Descendants of slaves/slaveholders reunite
About 80 descendants, both White and Black, joined in a reunion July 11-13, to celebrate a common heritage.
The discovery that descendants of the Lewellen Family Plantation, Black and White, was discovered through a genetic match on Ancestry.com.
Black and White cousins, Beverly Bevel, Dudley Lewellen and Rhonda Roederer, met at the Osborne Bell Memorial for the first time the summer of 2018.
From that first meeting, the search for long-lost relatives began. And early on, the cousins committed to holding a family reunion in two years. But COVID intervened.
The reunion took place in Marshall and Benton counties in July.
The schedule of events included a visit to the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tenn. Then, a visit to Ripley to the cemetery in the area where the Lewellen Plantation was located. The plantation owner and a mulatto slave brought forth the mixing of the genes and the Lewellen Saga began.
The next stop was on the north side of the Marshall County Courthouse where slave auctions were once held. Names of slaves sold were read aloud, and a Lewellen history was provided, and the extended Lewellens celebrated their heritage.
Next stop was at Tarkio, the home of the late Judge Jesse Lewelling, who owned 16 slaves: men, women and children. The probate of the Judge’s will was read during the event.A meeting at the Hugh Craft House was held Saturday and a banquet was scheduled for The Graduate Hotel in Oxford Saturday night.
At the courthouse ceremony, Roy Lewellen read the notice of bill of sale for Stephen W. Lewelling in probate court in Marshall County. Stephen Lewelling was the owner of 16 slaves. His will was probated in 1856 and included the sale of 640 acres of land and slaves.
The slaves sold at auction included:
• Levi and wife Hannah and 10 children, Harriet, Masi, Levi Jr., Hillman, Anaka, Fanny, Mack, Same, Conley, and Unnamed.
• Masi and her 10 children, Alfred, Stewart, Fayette, Jacob, Charlette, Jenny, Adoline, Cato, Venese and Lewis.
• Rachel and her four children: Shelvy, Bessie, Aaron and Un-named.
• Shelvy and child, Andrew.
• Old George, wife Jamina and others, Albert, Henry, Francis and Adam.
Lewelling’s widow requested the families be sold together, but her request was not honored.
Three slaves, Fayette, Cato, and Lewis served as Confederate Soldiers during the Civil War.
Bevel said that a slave often brought $300 at auction.
Some additional facts included:
* about 25 percent of houses had slaves with an average of six slaves per house.
• when women married, all of their property went to her husband.
• slaves, including the babies, were sold.
• slaves, at auction, were paraded to the courthouse steps to be looked over and sold.
• there are 26 different spellings of the Luellen name in the United States.
• the 3rd, 4th, and 5th cousins were mostly represented at the reunion.
The late Dudley Lewellen, who met with Bevel and Roederer at the Osborne Bell Monument to kick off the family search for the Black and White descendants, was found to be related to Conley Luellen (1846-1942) and Amanda Dowdy (1856-1945), Dudley’s great-grandparents.
Sally Godard picked up the story from there saying she looked for Conley in the census records back to 1880.
There was only one name Conley Cheers, so she searched the Cheers family which linked back to Harriet, child of Levi and Hannah.
She said she found the death certificate of Harriet married to a Randle Cheers, in Tennessee.
And on Harriet’s death certificate she found the name Harriet Lewellen.
She said Conley was sold away from his mother and brothers and he stole a mule and rode by the river and camped until he found his way home.
After the names were read aloud, Bevel closed the ceremony with an expression of belief.
“I believe they are watching us, the descendants of slave owners and saying `Glory Be to God,’” she said.
She said Judge Jesse Lewelling owned the Tarkio house which still has slave quarters behind the house on Randolph Street.
Godard bought the Hugh Craft House and slave quarters which is a part of the Behind the Big House tour, that has been taking place for 11 years.
Godard said African American slaves built the big house, planted the garden, took care of the house cleaning and emptied the chamber pots.
“Our work at Behind the Big House is to make sure all people know the story of their ancestors,” she said.
Roederer’s fourth removed great grandparents were Rev. Jesse Lewellen (1775-1840) and wife Corcas Sheppard (17751842). Roederer descended from slaveholder William C. Lewellen, her greatgrandfather three times removed.
Beverly Bevel’s descendant three generations back was a mulatto slave, Sylvia Lewellen (1834). Beverly descends from Sylvia, son of Lewis H. Lewellen Sr. (1865-1934)
Documents support Sylvia originally lived on the plantation of Stephen W. Lewelling and was later sold to Judge Jesse Lewelling around 1854.
Silvia Lewellen was found in records in Tennessee around 1834, and she originally lived on the plantation of Stephen W. Lewelling and was later sold to Judge Jesse Lewelling around 1854.
Dudley Lewellen’s great great-grandparents were Conley Luellen, (1846-1945) and Amanda Dowdy (18561945). Dudley descends from Julian Leullen. Conley was later sold to Dr. Isham G. Bailey of Early Grove, a prominent doctor and planter in Marshall County.