Susannah Reed
Probably the wife of James Reed and the mother of Mary Reed, who married Jesse Collins. In James's 1830 household in Clay County, Kentucky, she was the one person counted white. Her maiden name is unknown, and even her given name is uncertain.
Life
- c. 1770Bornc. 1770-80
The white woman aged 50-60 in James Reid's 1830 household. She would be the woman 26-44 in 1810 and, under the Morgan reading, the free colored woman 55-100 in 1840.
documentedprobable
Family
- Parents
- Spouse
- James Reed
The woman of his household in 1810 and 1830 (and in 1840 under the Morgan reading). Named Susannah only in a Morgan County land transfer reported by JoEllen Reed; no marriage record is known.
2 children
Pedigree
Notes
The wife of James Reed, Mary Reed’s father, and taken to be Mary’s mother. Her maiden name
is unknown, and her given name is known only under the Morgan reading of James (see
james-reed-1766): JoEllen Reed’s notes report a Morgan County land transfer naming
Naaman Reed as “son of James and Susannah” (the deed has not been seen).
In the census she is the woman 26-44 in the J. Reed household of eleven in Ashe County, North Carolina, in 1810, counted white; the woman 50-60 in 1830 in Clay County, Kentucky, the only person in the household counted white; and, if the Morgan James is hers, the woman 55-100 in the 1840 Morgan County household, there counted free colored. She is not named in James’s will of 1836. Under the Morgan reading she was alive in 1846, when Randal Reed sold 36 acres to “James’ widow, probably his mother.” Under the Clay reading she is taken to be the “Mrs Reid” who bought part of the 1841 Clay estate. An online tree gives her dates as 1770-1859, with no source.
The Hollingsworth claim, set aside. Online trees make her “Susannah Hollingsworth,” daughter of Vincent Hollingsworth and Mary Beasley of Wilkes and Ashe. The published lists of Vincent’s daughters (from Betty Hollandsworth Jackson’s The Holly Tree) include a Mrs. Stephen (Winny) Reed but no Mrs. James Reed, and JoEllen Reed rejects the identification. At least five other Susannah Reeds and Susannah Hollingsworths in the Morgan County records (Isaac Hollingsworth’s daughter; the brides of Solomon Reed, 1834, James Kemp, 1837, William Hollingsworth, 1839, and Samuel S. Bates), and a Susannah Hollingsworth who married James L. Russell in Shelby County, Kentucky, in 1814, explain how trees have merged her with other women. The Susannah Reed aged 8 in William Reed’s 1850 household in Warrick County, Indiana, is not her.
Open questions
- Her maiden name and origin.
- Is she in the 1850 Morgan County census (about 70-80, born about 1770-80, perhaps indexed as Susan or Reid)? Her age and birthplace would test the Morgan reading.
- A copy of the land transfer that names her (ask JoEllen Reed).
- Was she Mary’s mother, or did James have an earlier wife? No record says.
- Under the Clay reading, was the 1841 “Mrs Reid” she or Polly Silver, whom a James Reed married in Clay in 1839?