08/02/2022
๐๐ก๐ฒ ๐๐ก๐๐ฒ ๐๐๐ซ๐ซ๐ข๐๐ ๐๐ก๐จ ๐๐ก๐๐ฒ ๐๐๐ซ๐ซ๐ข๐๐
Why did the people of backcountry Virginia marry who they married in the 1700s and 1800s? A big part of the answer is prosaicโproximity. They married their neighbors.
This can be shown for the Gilbert family by federal censuses for Russell County from 1850 onwards.
Before 1850, federal census takers would note the name and occupation of the head of a household on a line of their census forms, and then, on the same line, enumerate the number of members of the household falling into mutually exclusive categories defined by free and slave status, s*x, and age range, and then finally totaling up the number of persons in the household. Sometimes the data were aggregated alphabetically so that any sense of how the households related to one another on the ground was lost.
But beginning in 1850, the census takers enumerated households by house number and family number in the order in which they were visited and then included the name, gender, race, age, and place of birth for each member of a household.
Below, is a screen shot of page 40 of the federal census of Russell County for 1850. On line 18 of page 40, there is an entry for house and family #258. James Tiller, then age 32, is shown as head of that household, the other members being his wife, Jane Wallis, then 24, and the four children they then had, being Humberson, 8, Leah, 6, Clemen, 4, and Lola, 2.
House and family #259, immediately after James Tillerโs family, is headed by William Tiller, then age 22, and his wife, Polly, also aged 22, and their children, Andrew, Edmond, Elizabeth, and Silas.
The house and family next enumerated is #260, headed by Joseph Gilbert. Joseph Gilbert was James Tillerโs step-father, if not also William Tillerโs step-father, through Joseph's marriage to their mother, Polly TIller, in 1836, long after Jamesโ birth in 1818 and even after Williamโs birth in 1833. Polly had passed away in 1843 at the age of 53. Joseph had then married Tabitha (Compton) in 1844. In 1850, Josephโs household included Tabitha, the four youngest Tiller childrenโRachel, Samuel, John, and Josephโand a natural child of Joseph and Tabitha, Lavonia, who was then 4.
Tabithaโs Compton kin also lived nearby. Page 48 of the census shows that her brother Peyton Compton lived in house #311, and page 237 shows that her parents, David and Polly Compton, lived in house #1616.
Immediately preceding James Tillerโs house on page 40 of the census is house and family #257, which was headed by John Wallis and his wife, Lucy. These were the parents of Jamesโ wife, Jane Wallis. Itโs not much of a stretch to suppose that John Wallisโs family and Joseph Gilbertโs blended family had been neighbors for years, and that James Tiller and Jane Wallis, though there were 8 years between them, either might have kindled a mutual interest in each other as they grew up or had simply been expected to do so, and, eventually, to marry. In any event, they had married in 1842, when Jane was 16 and James Tiller was 24.
In sum, on page 40 of the census, there is a knot of four adjacent houses and families, who were immediate neighbors and who were linked by marriage and kinship. Tabithaโs Compton kin, though not immediate neighbors, lived in proximity to Joseph Gilbert, the Tiller boys, and the Wallises and were also linked by blood and marriage to those families.
And thatโs not the end of it. By the census of 1860, the story of genealogical connections between the Gilberts and their neighbors had taken a further turn.
In 1850, James Rasnake had been single and living with his parents in house #190 in Russell County, probably within a few miles of James Tillerโs house. You can see this in the enumeration of the Rasnake household on page 29 of the 1850 census. Born in 1820, James Rasnake was a peer of James Tiller, born in 1818, and, doubtless, the two young men were well known to each other.
In 1852, James Rasnake, who was then 32, had married Ellen Davis, who was then 17. We donโt know where Ellen had come from. She doesnโt appear to have been a product of Russell County.
Meanwhile, Jane Wallis had borne James Tiller two more childrenโSilas, in 1851, and James, in 1854.
Death, however, visited both the Rasnake and Tiller households before the next census.
Sadly, Jane passed away at the age of 29 in 1855, and James Rasnake died in early 1856, not having yet attained the age of 36.
Janeโs death left James Tiller without a mother for his six children, and James Rasnakeโs death left Ellen Davis in a position that was awkward at best. She didnโt have kin of her own to rely upon in Russell County, and she hadnโt yet borne any children, which might have given her in-laws reason to make a continuing investment in her life. In consequence, on James Rasnakeโs passing, Ellen was effectively left without support or a home.
But not for long. News of James Rasnakeโs recent marriage and now of his death, could not have escaped James Tiller. We donโt know the reasoning that transpired in the Rasnake and Tiller households immediately after James Rasnake's death, but we can see the result of it. For on April 6, 1856, within months, if no more than weeks or even days, of his death, Ellen Davis, then 21, married James Tiller, now 38, and became step-mother to Jamesโ six children with Jane Wallis, who were then about 14, 12, 10, 8, 5, and 2 years old. In truth, Ellen probably had little choice. She would go on to bear James three children of her own.
As the above facts about the 1850 census show, when GRโs and Susieโs ancestors landed in the Virginia backcountry in the 1700s, they generally stayed in the area in which they had established their farmsteads and looked to families within walking distance for mates, and thereby creating greater and greater genealogical connection as the generations went by.
These facts also show that backcountry life was often far from the best of all possible worlds for women. It doesnโt take much of a feminist to feel great empathy for women who often died young, as did Jane Wallis, frequently in child birth, or who, like Ellen Davis, faced dilemmas early on in their lives for which there were no solutions that werenโt grim.
Yet it would not be true to say that marriages made in the backcountry were without love or passionโat least, that wouldnโt be true in the case of GR and Susie.
