the White Howzes

Like many Black Americans, Alcorn Howze’s origin story begins long before the Antebellum period, all the way back to 1619 to the start of the transatlantic slave trade to the Americas, and before that on the continent of Africa. We do not know much of anything about his family’s story before the early 1800s. Their lives were far more significant, intimate, and frankly, real than this account could ever tell. Because Black Americans were not typically recorded by name in census records before 1870, much of what I know about them before that time is linked to the story of their enslavers.

This page is all about the family of Isham Robertson Howze whose family enslaved Rev. Alcorn's family in North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi. I hope to find living descendants of the white Howze family who may be able to share any unpublished family records or documents that could shed some light on Alcorn's family. If you have any information, please use the contact form on this website to reach out to me directly.

Sometime around the year 1770 in Franklin County, North Carolina a baby girl named Grace was born into slavery. She, like her mother, would have been enslaved by a white family by the name of Howze.

She is the oldest ancestor of Rev. James Alexander Alcorn that I could find listed by name. Grace probably had many more children whose names we will never know, but I have come to believe that some of her children were named Dilcy, Henry, Aggy, Horace, and Clayton.

There is no record of what her life was like growing up enslaved by the white Howze family, but by the time she was almost 100 years old she would have lived long enough to experience freedom. She would live with her daughter Aggy, her grandson Jerry, and six of her great-grandchildren in Marshall County, Mississippi. She will be free for several years at the end of her life which comes sometime after 1870 and before 1880.

I believe that Grace was enslaved by a man named Isaac Howze who passed her down as human property to his son William Duke Howze and eventually from William Duke to his son, Isham Robertson Howze.

Isaac Howze (Isham's grandfather) was born in 1722 in Surry County, Virginia. At the end of his life he was living in Franklin County, North Carolina. According to his own will from 1807, and other probate records filed after his death in 1818, we know that Isaac enslaved the following people who are listed only by their first name:

We cannot know from this document what sort of family or kinship relationships may have existed between these people and it’s not clear that they were listed in in any sort of order in these documents that might give us a clue about that. However, from this earliest record, we can know the names of the people who were enslaved together by the white Howzes, and who lived and worked alongside each other for some time. Names in bold are individuals that I have reason to believe may be related to Alcorn.

Isaac Howze willed some of these people to his children Edmond, John, Isaac, James, and his oldest son William Duke Howze who outlived all his younger siblings. By following the white Howzes in censuses, “slave schedules”, wills and probate records, we can follow some of these individuals over the years.

For example, Nancy is listed among those enslaved by Isaac Howze in 1818. Before Isaac’s son James died in 1846 in Alabama, he mentioned in his will the people he enslaved. One of those people is Nancy, and at that time 28 years later, she had nine children. I have listed below the names from James’ will and what he wanted to happen to them upon his death. Those marked with an (*) were likely inherited from his father. The names in bold are individuals I believe are related to Alcorn.

Isaac’s oldest son, William Duke Howze, was born in 1764 in North Carolina and died in 1849 in Petersburg, Tennessee. He had six children—four girls, and two boys. As the last surviving child of his father, he inherited many individuals from both his father and his siblings. He, in turn, passed some of these individuals on to his children. Tracing Alcorn’s family requires tracing how they were bought, sold, or transferred among the children of W.D. Howze.

William Duke Howze's children:

Martha Duke Howze was born in 1785 in North Carolina. In 1840, she married Titus Murray, but they soon separated and eventually divorced. They never had any children, and she lived with her brother Isham for most of her adult life. Her father willed to her upon his death Aggy, Jerry, Nathan, and Sarah but they were given to Isham to be held in trust for Martha’s use.

Francis Battle Howze was born in 1786 in North Carolina. She married James Roper and had two children with him before he died. She later married Dr. Thomas H. Todd of Shelby County, TN but she soon died. She was buried in Starkville, Mississippi. After her death, her husband Dr. Todd married her daughter, Burchet Roper, from her previous marriage. Strangely, Burchet Roper Todd also died while married to Dr. Todd. She was buried in Shelby County, TN. In 1853, Dr. Todd had Francis’ body dug up in Starkville and delivered to Shelby County to be buried next to her daughter.

Elizabeth Robertson Howze was born in North Carolina in 1790. She married John Hayes and died in 1845.

Green Duke Howze was born in 1794 in North Carolina. He married Mary Kimball in 1816, and they had two children. He died in 1835 and his brother Isham R. Howze became guardian of his youngest daughter Susan B. Howze along with the enslaved individuals she inherited from her father and her maternal grandfather, Sion Kimball. Their names were Jeff, Charles, Sam, Peter, Nancy/Nutly, Burton, Eliza, Dilcy, and Madison.

Isham Robertson Howze was born in 1796 in North Carolina. He married Elizabeth James Wilson in 1833 when he was thirty-six and she was fifteen. They had seven children together. Isham died in 1857, and his wife never remarried. W.D. gave Grace and Dilcy to Isham in his will and Aggy, Jerry, Sarah, and Nathan to hold in trust for his sister Martha Murray.

Amy Lundy Howze was born in 1789 in North Carolina. She married Parker Campbell in 1821. They had two children before Parker Campbell died in 1837. Amy was blind and bed-ridden for about 15 years before her death in 1854. Her daughter Burchet Campbell married John W. Hill. They along with Amy’s other son Green Duke inherited the people she enslaved after her death. I don’t know all of their names, but I believe Henry and his wife Milly were included among them.

North Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee

Isaac Howze, died in 1816. On November 3, 1818, William Duke Howze’s son, Isham who was about 22 years old at the time, left their North Carolina home and settled in Madison County, Alabama. The following Spring, William Duke and the rest of Isham’s immediate family followed him to Alabama. Grace, Rev. Alcorn's great-grandmother, would have been about 49 years old when they moved to Alabama. Her youngest daughter Aggy would have been about 10 years old. While they lived with and worked without pay for the white Howzes in Alabama, Aggy grew up and began to have children of her own. Aggy’s son Jerry was born in 1822, her daughter Sarah in 1825, and her son Nathan in 1828.

On December 20, 1830, when Aggy’s child Nathan was just about two years old, the white Howzes moved everyone again. William Duke Howze, his daughter Amy Lundy Campbell and family, and his son Isham Howze purchased land near each other in Petersburg, Lincoln County, TN—about 40 miles due north of their home in Alabama. The move would have taken several days with such a large number of individuals and their belongings moving by wagon and on horseback.

According to the 1830 "slave schedule" from Lincoln County, TN, William Duke Howze enslaved 23 people that are not listed by name but by gender and age range. They were:

5 boys under 10 years

6 males 10-24 years

4 males 25-36 years

3 females under 10 years

2 females 10-24 years

2 females 24-26 years

1 female 45-55 years

I believe the following individuals were living there enslaved by William Duke Howze: Grace, Dilcy (and her children Nancy, Amanda, Wash), Aggy (and her children, Jerry, Sarah, and Nathan), Clayton, Horace, and Henry. I do not know the names of the other 11 or so individuals that William Duke Howze enslaved, but it seems possible that the number would have included men that fathered the children of Dilcy and Aggy and perhaps their father as well.

In 1833, when Isham was thirty-six years old and living in Petersburg, TN near his father and sister, he married Elizabeth James Wilson who was only 15 years old at the time. She must have become pregnant almost immediately and she gave birth to their first child, George Adrian “Ady” Howze in December of that year. One can only imagine what 60-year-old Grace would have thought of the young bride. Grace was around 26 years old when Isham was born. He was young enough to be one of her own children. And Elizabeth was younger than Grace’s granddaughter.

While they lived in Petersburg, Tennessee Isham purchased a half-share in a local sawmill. It seems likely that some of the able-bodied and strong men his family enslaved would have been sent to work at the mill. Such work would have been difficult and dangerous. Even after Isham moved from Lincoln County, TN to Marshall County, MS in 1839, he still retained partial ownership in the sawmill until around 1842. I believe that some of the men he and his father enslaved, who had experience working at the mill may have been made to stay there and continue working for some time.

While Isham and Elizabeth lived in Petersburg, TN they had one more son, William, and young Elizabeth taught school from their home. At that time there were no public-school options in the same sense that we understand public schooling today. It’s likely that Elizabeth’s school was for young white girls whose parents paid a yearly tuition directly to the Howzes. We don’t know much about the details of her school in Lincoln County, but it may be like the school she ran a few years later in 1839 when they moved to Mississippi. Below is an excerpt from a book titled "History of a Southern Presbyterian Family" that was written by Elizabeth’s youngest brother, Legrand James Wilson, in 1900 about the history of the Wilson family. He is describing the school Elizabeth ran that he himself attended when he was about 9 years old, which would have been around 1845—when Elizabeth and Isham were living in Chulahoma, Mississippi.

"Elizabeth James, eldest daughter of James and Elizabeth Joseph Wilson, was born January 26, 1818, in Madison County, Ala. She grew up with the family, and received a good English education, and at the early age of fifteen was married to Isham R. Howze. I wish my record threw some light upon this early marriage, but it does not, and I suppose when she grew older and became a “woman grown,” she entered upon her life work as teacher, which she followed till the infirmities of age forced her to give it up. She possessed the rare faculty of managing girls and young ladies, and her school-room was always full.

This was the first school I attended, and I remember it well. It was strictly a female school, but I was only nine years old, and had to accompany my oldest sister from home every morning on horseback.

My sister had six or eight boarders, young ladies who lived at a distance. All but two went home every Friday evening, and returned Monday morning. A German music teacher also was a boarder. I think thirty was the capacity of the school, and it was always full. How she managed those girls, taught that school, and kept up her boarding department, and attended to her own children, for she had five, and the oldest was eleven, I never knew. Of course, she had servants, a cook, dining-room maid, and nurse for the baby, but that will not solve the problem, and when I think there were no sewing machines, how did she keep her family clad? And the problem none of her numerous progeny can solve to-day. Her husband, a delicate man, often assisted in the school-room, and was always busy." (pg 42)

Of course, the “servants” and the cook, the maid and nurse that he mentions were in fact enslaved by Elizabeth and Isham. The people who were cooking, feeding, bathing, nursing, clothing, and working in the fields while Elizabeth ran her school, were Rev. Alcorn’s father, aunt, uncle, cousin, and grandmother. Since Elizabeth was always teaching school from their home, I wondered if she might have taught Rev. Alcorn’s family as well. I don’t know if she ever taught them directly, but it is plausible due to their close proximity with one another, that Alcorn’s family could have picked up enough to teach themselves.

Isham and his wife were not large plantation owners like those often depicted in films and television programs like Gone With The Wind. They would have been considered part of the “merchant” class that made most of their income by working—as a teacher in Elizabeth’s case, and as merchant who bought and sold goods in Isham’s case. Any agricultural work that they did (or forced the people they enslaved to do) was likely to feed themselves and those they enslaved, and any extra—though never in large quantities—would have been sold to supplement their income. It is very likely that when they lived in Petersburg and later in Marshall County, Mississippi and Shelby County, TN that they all lived in one log-cabin style house together with the people they enslaved, or they may have had one cabin for the white Howzes, and one cabin very close by for their slaves.

Simply because of their economic status, the white Howzes would likely have had a lot of direct and close contact with Alcorn’s family members that they enslaved. It’s possible that even if Elizabeth didn’t teach them to read and write, that they would have been around and working while she was teaching her students and her own children.

After almost a decade in middle Tennessee, Isham and Elizabeth moved to Chulahoma, Mississippi in 1839. We can get a sense for what this trip might have looked like from the book “History of a Southern Presbyterian Family” written by LeGrand J. Wilson—Elizabeth’s youngest brother. He is describing his own family's journey moving everyone from Petersburg to Marshall County, MS in 1843. Although Isham and Elizabeth did not have as much property, livestock, children or slaves as the Wilson's had at that time, the journey would have been similar. He writes:

"Early in December, we started for North Mississippi. The family had increased a good deal since the great move from Virginia to Alabama. The negroes now numbered forty, old and young, and there were none older than my parents. Whites, nine. A drove of more than one hundred hogs, twenty head of cattle, mostly milch [sic] cows, and several head of horses, and, “mirabile dictu,” a drove of forty turkeys. It looked a little like Jacob returning from Padanaram. After the first two or three days, we made an average of twelve miles per day. One of the boys was sent ahead every day to select a camping place, buy a load of corn for the hogs, shuck it, and have everything in readiness, so you see we had to have one extra wagon for this work. We were on the road for five weeks and reached our destination in January 1843." (pg 80)

While in Chulahoma, Elizabeth had her school and Isham tried his hand as a merchant. In one instance, he had a business partnership with a Mr. Echols that proved unsuccessful. Writing in his own diary in 1853, Isham reflects only briefly on his time in Chulahoma 20 years earlier:

"I have lived in Chulahoma for years – flattering prospects from time to time presenting themselves to me. But there was always some hinderance, so I never was fully satisfied there. I could do nothing in selling goods—made several fruitless attempts—could not get land to cultivate, etc. and finally I left."

Below is a newspaper clipping from the Holly Springs Gazette, Saturday August 30, 1845 about the Chulahoma school run by the Howzes.

William Duke Howze, the oldest child of Isaac Howze, and father of Isham Robertson Howze died in 1849 in Marshall County, Tennessee. At the time of his death, he had only three living children: Isham Robertson Howze, Martha Duke Murray (divorced), and Amy Campbell (widowed). He listed in his will the names of those he enslaved and what he wanted to be done with them upon his death. That information is listed in the table below. Individuals marked with an (*) were likely inherited by W.D. from his father, and those marked with two (**) were likely inherited or purchased from his brother’s estate. The names in bold are individuals I believe were kinfolk of Alcorn via their common ancestor Grace.

William Duke Howze's last will and testament regarding the people he enslaved:

By following the names of those enslaved by the white Howze family, by supplementing with later census records, and by following the frequent moves and land purchases of the white Howzes, we can get general idea of Alcorn’s family tree and where his ancestors would have lived over the years. You can see more about Alcorn's family elsewhere on this site.

When the white Howzes left Chulahoma in 1850, Isham moved his family to Germantown, Shelby County, Tennessee where he rented a home and land from the most unlikely friend that Isham and Elizabeth would ever make. They would live, along with Rev. Alcorn’s family, under the same roof with Frances Wright—a Scottish-born feminist, abolitionist, atheist who established an experimental commune of free Blacks and whites called Nashoba on that same property 20 years prior. Click here to learn more about their time at Nashoba.