All My Ancestors

I’ve been looking again at my 4th great-grandfather, Merriman Landrum. Depending on the source, Merriman was born in Union County, South Carolina, in 1774 or 1784–some sources say at the time of the Revolutionary War and other say at the end of that war. He married Delilah Jackson in 1805, and the year after, along with some of his siblings and extended family, he moved to Middle Tennessee.

Much of the information I have about this man has come from a biography of his son, Rev. John Gill Landrum, written by H.P. Griffith in 1885. Merriman Landrum is one of those ancestors who, despite not living very long, seemed to have had enough offspring and an interesting enough life, and perhaps enough force of character, that he’s documented in various places. I’ve done my own research on him, of course, and have discussed him with relatives who are also seeking info about this line. My great-aunt Marge had some stories about him that had come to her through her father. Her father (George C. Cooper 1859-1935) had been reared by his grandparents who were Merriman’s daughter Elizabeth and her husband Job Cooper.

Merriman’s will is only about 3 sentences long, which may indicate he was very ill when he wrote it. It was presented for probate shortly thereafter. He mentions only his wife Delilah and his “Negro boy” Dick by name. None of his 9 children are named nor are they mentioned. Many of his brothers and sisters also lived nearby but are not addressed in the will. My assumption is that he said what seemed the most expedient at the time, and the brevity is both informative and curious.

Williamson County, Tennessee Wills and Inventories, Book 4, page 138

I Meriman Landrum of the State of Tennessee and County of Williamson calling to mind the mortality of my body, make and ordain this my last will and testament.

1^st my will as [t?]ing such worldly estate as it hath pleas’d God to bless me with is as follows

1^st I give unto Delilah Landrum my wife all my household furniture during her natural life and all the rest of my estate, during her widowhood.

My will is secondly is that my wife shall not trade her rights to my land or negro fellow Dick during her natural life.

I nominate and appoint my well beloved friend Azariah Kimbro executor to this my last will and testament.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal. Oct 24^th day of 1825.

Test. Isaac D. Robinson and Christopher Robinson

Family lore said the Landrums were anti-slavery and so I was surprised when I saw “my negro fellow Dick” mentioned in one of the 3 sentences of Merriman’s “last will and testament.” My first assumption was that this had been an inheritance of Delilah’s — she was from a fairly well-to-do family in South Carolina. But her father’s (Ralph Jackson 1752-1817) will yielded no clues.

The 1839 will of Merriman’s brother Benjamin sheds some light. It seems that Benjamin was indebted to Merriman and so he sent Dick to live with Merriman and his family until the debt could be repaid. Benjamin makes it very clear in his will that if Dick can pay Merriman’s widow the $500 Benjamin owed Merrimen, then he is “to be freed from servitude”, that it was never his intention that Dick be a slave for life.

I wonder about the sincerity or at least the viability of this offer. Five hundred dollars seems like an awful lot of money for that day, and especially for a black man in the 1830s to try to earn to buy his freedom. And it is also interesting to me that his will addresses only this debt and the circumstances under which Dick came to live to Merriman and Delilah. He appoints a third brother, John, to be his executor, and makes no other comments nor bequests in his will.

I don’t know how this particular part of the story came out. A cousin has written a short article about this man Dick. I can’t lay hands on my copy of the article at this point, nor can I find the accounts of Dick being in the Cooper household. Court records indicate that Job Cooper is at some point accused of harboring a runaway slave–

This is an example of the “messiness” of doing family history research. The whole repugnant idea of slavery appears in the midst of studying this family–the family who was supposedly anti-slavery in fact had one. I’ll post more later on Merriman–he was a minister and a teacher, and I rather like the story I found about Delilah. But there’s Dick, standing in the shadows. What of his family and his ancestors? I hope at least his being mentioned in so many records of my ancestors has allowed his family to find him in a time when surnames were prohibited and humans were used to secure a debt.