Thursday, June 29, 2006

"Aunt Sally" Creigh/Sallie Woods

Profile:
"Aunt Sally" (Creigh) /Sallie Woods

(Note: In my work I put surnames in () when it is a "slave surname")
(Note: It is my understanding that Creigh is pronounced "Cree")

It is difficult to find a person who was formerly enslaved & it is even more difficult to find them when they change their "slave surname" post-emancipation. However, I think I may have made a match as it relates to "Aunt Sally".
In the HISTORY OF GREENBRIER COUNTY by Otis K. Rice (on page 295) he indicates that "Aunt Sally, an elderly Negro woman, handed her master (David S. Creigh) an axe, with which Creigh dispatched the marauder".
In the Journal of the GHS, Vol. 7, #4, 2002, p. 38 relative to the notes of Dr. Creigh, the doctor makes the notation that he "went down to Davy's to see a Black woman, Sally" (Davy is the doctor's brother, David "Davy" Creigh).
In the book GREENBRIER COUNTY PIONEERS AND THEIR HOMES by Ruth Dayton Woods, West Virginia Publishing Company, Charleston, WV on page 325 she states that "a Negro woman, old "Aunt Sallie" having secured an axe ..." & at page 328 "The colored woman, Sallie went for an axe".

I believe that post-emancipation "Aunt Sallie" became Sallie Woods.

In the 1870 Census for GC, Fort Spring District (FtSD), there is a 75 year old Black female named Sallie Woods, b. in Va, who is working as a domestic servant in the home of Emily Creigh. In the 1880 Census, Sallie Woods is 81 years old. She is a domestic servant for Alex W. Arbuckle (a Caucasian male farmer).

No comments: