what it truly means, freedom for all.

NOTE:  See also my related research on Mixed Race DNA matches.