When the Family Stories Don't Add Up

 

There are times, when we work on our family's history, that we realize some things just don't add up. Here I am this month, working to push back the generations on my mother-in-law's Ijams line, when I find myself distracted by something that falls in that category: it just doesn't add up right.

Face it, my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandfather William Ijams, was a child of colonial Maryland. Born in 1748, William was oldest son of a couple living in Anne Arundel County, whose father was a member of the exclusive old South River Club. Looking closely at John Ijams' will, it is clear the man was also a slave-holding planter.

Though William was John Ijams' eldest son, he was not the one named to inherit the prized family property when his father passed away in 1783. That privilege went to the two youngest sons in the family, Thomas Plummer Ijams and Isaac Ijams. To William was granted just one bequest: two of his father's slaves—"and no more."

What was ironic about that abrupt documented dismissal was that William's two youngest brothers eventually sold their inherited residence in 1796—a property which had been held by family members for the prior five generations—and moved with William to the Northwest Territory.

Unless you are deeply involved with the politics which established that Northwest Territory, you may not be aware that two of the men who were instrumental in framing the Northwest Ordinance were both from Puritan-influenced New England, and insisted that the new territory be established as a free territory. In other words, no slavery allowed.

So, my question: what did William do with his sole inheritance, once he decided to move to the frontier which became Ohio? Furthermore, if he did come from a slave-holding heritage, why would he have chosen to remove himself from that position of privilege and move to the edge of civilization, especially with such a restriction?

There is another piece of the Ijams story which can be interwoven into the narrative at this point. While in the previous month, we were able to connect the surnames which married into the Ijams family, we can now see that that research effort will yield us some benefits.

Remember Walter Teal, William's son-in-law, husband of William's daughter Mary? His father, Edward Teal, was one of the first settlers in Fairfield County, Ohio, at about the time of the Ijams family's arrival there. Edward, as it turns out from old history books, was among those who established the first Methodist Church in what eventually became Fairfield County—as "class leader," as one 1901 history book recounted. Other members of that early congregation represented family names of William Ijams' future sons-in-law, demonstrating the close association of William and his family to that early "religious society."

The question at this point may be whether William Ijams came to the Northwest Territory, then converted, changing his entire outlook on slavery as well as other matters of life, or whether he already had bought into those principles before leaving Maryland. Going back to the passage on the first Methodist congregation in Fairfield County, Ohio, author C. M. L. Wiseman noted it was "composed of Methodists who had emigrated from near Baltimore, Maryland." If that early group included William Ijams' family, they likely were of that religious persuasion before deciding to move to Ohio.

While many people who migrated westward went for the promise of a better opportunity in that new home, William Ijams seemed to have chosen to leave his "better" opportunity behind when he made his decision to move. Whatever was involved in that decision, it called for a radical departure from life as he had experienced it through his family's heritage.

Or perhaps John Ijams knew that about his eldest son before he even drew up his will.