Early Groundwork: Show Notes
This episode is dedicated to the memory of the brilliant Neil Bowman Todd (1936-2014), who was the head of research services at the National Genealogical Historical Society (NEHGS).
“In genealogy, you start with yourself and work your way backwards…”
In March, 1997, Jill Sim writes an email to Vassar College, which had graduated both her grandmother and great-grandmother. Jill learns from Vassar’s Alumnae Association that her great-grandmother Anita Hemmings is considered the first African American graduate of the school.
This prompts Jill to reach out to the New England Genealogical Historical Society (NEHGS) in Boston to learn something about Anita’s background, and her parents.
Harvard trained biologist Neil B. Todd finds death record returns for Anita’s father, Robert Williamson Hemmings, and mother Dora Logan, both born in Virginia.
Neil also furnishes Jill with Dora’s entry in the 1870 federal census, the first to include the full names of African Americans. Jill uses this data to create an initial sketch of Dora’s life in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in the post-Civil War period.
Dora Logan listed in the 1870 census for Harrisonburg, Rockingham County, Virginia.
References:
Quoted: Email from Georgette Weir, ed., Vassar Quarterly, Vassar College, to Author, March, 4, 1997.
Death Record for Robert Hemmings, furnished by Neil Todd of the New England Historical Genealogical Society, transcribed by Joan S. Leland, on June 18, 1997. Also see: Robert W. Hemmings in collection: Massachusetts, U.S. Death Records, 1841-1915. Ancestry.com.
Grant’s instruction and certain coverage of the burning of the Shenandoah Valley in Leadership and Generalship During the Civil War: Shenandoah Valley Campaigns of 1862-1864. Presented by Peter Cozzens and Jeffry D. Wert. Virginia Military Institute. March 22, 2012. American History TV. Cspan.org.
More on The Burning: “Philip Sheridan’s Valley Campaign, 1864: The Burning.” Cedar Creek & Belle Grove National Historic Park. National Park Service. Last Updated January 30, 2023. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-burning-shenandoah-valley-in-flames.htm. Accessed 9 June 2023.
And: John L. Heatwole. “The Burning: ‘The Fire and Sword of the War.’” Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District. https://www.shenandoahatwar.org/burning-article-1. Accessed 28 Aug 2024.
War and the Shenandoah Valley: Krick, Robert K. Conquering the Valley: Stonewall Jackson at Port Republic (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1996), p. 16.
Dora Logan in the 1870 census: United States Federal Census (1870), Harrisonburg, Rockingham County, Virginia. Series #593, Microfilm #1676, pg. 180.
Harrisonburg historical background at the City of Harrisonburg website. https://www.harrisonburgva.gov/history.
Descriptions of American Hotel in Wayland, John W. Historic Harrisonburg (Harrisonburg: C.J. Carrier Company, 1990 ed.).
Captain John Milton Locke data in U.S., Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865, database at Ancestry.com; from The Virginia Regimental Histories Series.
Profile of Lucy Simms in MacAllister, Dale E. Lucy Frances Simms: From Slavery to Revered Public Service (Harrisonburg, VA: Lot’s Wife Publishing, 2020).
For more on the (Pro Union) Gray family of Harrisonburg, see Wayland, John W. Historic Harrisonburg (Harrisonburg: C.J. Carrier Company, 1990 ed.); and: Langhorne, Orra. Southern Sketches from Virginia: 1881-1901 (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1964); and MacAllister, Dale E. Lucy Frances Simms: From Slavery to Revered Public Service (Harrisonburg, VA: Lot’s Wife Publishing, 2020).
American Hotel as a “First Class House” in The Valley Virginian, Staunton, Virginia, June 1, 1871, pg. 1. Newspapers.com.
The hotel’s policy of “Positively No Credit” is from: Wayland, John. A History of Rockingham County Virginia (Harrisonburg, Virginia: C.J. Carrier Company, reprint, 1996), p. 152.
Walter Plecker in father Jacob Plecker household, Year: 1870; Census Place: District 3, Augusta, Virginia; Roll: M593_1634; Page: 116B.
Black Virginian families Plecker proposed were passing: Plecker, Walter. "Letter from Walter A. Plecker to Local Registrars, et al. (December 1943)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. Accessed 6 June, 2023.
Some information about Plecker’s work and influence is illustrated in Joe Heim: “How a Long-Dead White Supremacist Still Threatens the Future of Virginia’s Indian tribes.” Washington Post, July 1, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/how-a-long-dead-white-supremacist-still-threatens-the-future-of-virginias-indian-tribes/2015/06/30/81be95f8-0fa4-11e5-adec-e82f8395c032_story.html . Accessed 22 Oct., 2020
Note: Virginia’s prohibition against marriage and sexual relationships between known non-whites and whites, which dictated customs, mores, attitudes, and secrecy, for centuries, was only overturned in 1967.
Depictions of post-war violence in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in Wayland, A History of Rockingham County, p. 157.
W.E.B. DuBois quoted from DuBois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), p. 26.
Shenandoah River flooding in Wayland, A History of Rockingham County, p. 166, and damage to American Hotel by fire in Wayland, Historic Harrisonburg, pp. 141-142.
Certificate of Marriage for Robert Hemmings and Dora Logan. October 24, 1871. Rockingham County, Virginia. Virginia Department of Health – Division of Vital Records.
Original Music by Al Sim:
March of the War Gods
Mystery 1
Mystery 3 – Italian Harpsichord
Fair Use/Royalty-Free:
Pixabay:
Airy Meditation Background-Rockot
Blue Ridge Mountain - Acouticeeg
Irish Dance- Jig -Alban_Gogh