James Reed

Mary Reed’s father. On 25 November 1827 he wrote to the Clay County clerk, Abner Baker: “Mr Abner Baker Sir ples to grant Jesse Collens lisens to marrey Mary Red and oblige them,” signed “James Read,” with Stephen Read and Hiram Collins as witnesses. So he could write, or at least sign his name.

The records, in order. A “Jas Reed” in Wilkes County, North Carolina, in 1790 (two men 16 and over and two females, counted white) may or may not be him. Head of a household of 6 “other free” (free people of color) in the Morgan district of Ashe County, North Carolina, in 1800, listed by Heinegg among the “other members of the Reed family” without parents. In Ashe he bought land from Spencer Mullins in 1801 and sold land to Stephen Reed in 1802 (Deed Book B, p. 375), and Elisha Collins’s land entries of 1802-03 adjoin Stephen Reed and James Reed on the Laurel Fork and North Fork of the New River. In 1810 “J Reed” of Ashe heads a household of eleven counted white: five boys, four girls, a man 26-44 and a woman 26-44. He had land dealings with William Hollinsworth and Eli Cleveland about 1811 (Attride). His family was in Clay County, Kentucky, by May 1813, if Naaman Reed, born there then, is his son. In 1820 he is a free colored man 45 or over in Clay County.

In 1830 (Clay County, p. 172, read from the image) he is the man aged 55-100 entered in the slave column, with four young men of his household aged 10-24 also in the slave columns, one free colored man aged 24-36, and his wife, aged 50-60, the one person counted white. Hiram Collins and his wife Elizabeth, entered as slaves, are two lines above.

Which James: two readings. The research has not settled where he died.

• The Morgan reading (B), which the Reed addendum leans to. He moved from Clay to Morgan County, Indiana, in 1831 (per Naaman Reed’s obituary, as quoted in a 2014 online query), and bought the SW quarter of Section 17, T11N R1E, near Martinsville, by deed from Nancy Smith, Samuel Long or later owners (the deed has not been seen). In 1836 he gave 29 acres to “Norman.” His will, signed 19 July 1836, leaves 103 acres of the quarter, his home farm, to “my two sons,” Elisha and John (James in JoEllen Reed’s typed transcription), and refers to land given to “my other sons.” It names no wife and no daughters. In 1840 he heads a free colored household of seven in Morgan County, with Hiram Collins’s household on the page after. He died before the will was recorded on 6 January 1845 and is buried at Reed’s Chapel, on land John Reed of Section 17 gave the Methodist Episcopal church. In 1846 Randal Reed sold 36 acres to “James’ widow, probably his mother.”
• The Clay reading (A). He stayed in Clay County and died there about 1841. This rests only on the Attride compilation’s account of an 1841 Clay estate, appraised at about $800, with parts sold to “Mrs Reid,” Samuel Reid and William Reid. Its source record has not been seen. Under this reading the Morgan County James was a close relative, a brother or cousin.

For (B): the only James Reid among the 1830 Clay households in the research is this one, and the Morgan James lived in Clay until 1831; the 1830 and 1840 households fit one family ten years apart; Hiram and Elizabeth Collins are beside him in both years; Jesse and Mary were in Morgan County by 1830. A James Reed married Polly Silver in Clay County in 1839: another James under (B), perhaps the widowed father remarrying under (A).

Kin. JoEllen Reed, a descendant of the Morgan James, makes John Reed of Section 17 (in Morgan County by 1820; will dated 1844 or 17 March 1845) his brother, and Telitha Reed his sister, said in the family to have married Ambrose Collins, with a son Abraham whose race was the subject of a court record. A transcript of that record, a deposition taken in Morgan County on 20 October 1856 “to establish blood & parentage of Abraham Collins,” aged 63, has the witness say that “Abrahom Collins mother was a Reed and of Portugees extraction as I am informed & believe she was a sister to John & James Reed who are now deceased of late Mo. Co. In.” (record). If so, Abraham Collins, on the 1830 Clay page above Hiram, was Mary’s first cousin. She also names Sarah Reed, wife of Isaac Hollingsworth, as his sibling or cousin. Stephen Reed Sr (b. c. 1748) of Ashe is a probable older generation of the same family; whether James was his son, nephew or cousin is not known.

His census classification shifts with the enumerator: other free in 1800, white in 1810, free colored in 1820, the slave column in 1830, free colored in 1840 (under B). JoEllen Reed’s brother, a male-line descendant of the Morgan James, tests about 4% African and 0% Native American on Ancestry.

Open questions

• Which James is Mary’s father, (A) or (B)? It would be confirmed by his purchase deed for the SW quarter of Section 17 if it calls him “of Clay County, Kentucky”; by an 1850 Morgan County census entry for his widow Susannah aged about 70-80; or by a probate, deed or court record naming Mary, Elizabeth, Jesse or Hiram Collins among his heirs. It would be broken by a James Reed head already on the 1830 Morgan County census, or a second James Reed head in Clay in 1830. The 1841 Clay estate file would show whose estate it was.
• Is the will’s second son John (Robbins’s abstract, JoEllen Reed’s notes) or James (her typed transcription)? Deed Book J, p. 522 will settle it.
• Did he die before 6 Jan 1845 or in December 1845? The recording date says before.
• Were his parents Hugh Reed Sr. and an unknown wife, or was he a son of Stephen Reed Sr? Look at Stephen Sr’s Ashe estate (c. 1812) and the wording of the 1802 James-to-Stephen deed.
• Do the 1783 Rowan grant and the 1786 estate sale belong to him or to another James?
• Was the 1790 Wilkes “Jas Reed” him?
• Probate for James (1844-45) in the Morgan County probate order book, 1822-1847 (film 1468479), not online.