The Claims for Membership

 In my recent post on the case of Harris Melton, Native American ancestry was something to deny and be ashamed of, circa 1850's. Fast forward half a century, and for some, that perception began to change.

It started with the Dawes Act of 1887, also called The General Allotment, which allowed the President to subdivide tribal lands into "allotments", or a sort of grant given to heads of families, or single people. This was contrary to the native people's way of doing things, or their historical view of land as owned by the whole, and just territories belonging to various tribes. Now, they were being brought into capitalism, and the notion of private property. Because of this, and by the time of this, there had developed a growing group of people of mixed heritage, Native American and whatever else, especially those of European mix. The government had a job of determining who was eligible for these lands and who were not.

At first, the Five Civilized Tribes were exempt from the Dawes Act. These consisted of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee and Seminole. The Curtis Act of 1898 included these tribes and basically shutdown their methods of self-governance. I will not go into the devastating effects these acts had on the tribes, or the loss of land, only the side effect that infiltered Stanly County, and my own family tree.

The commission had to determine blood quantum's, and as there was a lack of records to prove or disprove what level of "Indianness" someone possessed, it was a very random procedure. Because there was financial gain of land, and sometime small pensions. 

On August 23, 1907, Mary M. Hatley of Stanly County, North Carolina applied to the Court of Claims of the Eastern Cherokee for membership. She was not the only one. 

Mary M. Hatley was mentioned in my last post, linked here: The Dandelions of Aaron Sanders.

Mary Miranda Sanders was the daughter of Stephen J. Sanders and Dicy Morton Sanders. She was born September 26, 1849, and was the first of their three children. She was the granddaughter of Aaron and Nancy Sanders and Hezekiah and Susanna Hathcock Morton. She married James Ruffian Hatley, and that is where the Hately name came into the picture.

On her application, 56-year-old Mary listed her tribe as the Eastern Cherokee and gave her "Indian Name" as Morton. She also listed the names, ages and year of birth of her children; Alexander Hatley, 40, Fronia Holland, 37, Sarah J Hatley, 35, Auvasia Kirk ( A.H.) Hatley, 25, Mittle Lightfoot, 21, Emma Hatley, 18 and Martin Luther "ML" Hatley, 16.

On the next page, she listed her parents, Stephen Sanders and Dicy Bowers, as her mother, Dicy Morton Sanders had married her second husband, Moses Bowers by then. She listed the year of her father's death as 1863, and that her mother's status was living, in Albemarle, NC. She listed her two siblings as Sallie Sanders Whitley, born in 1858, of Whitley, NC and her brother, William E. Sanders, 185?, age 52, of New London, NC, (both in Stanly County).

Her grandparents were listed again, Aaron and Nancy Sanders and Hezekiah Morton and Susan Ann Morton. Why the Morton's names were repeated with dashes on the first line under them, I don't know. She stated they were born in Montgomery County, now Stanly, NC and that she was born in Stanly, NC. She then listed her siblings:

James Morton -   Dead

        Ezekial Morton - Dead  

Joseph Morton of Albemarle

Jesse Morton of Whitley, NC

Mary Fesperman of Albemarle, NC

William G Morton - Dead

         

In the remarks of her application, Mary wrote, "My mother is Dicy Bowers, daughter of Hezekiah Morton, whose mother was Elizabeth Morton, wife of Ezekial Morton and where name was Elizabeth Brumbelow a member of the Eastern Cherokee Indians before her intermarriage with my great grandfather, Ezekial Morton".

There were several of these, applications for membership to the tribe by descendants of Elizabeth Brumbalow. The question is, where did these Great Grandchildren and Grand Children get the idea that she was Cherokee? And was she?

Rev. Ezekial Morton and Elizabeth Brumbalow Morton were among my 5th Great Grandparents. That far back, I would carry only a small fraction of their DNA, if any at all. However, these closer generations seemed sure of it. Elizabeth B. Morton was born January 7, 1775, and died on July 26, 1856, in Oakboro, NC. Her parents were Edward and Elizabeth Brumbalow, who died around 1810. She lived long enough for most of her Grandchildren and perhaps some of her Great Grandchildren, to have known her personally. The rumor of Cherokee ancestry had to have come from somewhere, and I believe it is the source of the rumor passed down to this day, of several western Stanly oriented families with surnames like Morton, Almond, Burris, Burleyson, Hatley, Whitley, Honeycutt and others, that they have Native American ancestry.

One young lady among this stock of names asked me a few years ago asked me to look into her family tree to find her Indian ancestor. While she looked no part indigenous, her father is indeed a dark-skinned, dusky looking fellow. The only possible link back to any possibility of indigenous heritage I found for her in five generations was the Mortons.

Stanly News and Press Albemarle, North Carolina • Thu, Aug 22, 1907Page 3

J. R. Price, an attorney took the Morton claims to Washington in 1907. Their proof was vague, just family lore that perhaps had stemmed from Elizabeth Brumbalow, herself, but from whatever the source, it was exiguous, and not enough to secure the family membership to the tribe. Again, it was claimed, not proven and not accepted. This does not mean it was not true, but yet again, it doesn't prove that it was.

An article came out about the time, that a grandson, Rev. D. S. Morton, and claimed that he denied the heritage, then he went on to contradict himself.

	Stanly News and Press	Albemarle, North Carolina •	Thu, Aug 29, 1907	Page 3

"I remember Grand-mama very well. She was a devout Christian. her maiden name was Bromblo, but she was not the only one of that name who lived in this country."

"Grand-mama was dark complected but no darker than many other people whom I have seen. She possibly might have been related to the Indians. I do not know."

He goes on to state that if he is related to Indians, he is not ashamed but hopes people would not be misled by such a legendary story.

Over a decade ago, I started a project called, "The Indians of Stanly County". The object of this project was to trace the lineage of some Stanly County families known to me who were visibly dark-skinned and try to find where their duskiness may have originated. 

The Chandlers had one member who had migrated west into the mountains from their Davidson County origins and returned back home with an "Indian" bride by the surname of Bell. This family would move afterwards to Stanly County from the upper Badin Lake region of the Davidson and Montgomery County border. Later research shows the Bell family may have actually been Melungeon, as that name exists in their midst and DNA shows a healthy trace of both Amerindian and African ancestry.

A branch of the Almond family had a fairly recent ancestor who was part of a small remnant group of Native Americans who lived in the upper South Carolina counties of Marlboro and Chesterfield. 

Two families had recent ancestors that were part of the Lumbee tribes. 

Several others had no clear Native American ancestors, but led back to, wait for it...the Morton family. 

Some had one particular ancestor in common, a man named William Riley Morton. 

One Underwood family descended from William R. Morton (18 Jan 1902 - 20 Apr 1967), who was a son of William Riley Morton (13 Jul 1860 - 22 Mar 1950). He would have been the living generations' Great Grandfather, those in their 60's now.

A Bowers family descended from Nara Lee Poplin (24 Feb 1916- 25 Dec. 1977), who was the daughter of Jonah Lee Poplin (1896-1959) and Selma Morton Poplin (3 March 1896- 3 Feb 1975).

Selma Morton Poplin was a daughter of the same William Riley Morton (1860-1950). In this case, he would have been the Great, Great-Grandfather of the living generation in their 50's and 60's now.

William Riley Morton must have been a dark featured, olive-skinned fellow. He also enjoyed a long life of nearly 90's years, born early enough to have had vague memories of the Civil War as a small boy and living through both World Wars and into the age of the riveting 1950's. He and his wife, Nancy Winfred Dick were a very philoprogenitive couple, producing a family of 9 children:

1893-1974 Cevilla Morton Talbert

1896-1975 Selma Morton Poplin

1897-1962 Benjamin Franklin Morton

1900-1896 David Hasten Morton

1902-1967 William R. Morton Jr.

1904-1982 John Floyd Morton

1906-1971 Albert Kirk Morton

1909-1994 Raymond Alexander Morton

1912-1989 Nancy Magnolia Curlee

This William R. Morton was the son of John Wesley Morton (1829-1870) and Lydia Adeline Ledbetter Morton, (1833-1909), daughter of Albert Ledbetter and Temperance Jane Tucker Ledbetter, whom I have touched on in my Big Lick posts.

John Wesley Morton was the son of Joseph Calvin Morton (1801-1889) and Margaret Ann Hatley (1807-1889).

Joseph Calvin Morton was the son of Rev. Ezekial John Morton (1770-1834) and Elizabeth Betsy Brumbalow (1775-1856). 

There was an Efird family with the same circumstances, dark, swarthy complexion, indigenous features, considered white and stemming from known white families. Where did the dark genes come from? Again, I found Mortons in their line, and no clear lineage other than that of anything but European heritage. 

This line stems from Walter Haywood Morton (1895-1951) who married Mary Lucy Honeycutt (1903-1998).

Walter was the son of Adam Archie Morton (1859-1946) and Arwelder Magdalene (Crisco, Honeycutt or Hinson) (1865-1930).

Adam was the son of Allen Green Morton, Sr. (1827-1894) and Elizabeth Burris (1827-1912).

Allen G. Morton was the son of ...well we're back to Ezekial Morton and Betsy Brumbalow again.

Anyone seeing a pattern here? 

And the Honeycutt's? They descended from an entirely different William Riley Morton. This William R. Morton (1879-1933) married Rebecca Cagle (1882-1967) and also fathered a large family. 

W. R. was the son of Enoch Willis Morton (1850-1927) who married Francis Springer (1852-1923).

Enoch was the son of Allen Green Morton and Elizabeth Burris, mentioned above, who of course leads back to the same couple, Ezekial and Betsy Brumbalow Morton.

Genetics are a crap shoot. A red head can pop up from nowhere. One kid can be short like his mother's dad and his brother tall like his own father. You never know, despite some being recessive and others dominate. Darker genes tend to dominate, brown eyes over blue ones, brunette over blonde, dark skin over fair, but there are exceptions. Could the darker skin of an indigenous heritage have made its way down the generations from Betsy Brumbalow to certain of her descendants, but not others? It's certainly possible, that's the way things work. We carry tiny pieces of those who came before us, and at some point, pieces of others that came before us fall off as we can't hold them all, but that doesn't mean they are not our predecessors, we are. 

Could what Betsy's grandchildren believed of her be true? I think it could be. 

Blame The Cherokee

 It happens over and over. When someone finds out that I'm, 'pretty good at doing genealogy', I get this often repeated request, "We know our Great Grandma was a Cherokee Princess, my grandma told me, but I got a (Ancestry.com, My Heritage, 23 and Me etc.) membership and can't find it. Can you help me find my Cherokee ancestors?" 

Oh bless those proverbial high cheekbones, which more likely come from Germany, Portgual, South Wales or ...Camaroon.

Wake Up People! You're NOT CHEROKEE. 

I live in the Southwestern Piedmont of North Carolina. For those of us whose ancestors arrived here generations ago,(or those who moved on, but whose ancestors lived here generations ago), our DNA derives mainly from 4 sources: 

!) The English who settled in Pennsylvania and Virginia and then migrated down into North Carolina via the "Great Wagon Road". Including the Irish they brought with them, and sent forth into the wilderness first to bear the brunt of the wrath of the Natives.

2) The Germans who settled around Winston-Salem (see Old Salem, Bethbara, The Moravians), and other German Lutherans who settled around Abbott Creek in Davidson County, along Dutch Buffalo Creek in Cabarrus County and founded the Old Stone Churches in Rowan County. 

3) The Scotts who came up the Cape Fear River from the coast into Brunswick, Cumberland, Chatham and then west into Moore, Montgomery, Richmond and Sampson Counties.

4) The Africans who were brought here against their will during the days of the cursed and inhuman slave trade.

And this group applies to EVERYONE, no matter the color of your skin. If your family lived in this spot in 1850, chances are, you have percentages of DNA from every single one of these 4 groups of people. 

That said, there were a few exceptions. There were known to be a few Swiss entrepreneurs, French soldiers who came with Lafayette that stayed, Portugeuse sailors abandoned on the outbanks by devious ship captains. We even had Chinese immigrants who started many laundries around the turn of the 1900 century. But these groups were not the most populous. 

There were a few Native American tribes from the EASTERN part of the state and Virginia, who endured, and who have small populations in North and South Carolina to this day. Through many years of research, I've discovered I have Nansemond, Waccamaw,and Leni Lenape ancestry, and yes, AmerIndian DNA does show up in me. But these tribes and these ancestors are far back in my gene pile and are far outnumbered by the many Europeans who came together to create - Me. 

I am so glad that people are now proud to have Native American ancestry, or think they have Native American ancestry. A few of them do. A few don't even know. I know I do, and I know the sources of a bit of it, not from one near ancestor, but from several very distant ones. I've even got the unique problem of trying to track down a part of it I didn't even know about. I have a half-brother on my father's side who has Native American ancestry too. He was born in the UK, and his mother has absolutely no American heritage. So I know his dash of Native American came from our Dad. The trouble is, I've not came across any Native American lineage in my Dad's tree. 

However, there are some standard family lines in Western Stanly County that do have rumours of Native American DNA. One family even tried to file a claim around the turn of the century, based on what they knew of an ancestor of theirs, and were turned down, because they really had no proof.

A certain project I have been working on for years, involves the research of several living, breathing families in our area, for whom Native heritiage, or some typeof heritage, other than full on European, was probable, due to inherited features. I'm not speaking of high cheekbones, but of dark skin. That said,  not every trait of a parent is passed down to a child.  The further back one goes, the less dna of each ancestor a person carries. So, one branch of a family tree could carry dark-skinned genes from an ancient ancestor, and in another branch it had been washed out. 

This project has led me to a common ancestor, or two, and a common family name, among several of these families  They almost all lead back to Ezekial Morton,  and his possible Native American wife. This same family tried to get on the Dawes Rolls, and were denied,  for lack of evidence of their Cherokee heritage. 

This clipping online is from the Stanly County Heritage Book

Ezekial Morton was born around 1770 in Eastern North Carolina,  possibly Surry County, and later moved to Anson County. He finally settled in the Western part of Stanly County, in the area we now know as Red Cross, very close to the Burris family. Ezekial was reported to be the son of William Carr Morton and Lucy Taylor, although I personally have no hard evidence on that, neither have I found nothing to dispute it. As another one of my ancestors, Solomon Burris, was married to Judith Taylor, I wonder if there was a familial connection between the two families. Judith and Lucy could very well have been sisters. 

We know that Ezekial Morton and Solomon Burris knew each other well and lived pretty close to one another.. Not only did they live in the same general area, but Ezekial aided Solomon in obtaining his Revolutionary War pension by swearing a statement to the validity of his claim. He also witnessed Solomon's Will. 

Like Solomon, Ezekial had a huge family, who prospered, and became the beef and taters of the West Stanly soup, along with other families, like the Almonds, the Efirds, the Whitleys, the Huneycutts, the Lamberts, the Cobles, the Cagles and the Burlesons. For generation after generation, the families intermarried. Some migrated west, while others stayed put. Anyone who can trace an ancestor back to the western part of Stanly County will relate to several of these core families, along with some of the smaller ones in some way. 

Ezekial married a woman named Elizabeth Brumbalow, called by the nickname Betsy. Betsy is where the legend of the Cherokee blood came in. Betsy was the daughter of Edward Brumbalow. He shows up in the 1790, 1800 and 1810 censuses of Anson County, NC, which borders Stanly. He is sometimes seen as Edward Isaac Brumbalow and there is a Find - A- Grave entry for an Isaac Bumbalough in Anson County who was born on January 13, 1743  in Richmond County, Virginia and settled in Anson, the son of Edward (1710) and Elizabeth. Some of the family migrated to Gwinett County, Georgia.

Many of the Morton/Brumbalow descendants staked their claim to Cherokee blood on a couple of letters.

Susannah Morton Whitley was a daughter of Ezekial and Elizabeth Brumbalow Morton. She married  William Marion Whitley, Jr.,  and wrote the following letter to her son, William Hamilton Alexander Whitley, otherwise known as 'W. H. A. Whitley'.

To W. H. A. Whitley

Woodbine, Cook County, Texas

Edward Brumbelow was my grandfather. He lived in North Carlina (sp) Chatham Co he moved from there to Anson Co there his daughter Betsy married John Thomas he had two sons one named Isaac and one Jessie and one James (errors her own) that I remember my grand Father was known by the name Judge Brumbelow and he went to the purchace of Gorgia when the Indians inhabited that Country he was said to be about half Indian. 

Susannah Whitley

Also in the collection of W. H. A. Whitley was a letter written by his Uncle, Levi C. Morton, who was one of the younger sons of Ezekial and Betsy Morton. Levi Christian Morton was born around 1825 and the letter was dated Feb 10, 1894 from Big Lick, North Carolina. Levi would have been closing in on 70 years old. In the letter he said that only he and his younger brother, Allen Green Morton, were still alive and all that was left of 12 children. He also said that his grandfather was named David Brumbelow and was of Indian blood. 

Now, there was a David Brumbelow, who was supposedly the brother of Edward Brumbelow, father of Elizabeth. While most of the Brumbelow family seem to have migrated to Gwinett County, Georgia, David remained in North Carolina and had extensive land holding in both Anson and Mecklenburg Counties. Most of the area in which he owned property is now in Union County, formed from portions of both mother counties in 1842. He lived on Richardson and Lick Creek, and married an Amy Medcalf. She followed her children, after his death, to Monroe County, Georgia.

In 1907, an attorney named J. R. Price, took the claims of a group of descendants of Ezekial and Betsy Morton to Washington, D. C. 

Not all of the Morton descendants were happy about the claims of Native American blood, however. Rev. D. S. Morton, a grandson of the couple, states that he didn't believe his grandmother was of "Indian" decent, however, he admitted she was 'dark complected', but "no darker than many other people I have seen."

CLIPPED FROM

The Enterprise

Albemarle, North Carolina

29 Aug 1907, Thu  •  Page 3

Dark skin. Where did the dark skin come from? 

In 2000, a researcher named Leah C. Sims addressed this line of the Morton family and its pesistent rumors of Native heritage. She focused on the fact that the family had all been treated by society as Caucasian peoples, and that there is no proof that Betsy had ever lived among the Cherokee. This was before the DNA tests for genealogy had taken off into such a fad. 

About 8 or 9 years ago, when I began my research project I deemed, 'The Indians of Stanly County', I started by tracing the family tree of a few people, with no visible sign of Native heritage, chasing a rumour. Then I turned to tracing the lineage of families who were of dark or dusky skin and asked them which family line it had came down. Which grandparent or great grandparent had passed on the deep olive tone and jet black hair? After several families showed to have common ancestry, I tried to trace from that ancestor down, and made it to a few living people that I actually know. Several of them still maintain the dark features and by and large, many of them have passed it on to their children. 

Genes are a tricky thing. Cousins will have inherited different traits from shared Grandparents. After each consecutive generation, some of these certain genes will fall away. Some genetic strands will stay with one family line for generations, while others will choose other traits in their heritage to display and pass onward. 

 I am a descendant of Ezekial Morton and Elizabeth Brumbalow Morton. They are my 5th Great Grandparents.

                   Ezekial Morton and Elizabeth Brumbalow

                                   parents of 

            Joseph Calvin Morton and wife Margaret "Peggy" Hatley

                                  parents of 

         Elizabeth Morton who married Solomon Burris (son of Taylor and Elizabeth Morton* Burris)

                                 parents of 

        Sarah Ann Burris who married Rufus Alexander Lambert 

                                parents of 

      Elias Marion Lambert who married Rowena Burris

                                parents of 

    Burley Melvin Lambert who married Bertha Virginia Lemmons

                                 parents of my Dad.

I did not inherit Betsy's "dark skin" as Rev. D. M. Morton put it in 1907. But some did. 

One of the families I traced was an Efird family whose father, a family friend, did inherit the dark skin and jet black hair, that defines certain descendants of this particular Morton family. 

As did 6 or 7 other families that I have traced up to, or down from, one particular Grandson of Ezekial and Betsy: William Riley Morton. If Betsy were, say, one quarter Native American, like some of her grandchildren claimed, and she was dark, as another grandson admitted, her modern descendants would only bear a very small percent of DNA from her if any at all. But if this one grandson inherited her darkness, and passed it strongly down to living Great Great Grandchildren, could that piece of dna still prove or disprove her heritage? 

I came across posts from a certain Almond gentleman, whose location I do not know, as descendants are now widely spread, who was asking this very same question, "Grandmama was dark and family rumours of the Brumablow Cherokee connection have been passed down. Where did Grandma's dark skin come from?"

My half-British, half brorther, has Amerindian DNA, as do I. It came from Dad, for certain, as it did not come from his mother. I did not know of any Native American blood in my father's line. The closest I have come to finding any are the Morton rumors. I'm beginning to think they were true. 

Dad was rather olive. 

                

              

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