The Copeland Family- Introduction

The Copeland Family

Introduction

The story of my COPELAND Family is one of contradictory beliefs and of many missing years in their beginnings, but I am going to relate what I have found out about the origins of our COPELANDs who were Free People of Color first in Halifax County, North Carolina.
Our earliest COPELAND ancestor, KADER COPELAND, a.k.a. CATO COPELAND, was a former Revolutionary War Soldier, whose wife was NANCY MITCHELL, and while his Pension application indicated that his family consisted of himself and his wife, family traditions and the names of several family members, including HESAKIAH COPELAND, who was sometimes called KEDAR COPELAND, tell of CATO COPELAND being their ancestor.
One of the things I want to say first, though, is that there are a lot of trees out there where people have erroneously listed these known Halifax Co. COPELANDs as the children of CATO COPELAND, born 1758, but they are entirely wrong because there was never any mention of any dependent children in any of the Pensions filed for him, even after his death when his widow filed for a Pension. CATO indicated that he had already drawn 3 Pensions by 1820, and judging by the statements of witnesses, he was also crippled and unable to control the movement of his muscles (as "palsy" in the statements) and had been dependent upon the County for support for many years. It is very possible that he was wounded or suffered from some ailment contracted during his service in the War. And since he was being supported by the County, any children that he and NANCY had, would have been immediately bonded out, which would account for the fact that there were no Census with him showing a family until late in life. CATO was living in Craven County, NC, alone, in 1790, something that I have often wondered about. It may have something to do with his trying to collect his pay, and even perhaps applying for some kind of early pension which were only just beginning to be considered for wounded soldiers of the Revolutionary War. In 1785, he was issued 3 payment certificates totaling $203, due him for his term of service in the War covering 1782 and 1783. Another point of interest, is that there is a note contained in his Pension file which says that the pensioner's real name was KADER COPELAND and that some of the papers had erroneously listed him as CATO COPELAND. His 1820 Census, which only lists him as "COPELAND", in a household of Free Colored People consisting of 1 male over age 45, 1 female over age 45, 1 female age 26-45, and 2 females under age 14. These would have been CATO & and his wife, NANCY, their daughter, MARTHA, and 2 young girls, possibly unknown daughters of MARTHA, but more likely were actually BENJAMIN & JOSEPH, 2 young boys who were mislabeled as girls, as was sometimes done in the census.

The ages of the COPELAND men who follow in this narrative, all clearly indicate that the first were born in 1814, at the earliest, which negates the possibility of NANCY having given birth to them since she would have been well over 50 years old when having her 1st child, and certainly she didn't have any of the children who were born in the 1820s. That's why it is more likely that their parents would have been at least a generation removed from CATO COPELAND as is discussed below. One other thing of note with these COPELANDs is the possibilities of what may be able to be found out through DNA. One of our COPELAND family members from the JOSEPH COPELAND and BENJAMIN COPELAND line has participated in Y-DNA tests where his haplogroup is E-M2, predominantly Sub-Saharan African. At the time, since there were very few people doing Y-DNA, particularly African Americans, the only match which could be deciphered was the fact that he is related to the TINKER family of Yorkshire, England, possibly going back to the early 1700s. We have no idea of how that fits into our ancestry, but from a bit of research, there was from Yorkshire, Governor JOHN TINKER of the Bahamas, who died there about 1757, at which time he freed a female slave named ABANABA, and the date is curiously close to CATO COPELAND's birth in 1758. After contacting the Archives Dept. in the Bahamas, they were unable to find any record of what happened to the former slave. North Carolina didn't have very many TINKER families in the early records, but Census & Marriage records shows a couple of them in Craven County, NC in the late 1700s. Curiously, for reasons one can only guess at, CATO COPELAND was living in Craven Co. in 1790. What, if any, relationship may have been to JOHN TINKER is not known by me, but I have found that at least one, STEPHEN TINKER, was involved in the importation & sale of 3 slaves who were later freed, as well as there being a dispute about the disposition of slaves he freed in his will in 1795. They don't appear to have had anything to do with CATO, but if I find anything further on this, I will add a page with those findings on this site. I want to say however, that as time has passed, it has become apparent that any relationship to the TINKER surname, is just one of the many possibilities since there hasn't been anyone else doing Y-DNA from the Halifax Co. COPELANDs as can be seen here under Group 7 -Joseph Copeland (1810-1868). I do want to point out, though, that since it was Y-DNA, any match would be through the male side, meaning would be whoever was the father of MARTHA's child, JOSEPH, and not for CATO COPELAND. No father has been identified for any of her children who carried the COPELAND surname.

Since I originally wrote the biographical outlines which follow, I have found out a lot more on all of them. But the most important document has been in locating the Apprenticeship record of BENFORD (a.k.a. BENJAMIN) and JOSEPH COPELAND in 1823 Halifax County, NC. It also confirms that their mother was MARTHA COPELAND, who bound them to ALLEN DAMERON, a Free Person of Color in Halifax at the time, and it gives the boys actual birthdates, which surprised me because I had always previously thought that JOSEPH was the oldest.

See Apprenticeship of Benjamin and Joseph Copeland

Four COPELAND families first turned up in the 1850 Census in Halifax and Warren Counties, or more accurately, three were actually listed, and one additional was somehow missed in the census but was indicated as being there through other records of the time, and did show up in the 1860 Census.
As further info about the 1850 Halifax County Census, there is a notation on the last page for that County, which reads: "After a careful notation of the dwellings and families I make 1792 - 33 more than the Marshal. The numbers do not run regular Some of the leaves are saved in wrong 182 pages." In other words, somewhere along the line, a number of families were somehow mis-counted or mis-placed, so apparently, the Census for Halifax County may be wrong for that year. There are a number of families that I know were there in 1850 but which don't show up in the Census, and some of the COPELANDs were among them. The other problem with Halifax County, is that they were poor record keepers, it wasn't a "burnt County" like some others, where there were losses of records due to Courthouse fires or War; Halifax just has a lot of missing records, including many of the early Marriage Records and for the marriages up through about 1900, very few of them have the actual copies of the marriage licenses which included additional info about the marriage couple. So, what records one does find has to be used in combination with others to determine some of the early facts.

The COPELANDs start off with the families of four men, all of whom indicated that they were born in Halifax County:

BENJAMIN COPELAND (1814-aft 1880) Family was living in Warren County from 1850 and thereafter most of them have remained there. JOSEPH's son, ALFRED, went to live with BENJAMIN's family after his father died.

JOSEPH COPELAND (1818-1868) Family first lived in Heathsville section of Halifax County, then spread out to Nash, and later Nansemond County, Virginia.

ROBERT COPELAND (1823-ca 1860) Family was living in the Enfield area of Halifax County, where most of that line continued to live.

HESAKIAH COPELAND (1825- ca 1889) was first found in both Warren & Halifax in 1850, then remained in Brinkleyville, Halifax County thereafter. JOSEPH's sons, THOMAS & HILLIARD, went to live with him after their father died.

JOSEPH & BENJAMIN were brothers, and it is very likely that ROBERT & HESAKIAH were also their brothers, although a bit younger, the 2 youngest children of MARTHA COPELAND, b. abt 1790, all of whom have traditions of being related to one another. It is likely there were other children born between JOSEPH & ROBERT, probably females since they are harder to trace, but unfortunately, Halifax County has very few early marriage records to help identify some of the couples who lived there prior to 1850. MARTHA COPELAND, who appeared as head of her own household in 1830 with 1 young son, was likely the female of the same age previously in the 1820 household of CATO COPELAND, which also included 2 young females under 14; I believe that MARTHA was a daughter of CATO COPELAND. While the father of her first few children who had the COPELAND surname is Unknown, it is known that MARTHA COPELAND later married STEPHEN HEDGEPETH, b. abt 1797, a widower who already had at least 6 children by his previous UNKNOWN wife, and that she was the mother of his children born after 1830, their oldest being born in 1832; she was called "PAT COPELAND" on the Death Certificate of their son, NEWELL HEDGEPETH (as info, the names "Martha" and "Pattie" or "Patsy" were nicknames, often used interchangeably in old records.). The children of STEPHEN & MARTHA HEDGEPETH were CELIA HEDGEPETH, SALLY HEDGEPETH, NEWELL HEDGEPETH, STEPHEN HEDGEPETH JR., JAMES HEDGEPETH & ANNA HEDGEPETH. STEPHEN also had the following children by an earlier marriage, although that wife's name is Unknown: WILLIAM HEDGEPETH, RICHARD HEDGEPETH & NANCY HEDGEPETH. Just remember, though, that STEPHEN HEDGEPETH was NOT the father of MARTHA's oldest 4 boys who bear the COPELAND surname as some people have inaccurately been doing.

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