Tallying and Tracing

Though we are now able to trace Hester's origin back to Georgia from Florida—and that, presumably, of her son, the man who eventually came to be known as King Stockton—that is not enough to explain where the rest of Sidney Tison McClellan's inheritance of slaves came from, nor what became of those listed in Job Tison's probate file after his passing in 1824.

Job's will stipulated that specific slaves were to go to specific descendants. Tom, Judy, Ned, and Maria were willed to Job's wife, Sidnah Sheffield Tison. Job's son Aaron received a slave named Ben, while his daughter Melinda received Phyllis, his daughter Susan received Clarissa, and his daughter Theresa received Lydia. Son William was to inherit Peter, and another son, John, was promised Joe. In addition, two of Job Tison's grandchildren were named in the will—for Eliza Carter was the slave called Patty, and to Job Carter went Frank.

One other enslaved person was mentioned by name in Job Tison's will: "My Negro Woman named Mary Ann and her future increase I wish left undivided until my youngest child shall become of age."

However, when looking at the "inventory" of all Job Tison's household goods—which included eighteen enslaved people—the names don't seem to agree with the listing in Job's will. The presumption would be that those specifically mentioned in his will were not to be included in this listing.

Though somewhat challenging to read, the list contained the following names: John, Jack, Sam, Harry, Jim, Rose, Caty, Mary, Mary Ann, Charlotte, Amy, Phoebe, Hannah, George, Rick [?], Moses, Dick, and Anak. With the exception of Mary Ann, for whom the stipulation provided that she and her "future increase" were to be "left undivided," no other name on the probate list matched those individuals mentioned in Job Tison's will, despite the fact that several of his children were still underage.

My question, then, seeing that Job's daughter Sidney had, at the time of her own death, several slaves considered to be her own—not her husband's—had any of those come, originally, from the Job Tison plantation, as had Hester?

Another question: if King Stockton came, as an infant, from the Job Tison Plantation, where was his father? There was no mention of another King in the listing for Job's own holdings, though that was the name of our King Stockton's father, according to his biography.


Above: Listing of eighteen enslaved people from the estate of Job Tison, deceased in 1824, from the probate file as found at Ancestry.com.

The Tison Timeline

If the history of the former McClellan slave Hester and her son, King Stockton, is tied to the story of her early adulthood, to pursue that story means we must abandon the George McClellan plantation in Wellborn, Florida, and remove ourselves to the Tison plantation in coastal Georgia. The King Stockton biography mentioned that his mother came to Wellborn, Florida, from Glynn County, Georgia, along with the infant King.

The location specified in the King Stockton biography was the property of a man called Job Tison. He, however, was long dead before King Stockton was even born, further fueling the idea that the reason both King and the enslaved Hester were listed in the probate records for George McClellan's wife was that she had, as we suspected, inherited them from her father's estate. Let's take a look at what we can find of those records.

First, though both George McClellan and his parents, Charles and Elizabeth McClellan, originated in South Carolina, they were all likely residents of northern Florida by 1830. Charles and Elizabeth can be accounted for in the 1830 census in Hamilton County, just to the west of Columbia County and north of where George later settled in what was to become Suwannee County.

Though the connection between the McClellan family and that of Job Tison in Georgia certainly needs to be explored further, apparently the McClellans had first settled, after leaving South Carolina, in Camden County, Georgia. Though not clear from the 1820 census record—the surname appears as "McLenon" rather than McClellan—this may be the entry for our McClellans. Though the surname was not exactly correct, Charles was listed just below an Andrew, who likely would be his brother, if that McLenon was simply a mistaken, similar-sounding surname entry.

Charles McClellan, it turns out, may not only have been a resident of neighboring Camden County, but even a close acquaintance of Job Tison. Thanks to a cooperative effort with another King Stockton researcher who has shared with me the link to an online transcription of Job Tison's will, we can see his final testament was drawn up in the presence of a man by the name Charles McClellan.

In that Tison will, drawn up on February 3, 1824, Job made various stipulations, perhaps since several of his children were still minors. However, one thing was clear: the woman known as Hester was gifted by Job to his daughter Sidnah.

Job Tison died not much later—some records state the date as February 5—and by September 6 of that same year, his wife, also named Sidnah, was appointed executrix of the Tison estate.

In a move not unlike the one we witnessed after daughter Sidney's death, when her husband promptly remarried, mother Sidnah before her had done the same, marrying a man by the name of Michael Peck on October 29, 1825.

Meanwhile, the Tison estate was still in probate, and several of the Tison children were still underage. By September 25, 1830, though, the twenty-four year old Sidney Tison—"Isabelle Sidnah," according to a transcription of Glynn County marriage records—was married to George Edmund "McClelland" and presumably took with her to Florida her inheritance from her deceased father.



Above: Excerpt from the 1820 census showing the "McLennon" entries, and the 1824 appointment of Sidnah Tison as executrix of her husband's estate, courtesy Ancestry.com.

The Stockholm Syndrome's Obverse

If the Stockholm Syndrome is the paradoxical development by hostages of sympathetic sentiments toward their captors, then, turning that definition on its head, what would you call it when it is the captors who develop sympathies for their hostages?

If you don't have an answer to that question just yet, hang with me. I promise this will lead to an observation about genealogy.

Any hostage situation in which the violent captor, in spite of behaviors calculated to incur severe reactions of fear, comes to be seen, in the eye of his captives, in a more positive and even sympathetic light can be dubbed a case of Stockholm Syndrome. While this curious psychological dynamic was dubbed with its name after the resolution of a bank robbery gone bad, in which the perpetrator took four bank employees hostage and held them captive for six days. After their release, the hostages not only refused to testify against their former captors, but actually began raising money for their defense.

As you likely have surmised, that bank robbery occurred in Stockholm, Sweden.

The label, Stockholm Syndrome, has since come to be applied to similar relationships formed in spite of other types of abusive relationships: human trafficking, sexual abuse, terror, and other forms of oppression.

In mulling over the situation regarding the King Stockton story, and some oral reports reflecting on the relationship between King, his mother Hester, and my McClellan ancestors—indeed, of any other genealogically-uncovered story of inordinate connections between slaves and masters—I've struggled to ascertain exactly what the psychological dynamics were between those household members, and even, in some cases, relationships between slave and master which went beyond that to actual relationships of kinship.

Wouldn't there be some form of resentment? I've thought of slave-holding men's wives: how did they feel, knowing the child just borne by one of their slaves was actually their husband's son? Wouldn't it be akin to the feeling a wife experiences in our own times when she discovers her husband has been cheating on her?

Or take it from the perspective of siblings: how would the white children of a slave-holder see their half-sibling from an enslaved member of their household?

And from an entirely different perspective, how would the enslaved woman feel, having been so abused? How did, for example, a Sally Hemings receive the amorous advances of a man who, in reality, also held the supreme and final word about her well-being?

In thinking this over, as it related to what I'm beginning to uncover in the story of King Stockton, it is difficult to juxtapose what surely must have been the case during that era of separated "races" with the tender endearment expressed through gestures reported in oral traditions in our family. I have discussed this entanglement with other researchers who have also traced lines of the enslaved, particularly of mixed-race heritage, and others have found inferences of care taken to give preference to such individuals who, eventually, could be demonstrated to actually be blood relatives.

But how did such victims feel about what they were going through? I know there has been a genre of fiction that romanticized the pre-Civil War era of the old South; my mother's disdain at her mother for reading such books is a distinct memory I have of both women, though I couldn't tell you the title of any such stories. On the other hand, to read histories of egregious mistreatment of human beings on the basis of their position as slaves hardly leads me to think that any enslaved person could have truly developed warm and accepting feelings toward their captors.

The search is on—at least for me—to find any indication that there was any middle ground in relationships between the enslaved and their slave-holding masters. One possible resource, as was mentioned by reader Lisa in a comment yesterday, is to consult Civil War diaries. Of course, there are several books on this same subject which I am considering, including one I hope to review later this month.

That tenuous interpersonal relationship, though, reminds me of the Stockholm Syndrome. In a situation so radically opposite of warm human emotion, the paradox is that—sometimes—those very accepting emotions do develop.

And yet, the Stockholm Syndrome, while a handy moniker to depict such interpersonal psychology gone wrong, is exactly the opposite of what we'd see in an intimate (I'm putting it delicately, here) master-slave relationship. The captive is not warming to the captor; it's the captor who is experiencing a shift of perception. Not, necessarily, toward the victim, but more likely something developing as an outward manifestation of an inward shift: the slave owner seeing himself in a more benevolent light—perhaps even to assuage conscience.

While I am still experimenting with this exploration of just how an enslaved person would feel toward the person enslaving her, I realize that turning the definition of the Stockholm Syndrome on its head does turn out to have a name of its own: the Lima Syndrome. Just as the Stockholm Syndrome got its name from the place where its strange behavior first manifested itself, the Lima Syndrome was also named for a violent event occurring in a city—this time, in Lima, Peru.

The history of the Lima Syndrome involved an event in which a militant group took hostage hundreds of high level government officials at an occasion at the home of the Japanese ambassador to Peru. The definition for the Lima Syndrome, following at least the initial few days of its ultimately tragic outcome, is said to have been when the abductors develop sympathy for their hostages. Although the originating incident itself doesn't clearly represent the later definition applied to it, the concept may be usefully applied to the curious psychological contortions demonstrated in some stories of slave-holding families.

Whether psychological models built on the backs of violent episodes in modern life apply to the interpersonal dynamics experienced in even the most benevolent of slave-holding households of a bygone century, I can't say. I think a lot more needs to be explored on this topic. Of course, I'll keep reading—and gratefully accepting any suggestions for helpful material to explore. But rather than dismiss those oral histories out of hand, I need to first seek out any other family members' memories of the stories about the family during that era. That family memory, as we've already seen in the long-standing disdain for George McClellan's second wife Celestia, tenaciously will not forget past wrongs; let's hope that tenacious grip on memory will also serve us in the more positive of those remembrances as well.   

The Reliability of Oral History

Any family history researcher who has heard that his or her family descended from a Cherokee princess understands the risks of relying on oral history. On the other hand, the less outrageous of oral history reports—the "there were three brothers" story openers come to mind here—sometimes beguile us into believing their seemingly reasonable claims.

But what if all a family has is an oral history? After all, there are some cultures which preserve their history through oral tradition. What then? And, as a hybrid example, what about those cultures—say, the seventeenth century Irish Catholics forbidden to learn how to read—which at one time were not able to use a written format for their history?

There probably are a lot of us, in researching our genealogy, who discover that our family story is contained, in part, in an oral history. I don't know how you feel about such a discovery, but my first reaction is to shy away from accepting it. Doubting Thomas that I am, I want first to research it—to find the documentation to bolster the claims passed down through the generations.

Keeping that in mind, you can understand how reticent I am to admit to having some of those oral histories. One, thankfully, was borne out already—but only after decades of letting the story lie, closed up in the back of my mind. I didn't really know how to pursue proving that an unnamed slave on a family plantation eventually had his life story published in book form—even if a copy of that book was supposedly given to my relatives.

But now I know even the most unsearchable stories can indeed be tracked down and documentation located. The key, it seems, came through the very thing we are so reticent to do: admit that we have oral stories, and be brave enough to put them out there.

So, here is the oral story I learned from my mother's cousin, the gracious lady who escorted me through the family properties in Wellborn during my visit to Florida last month. According to this cousin, King Stockton's mother was a beloved personal assistant to my third great grandmother.

Beloved? One could hardly use such a word to describe the condition of an enslaved person. The dissonance jars me, deep inside, knowing the abuses of the institution of slavery as it was practiced in this country. And no one actually used that word in describing this situation. Here, though, was a token of what I mean. According to the oral history, this personal assistant, a slave called Hester—whom we later learned was mother of King Stockton—was not only valued in life, but before Sidney McClellan died, she requested that when her slave also died, she be buried at Sidney's feet.

While "at her feet" may sound demeaning, consider one detail of life in early 1860s southern culture: whites were buried in "white" cemeteries, and blacks were not. Segregation was brought down to the tiniest aspect of daily life.

In response to Sidney's dying request, her family protested that that simply wasn't done. There would be an outcry among those living in their small town—or perhaps worse.

I don't know if Sidney's request was ever granted. At this point, I don't even know when Hester—who later took on the surname McClellan, herself—died, or where she was actually buried. I do know, though, that almost a century later, a plaque was inscribed and posted at the gate to the McClellan cemetery, stating something to the effect of "this is to honor the several slaves who were buried here."

Telling, in retrospect, was discovering that, even in our times, that plaque was removed—somehow, it "disappeared"—and no further word was spoken of that possibility. Except for this oral history.

And yet, next to Sidney McClellan's marked grave, there is an unmarked space wide enough for another burial. Was anyone buried there? Could it have been Hester?

Above: Headstone of S. S. McClellan—George McClellan's wife Sidney—in the McClellan cemetery in Wellborn, Florida.

Recalibrating

The better part of the past eight months was spent riveted on just one research goal: the saga of my southern roots. Specifically, the goal was to complete as much of the George McClellan lineage in northern Florida as could possibly be attained before two things happened. One was to attend the Southern Research course this past January at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. The other was my research trip to northern Florida, home of that third great grandfather—and, apparently, at least his father and a few other siblings.

Research being research, a project's end date does not mean the project itself has been completed. Oh, no, think again. That end date simply means we gather up what we've achieved, review the findings, and then move on to a new next step. There is always a next step. In research, answering one question only means the researcher is left with more questions to answer.

And so it was with the McClellan journey. I went, seeking what else could be found about George McClellan, and came back, having met a fifth cousin from a line I wasn't even aware of. I'm working through vetting that research since arriving back home—descendants and all.

I went, wondering what else could be found about a family story of an unnamed former slave and his mother, walked the cemetery where that woman's unmarked grave may likely lie, and returned, more determined than ever to trace that line in both directions—both to the current day and my DNA match (maybe more than one), and back to the past, from where this mother and son originated.

I may have been naive to think that my original McClellan goal could have been completed in less than a year. Now, all I can say for that attempt is: look at all the work it has brought me! In setting the next research goals, I hesitate to place a time frame on the project, now realizing that every discovery leads to many more questions. For now, though, here are my questions:

• Can any documents be found in the county of origin—now targeting Glynn County, Georgia—to provide a list of slaves inherited by Job Tison's daughter Sidney, either before or after her marriage to George McClellan?
• Can comparison of DNA test results between matches linking McClellan and/or Tison descendants with Stockton descendants lead us to indications of King Stockton's mother's parentage?
• Can the ever-burgeoning descendancy chart for Charles and Elizabeth McClellan (George's parents) actually be completed?

These, in the main, are my research concerns. They seem to be so laser-focused on the same project that I wonder whether I'll weary of working with only this one line—suffering a sort of surname fatigue. There are, after all, many other lines in my family's heritage—some of which are likely screaming for attention. I'm not sure I can stand to neglect progress on these other lines for the sameness of a McClellan 2019.

Still, I can't stand not answering research questions. For the foreseeable future—at least until I get stuck, come up empty-handed after diving for long-buried records, or can't just launch into another cross-continental research journey in the same year—this is where I'll spend my time.

Hopefully, some answers will start surfacing, soon.

History versus Genealogy

There is a debate raging inside me, partially prompted by a dispute among some members of my local genealogical society. At some times, it strikes me that the answer should obviously align with one philosophy. At other times—miserable soul that I am—my mind does an about-face and sides with the opposition.

The issue is this: should genealogists concern themselves with the broader picture of history, or should the discipline of genealogy be strictly focused on the matter of correctly documenting lineage?

Of course, I think, everyone should see the reasonableness of letting genealogy focus on, well, genealogy. Let genealogists specialize in that arena, and let others take on the bigger picture of all-things-other.

But then the demon inside rises up and questions how it could ever be possible to understand the people in those lineages—what they were like, what they chose to do with their lives—without understanding the broader issues surrounding them and shaping them.

To stir the pot even further is to recall that history is one side's recounting of what happened. Take, for instance, my observation about the horrendous massacres occurring to neighbors of my early settler ancestors in northern Florida. Yes, that was tragic. But what would that story sound like if told by a descendant on the other side of the conflict?

Even messier is trying to understand the psychological dynamics of the interplay between a white master and a black slave when the outcome includes children of the two. How are those children perceived by each side? Despised? Or welcomed as half-siblings? I know what my guess would be, but I'm stymied by indications that my take on the matter might be totally wrong.

Winners versus losers in wars, in political struggles, in clashes of all kinds between the weak and the strong: how the rest of the story is worked out isn't always what we imagine it will be. Then, too, sometimes the "rest of the story" doesn't always get worked out entirely.

In our local situation, we came face to face with a social media dilemma: should our social media policy include resources for history education? Or limit ourselves specifically to mentions regarding "genealogy"? Does content which presents even a glimmer of consideration for the "other" side in past historic conflicts have a place in a study of family history?

It seems like such a clear dividing line: post only those links which specifically are involved with genealogy, but not those more broadly considering exploration of opposing views of history. Thus, it is permissible to post a flier on a workshop on Japanese American genealogy—but not acceptable to announce a lecture by a locally-respected professor on the "Day of Remembrance" for the anniversary of the February 19, 1942, signing of Executive Order 9066, requiring internment of all Americans of Japanese ancestry.

It seems easy to draw that dividing line. We are, after all, a genealogical society, not a historical society. But can we truly understand our ancestors when we divorce our study of who they were from the broader context of what made them who they were?

Is this my outside voice speaking? My reticent, demure self may be stunned at hearing me voice my conclusion, but I believe—at least, if I am thinking this episode out clearly—that, as uncomfortable as we may feel about another person's viewpoint of how we always understood history, it is incumbent upon us as diligent researchers of our own family history, to be brave enough to open ourselves up to as full a realm of the facts as possible in seeking to understand what made our ancestors who they were.

Not comfortable words for a descendant of slave owners, to be sure. Nor for citizens of a country born and bred on the bedrock of "innocent until proven guilty." But if we are fortunate, we learn, adapt, transcend previous error and move upward. Nobody called us to be error-free, nor our ancestors to be perfect. It's not the mistakes that are egregious; it's the failing to make amends and learn from our ancestors' experiences that will impact our descendants.

There is, if I remember correctly, that little saying about history repeating itself...

Stepping Into Uncertainty

With the story of King Stockton—the former slave whose biography was the little book I always knew about since childhood—it is easy to step forward from that point and catalog his children, grandchildren, and even the descendants he never got to meet.

To move backwards from that point isn't a path as clearly defined. The main obstacle, moving back in time beyond 1865, is entrance into a dark domain in which ancestors of an African-American heritage were not only stripped of their rights, but even of their full name. When we search for King Stockton, before 1865, we can only search for King. How would his descendants know to find King's parents?

Just as I didn't know King Stockton's name but did know part of his story, I also knew about his mother—but as before, I just didn't know her name.

Finding the name of this unknown former slave not only gave me his name, it gave me his mother's. Now I can connect stories with specific individuals.

Part of making that connection, of course, was what led me to obtain a copy of the booklet on King Stockton's life. There, at the very beginning, the biographer—A. L. Lewis—gave us the name of King's parents. It turns out he was named after his father. His mother's name was given as Hester McClellan, a curious detail, knowing that that was the surname of the household in which she and her son spent the remainder of their years of servitude.

The biography also mentions that King Stockton was born on a plantation in Glynn County, Georgia—the property of one "Job Tyson." Job—whose name appeared in various spelling permutations, depending on which record contained it—was a well-known innkeeper along the old post road which once marked the boundary between Wayne County and Glynn County.

It was one of Job Tison's daughters—Sidnah or Sidney by name—who married George McClellan. While I have yet to locate any documentation of that event, the marriage likely happened in Glynn County, Georgia, rather than having an unmarried Sidney travel to George's home in the wilds of frontier Florida for the ceremony. The wedding was likely around 1830—a guess based on the birth of the McClellans' first child in 1831.

We have another source for estimating these murky time spans: that of the King Stockton narrative. According to his biographer, King, born in January, was brought with his mother to Florida at the age of seven months. The narrative of the King Stockton booklet makes it sound very much as if King and his mother were slaves of George McClellan, but if we fast forward to the other end of Sidney's life when she dies, not leaving a will, it turns out King, his mother, and several other slaves were considered the property not of George but of his wife, Sidney.

The question is: if King was born on the Tison plantation and then came to Florida with his mother and with Job Tison's daughter Sidney, wouldn't it be more likely that they were considered property of the Tison family, not the McClellans? Since they are mentioned in Sidney's probate file—though her husband George was still very much alive—wouldn't they have come, previously, as her inheritance from one of her parents?

As it turns out, long before Sidney and George were married, Sidney's father had died and her mother had remarried. Finding Job's will and probate records may help identify any mention of King's father and mother, if they both came from that same plantation.

For this, however, we will need to rely on old fashioned snail mail, for such records are not available on the modern genealogy world's go-to online resources—which, of course, means we will have to wait to uncover the answer. In the meantime, however, next week is probably a good time to start disclosing some of the oral history passed down through my family concerning both King and his mother.