With relative ease, I traced one of my paternal lineages back
to my great-great-grandfather, Peter
Belton of Vicksburg, Warren County, Mississippi. He was found living alone in the 1870
census. That year, his reported age was
23 (born around 1847), and he was the only Belton in the county. His reported birthplace was South
Carolina. I found him again in the 1900 Warren
County census and his reported birth date and birth place were January 1840 in
Mississippi Because of these findings
and no oral history about him, I ascertained that tracing him back even further
would be quite a challenge.
Unfortunately, I was right. A
number of clues were unearthed, but I have been longing to find something that I
consider concrete.
Before I go into a few details about my
research of Peter Belton’s history, let me present a brief synopsis about a very
interesting and notable figure in Mississippi history. His name is Capt. Isaac Ross of Jefferson
County, Mississippi. I believe Peter’s
history is directly connected to this man.
Maybe one day soon, instead of using the terms “I believe”, I’ll be able
to say, “The facts are.” On the other
hand, the circumstantial evidence that I will present just may be
preponderantly adequate for some people to positively tie Peter to Capt. Ross. I’ll love your personal feedback and opinion
about the weight of this evidence.
In a nutshell, Capt. Isaac Ross left Camden, South Carolina in 1808 and
established a large plantation in Jefferson County that was known as Prospect
Hill. When he died in January 1836, his will
stipulated that his plantation be liquidated and the proceeds be used to
provide safe passage for his 200+ slaves to be freed and transported to Liberia
in West Africa through the American Colonization Society (ACS). His will also stipulated that his slaves be
allowed to vote whether or not they wanted to go to Africa as free men and
women. It further stated, “Should the slaves refuse to go there, they
(except those that have been specially named) are to be sold, and the proceeds
paid over to the ACS, to be invested at 6 per cent, the interest to be employed
for 100 years, in maintaining an institution of learning in Liberia, in Africa.
If there shall be no government in Liberia, the said fund to be transferred to
the State of Mississippi for a similar institution.”
Not
surprising, his heirs contested his will and battled it in state courts for nearly
ten years. Well, the enslaved Prospect
Hill laborers grew very frustrated, and they orchestrated a revolt that burned
the Ross mansion to the ground in April 1845.
Luckily, Capt. Ross’s will was finally upheld by law, and on January 7,
1848, the first group of 35 former Ross slaves left New Orleans on the Nehemiah Rich. A second group of 141
sailed out of New Orleans in 1849 on the Laura.
Both groups settled near the towns of
Sinoe and Greenville in Liberia. Their
saga is told in Alan Huffman’s Mississippi
in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy
in Liberia Today.
Let me now present the circumstantial evidence of why I believe one or both parents and/or a
grandparent of Peter Belton may
have been on Prospect Hill plantation.
EVIDENCE A: The estate of Mary Allison Belton, Jefferson
County, Mississippi, 1823 & 1827
In
my quest to determine who Peter Belton’s last enslaver may have been, I quickly
determined from census research that no white Belton families ever resided in
Warren County. I could not even find any white Beltons in the
neighboring counties of southwest Mississippi, although a number of African-American
Belton families were found living in those counties – Jefferson, Franklin,
Claiborne, and Adams County. This seemed
odd. However, an explanation was soon found. Turns out, there was indeed one white Belton who resided in Jefferson County up until 1823. Her name was Mary Allison Belton; someone
had placed a transcription of her will online which named 16 slaves. Dated April 12, 1823, it
also named two nephews, Isaac & Arthur Ross.
Very
interestingly, Internet contacts revealed that Mary Allison Belton, the childless widow of John Belton of Camden, South Carolina, had moved to Jefferson County with Capt. Isaac Ross and his family. Capt.
Ross’s wife Jane Allison was her sister. The nephews she mentioned in her will were their
sons. I soon found her estate record at the
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and an inventory dated Dec. 6,
1827 listed 20 slaves by name, age, and value. Capt. Ross was the executor of her estate. This was a major find, but unfortunately I have
not been able to determine the names of Peter Belton’s parents. Perhaps, someone on this inventory was his
parent? I look at this inventory in wonderment.
1- Bridget
very old wench nothing
2- Harry ditto ditto ditto
(ditto means same as above)
3- Fanny 54 years of age $100
4- Hector
52 years old Stepney 34 years old 800
6- Sam
31 years old Esaw 29 years old 1200
8- Jacob
29 years old Hector 27 years of age 1200
10- Jefferson
25 years old Ben 24 years old 1200
12- Dinah 43
Mathew 7 450
14- Mary
26 years old Laura 4 years old 500
16- Risse
(?) 24 Irn alia worth nothing
17- Henderson
5 years of age Peggy 24 years of age 500
19- Thornton
6 years old Adam 4 years of age 400
6350
EVIDENCE B: Peter Ross and Hector Belton of Liberia
Twenty-four
letters were written by “Ross Negroes” in Liberia to ACS officials in the United States. A man named Peter Ross wrote the most letters before he
died after 1859, and many of them expressed his grievance over the Ross estate
administrators’ failure to submit funds in accordance with the provisions of
Capt. Ross’s will. Seeing the name “Peter”
among the “Ross Negroes” raised my eyebrows.
On October 12,
1849, a man named Hector Belton wrote a letter to John Kerr of the A.C.S. He stated, “….Now my dear sir, knowing you were always kindly and friendly
disposed towards me, even when Capt. Ross were alive, and I now am old and
helpless, can’t work, let me intrude upon you, notwithstanding past events…” Hector Belton was undoubtedly the 52-year-old Hector in the
slave inventory of Mary Allison Belton’s estate, 1827 (see above).
EVIDENCE C: Location
As
I mentioned earlier, Peter was the only Belton in Warren County in 1870. However, considering Warren County’s close
proximity to Jefferson County, one can plausibly surmise that a connection to
Capt. Isaac Ross’s slaves seems very possible.
Perhaps, Peter decided to migrate up to near Vicksburg when he became a
free man?
EVIDENCE D: Peter Belton’s Marriage Record
In
1880, Peter married Mrs. Martha Wilkins (nee Miller) in Warren County. On his marriage record, a man named Jack Ross was his bondsman. Bondsmen on marriage records are often
relatives or long-time friends. In fact, a bondsman named Wesley Johnson was part
of my great-grandfather John Hector Davis’s marriage record. I later learned
from an elder family member that Wesley was a first cousin to John’s
father. Seeing Jack Ross’s name on Peter’s
marriage record was quite an eye-opener.
EVIDENCE E: James Belton’s Accounts
An
online contact encouraged me to get into contact with James Belton of
McComb, Mississippi. He descends from
the Beltons who lived in Franklin County (see map above for its location). Luckily, his contact information was in the
phonebook and I called him up. As a
lover of family history, he was very happy to talk to me. James didn’t know anything about Peter Belton
of Vicksburg, but he shared the following interesting tidbits based on oral
history told to him by his father, Julius Belton, who was born in 1888.
(1) His father had two great-uncles named Wade & Edmond Belton who were part of the
Prospect Hill uprising in 1845. Edmond escaped to Louisiana.
(2)
Most
of the slaves that Capt. Isaac Ross owned and transported to Mississippi in
1808 were obtained from the Belton Family of South Carolina. Many of them were mulattoes and were known as
the “Ross-Beltons”.
These
oral accounts have not been proven with documentation. However, it establishes that the African-American Belton
families in southwest Mississippi in 1870 are likely linked to the enslaved
people on Prospect Hill plantation. Yet, in my personal opinion, the circumstantial
evidence have not been enough to positively prove that Peter Belton is linked to the “Ross-Belton” slaves of Prospect Hill as
well. Or is it?? What are your thoughts? More research will be done to try to determine Peter's parentage, which has been the major brick wall in this research. I can’t let it go! Stay tuned.
