The Long Way Home: The Georgia Depositions

Blogger's Note

I am not transcribing all of the affidavits used in court, nor am I necessarily presenting them in chronological order. It appears, however, that the motion to transfer the trial venue from Henderson County, North Carolina, to Haywood County, North Carolina, was ultimately successful. There are notable gaps in time between the depositions.

Originally, it appeared that the Tennessee depositions were taken in the same year Reuben died—and within a few months of the claim being filed in September 1843—with the trial date set for September 1844. The depositions immediately preceding this one were taken in the summer of 1844.

As best I can determine, Phoebe's attorney filed several motions during this period, most of which sought summary judgments for sums of money from the estate administrator to cover the plaintiff's legal fees, as well as travel expenses for Phoebe, her daughter Nancy, and Nancy's husband William. The Henderson County Court ruled in Phoebe's favor on the majority of these motions.

It was at that point that the defendant's attorney filed for a change of venue, citing "great prejudice" against the Jordan family in Henderson County. I am not certain of the precise reasons, but there appears to have been a general consensus in the community that the Jordans had taken advantage of Reuben Johnson. I have one additional thought on this matter, though I cannot confirm it: Reuben Johnson seems to have had a preference for women of mixed heritage, as the record suggests that Polly Queane—or Quine—was dark-haired and dark-complexioned. The Jordans appear to have been of very modest means and may themselves have been of mixed heritage, whether of European and African American descent or of European and Native American descent. I have limited evidence to support this, and the venue was not moved a great distance geographically. At least two possibilities present themselves. First, I may simply be mistaken, as most of the mountain counties of North Carolina were likely quite similar in character. Second, and perhaps more plausibly, Haywood County lies in close proximity to the present-day Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian Reservation, and may therefore have had a higher proportion of mixed-heritage residents at the time.

The change of venue also appears to have affected the deposition timeline. The following deposition was taken in May of 1845—nearly one year after the original trial date.

The deposition that follows is that of Ms. Susannah Roper. I believe her maiden name was Harris. Susannah Harris married a Benjamin Roper, born in 1780 and deceased in 1831, who died considerably indebted. She was subsequently compelled to relocate with several children and eventually settled in Lumpkin, Georgia. There is some evidence that she moved there because she had family in the area. One historian told me verbally that he believed there was a poorhouse there at the time.

Based on the tone of her deposition, I do not believe that her husband, Benjamin Roper, was our direct ancestor—though he may well have been the son or father of the man who was. I have been unable to determine the age of our ancestor Benjamin Roper with any precision, nor whether he owned land outright or resided on land belonging to his family.

With that context established, the following is the deposition of Susannah Roper:

State of Georgia, Lumpkin County

By virtue of the above commission from the Superior Court of Henderson County, North Carolina, we caused Susannah Roper and Isham Harris (It may be of interest to note that a notable Tennessee Governor bore the name Isham Harris—a subject worth exploring at another time.) to appear before us at the house of the said Susannah Roper, in the County of Lumpkin, State of Georgia, on this 13th day of May, 1845. Each having been duly sworn upon the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God to answer such questions as may be put to them, touching the several suits now pending in the Superior Court of Law to be held for the County of Henderson, State of North Carolina—wherein Phoebe Johnson is plaintiff and M. A. Gash and others are defendants, and wherein M. A. Gash, executor of Reuben Johnson, deceased, is plaintiff and William West and his wife Nancy and others are defendants—deposed and answered as follows:

Susannah Roper, aged approximately sixty-four years as of the 12th of November last.

Question 1 — by L. S. Gash, agent for M. A. Gash and Sarah Johnson:

Are you acquainted with the parties to these suits?

Answer: I have no acquaintance with Martin A. Gash nor Sarah Johnson, but I was once well acquainted with one Phoebe Johnson and her daughter Nancy, who married a man by the name of William West.

Question 2 — by the same:

Where and when did you become acquainted with the said Phoebe Johnson?

Answer: My acquaintance with the said Phoebe began approximately forty-eight to fifty years ago, shortly after she left Reuben Johnson. She came to live within one mile of where I was residing, with her stepfather, old Mr. Hicks, near the border between the Districts of Greenville and Pendleton in South Carolina, near the Saluda River. My acquaintance with the said Phoebe continued for ten years or more, up to the time she left that county with Jonathan Deldine.

Question 3 — by the same:

What was the general character and conduct of the said Phoebe Johnson during the time you were acquainted with her, after she left Reuben Johnson?

Answer: Her general character was what I would describe as very bad. She remained for some time at her stepfather's home, and while there she had a child. She afterward took her children and moved to within one-half mile of where I was then living. She was kept as an adulteress by one Meredith Kesterson (It may be worth noting that Meredith was a common male given name during this period and was frequently used within the Roper family. I believe this individual may have been either Benjamin Roper's nephew or grandson. I located him in the Pulaski, Kentucky census of 1810 or 1820.) and Benjamin Roper, with one or the other present on various nights. While living there, she had another child. Shortly thereafter, she took up with and lived as an adulteress with one Jonathan Deline, approximately four or five miles from where I then resided, until Deline's wife threatened legal action against them for cohabitation. (I have found evidence that Deline left a son fatherless by his South Carolina wife. That son appears to have later become a Methodist minister. It also appears that Deline married again shortly after leaving Phoebe—first in Roane County, then relocating to Morgan County, where he had several children by his second wife. It further appears that Phoebe Johnson's daughter, also named Phoebe, may have been Deline's child. She married Abraham Ridge and remained in Blount County. More details on this will follow in due course. Deline appears to have been a man of particularly poor character, having abandoned both his son and the boy's mother without any provision whatsoever. I have since been contacted by some of that son's descendants, who had assumed he was an only child and were unaware that their ancestor had fathered additional children.) They then left that county together, and I have not seen either of them since.

Question 4 — by the same:

Can you describe the said Phoebe Johnson, her children, and the said Jonathan Deldine?

Answer: The said Phoebe was a small woman with a downcast appearance. (The precise word used in the original manuscript is difficult to decipher. The mid-nineteenth century cursive is particularly challenging to read, and the word may be rendered as "downcast" or something phonetically similar—I have done my best with the available text.) She had two children when she arrived in that neighborhood, and both were cross-eyed. She had four children when she departed. The other two—named Polly and Eli—were born in that neighborhood. They did not resemble the other children. As for the said Deldine, he was very nearly the most unkempt, disagreeable, and ill-favored man I have ever encountered.

To be continued.