The Long Way Home; South Carolina Depositions

South Carolina, Pendleton District at the house of William Sutherland on this 8th day of August, A.D. 1844, Nancy Wade appearing before us as above about eighty-two years old after being sworn on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God deposith as follows:

Question 1st. by L.S. Gash agent for the defendants,

Are you acquainted with the parties in this suit?

Answer by witness,

I have no acquaintance with Sarah Johnson nor Martin A. Gash but was well acquainted with Phebe Johnson and William West and Nancy West his wife several years ago when they lived in this County.

Question 2nd by the same,

How long since you first got acquainted with Phebe Johnson and what was her general character at that time?

Answer by the witness,

I came to this county and settled in A.D. 1801, Phebe Johnson lived near to me on the South Fork of the Saluda. I think on Mr. Roper's land. Phebe Johnson afterwards moved over close to the Roper's house and shortly afterwards had a child that was said to be Benji Roper's. There was a heap of fuss about her and Roper about that time. She was called a bad woman!

Question 3rd by the same.

Do you know if Pheobe Johnson when she left this County or who took her from this county when she moved off?

Answer by the witness,

Some time after she had this child to Roper, she took up and lived in adultery with Mr. Johnathan Delaine who shortly afterwards took her off from this county and I never seen her since to my recollection,

and further this witness saith not.

Signed by an X Nancy Wade. ( side note. Not that the blogger knows that it happened but I have completed my share of affidavits and always get to review them before signing. Therefore, I try to distinguish between an X and a signature because it is very likely that anyone signing with an X could not read what the transcription really said. I have no reason to believe that anything was written down falsely on purpose but often even in modern depositions where a professional legal transcriptionist is utilized, what is said can be misinterpreted incorrectly and recorded. )

Blogger notes: By now, if I have explained myself well, it is my opinion that biologically none of the descendants of Eli Johnson have one drop of Johnson blood in us!

More evidence will be presented as we proceed but based on my DNA testing as provided in the previous post plus the evidence of the sworn depositions from the early 1840's, we are descendants of Benjamin Roper and Phoebe (Dennis?) Johnson.

Two points that need further explanation. I do not know the sur-naming convention of that era so it is very possible that one would take the name of one's mother if the biological father as well as the estranged husband were out of the picture and neither claimed paternity or helped support the child.

By now, legally, I am sure that we are Johnsons as shown on our birth certificates. And, I want to make it abundantly clear that in south Blount County and northern Monroe County, we have been identified as Johnson's for well over 200 years. No family is perfect, by I am proud of the Johnson name because as long as I have been around, I believe that our reputation is one of honesty, hard work, faith and a strong moral compass. At least that was the way that I was raised and as best that I know my cousins, their upbringing was not much different.

Yet. overall, as I discovered this information, it just stunned me and was not what I expected to find after looking for evidence of Reuben Johnson and his lineage for almost 50 years. In our part of the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, birth control was unavailable or not used for religious reasons it appears until after my parents were born. I have not counted or really reasonably estimated the number. However, my best guess based on the number of children that Eli Johnson and Mary Winchester had and their descendants had until after my parents generation ( when all were living, I had 19 aunts and uncles by blood not counting spouses ), there are at least 20,000 people that likely descended from Eli and Mary many still located in southern Blount County but some dispersed all over the nation at this point who like me believe that we were descended from the Johnson family.

Therefore, I thought that a note was appropriate just to absorb the impact of this information. Most likely, it will never impact our daily lives nor our reputation. But, it could as with my sister. After many extensive DNA tests, I am fairly certain that our immediate family's "Old Silk Road" ancestry came to us in some manner from the Howard-Lambert side as I mentioned in the previous post. Again, probably no impact on our daily lives but I cannot be sure until I get the results from two more DNA tests.

Two final thoughts: If anyone wants to determine if they have the "Old Silk Road" ancestry, I recommend CRIgenetics. They are not the most customer friendly DNA testing vendor, but they are the only one that I have found among the popular testers who go back up to 50 generations if you have identifiable markers associated with your heritage go back that far. Most all of them will get you back only 4 to 5 generations.

Between Mamaw Doll's awesome memory and the work of the Hill's ( Max, Barbara from California and others ) on Papaw's side, I pretty much had 5 generations from very early on in my research.

However, I had to go back a little further to find the genes most commonly associated with Behchet's Syndrome. Just a side note, at this point, my family had 5 generations living until last summer. My great niece has a child. Therefore, now that I have some age on me, 5 generations back for me is 8 for my great grand nephew ( if that is the term ). Those of you in my generation that have children and/or grandchildren, I have fairly well documented information into their 7th or 8th generation. I have almost gotten everyone either to their immigration point or at least across the mountains. I hope to get each ancestor back to their immigration point of origin. That will probably not happen in my lifetime but I am already excited about how many Revolutionary War veterans that I have found. I hope that others can build upon this research in the future.

Finally, according to James McCall, Eli Johnson was buried in the "old Williamson Chapel Cemetery". It is now called by a different name and I did not even know that it existed until Uncle Paul was telling me about a few months back. He said that his mother took him there when he was a young child but at that time he did not really have a concept of whose grave that they were decorating. Currently, this cemetery is fenced in about 200 yards down Williamson Chapel Road from where the church now sits. Last Friday, I went running around a little and got permission from the owner of the surrounding property owners to visit the cemetery this upcoming week. I have little hope of finding Eli's grave because the work that the WPA ( and possibly others ) back in the 1930's and 40's as part of the depression era employment package does not list Eli's name in the cemetery inventory. Additionally, the adjacent land owner stated that only the most recent stones have writing on them. Now that James McCall is deceased, I may never know if Eli is buried there for sure but I would like to at least look for myself.

Superior Court of Law in for the County of Henderson and the State of North Carolina, we have caused to appear before us at the house of William Sutherland of Pendleton District and State aforesaid on the eighth day of August AD 1844, Mr. John Keith esq. as a competent witness aged about 73 years who after being sworn on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God deposith as follows:

Question 1st. by L.S. Gash agent for the defendant,

Are you acquainted with the parties to this suit?

Answer by the witness,

I have seen Sarah Johnson once I stayed all night at Reuben Johnson's about 15 years ago. I saw her there then. I have no other acquaintances with her. I was acquainted with Phebe Johnson about forty or fifty years ago when she lived in this neighborhood. I have no acquaintance with her since.

Question 2nd. by the same,

What was the general character of Pheobe Johnson when she lived in this neighborhood.

Answer by witness,

Not very good. She was said to be kept as an adultress by different men.

Question 3rd by the same,

Was you ever acquainted with one Johnathan Deldine if so what was his general character?

Answer by the witness,

I was acquainted with Deldine about the same time. He never had much character in this County that I ever knew of. He was not a very good looking man. The most I ever heard about his character was about him living in adultery with Phoebe Johnson.

Stay Safe!