The Black Family of Gaston County, North Carolina

Elsey and Mary Black

The earliest records of the Black family are of Thomas Black (1741?-1779) and his wife Elizabeth (1749?-?) in Lincoln County in the 1770s. Thomas owned land on the Broad River where he died in 1779 while only in his late 30s. His widow Elizabeth was one of the executors as recorded in the Lincoln County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions. She also seems to have inherited; in 1797 she gifted the Broad River plantation to her son-in-law, Ambrose Cobb (husband of Rachel Black).

Only the bare facts are known about their son Ephraim (1767-1843). Based on the bequests in his will, he seems to have been fairly well off, with a "plantation", other land, livestock, and unfortunately, slaves. We do know he and his wife Tabitha Holmesley (1778-1854) had at least 12 children, one of whom was Samuel Simpson Black.

Samuel (1807-1882) was known as "Squire", and often helped out his neighbors with legal matters. According to census records he was a farmer, and seemed to have a lot of land. He and his wife Anne Carpenter (1818-1856) had 10 children: Anne's first child was born when she was 18 and her last was born at age 38. She died just two weeks after his birth. One of her sons, Eli, was born almost exactly nine months after his next oldest brother. This makes me think he was born prematurely, especially since he died young. Though this is all speculation, can't you picture the premature infant growing into a sickly boy, who finally at the age of three succumbs to one of the many childhood illnesses prevalent at the time.

One of their surviving children was Elsey (1845-1907) who farmed and raised sheep. He may have served in the Civil War; there's a record of an "E. E. Black" enlisting in 1864 and then deserting/surrendering to the North. He married Mary Byrd (1841-1880) in 1867. Her life was pretty amazing: She married at age 15, had her first child 8 months later, and continued having babies like clockwork every 14 to 21 months afterward. The longest interval between births was 25 months, with her last pregnancy. She died giving birth and her infant daughter died three days later. Elsey never remarried; instead his sister-in-law, Roxanna Byrd came to help raise the other 8 children. Ernest Sellers (his grandson, born 1894) remembered visiting Elsey as a boy; even though she had died in 1880, he could remember that Elsey would sit on the front porch and say "Mary, my Mary" over and over again.

Elsey and Mary's house is still standing. Nearby is the Black Family Cemetery. This picture was taken in the late 70s:

The Black family house

The house is interesting in that the two upstairs rooms were not connecting. There was one side for boys and one for girls; separate stairways led to each. It has sadly deteriorated so that you can no longer go upstairs. In fact it's hard to get to the house at all because it's so overgrown.