Descendants of William Tilden

By Hilda Saulsbury

Around the last part of the eighteenth century or at the beginning of the nineteenth century, this family landed on the shores, in chattels, of what is now the United States of America. Since the middle name of Hilda is May, the schooner named Fabiana bought relatives in chattels by means of the slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean. May is not necessarily the original name of the enslaved person. During the same time as the Atlantic slave trade, there also was the Arab slave trade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524550622

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Copyright © 2016 by Hilda Saulsbury.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 10/14/2016

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CONTENTS

Chapter I     Descendants of William Tilden

Chapter II     Descendants of Samuel Black

Chapter III     Descendants of Henry Clark

Chapter IV     Descendants of Samuel Comegys

Chapter V     Descendants of John Saulsbury

Chapter VI     Descendants of George Boardley

Chapter VII     Descendants of John Henry Boardley

Chapter VIII     Descendants of John Henry Boardley

Chapter IX     Descendants of John Henry Boardley

Chapter X     Descendants of John Henry Boardley

Chapter XI     Descendant of Russell Melford Saulsbury

"I want to dedicate this book to my parents Russell Melford

Saulsbury and Hilda Boardley Saulsbury."

Preface

I wrote this book to clarify why I wrote it, how I got to information about ancestors, difficulties encountered, and the joys of learning.

Methods selected by me to acquire information about the past were interviewing kinfolk, writing to various repositories, travelling, remembering narratives about relatives, and hoping to talk to family members.

In addition, I wanted to learn the location of areas of relatives’ birthplace, still exist. Getting information from relatives was not easy at times. Some family members gave no answers to questions. Some sent photocopies of family members’ pictures. Other relations I learned who were close relatives. Persons not directly kin gave pictures of persons related, and some associated with this family.

I got a thrill to learn churches formed during chattel slavery still exist. Their forenames still exist on buildings alone and/or with another congregation name.

Information in this book starts with the location of ancestors originally from Africa. In this book, are persons who kept the last names of the last slave-owner. This history tells many changes, which affected the lives of each kinfolk up to the present time.

Persons who influenced and encouraged me to write a memoir were Sarah and Charles Raymond Thomas, Virginia and Lloyd Elwood Black, Clara Comegys Cooper, Russell and Thelma Saulsbury, as well as Hilda Boardley Saulsbury.

Chapter I

Descendants of William Tilden

Around the last part of the eighteenth century or at the beginning of the nineteenth century, this family landed on the shores, in chattels, of what is now the United States of America. Since the middle name of Hilda is May, the schooner named Fabiana bought relatives in chattels by means of the slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean.¹ May is not necessarily the original name of the enslaved person. During the same time as the Atlantic slave trade, there also was the Arab slave trade.

The focus of the Arab slave trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was the Zany (Bantu) slaves from Southeast Africa, which increased with the benefit of the Oman Sultanate, alternatively Zanzibar Sultanate. This area refers to the province over which His Highness Sultan Zanzibar was the ruler. The Arab slave exchange was in conflict with the slave trading done by the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, and the Americans.²

The ship came ashore from Sierra Leone, from no exact port. Slave dealers used various ways to steal Africans from their homes to sell to the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, and the Americans—in that specific order.³ Slavery was one part of a triangle economic cycle. Another set of names, triangular trade and its Middle Passage, involve more than one continent, more than one century, and a given number of people.

Sugar was the name of a slave deported via the ship called Grand Bassa, which came ashore from Sierra Leone, no specific port.⁴ In 1807, the United States, with the United Kingdom, jointly outlawed the African slave trade. They named it the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act; it outlawed slavery throughout the British Empire. On January 1, 1808, the United States law became effective. Any US and English slave ships departing Africa were lawfully pirate vessels subject to be taken into custody by the United States Navy or the Royal Navy.⁵

Agreeing jointly in 1815 at the Council of Vienna were Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands, bringing to an end their slave trade. In this time, slave ships became lesser, more limited in switchover for profit increase, carrying out the new role as smuggling vessel and, moreover, a blockade rival.

According to the amended will of Frederick Hill N. 20,502, 1820, who was an indentured servant plus owed a mortgage debt to the person named Cornelius Comegys sold the following: Negro Rachel aged about thirty-eight years, Negro Eliza aged about seventeen years, Negro Matilda aged about fifteen years, Negro Jackson aged about eight years, and Negro Lewis aged about six years. Other property was a road wagon and gun, a grown mare, a horse, a bay mare, two stills—one holding 130 gallons and the other holding 66 gallons. Included also was one Negro man named George aged about twenty-two years and one Negro woman called Grace age about nineteen years, of the above Negroes according to this will and their increase to Cornelius Comegys. Frederick Hill separately from John Hill defended the different species of property described and conveyed to the said Cornelius Comegys.

Around 1821, the place where Mary and William Tilden lived is not a proven fact. The last slaveholder’s last name was Tilden, thus, Mary and William adopted his or her last name. The birthplace of Mary and William was the southeastern African coast from the Coast of Hope to Cape Delgado, or what is now present-day Mozambique and Madagascar.

Near the end of the eighteenth century, there was a group called Sons of Africa who worked against slavery. This group consisted of trained Africans in London. The freed slaves made up of Ottobah Cugoano, Olaudah Equiano, and other directing members of London’s group of color. This group had links with the not-long-founded Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade of 1787, which included Quakers and Anglicans plus Thomas Clarkson, a kind and devoted friend.⁶

According to the 1860 Federal United States Census, Mary Tilden lived free in Wilmington Ward 4, New Castle, Delaware. Mary Tilden lived free, even after her husband’s death, because she hid and lived in an area where finding a slave was difficult.⁷

In the year 1860, William Tilden did not live with his wife, Mary Tilden.⁸ This was around 1857. They lived as a couple several years before this time. By 1860, she lived with her daughter Rachel Tilden, who married Nathaniel Comegys sometime before 1859. She was fifty-seven years of age. Her address was 922 Walnut Street in Wilmington, Delaware.⁹ Another relative living with her was Anna Comegys, mother of Benjamin Comegys, who was twenty-two years of age. Her son Benjamin was eight years old. Rachel was a colored washerwoman and the widow of Nathaniel Comegys. This was during 1862.¹⁰

Mother AUMP Church’s address was 819 French Street in Wilmington, Delaware, during this time. Peter Spencer was an original member of Asbury Church who helped found Ezion Church. On June 1, 1813, he created the Mother Union Church of African Members; this was the first church in the United States. It was completely well-thought-out and restricted by colored people.¹¹

In 1851, a group from the African Union Methodist Protestant Church formed a new group called the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church, colored, whose location was at 1206 French Street. They worshipped for three years in the home of John W. Benton. UAME Church bought the church location on December 11, 1855, from Samuel C. Tatum and built a board tent. An erection of a meetinghouse took place in 1865.¹²

Rachel Comegys, widow of Nathaniel Comegys, lived in the city until 1873. A relative named Anna Comegys—whose birthplace was Wilmington, New Castle, Delaware—lived in 1860 at the same address.

The Civil War started in 1861. About 1862, Rachel Comegys continued to live at 922 Walnut in Wilmington, New Castle, Delaware.

Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. It set rights to free the slaves in the Confederate States if the states did not return to the Union by January 1, 1863. Freedom also would only come to the slaves of the Union if it won the war.

In April 1865, the Civil War ends. After the end of this war, John Wilkes Booth murders Abraham Lincoln. Established was the Freedman’s Bureau. The Congress approved the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in December of 1865. The Reconstruction Era began in 1867. Congress approved the Fourteenth Amendment, which made African-Americans full citizens in 1868. In 1870, the congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment, which includes laws not blocking any US citizen from voting based on race, color, or prior slave level.¹³

At 922 Walnut, John Comminger (colored) lived at this address in 1865.¹⁴ Rachel Comegys most likely sold the property to him. In 1869, Rachel Comegys, a widow, lived at 1131 Orange. In 1870, Benjamin Comegys lived at the same address. He was a laborer. She continued to live in 1131 Orange in Wilmington, New Castle, Delaware.

Chapter II

Descendants of Samuel Black

About 1811, Samuel Black lived in the United States of America. He probably lived in Kent County, Maryland, until he died. He was the father of several children. Debra Wickes-Black was the wife.¹⁵ He gave the children what he owned in his will. Their names were Annie, Joseph, Hester, Jane Louisa, Lavinia, Charles Albert, Perry, Debbie, and Levi N.¹⁶ Samuel Black’s will states he left to a granddaughter named Mary Francis Black, her mother being Lavinia Black, a house and lot of ground with improvements thereon. To Mary and Lavinia Black, Samuel Black also left one shoal, one sorrel mare named Fanny, and one cow named Bossom. Next, Samuel Black left a sow to a son named Perry M. Black, one sorrel mare named Fashion. To Joseph Black, Charles A. Black, and Levi N. Black, he left the sum of two dollars and no more. Annie Black and Hester Dudley also received the sum of two dollars and no more. The will states that Samuel Black made Perry Black the sole executor of his last will and testament on October 26, 1885. Joseph Black, born in 1849, was a father of several children. Hattie Clark has, on a death certificate, the letter B. for her maiden name Black.¹⁷ Matilda Comegys was the mother.

Biologically, Joseph Black was the father of Asbury Augustus Black, also the father of Bessie, Mary, Della Virginia, David, Annie, Edna, and Lloyd. He married Clara Smallwood in 1890. On the marriage certificate of Lloyd Black and Pearl Garner, Clara Smallwood’s maiden name is Raisin.¹⁸ Joseph Black, at the age of 19, worked as farmhand in Chestertown, Kent County, Maryland.¹⁹

While living in Edesville, Kent County, Maryland, Joseph Black was the husband of Mariah Black. Joseph Black was thirty years of age, and his wife’s