The Hogues of Cleveland County, Part 2

Hello again and welcome back to The Hogue Connection! Today, in Part Two of the post, we will look at the Hogues of Cleveland County and the struggle of many of the formerly enslaved during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. One of the things I was wondering about is where do the new freed men, women, and children get their surnames?

Reclaiming Kin…a cool blog…

Robyn N. Smith writes a really nice blog (go here) that has many stories about not only her family, but others with similar backgrounds. She did a small study through some of her contacts involving 20 respondents about 65 of their enslaved ancestors. She found that 57% took the name of their most recent slaveowner. 26.1% took the name of a previous slaveowner. 16.9% had surnames of unknown origins.

She also wrote in another post about a pretty well to do slaveowner from Maryland named John Campbell Henry who listed all of his enslaved people in an inventory individually with each of their surnames. You can check that out here. She said this was a rare document in that most slaveowners mostly tried to suppress the enslaved people’s identities. Robyn’s blog has a great many articles about enslaved people and researching their genealogy. Please check it out of you have further interests in this subject.

The Hogues of Cleveland County (New)

Let’s go with Robyn’s idea of the most likely way the newly freed people acquired their surname. Namely, that they were last enslaved by David and Jane Hogue and their descendants, so they took that name as their own. In the 1870 Census, there were three new Hogue families listed in Township #3:

If we compare the stats of these three families, we can find many similarities between them, and the counts taken from the Slave Schedules in the 1860 census. I’m looking at ages and genders and matching them with slave schedule list, figuring that the enslavers were just giving their best guesses and approximations. I’m not sure they knew exactly the ages of the enslaved they owned, in most cases, anyway. These three families represent only 20 of the 52 enslaved people owned by The Hogues in 1860.

Not all emancipated people stayed in the area of the Hogue farms. Many fled north or elsewhere to connect up with other known family members. Others were simply abandoned and left to die, mostly due to starvation or exposure to the elements. It was rough out there; many White folks in the south weren’t interested in helping out the people exploring their new-found freedom. Also this census does not show anything in the real estate value column, meaning these families did not own the land they lived on; they were either tenant farmers or sharecroppers.

Cleveland County Slave Schedules…

The 1860 Slave Schedules had these counts, by age and gender:

Jane Hogue    85 F, 52M, 42M, 22F, 12M, 10F, 6M, 4M, 6/12M, 5/12M     10 Total

Stephen Hogue   50M, 50F, 25M, 15M, 30F, 25M, 6M, 6F, 4M, 4M, 1M, 1F   12 Total

Jesse Hogue   33M, 31F, 24F, 16M, 14M, 12F, 11F, 8F, 6M, 2F, 1F   11 Total

Jacob Hogue   28M, 17F, 15F, 14M, 11M, 8M, 2M, 4/12M   8 Total

Rebecca Patterson   33F, 24F, 24F, 18M, 12M, 10M, 9M, 9M, 6F, 2F, 1F   11 Total 

So, if you add ten years or so on to these ages, you can easily see how the above families in the 1870 census listings can be extracted out of the 1860 Slave Schedule counts. It’s unfortunate the names of the enslaved weren’t added to the counts by the enumerators. Would have made tracking their enslaved ancestors much easier. Of, course, nothing was easy for the poor folks who were enslaved in the first place.

Wait…Someone is Missing!

Our curious reader, Arthette, knew a couple of things based on family lore. Information from a now deceased Aunt named her great-great grandmother as Louise Moore. Louise married a Henry Hogue who lived on one of the Hogue Farms in Cleveland County. Her line descends from one of Henry and Louise’s daughters, Georgie, who was born in 1875. Henry was born in 1848 but does not show up in any of the three households above. Where was he?

Well, I believe he was in York County, South Carolina. Remember that York County is on the southern border of Cleveland County, NC. I found a Henry Hogue working on the Charles Robinson farm there in the 1870 census:

Henry and Louise and family are back in Cleveland county in 1880:

I think Henry easily fits in either of the first two families listed in the 1870 census. Both Richard and Isham are old enough to be Henry’s father. For some reason, genealogically speaking, I would probably place him in Richard and Mathilda’s family. The ages line up pretty well with the ages of the enslaved people in Jane Hogue’s household in 1860, assuming that the family units were kept together whenever possible.

Henry Hogue passed away sometime after the birth of his last child Gertie in 1894. Louise is listed as a widow on the 1900 census. We know that their daughter, Georgie, married Wes Hardin. Wes and Georgie’s daughter, Ozena, married Lawrence Charles Black, Sr., who are Arthette Walker’s maternal grandparents.

Cleveland County Cemeteries…

Arthette is also wondering where some of her kin are buried. Well, by my quick count, there are well over 300 cemeteries in Cleveland County. Many of them are family cemeteries that have only a few graves; many others have hundreds of interments. The two Hardin Cemeteries near Bill Hogue’s farm have many unmarked graves, including the graves of 40 to 50 enslaved people. There are some African American only cemeteries as well. To see a listing of cemeteries that have been indexed, you can go here.

Let’s Get Back to Bill Hogue…

William Jesse “Bill” Hogue was the sixth child of Jesse and Dulcenia Hogue and a grandson of David and Jane. He lived in Cleveland County his entire life. He married Mattie Dover on 4 Nov 1888. Bill was appointed as a storekeeper-gauger for the IRS in 1899. That position had something to do with accuracy relating to tax collection. In his father’s will, probated in 1904, Bill was named the executor of the estate.

The will has a description of the land that Jesse was giving to his daughter, Minnie as “Fifty-acres of land beginning at W.J. Hogue’s corner a stone pile, in the W.S. Proctor line near the Hardin Graveyard running with W.S. Pruett’s line in an easterly direction and with W.J. Hogues line in a northerly direction so as to make the Fifty-acres in as near a square as possible.” It also gave land to Jesse’s other five daughters and notes that “I have heretofore given to my sons David and W.J. their parts in land”. All of this was to happen after the passing of Jesse’s wife Dulcenia.

Bill lived with his mother, probably on his farm, until she died 21 Apr 1921 at the age of 93. Her obituary mentions that she passed away from a disease that kept her confined to her bed for four years. Bill Hogue “Lived with her to care for her and give her every attention”. Bill was also a Justice of the Peace during this time. He and Mattie raised six children together. She passed away in 1915, followed by Bill himself, many years later on 30 Sep 1939. They are both buried in the Sulphur Springs United Methodist Church Cemetery.

Where Was The Bill Hogue Farm in Cleveland County?

I added the description of the land from Jesse Hogue’s will to try to pinpoint the location of the Hogue lands in Cleveland County. We know that the family held many acres for over a century there. Much of that land was passed down through the generations, and probably carved up into smaller lots. However, using the descriptions of the locations of the two Hardin Cemeteries (that both refer to the Bill Hogue farm) and mapping the area with Google Earth, I think I was able to dial in a spot that’s pretty close. Arthette is anxious to find the exact location of her ancestors home place, so I hope this at least leads her in the right direction. Note the red lines below:

The actual property likely extended farther north to Christopher Road (#1110) and the location of a church that operates there now.

A Look At History…

To me, this is a very interesting story. I was fascinated by the creation of new Hogue families via the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War. Many questions remain, however. For instance, was there enough opportunity for these new Hogues to live amongst the people who enslaved them and their families? Was this the best place for them to be? History does not look back on the 250 years of slavery in North America in a kind manner. Many, many people suffered great harm, torture and even death. To think that these people respected their former enslavers enough to live by them is probably only some kind of White fantasy.

In fact, after Reconstruction during the Antebellum period, North Carolina passed many laws to protect the rights of past slave owners, while disenfranchising the rights of the formerly enslaved. And then there were the Jim Crow laws. And then programs like the ones through the V.A. that were supposed to make it easy for veterans to buy houses. Unless you were African American, that is. Discrimination, racial bias, and hatred continues to this day.

Not To Get Too Preachy, But…

Having grown up with white privilege, I believe it takes more effort than to just say “I am not a racist.” I have to be an anti-racist. Read more about it. Ibram X. Kendi, PhD, writes some excellent things. Go here. I also listened to a fantastic series by John Biewin called “Seeing White” on his podcast Scene On Radio with Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika. Go here for that.

I believe in the Human Race. We all are, biologically speaking, 98% identical. White people created race to try to explain the differences between us. I believe that was unnecessary and did nothing but divide us. Although it’s sometimes a difficult task to complete, especially for people of color, I believe the power of the vote is the most important vehicle we have towards social justice. Take the time to research all candidates up and down the ballot, paying particular attention the people running in your specific locale.

I believe in voting for candidates that will do the most good for the most people.

I don’t think this blog post is going to fix it, but I do think stories like this show the common ground between us all. We are all in this thing together and we need to make it work for everyone. Also, I’d like to point you toward a book written by our guest genealogist Arthette Walker. You can check it out here.  Thanks for visiting The Hogue Connection! I’ll be back at it soon. You can return to the Home page here.