This work contains abstracts of all marriage bonds issued in Wilkes County shortly after it was erected from Surry County, to 1868. The 5,000 marriage records abstracted here refer in total to some 15,000 persons, including bondsmen. As is the convention, the data are arranged throughout in alphabetical order by the surname of the groom, and each entry contains the name of the bride, the date of the bond, and the name of the bondsman.
Marriages of Surry County contains abstracts of all extant marriage bonds and licenses for the period 1779 until 1868 when bonds, as prerequisites for licenses, were discontinued. The data in this volume are arranged throughout in alphabetical order by the surname of the groom, and each entry provides the name of the bride, the date of the marriage bond, and the names of the bondsmen, clergymen, and justices of the peace. Altogether the text bears reference to approximately 16,000 persons.
Slavery is a tragic chapter in the history of Wilkes County with a lasting legacy. Prominent businessmen and celebrated civic leaders, like General William Lenoir and William Pitt Waugh, were among the county's largest slaveholders. Judith Williams Barber endured forty-five years of slavery and garnered respect from both white and black residents. Her story is linked to free person of color and noted landowner Henderson Waugh, whose illustrious, slaveholding white father connected the two families--one slave and the other free. Author Larry Griffin takes readers on an emotional journey to separate fact from myth as he chronicles the history of slavery in Wilkes County. Prominent businessmen and celebrated civic leaders, like General William Lenoir and William Pitt Waugh, were among the county's largest slaveholders. Judith Williams Barber endured forty-five years of slavery and garnered respect from both white and black residents. Her story is linked to free person of color and noted landowner Henderson Waugh, whose illustrious, slaveholding white father connected the two families--one slave and the other free. Author Larry Griffin takes readers on an emotional journey to separate fact from myth as he chronicles the history of slavery in Wilkes County.
At the tender age of fifteen, author A. M. Wadkins embarked on a journey that would last her a lifetime. A promise is simple enough on the surface, but in this case, that promise was the driving force that would see a young girl through lifes trials and tribulations. Each day, whether met with happiness or tears, diligence was always the key. It this book, meet the author and learn about the promise she made on a mountaintop in Virginia so long ago. Then travel back through the grains of time with the author asthrough her researchshe meets the people that helped shape the United States. Witness their struggles in defining not only who they would become, but who this country would become. Be there as men are sent off to war to fight for either the North or South. Then continue on through the turning of century, when life seemed golden. Take a walk through history with the people who lived it and get to know the faces that made it possible.
Based on recorded wills and original wills at the North Carolina State Archives as well as "Loose Estate Papers" of intestates, these abstracts cover not only wills but powers of attorney, bonds, inventories, bills of sale, etc. Significantly, Surry County lay within the Granville Proprietary at its formation, and after Lord Granville's death in 1763 until 1778, the Proprietary land office did not reopen, making it very difficult--but for these will abstracts--for the present-day researcher to establish the residence of many individuals during that time period. What is more, as there are no extant marriage bonds for Surry County for the period 1771 to 1780, these will abstracts assume an importance out of all proportion to their customary value.
How could the peace and quiet of Ashe County, North Carolina (in the mountains, at the Virginia-Tennessee corner), turn into a nightmare of crime and drugs, and the old copper mine itself become a dumping ground for the dead? In 1982, two bodies had been chipped from an icy grave and brought up from the 250-foot mine shaft where they had been thrown while still alive. Now, there were rumors of 21 bodies still down there. If the mine was ever re-opened, what would they find--copper or bodies? Murder, drugs, prostitution and gangs come together in the history of the Ore Knob Mine. A small Appalachian community became the heart of a vicious drug ring ruled by the Outlaws motorcycle gang from Chicago. Ashe County made national headlines when a police informant came forward confessing that he had pushed a man alive into the Ore Knob Mine shaft. This book is the full story.
"Far more than a legal thriller, though it is that . . . Some of this tale will sound disturbingly familiar to readers in the 21st Century, all the more reason to consider its lessons. History can come alive in a work of great fiction. This is one of those times." -Frye Gaillard, Civil Rights Historian, Author of A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s July 5, 1900, Wilkes County, North Carolina: The beautiful young daughter of tannery owner Jakob Schumann is found dead on the north bank of the Yadkin River, brutally beaten, a skinning knife in her chest. Who killed Rachel Schumann? And why? Ambitious Wilkes prosecutor Vincent Taliaferro has arrested Virgil Wade, a mulatto boy, and is convinced the case is open and shut. But local lawyer Ben Waterman is not so sure. Ben's investigation uncovers evidence that undermines the prosecutor's case and points in an entirely different direction. But can he prove it? Can he convince an all-White, all-male jury of Virgil's innocence? The Tannery transports readers to the turbulent world of the post-Reconstruction South. Reflecting issues prominent in today's headlines, themes of Black voter suppression and intimidation, the violence and depravity of vigilante "justice," and the rise of Jim Crow drive the narrative to its dramatic and surprising conclusion.
