It’s funny
that the first blog post on my “family research blog” is someone that isn’t
actually one of my own family members, but I find her story so intriguing that
I wanted to share it. Delilah ended up on my family tree because I can’t say “no”
to extended family members – you never know what information you will find for
a sibling or in-law that may help you in your own direct ancestor’s search, so
I add, and add, and add. Especially if they have a good story, which Delilah
definitely does.
According
to Ancestry, Delilah is technically “the wife of the husband of the wife of my
5th great grandfather”. This isn’t as confusing as it sounds. My 5th great-grandfather, David Pridgen, died in
1814, leaving his widow, Pinkey L. Pridgen (his 3rd wife), many
adult children and daughter, Polly Harriett Pridgen, born shortly before his
death. As was the custom with minor children, Polly was assigned a guardian. Although an exact marriage date has not yet
been found, clues in David’s lengthy probate file suggest that sometime around
1820, the widow Pinkey married her daughter’s guardian, Nicholas Lewis.
Polly
unfortunately died while still in her teens in February of 1831, and while no
records have yet been found, there is no mention of her mother Pinkey in the
probate file, so it’s likely that Pinkey herself had died; Nicholas appears on
the 1830 census along with a “free white woman aged 30-39” and it’s reasonable
to assume this is Pinkey, so I believe she died very shortly before her
daughter.
Nicholas
may or may not have been a bereaved husband and stepfather, but he quickly
moved on. And this brings us, finally, to Delilah.
Delilah was
born about 1790 in North Carolina, to Shadrack Hammons, a free man of color,
and his wife, Susannah Delilah Carter. Delilah married Humphrey Revel, who was
also a free man of color, on 28 Dec 1811 in Edgecombe County, and they had two
sons, William and Elijah. Humphrey died in November 1831 (apparently a bad year
for my family) in Nash County, NC, leaving a will in which he left three slaves
and other property to his widow Delilah, but much of her property was “loaned”
to her during her widowhood – meaning if she remarried, she would lose it and
it would likely go to her two sons.
Enter
Nicholas. Now a free man, he quickly set his sights on Delilah and her new
inheritance and began to court her. In February 1832, Delilah petitioned the
court to appoint a committee to assess her estate, claiming that Humphrey didn’t
leave her enough to live on and that she would be better off with a dower in
lieu of what he has specified for her. I strongly suspect that this was
Nicholas’s idea. The court agreed, and Delilah was awarded her dower.
Nicholas continued
to court her, although Delilah resisted – she later claimed that although she
was in love with him, she believed that because she was a free woman of color
and he was white, it would cause social problems and stress their marriage. He
persisted, and on 21 Sep 1832, they were married – not in Nash County, where
they both lived, but in Edgecombe County.
It turns
out Delilah was right, but not for the reasons she imagined: Delilah was
unaware that a law passed in North Carolina in 1830 made interracial marriage
illegal. Nicholas was aware of it though, and it appears likely that he made
arrangements with (bribed) a justice of the peace outside of their own county
to perform a sham ceremony.
At the time
of their supposed marriage, all of Delilah’s property was still in the hands of
her husband’s executor, who refused to divide up the estate’s slaves unless
Nicholas provided him with a security bond (he surely knew the marriage was
illegal). Almost immediately after the wedding, on 1 Nov 1832, Delilah signed a
deed of conveyance, signing her entire estate over to Nicholas for $10.00, “for
and in consideration of the natural love and affection which I have” for him.
Within 10 or 12 days of receiving this deed, Nicholas filed a petition in the
court to divide them. On January 2, 1833, they were divided into three lots:
one to Nicholas “in right of Delilah Revel”, one to Humphrey’s son William, and
one to his son Elijah. Nicholas’s lot included the slaves Frank, Phyllis,
Dinah, Warren and Judy and was valued at $1,060. Nicholas promptly arranged to
swap his own slave Frank for William Revel’s Tom, and promptly took all of
them, and Delilah, to Thomas County, GA – but not before selling 101 acres of
land from Delilah’s dower.
We don’t
know much about their time in Georgia (yet), but we do know that by 16 Dec
1834, Delilah was back in Nash County, NC and had filed a Bill of Complaint in Equity
Court there against Nicholas Lewis and others. She minces no words and calls
Nicholas “an unprincipled adventurer after property, and somewhat embarrassed
in his circumstances”. She believed that he knew the marriage was a “perfect
nullity” and intended all along to get control of her property. She stated that she learned that she was never
lawfully married and that she was still a single woman utterly deprived of the
control of her entire estate, and that if she stayed with Nicholas in order to enjoy
her property she would be in a state of legal adultery and would have no prospects
but violence to her person and destruction to her happiness. She asked that he be required to pay her
$2,600 and the court scheduled her complaint to be heard in the March Term of
1835, but I have yet to find these records.
Meanwhile,
back in Georgia, I found very confusing records. In October 1834 (two months
before Delilah’s complaint in the North Carolina court), a probate case was
recorded in Thomas County for Nicholas Lewis, deceased – including an estate
inventory that included slaves matching the names and descriptions of those
belonging to Delilah. Most of the estate was sold on October 10, 1835, while
the slaves Tom and Warren were sold on February 7, 1836, to a Shadrach Vickery.
However, on
2 May 1835, in the same county (Thomas) in Georgia, an indenture was made between
the supposedly dead Nicholas Lewis and a Benjamin Screws, both of Nash County,
NC, stating that Nicholas had sold the slaves Dinah, Tom, Warren, Julia and
Phillis, who were now in the possession of a Mark Strickland in the Territory
of Florida, for the sum of one dollar. It states that Nicholas is justly
indebted to Delilah Revel for $1,030 due 25 December 1835, and that a George
Cooper is bound as his security; if Nicholas fails to pay the $1030 by the
above date, Benjamin Screws shall proceed to obtain possession of the said
slaves and sell them to the highest bidder for cash (assuming it was to be used
to pay Delilah what was owed her).
And because
this simply isn’t confusing enough, I found an entry on the US Register of Convicts
in Georgia, dated 4 Mar 1835, of one William M.C. Lewis, age 35 and born in
North Carolina, taken into the Morgan County, GA prison for the crime of Stealing
Negroes. I don’t know if this is our Nicholas Lewis (the age and birthplace
match, and while I have seen his name with the middle initial “C”, William is
new – possibly an error or an alias), but Ancestry seems to think it is him as
this document keeps popping up in my searches for him, so it may be worth
following the trail.
I have seen
references to Delilah in several books, as an example of a free person of color
taking a case to court and winning against a white person, so I assume Delilah
was awarded her money by the court (still searching for those documents).
However, whether she ever received the money is in doubt, since it appears
Nicholas either died or faked his death before paying her. Delilah does appear in the 1850 census in Cleveland
County, NC – using her prior married name of Delilah Revel, age 57, listed as
Mulatto, living with her son Elijah and his family. I’ve lost her trail after
that and I’m still following hints. I really want to think that this strong,
brave woman who described herself in her court document as a “free woman of
color within the fourth degree (meaning one-eighth white)”, recognizing her
lower social status and yet refusing to let an unscrupulous white man trample
on her rights – received justice and was able to live out her life in some
peace and comfort. I will continue searching for clues to find out just what
happened to both her and to Nicholas Lewis.
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