Ohio woman traces ancestry to formerly enslaved at Tenn. plantation
NASHVILLE – Years of work and a simple Google search led to one of the grandest revelations of an Ohio woman’s life – one that led her to the rolling hills of Williamson County and one of Brentwood’s well-known former plantations.
Leah Williams had been researching her mother’s family line for almost two years when she came across the website for Ravenswood Mansion, a well-known wedding venue at Marcella Vivrette Smith Park.
She read the section about the mansion’s history, eventually finding the portion about the property’s enslaved population and the name “Nelson” – a name she’d found in her own research.
“I screamed,” she said. “Here I am on the website, and I think this is my fourth great-grandfather’s name. This was it.”
The discovery was the icing to top the extensive bits of ancestral information she’d pulled together in her free time from family lore, DNA tests, and often spotty records about the enslaved.
In mid-March, Williams spent a week in Williamson County with members of the Brentwood Historic Commission and African American Heritage Society, visiting the sites and cities where her family members may have once been enslaved and eventually lived as free people, while sharing her research with the community.
For her massive effort, she and her lineage were recognized as AAHS’s 2022 Pioneer Family, an annual honor for African American families who pursue the often challenging search for their local roots.
The research journey
Williams’ interest in her ancestry began early in life.
She remembers feeling pure fascination when listening to her grandmother Iona talk about growing up with her siblings “down home” in Tennessee or when her mother passed family lore on to her.
But she was 11 years old in the 1980s when her late sister, then in high school, was tasked with a genealogy project. She was to interview any living grandparents, and she brought Williams with her.
“A lot of times, especially down South, people lived in multigenerational homes,” she told audiences at a presentation at the Williamson County Public Library during her trip. “Our grandparents remembered quite a lot.”
Her sister used a questionnaire in her interviews, documenting bits of their grandparents’ memories like their parents’ names and qualities, where they were born, and small anecdotes. Williams recalls hearing one of her greatgrandfathers was blind and her greatgrandfather Andrew Wilson was enormously caring.
“Those things are treasures,” Williams told the Tennessean.
That memory of “grandfather Andrew,” as her family called him, was one bit of information that helped guide her third big family research project as an adult. Knowing he was born “down home” in Tennessee, she found him in 1880 census records for Williamson County, post-emancipation.
She discovered he was then 2 months old and living with his parents, Nelson Wilson Jr. and Amanda Wilson, his siblings, and his grandparents Nelson Wilson Sr. and Lucreasy Wilson. The age of his parents and grandparents told Williams they were once enslaved and likely born in Williamson County.
Williams was prepared for the challenges ahead, like the fact slave schedules only list genders and ages.
“Deep in my soul, I know he imagined me and all of his descendants living a very different reality than his own.” Leah Williams
“In my little circle of friends, we call it the ‘wall of slavery,’” Williams said. “Once you kind of hit that wall with records, it’s kind of hard to go back because of things like that.”
That’s when she made that fateful Google search.
After finding Ravenswood mansion, Williams contacted the Brentwood Historic Commission and its members.
They were able to provided her with a 1827 articles of agreement bequeathing several enslaved Black people between white Wilsons.
“Doth give bargain and sells to the said James H. Wilson the following described people to wit; Rose, a Black woman, Salomon, Henery, Jefferson, Nelson, Ruthy, Orph, and Sophie the children of said Rose, together with their increase,” the agreement read.
It also deemed Rose and her children “slaves for life,” allowing John to retain “the use and interest of said Black people during his natural life.”
“This is the first time that we see my family in their records. And so I was just gobsmacked because you’re lucky to know Nelson’s name, but to find his mom, and the names of his siblings, it’s a treasure,” Williams said.
“It’s also a conflicting, emotional response because on one hand, you’re elated. And then the next hand, you see, ‘together with their increased slaves for life,’ and it brings you back to the reality of what their daily existence and experience was.”
It’s also likely the enslaved were shuffled between Wilson properties, including Little Harpeth.
Little Harpeth’s slave schedule includes a record of an enslaved person who would have matched the gender and age of Nelson Wilson Jr.
While members of Williams’ family line endured enslavement in Williamson County, they also lived to see freedom there. Both Wilson couples went on to settle in Franklin, where Williams and local researchers believe Nelson Wilson Sr. pursued sharecropping.
Williams found marriage certificates for both Nelson Wilson Sr. and Nelson Wilson Jr., who married the mothers of their children soon after they could legally do so. Nelson Wilson Sr. did so just two days after the 13th Amendment was ratified.
“It always touches me that two days after the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was ratified, Nelson and Lucretia got married, legally married after over 24 years and four children, living as a quote, ‘married family,’ within the institution of slavery. And I think it’s really a testament to the love and commitment that they had to one another.
“Both documents are very special to me. They’re just beautiful.”
Andrew was the youngest child of Nelson Wilson Jr. He married Emma Murphy in 1906 in Davidson County, where they lived until 1917 when they relocated their family to Cleveland, Ohio.
The couple had a blended family with ten kids of their own and two from Murphy’s previous marriage. One of their children, Iona, is the great-greatgrandmother of Williams.
Past and present collide
During her visit, Williams stood on the “hallowed ground” of Ravenswood mansion, spending most of her time at the two restored slave cabins behind the “big house,” and imagined what the property may have looked like with the 12 additional cabins that are thought to have existed long ago.
She listened to the birds. She felt the wind. She looked up at the moon etched clearly in the sky despite the daylight.
“I just had this thought like, ‘God, did Nelson (Sr.) ever stand here and look at the moon and what did he think about himself in the world?’” she said. “It’s like you’re walking in their shadows.”
While sharing the account to an audience of over 500 at the AAHS’s recent 21st annual Black Tie event, she teared up.
“I didn’t know (Nelson Wilson Jr.) and I do not know all the details of his life, but I can imagine what he experienced and endured in his lifetime,” she told the audience. “Deep in my soul, I know he imagined me and all of his descendants living a very different reality than his own.”
Brentwood resident and Historic Commission member Inetta Gaines hosted Williams during her trip and shared some of the research found in the Williamson County archives, including the 1827 article of agreement revealing Rose as Williams’ fifth greatgrandmother.
“Rose’s children live on in many, many people we may not even know and they may not know,” Gaines said. “But god put the right people in the right place at the right time.”
Anika Exum is a reporter covering Williamson County at The Tennessean, part of the USA Today Network – Tennessee. Reach her at aexum@tennessean.com, 615-347-7313 or on Twitter @aniexum. To stay updated on Williamson County news, sign up for our newsletter.