White Burrow Story | 19th Century Burrow

Chapter One- A Brief History of the Burrow Family

"You walk through a series of arches, so to speak, and then, presently, at the end of a corridor, a door opens and you see backward through time, and you feel the flow of time, and realize that you’re only part of a great endless procession." John Huston

Our first ancestors to America, Phillip Burrow (1641-1702) and his wife, Martha Porch (1645-1705) are said by some genealogists to come from either Cornwall (known for Lands’ End, the westernmost point in England) or Wiltshire, England (known as the site of Stonehenge). Historians identified two ships, Bristol and America, being one of the ships that they sailed on to the New World in the 1650s. Most of the passengers of these ships were indentured servants and men and women usually in their teens. The earliest record of Philip Burrow in America was found in Surry County, VA where he was listed in the Tithable Tax List for 1688, 1694, 1698 and 1702.Upon completing his seven-year bond as an indentured servant, he was granted 100 acres of land to farm. It is almost certain that their staple crop was tobacco as Surry County was in the heart of Virginia’s enormous planting, processing and shipping of the plant. During this time also was the proliferation of slave labor as the plantation owners realized that immense profits could be made off tobacco production using the “free labor” of slavery. In 1661, Virginia passed its first law allowing any free person the right to own slaves. The suppression and apprehension of runaway slave labor was the object of 1672 legislation. Additional laws regarding slavery of Africans were passed in the seventeenth century and codified into Virginia's first slave code in 1705. We can speculate that over time, the Burrow family became slave holders. The first documentation of slave owning in the Burrow Clan appears in several wills of family members shortly after the Revolutionary War:

John Burrow (1695-1788)- eight slaves are mentioned in his will.

John Philip Clapp, father-in-law to Ephraim Burrow (1731-1798)- five slaves are shown in the 1790 U.S. census.

Philip Burrow, Sr. (1715-1778)- 13 slaves are mentioned in his will.

Surry County is about forty miles southeast of Richmond, Virginia. Several generations of our Burrow family continued to live in this area for the next 100+ years (1650-1770). The family then began a migration pattern which took many Burrow family units to Guilford County, North Carolina around the time of the Revolutionary War. The next move of a network of Burrow families was to Bedford and Carroll Counties, Tennessee in the 1810s and 1820s.

While colonial families were quite large with many children per family, we only know of one offspring of Philip and Martha, Philip, Jr. (1670-1741), who is our ancestor. Following our direct line down to the mid- 20th Century (300 years), we have thirteen generations of Burrows:

Philip Burrow Sr. (1641-1702) Born in Cornwall, England and married Martha Mary Porch (1643-1705) We only know of one offspring. Philip Jr. Philip, Sr. and Martha died in Surrey County, Va.

Philip Burrow, Jr. (1670-1741) Born in Wilshire, England or Surry County, Va. Philip married Isabella Bethyer (1675-1777) in 1693 in Surry County Va. They are believed to have had seven children: Philip, Johanna, John, Thomas, James, William & Nathaniel. Philip and Esabella died in Prince Geroge County, Va.

Rev. John Burrow (1695-1788) Born in Prince George County, Va. He married Johanna Cooke Wilkerson (1695-1770). They are said to have had seven children who lived to adulthood: Isabella, John, Philip, William, Thomas, William, Henry & John. John is said to have been a “Reverend.” John did not move his family far from where he was born. Surry and Prince George Counties are in close proximity to each other. Johanna died in Dinwiddie County, Va. and John died in Orange County, N.C. seven years later.

Philip Burrow Sr. (1715-1778) Born in Prince George County, Va. Now begins another Philip Sr. and Jr. succession. He married Martha Patty Porch (1713-1798) in 1734. They are said to have had eleven children who lived to adulthood: Martha, Jerrald, Philip, William, Henry, Izair, Grey, John, James, Wiley & James. Philip and Martha died in Dinwiddie County, Va.

John Jarrell Burrow (1739-1820) Born in Dinwiddie County, Va. and married Eleanor Cain (1740-1817). They had four children: Eleanor, Freeman, Phillip Jarrell & William.

Phillip Jarrell Burrow (1771-1861) Born in Dinwiddie County, Va. and married Margaret Shofner (1779-1852). They had nine children: Nimrod, Jarrell Cad, Martin H., Hiram, Isham, Turley, Freeman T., John G. and James Riley. He also fathered a child, Green Burrow (1832-1891), with the enslaved Fannie.

Phillip Burrow Jr. (1741-1829) Born in Dinwiddie County, Va. and married Martha Patricia Littlefield (1742-1822). They are said to have had eleven children: John Jarrell, Ishmael, James, Sterling, Ephraim, Mary Polly, Phillip, Frances, Patsey, Isaac John, Banks Mitchum, Sr.. Both Phillip and Martha died in Carroll County, Tennessee. Phillip may have been buried in the Burrow Cemetery in Lavinia.

Ephraim Burrow (1768-1833) Born in Surry County, Va. and married Eve Clapp (!770-1851). They had ten children: Solomon P., Jesse, Banks M.D., Alfred, James, Frances, Hester, Nancy, Madison and Letha. Both Ephraim and Eve died in Bedford County, Tennessee.

Solomon Porch Burrow (1791-1841) Born in Guilford County, N.C. and married Nelly Ellen Lowe (1795-1844). They had ten children: Ephraim, Solomon, Permelia, Mary A., Charity, Simon P., Wilson, Martha, Hezekiah, Rebecca. Solomon and Nelly died in Carroll County, Tennessee. His middle name is after the family name of his great grandmother, Martha Patty Porch (1713-1798) and 4th great grandmother, Martha Mary Porch (1643-1705). A very unusual genealogical event, this combining of the Porch and Burrow families three generations apart cannot be explained at present.

Solomon Burrow (1814-1899) Born in Gilford County, N.C. and married Milly Ann Cabe (1826-1876). They had six children: John Porch, Sarah Eleanor, Mary Elizabeth, Margaret Jane, Manerva Tennessee & James Dudley. After the death of his first wife, he married Martha Ann Cain (1850-1911) who was 36 years younger than he was. They had two children: Edna Mae & Lonie Editha. Solomon & Millie died in Washington County, Ark. Martha Ann died in Oklahoma City, Okla.

Lonie Editha Burrow (1893-1950) Born in Prairie Grove, Washington County, Ark. Married Dr. Joseph Melville Finney (1868-1922) in 1908. He was 25 years older than she. They had two children: Helen Marina & Relph Newton Finney. Lonie married a second time to John Francis Gordon (1897-1952) Dr. Finney died in Norman, Okla. and Lonie died in Paul’s Valley, Oklahoma. She was the maternal grandmother of the author of this project.

Chapter Two- Were the Burrows Slave-Owners?

Two- Family Slave Quarters- Virginia

Yes, very definitely. The first five generations given above resided in the heart of tobacco-growing Virginia. Less than fifty miles from the counties (Surry, Prince George & Dinwiddie), where they lived in Virginia, is Richmond, a major hub of tobacco growing, processing and shipping to Europe at that time. Exactly which members of the Burrow family were slave owners cannot usually be established before the end of the 1700s. There are occasional wills preserved from that time which describe the slave holdings of the deceased. (See the references to the wills of John Burrow, John and Philip Burrow, Sr., above). Beginning with the 1790 U.S. Census, slaves were included in the census-taking and beginning in 1850 slaves were counted by first name and attributed to their slave owners in the U.S. Census 1850 & 1860 “Slave Schedules.”.

With the beginning of the U.S. Census, we can document slave ownership with the following family members from three generations of Burrows prior to the Civil War:

Philip Burrow, Jr. (1741-1829)- two slaves in the 1820 census for Bedford County, Tenn.

Ephraim Burrow (1768-1833) Son of Philip Burrow Jr.- 22 slaves in the 1830 census for Bedford County, Tenn.

Philip Burrow III (1771-1854) Son of Philip Burrow, Jr.- 10 slaves in the 1850 census for Carroll County, Ga.

Martha Lucinda Burrow, (1816-1880), daughter of Philip Burrow, III and her husband, Archibald McKissack (1806-1884) had eight slaves in the 1860 Carroll County, Ga. census.

Cynthia Burrow, (1820-1870), daughter of Philip Burrow, III and her husband, Joseph Isham Helton. (1816-18__) had six slaves according to the 1850 Carroll County, Ga. slave schedule.

Rev. Banks Mechium Burrow, Sr. (1781-1851) Son of Philip Burrow, Jr. - 1850 Carroll County, Tenn. Slave Schedule shows him with 64 slaves. There is historical evidence that he actually owned 100 slaves total.

Rev. Banks Mechium Burrow, Jr. (1809-1892) Son of Banks M. Burrow, Sr.- 1850 Gibson County, Tenn. The Slave Schedules shows him with 7 slaves in 1850 and 18 slaves in 1860.

John Jefferson Burrow (1806-1887) Son of Banks M. Burrow, Sr.-. The 1850 Slave Schedule for Carroll County, Tenn shows him with 18 slaves.

Nancy S. (Burrow) Rader (1809-1892) Daughter of Banks M. Burrow, Sr.- The 1850 Slave Census for Gibson County, Tenn. shows her with 7 slaves,

Napoleon Bonaparte Burrow (1818-1880) Son of Banks M. Burrow, Sr.- The 1860 Crawford County, Arkansas Slave Schedule shows him with 29 slaves.

These ten closely related Burrow family members given above do not represent all Burrow family members who owned slaves; only those who could be historically documented. The two largest slave owners in the above list were brothers: Ephraim and Banks M. Burrow, Sr. in Tennessee. Another brother, Philip III, had 10 slaves in Georgia. The others are part of the large majority of slave-holding families of Tennessee who had less than ten slaves.

While the U.S. slave schedules were informative to an extent, they did not give the last names or gender of the enslaved. The 1860 slave schedule gives the ages of the enslaved; the 1850 slave schedule did not.

Given all of this, what can we conclude about the Burrow family’s relationship to slavery? After 200+ years of daily contact with slavery, often direct, the family had become accustomed to this as a commonplace part of their life. In many instances, they played with slave children throughout their childhood and knew how the family relied on slave labor to prosper. This pattern continued over ten or more Burrow generations. Not only were the white slave-owning families of the South accustomed to this, but many of the enslaved as well. It had become a way of life for both sides.

The emancipation of Black Americans at the end of the Civil War came as a huge economic, social and political shock to both black and white. This process actually began early in the war for Tennessee due to early successes by the Union Army in that state.

The Burrow Family Migration to Tennessee

Throughout the 18th Century, the once fertile land of Virginia was becoming increasingly depleted by the ever-constant planting of tobacco. As was the case for many families in the southeast of Colonial America, families were on a constant move westward in the search for new, cheap and fertile land. Families also moved to new locations in interconnected networks of kinship. The first such move by the Burrow family was from eastern Virginia (Dinwiddie County) to Guilford County, North Carolina where most of them remained for 10-15 years around the time of the Revolutionary War. The next move was to central Tennessee (Bedford County). Again, several Burrow family groups moved at the same time. Among them were Philip S. Burrow, Jr., his brother, John Jarrell Burrow and John’s son, Freeman Taylor Burrow. “The History of Tennessee” published in 1913, lists them as being among the first settlers of Bedford County in 1806. Later in 1815 and 1818, they were joined by the families of Phillip’s sons: Ephraim and Banks M. Burrow, Sr. Ephraim migrated there from Guilford County, N.C and Banks from Jones County, Georgia.

A second family migration took place with Banks M. Burrow, Sr. moving to the west part of Tennessee (Carroll County) in 1820. Again, this was to land that was being newly settled. Ephraim’s son, Solomon P. Burrow and his family also joined them there about this time. Philip, Jr., Ephraim and Solomon P. Burrow are from the author’s direct family line.

It is assumed that they traveled to these new lands accompanied by their slaves, as this was a common practice in that time. These were probably in small numbers and had to be in a close relationship with the Burrow family, as they faced the wilderness, built cabins and cleared forests side-by-side. It appears to be only 10-20 years later that Ephraim and Banks Burrow acquired more slaves to become plantation owners in the traditional sense.

Chapter Three- Slavery in Tennessee

Tennessee was admitted to the Union in 1796. In the early years of settlement, planters brought African slaves with them from Kentucky and Virginia. These slaves were first concentrated in Middle Tennessee, where planters developed mixed crops and bred high-quality horses and cattle, as they did in the Inner Bluegrass region of Kentucky. East Tennessee had more subsistence farmers and few slaveholders.

In the first decade of the 19th Century, Tennessee slaves made up 17% of the total population of 261,00 persons. Public sentiment supporting the abolition of slavery swelled in the first three decades of the 1800s. During the early years of state formation, there was support for emancipation. At the constitutional convention of 1796, "free negroes" were given the right to vote if they met residency and property requirements. A 1826 law prohibited bringing slaves into the state for purposes of sale, rather than the direct use of their labor. Freedmen were required without fail to have their emancipation records with them at any time and place in order to prove their freedom. By 1830 the number of African Americans had increased from less than 4,000 at the beginning of the century to 146,000. This was chiefly related to the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 and the development of large plantations and transportation of numerous enslaved people to the Cotton Belt in West Tennessee, in the area of the Mississippi River.

In 1831, however, the state government mandated that emancipated slaves immediately depart the state and prohibited the migration of free Blacks to Tennessee. Efforts to abolish slavery were defeated at this convention and again at the convention of 1834. The convention of 1834 also marked the state's retraction of suffrage for most freed slaves. The vast majority of slaveholders held legal title over just one or two persons, with the largest holding being ten or eleven slaves.

By 1860 the slave population had nearly doubled to 283,000, with only 7,300 free African Americans in the state. While much of the slave population was concentrated in West Tennessee, planters in Middle Tennessee also used enslaved African Americans for labor. According to the 1860 census, African slaves comprised about 25% of the state's population of 1.1 million just before the Civil War. Of the state's entire population, nearly 40% of West Tennessee and about 20% of Middle Tennessee's were slaves, but in East Tennessee, slaves made up only 8% of the population.

Although most slaves, both male and female, were agricultural workers, slavery was not a uniform experience. On the farm, a slave’s life was influenced, first, by the kind of operation the slave owner ran a subsistence farm, a corn and tobacco cash crop farm, a livestock farm, a cotton plantation, or, most likely in all sections of Tennessee, some combination of these. Secondly, the number of slaves a master housed helped determine the contours of any given slave community. West Tennessee, the area between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers, ultimately the richest cotton producing section of the state, saw the greatest concentration of slaves. Relatively few great plantations existed in Tennessee. Census records show that only one person owned more than 300 slaves in 1860 and only forty-seven owned more than 100. More than three-fourths of all slave owners held fewer than 10 slaves; together they controlled under 40 percent of the slave population. Thus, by 1860, more than half of the slaves probably lived in quarters that housed less than ten, but only a few had than 100 slaves. From the beginning slaves were among white Tennesseans’ most valuable assets. In time, both Nashville and, most notably, Memphis established permanent slave markets.

During the Mexican-America War in 1846, after the U.S. Secretary of War asked the state for 2,800 soldiers, Tennessee sent over 30,000 volunteers. Tennessee was the last state to formally leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. With Nashville occupied by Union forces beginning in 1862, the state became largely Union. Tennessee was also the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war. During the Civil War, Tennessee furnished the second most soldiers for the Confederate Army, behind Virginia. Tennessee also supplied more units of soldiers for the Union Army than any other state within the Confederacy, with East Tennessee being traditionally a Unionist stronghold. During the Reconstruction era, the state had competitive party politics, but a Democratic takeover in the early 1870s resulted in passage of disenfranchisement laws that excluded most blacks and many poor whites from voting.

After Nashville was captured in 1862 (the first Confederate state capital to fall), Andrew Johnson, an East Tennessean from Greenville, was appointed military governor of the state by President Lincoln. The military government abolished slavery in the state and Union troops occupied much of the state through the end of the war.

After the war, Tennessee adopted the Thirteenth amendment forbidding slave-holding or involuntary servitude on February 22, 1865; ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on July 18, 1866; and was the first state readmitted to the Union on July 24, 1866. Because it had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, Tennessee was the only state that seceded from the Union that did not have a military governor during Reconstruction.

There were only two or three Black Americans in the Tennessee legislature during Reconstruction, though others served as state and city officers. With increased participation on the Nashville City Council, African Americans then held one-third of the seats.

In 1870, Southern Democrats regained control of the state legislature, and quickly reversed many of the reforms of the previous administration. In 1889, the Tennessee General Assembly passed four acts of electoral reform that resulted in the disenfranchisement of a significant portion of African American voters as well as many poor white voters. The timing of the legislation resulted from a unique opportunity seized by the Democratic Party to bring an end to what one historian described as the most "consistently competitive political system in the South." These laws instituted a poll tax, required early voter registration, allowed secret ballots, and required separate ballot boxes for state and federal elections.

It is important to know how slavery had become a way of life in the South. In Tennessee a majority of the white population had slaves and had grown up with slavery. It was clearly a part of the fabric of life from childhood. The economics and business of the region had become profoundly dependent on the institution of slavery. It was incomprehensible to most in the South how farming and commerce could be done without it.

A Union officer stationed in Fayetteville during the war wrote in his memoirs, “It was curious to see what a difference slavery had made in the social life of these people. Everywhere work was considered disgraceful for a white man, and as only the occupation of the ‘nigger.’ In order to succeed socially, it was necessary to own slaves. The idea of hiring labor, or of being rich without negroes, was apparently incomprehensible. All of the people who had obtained any sort of success owned slaves.” Middle Tennessee Society Transformed- Stephen Ash, Page 44

Chapter Four- Slavery As an Unjust and Abusive Economic System

No one describes the system of 19th century American Slavery better than African American historian, W.E.B. Dubois (1868-1963).

“The slavery of Negroes in the South was not usually a deliberately cruel and oppressive system. It did not mean systematic starvation or murder. On the other hand, it is just as difficult to conceive as quite true the idyllic picture of a patriarchal state with cultured and humane masters under whom slaves were as children, guided and trained in work and play, given even such mental training as was for their good, and for the well-being of the surrounding world.

The victims of Southern slavery were often happy; had usually adequate food for their health, and shelter sufficient for a mild climate. The Southerners could say with some justification that when the mass of their field hands were compared with the worst class of laborers in the slums of New York and Philadelphia, and the factory towns of New England, the black slaves were as well off and in some particulars better off. Slaves lived largely in the country where health conditions were better; they worked in the open air, and their hours were about the current hours for peasants throughout Europe. They received no formal education, and neither did the Irish peasant, the English factory-laborer, nor the German Bauer; and in contrast with these free white laborers, the Negroes were protected by a certain primitive sort of old-age pension, job insurance, and sickness insurance; that is, they must be supported in some fashion, when they were too old to work; they must have attention in sickness, for they represented invested capital; and they could never be among the unemployed.

On the other hand, it is just as true that Negro slaves in America represented the worst and lowest conditions among modern laborers. One estimate is that the maintenance of a slave in the South cost the master about $19 a year, which means that they were among the poorest paid laborers in the modern world. They represented in a very real sense the ultimate degradation of man. Indeed, the system was so reactionary, so utterly inconsistent with modern progress, that we simply cannot grasp it today. No matter how degraded the factory hand, he is not real estate. The tragedy of the black slave's position was precisely this; his absolute subjection to the individual will of an owner and to ‘the cruelty and injustice which are the invariable consequences of the exercise of irresponsible power, especially where authority must be sometimes delegated by the planter to agents of inferior education and coarser feelings.’

The proof of this lies clearly written in the slave codes. Slaves were not considered men. They had no right of petition. They were "devisable like any other chattel. They could own nothing; they could make no contracts; they could hold no property, nor traffic in property; they could not hire out; they could not legally marry nor constitute families; they could not control their children; they could not appeal from their master; they could be punished at will. They could not testify in court; they could be imprisoned by their owners, and the criminal offense of assault and battery could not be committed on the person of a slave. The ‘willful, malicious and deliberate murder’ of a slave was punishable by death, but such a crime was practically impossible of proof. The slave owed to his master and all his family a respect ‘without bounds, and an absolute obedience.’ This authority could be transmitted to others. A slave could not sue his master; had no right of redemption; no right to education or religion; a promise made to a slave by his master had no force nor validity. Children followed the condition of the slave mother. The slave could have no access to the judiciary. A slave might be condemned to death for striking any white person.

Looking at these accounts, ‘it is safe to say that the law regards a Negro slave, so far as his civil status is concerned, purely and absolutely property, to be bought and sold and pass and descend as a tract of land, a horse, or an ox.’

The whole legal status of slavery was enunciated in the extraordinary statement of a Chief Justice of the United States that 'Negroes had always been regarded in America ‘as having no rights which a white man was bound to respect.’" W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, pages 9 & 10

The historical accounts of American slavery are filled with unspeakable abuses of the slaves by their masters. Most common of the abuses were whippings, rape and hangings. Equally horrible were the families that were commonly broken up as part of probate settlements and property liquidation for whatever reason. “Showing little respect for the black family, masters separated 23 percent of a sample of 1,291 West Tennessee couples through sale of relocation.” Slavery’s End in Tennessee- John Cimprich, Page 120. Just as tragic were the abuses of whites upon black freedmen following the Civil War. In the South’s efforts to minimize the political significance of the newly freed slave, tens of thousands of blacks were murdered not only in the decades following the war but during the “Jim Crow” era of the first half of the 20th Century. After African Americans obtained the right to vote in the 1870s, the white community set about to prevent blacks from voting, primarily through intimidation at the polls or at home.

Acknowledging only that Blacks could no longer be legally bought, sold, or whipped, whites resolutely set about devising substitute methods of control. In succeeding decades, of course, the sharecropping system (small tenant farms to cultivate on their own, paying the owner in cash or, more often, crop shares)—in conjunction with the credit monopolies of local merchants, a pernicious crop-lien system, and state laws limiting tenants' rights and freedom—entangled sharecroppers in a web of poverty and dependence. Behind all of this was the prevalent notion of “white supremacy.”

“The Lincoln County News told its readers, ‘The area of usefulness which nature has fitted Sambo for, is a very limited one. As a field hand, with some white man to do the thinking for him, he is useful; as a house servant to a degree he may be made serviceable; as a leading working man, a 'boss,' he is, and ever was a failure.’ The Clarksville Weekly Chronicle likewise consigned the black man to eternal servility, insisting that ‘the God of nature never made him the equal of the white man.’" Stephen Ash, Middle Tennessee Society Transformed, Page 198

Chapter Five- Banks Mechium Burrow, Sr. (1781-1851)

He was the last-born of seven children, all of whom were born in Dinwiddie, Va. He is the first named Banks Burrow. After extensive research, no Banks or Mechium (his middle name) family names are found prior to our Banks M. Burrow, Sr. There are many descendants of Banks that are named after him (perhaps 10-15). Sometime between his birth and the 1790 census, the family moved to Guilford County, N.C. where Banks was married to Mary Blanchard (He was 22; she was 16). Sometime around 1812, Banks, Mary and their first three children moved to Jones County, Georgia. His brother, Philip Burrow III, also moved there with his family about this time. Some family historians claim that Banks was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church for 40+ years, which would mean that his life as a minister would have begun during the family’s time in Georgia. Banks, his father, Philip, and several other Burrow family members were the first settlers in Bedford County, Tennessee in about 1816. About 1820, many members of the Burrow family including Banks moved 100 miles further west to Carroll County, Tenn. Early on, Banks was elected as the first trustee during the organization of Carroll County and was one of the first justices of the peace. At about the same time, Banks was elected as the trustee of the newly formed Carroll County Court.

On June 14, 1822, the Court of Pleas and Quarter Session began and Banks Burrow along with six other persons “were presented as Gentlemen Esquires.” Also ordered by the court, Banks Burrow and three other persons were appointed as county commissioners “to lay out the county seat and let the public buildings and sell the lots.” Precinct elections were ordered to be held at the houses of Solomon Bennett and Banks M. Burrow.

In 1822, Banks was 43 years old. As he came to the county with 18 persons of color, 6 free and 12 slave, we can understand why he was given the title of Esquire (the historic meaning of this word is “a gentleman of rank”) and was early on given important positions in the early days of the settlement. At that time, a person’s wealth and social standing was largely determined by how much land and how many slaves he held. That he was also a minister of a church, and a county commissioner strongly implies that he was well educated for the time.

Over the next three decades, he acquired large land holdings in Carroll and Gibson Counties and Arkansas (2700 acres in Tennessee according to a notice of sale in the Nashville Union & American newspaper in 1857). He was also shown by the 1850 U.S. Slave Schedule to have 67 slaves, a large number for that part of the state. Counting the Arkansas Burrow slave holdings in the hands of his youngest son, Napoleon Bonaparte Burrow, Banks is estimated by some family historians to have had 100 slaves total at that time.

Shortly before his death in 1851, he devised a will leaving his wife and seven living children equal shares in his assets (1/8 to each). His two oldest sons, John Jefferson and Banks M. Jr. were named executors of the will. Bank's wife, Mary, died five years later. Probate took fifteen years of litigation before the will and the distribution of property was finally settled in 1866. Banks Jr. took possession of a substantial portion of the Gibson County Burrow property and John Jefferson Burrow became the final holder of the Burrow home and property of the Burrow plantation in Lavinia, Carroll County. It is believed by the author that Banks Jr. and his family lived and farmed close to what is known today as the village of Gibson in Gibson County which is less than ten miles from Lavinia.

That Banks Burrow, Sr. was revered by his family is shown by the number of generations of his progeny that were given the name of Banks:

Banks M.D. Burrow (1800-1866) Banks M. Burrow, Jr. (1809-1892) Banks A. Burrow (1814-1879)

Banks M. Burrow (1845-1889) Banks M.N. Burrow (1847-1917) Banks M. Somers (1850-1870)

Banks Miles Burrow (1858-1918) Banks M. McKelvey (1859-1953) Banks M. Burrow (1860-1923)

Banks M. Burrow, III (1866-1955) Banks Barbee (1871-1921)

Banks M. Burrow, Sr.'s Tombstone- Lavinia, Tennessee

Chapter Six- The Lavinia Burrow Plantation Prior to the Civil War

The first people to settle in what is now the Lavinia community came from North Carolina and Virginia soon after this Western District was opened for settlement in the early 1820s. Lavinia is now a small village in SW Carroll County. One of the first settlers, Leroy Strayhorn, was born in Orange County, N.C. in 1800 and died in Lavinia in 1831. Courthouse records show that many settlers came after purchasing land from Mr. Strayhorn.

After the Old Line Road was surveyed, settlement began along it; soon the road crossing the Old Line Road and running northwest to Christmasville (presently, a small village in the NW corner of Carroll County) was surveyed. The pioneer settlers were thrifty, religious, and social minded, where the two roads crossed was the natural place for trading and congregating.

About 1824 the village, Lavinia, at this crossroads boasted three stores, three churches, and a school. On Sundays people traveled for miles coming to the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches. They came by oxen, mules or horses; still others walked.

Lavinia missed its chance to grow into a city when the survey of the L & N Railroad moved it to approximately one mile west of Lavinia to pass through Milan so as to cross the IC Railroad and provide a rail junction. Many years before the Civil War the Old Line Road passed through the village on its way from Lexington to Trenton. To the east, stagecoaches rumbled along the Old Stage Road from Memphis to Nashville. In a little log cabin situated behind the Baptist Church, boys and girls learned to read, spell and “cipher.” This cabin, made of hand-hewn logs, was approximately 20’ X 20’. At the east end of the cabin a log had been sawed out, leaving an open space of several feet to serve as a window. On the south wall, facing the road, was the only door. A big fireplace was in the west end of the cabin. The only furniture was split logs set on pegs to serve as seats. Burrow, McLemore and Strayhorn were some of the names of students at the school in its early days. (The above account of Lavinia was taken from the History of Carroll County, Tennessee, Page 42)

The 1820 U.S. Census for Bedford County reveals Banks and his young family: Banks, Sr. (39), Mary (33), Nancy (16), John J. (14), Banks, Jr. (11), Maribah (6), Abner (3), Napoleon (2) and Miranda (1) arrive as new settlers with 18 persons of color, 6 free and 12 slaves in Bedford County, Tennessee (about 100 miles east of Lavinia. As there are a total of 12 white persons in the family in the 1820 census, we must suppose that another Burrow family unit was living at that time with them.

The first land record known at present in Carroll County by Banks M. Burrow is in 1826 in which he purchased 262 acres for $460 on the “Rutherford Fork of the Obion River (about seven miles north of Lavinia, possibly the John’s Creek area). The signing of the deed is witnessed by Phillip Burrow who is likely to be his father and who died in 1829 in Lavinia.

Banks, Sr.’s other land purchases in Carroll County were:

20 acres in 1837 purchased from Sterling Burrow for $60 in the 12th Surveyor’s District, 2st Range, 1st Section on the waters of the Rutherford Fork of the Obion River.

276 acres in 1837 purchased from James Vault for $685 in the 9th Surveyor’s District (North Madison County), 2nd Range, 11th Section on the north side of the North Fork of the Forked Deer River.

475 acres in 1837 purchased from John McLemore for $1,187 in the 12th Surveyor’s District, 1st Range, 1st Section.

300 acres in 1841 purchased from Joseph Harris for $2,500 in the 12th Surveyor’s District, 1st Range, 1st Section on the waters of Wolf Creek (?).

242 acres in 1842 purchased from Samuel Richardson for $1,800 on the south side of the North Fork of the Forked Deer River.

578 acres in 1844- No copy of the deed

88 acres in 1845- No copy of the deed

The total of the above purchases seems to be high. This is probably due to my not researching the sale of any Burrow land during the above time frame.

Banks Burrow. Sr. also purchased land in Gibson County (immediately to the west of Carroll County):

131 acres in 1842 purchased from Samuel Richardson for $1,800 in the 13th Surveyor’s District, 2nd Range, 1st Section, on the waters of the North Fork of the Forked Deer River.

300 acres in 1842 purchased from Samuel Richardson (Samuel was the father of Banks Burrow, Jr's wife) for $900; on the waters of the North Fork of the Forked Deer River.

1,964 acres in 1845 purchased from Henry Welker for $6,250; 13th Surveyors District, 1st Range, 1st Section.

1,000 acres in 1846 purchased from Isham Boyce for $2,500; 13th Surveyors District, 1st Range, 3rd & 4th Sections (Bear Creek is cited in the deed).

1,992 acres in 1847 Banks, Sr. & Banks, Jr. bought from Samuel Richardson (Samuel was the father of Banks, Jr’s wife) for $3,000; 13th Surveyors District, 1st Range, 3rd & 4th Sections. This and the 1846 purchase must be the “wooded land” mentioned in the 1857 Nashville newspaper advertisement. There is no indication that any Burrow family took up residence in the 1846 or 1847 land.

300 acres in 1848 from the Luke Segay Sherrif’s sale for the 13th Surveyors District, 1st Range, 1st Section on the waters of the North Fork of the Forked Deer River, for payment of “double back taxes & charges” due from the previous owner.

The total land area of the above purchases in Gibson County is much too high. This is probably due to my not researching the sale of any Burrow land during this time frame. Several of the high acreage purchases were probably speculative ventures that were quickly resold by Banks Sr. At this time, Banks was already a large slave owner, as he is shown with 35 slaves in the 1830 Carroll County census. The Lavinia tract which he developed into his final family plantation home was probably the 475 acres purchased in 1837 for $1,187.

The Banks M. Burrow, Sr.'s land purchases were within the above highlighted sections.

As the focus of this paper is on the Banks M. Burrow, Sr. family, I have given the full account of the family in the U.S. Census reports below. I have found in my 40 years of genealogical research that this is the genealogist’s best and most reliable tool to reveal the family’s life cycle.

The 1830 census for Carroll County reveals Banks Sr. as 49 years old, Mary (43), Nancy is gone; married in 1820, John J. (24), Banks Jr. (21), Mirabah (16), Abner (13), Napoleon (12), Miranda (11), Mary (2). Also shown are 35 slaves, none of which are free.

The 1840 census for Carroll County shows Banks Sr. as 59 years old, Mary (53), Abner (23), Napoleon (22), Mary (12). John J., Banks Jr., Miranda & Mirabah are married and have households of their own. Also shown are 68 slaves, none of which are free.

John J. Burrow is shown in his own household in 1840 as 34 yrs. old., his new wife (married in 1831), Eliza Snell (35), and children: Parmento (8), Napoleon (3), Harriet (2) & Eliza (born and died in 1840). Also shown are 11 slaves, none of which are free.

We are not able to find Banks M. Burrow, Jr. and his family in either 1840 Carroll or Gibson County census, probably because of the common confusion in the Ancestry.com indexes when father and son have the same names.

The 1850 census for Carroll County reveals Banks Sr. as 69 years old, Mary (63) and Marandy C. (Maranda Rader 13,. a granddaughter). Banks Sr. dies in 1851; his wife, Mary dies in 1856. The 1850 census slave schedule shows him with 64 slaves. He had another 37 slaves in the care of his youngest son, Napoleon Burrow, in Arkansas. That he owned 100 slaves is significant. Relatively few great plantations existed in Tennessee. Census records show that only one person owned more than 300 slaves in 1860 and only forty-seven owned more than 100.

The 1860 census for Carroll County reveals John J. Banks as 53 years old, his wife, Eliza (51) and son, George (14). The 1960 slave schedule shows that he has 8 slaves. They continue to live on the Burrow plantation near Lavinia.

Chapter Seven- The Gibson Burrow Plantation Prior to the Civil War

“Gibson County was formed by a Tennessee legislative act on October 21, 1823. It has always been rich in agriculture. In its early days, the county was excelled by no other county in the State, since nearly every farm product, including various grasses and fruits, was produced with sufficient ease to yield a handsome income. As commerce grew, the strong railroad presence in early Gibson County helped the communities to flourish.” The History of Gibson County, The Gibson County Historical Society,1996.

In 1842, Banks M Burrow Sr. purchased 300 acres from Samuel Richardson (Samuel was the father of Banks, Jr.'s wife) for $900; “on the waters of the North Fork of the Forked Deer River”. The river cuts through Gibson County from the Southeast to the Northwest emptying in the Mississippi River about 45 miles away in the Southwest corner of Dyer County (Dyer County is immediately west of Gibson County). The village of Gibson (400 persons in 2010) was originally named Picketville and was one-half way between the much larger communities of Milan and Humbolt. There is strong evidence that the 1842 purchase of land by Banks, Sr. was close by Picketville and became the home of Banks, Jr. and his family for the next 40+ years. Around 1870 with the advent of the Memphis & Ohio Railroad that cut through Milan, Gibson and Humbolt, the village of Picketville became known as Gibson Station and later, simply, Gibson. In 1842, Banks Jr. would have been 32 years old. He and his wife, Elizabeth would have been married for ten years at that time. The oldest of their five children, John, would have been nine years old.

Another genealogical clue that the Pickettville area was the long-time home of Banks, Jr, is the fact that Banks, Jr.'s future son-in-law, Isham Lafayette Burrow (1833-1913) who married his daughter, Elizabeth Rebecca Burrow (1837-1931), is reported to have been the “manager” for the South Gibson Institute sometime during the Civil War by the History of Gibson County, published by the Gibson County Historical Society in 1996. The Institute was presumably a high school. The village of South Gibson was an extension of Gibson at the time; it no longer exists. As an interesting aside, Isham and Elizabeth were apparently “kissing cousins.” Isham was the son of Hiram (1808-1873) and Lydia Burrow. Both Isham and Elizabeth had grandparents who lived about the same time in Lavinia, Tennessee. While the family connection could not be determined on Ancestry.com, the author did find an obituary for Isham’s father, Hiram Burrow (died December 1873), written by Elizabeth’s father, Banks M. Burrow, Jr. This indicates a strong family association which preceded the marriage of Isham and Elizabeth in 1860. The publication reporting this, The Burrow Family History (1986), by James Rightman Blanks, also stated that Hiram Burrow and Banks Burrow, Jr. were cousins.

After rereading the above obituary, I realized that the text of the obituary was a window to the character of Banks, Jr. and include it here:

“Hiram Burrow was born Jan. 26, 1808, and died of consumption, Sept. 13, 1873. He was a good and very useful man. He embraced religion, September, 1827, at Lebanon camp ground Madison Co., Tenn. and joined the Methodist Church, and remained a worthy member until removed by the hand of death. He was a class leader and steward nearly all the time. He loved the Church ardently and labored zealously to promote her interests. Perhaps but few have done more good than he did in the sphere in which he acted. He cultivated peace and good will with all men. Perhaps no man on the Trezevant circuit or in the surrounding country was more beloved or did more good. He was untiring in his labors at revival meetings; loved camp-meetings and did his part to support them. He had a great desire to be at another camp-meeting but that could not be so. A few weeks before the time of holding the meeting, he grew much worse, and died on Saturday during the meeting, and was buried at Shiloh. His funeral was preached by the Rev. J. H. Brooks, of the North Mississippi Conference. He left the wife of his early manhood and eight children to mourn the loss of a most loving and beloved husband and father. His companion and partner in life's ardour and toils, and who embraced religion in August of the same year in which he did, was the mother of thirteen children, two of whom died in infancy; and two daughters, one fifteen and the other nineteen, are dead, and a son, Jefferson, died in the Confederate army at Columbus, Miss. They all died in the faith of the gospel. All that are living are acceptable members of the M. E. Church, South, among whom is the Rev. Isham Lafayette Burrow, of the Arkansas Conference, and are bidding fair to reunite in the kingdom of glory and make an unbroken family in the home of God. I pray that God's grace may abundantly support the widowed one to the end of her pilgrimage and enable the children to be ready when death shall come.

B. M. Burrow”

The 1850 census for Gibson County shows Banks Jr. as 41 years old, his wife, Elizabeth (43) and children: John, 17, Mary 16, Elizabeth 13, Martha (11), Harriet (9), Nancy (7), Eliza (5), Banks (3), Emma (1). He and his family are shown as living on the Burrow plantation in Civil District 18 (probably the Gibson Station area).

The 1860 census for Gibson County reveals Banks Jr. as 57 years old, his wife, Elizabeth (52) and children: Harriet (19), Nancy (17); Banks (13), Emma (11), Benjamin (8). The 1860 slave schedule shows that he has 18 slaves. He and his family are living in Civil District 18 on the Burrow plantation in the then named Gibson Station area.

The 1870 census for Gibson County shows Banks Jr. as 60 years old, (his wife, Elizabeth died in 1862) and children: John (33), Mary (30); Banks (20), Emma (28), Benjamin (15). He and his family shown as living in Civil District 2 (Next door to Civil District 18; both 2 and 18 are very close to Gibson Station.)

The 1880 census for Gibson County reveals Banks Jr. as 60 years old, (his wife, Elizabeth died in 1862) and children: Mary (38); Emma (30), Banks (29). He and his family are shown as living in Civil District 18 (Gibson Station is also revealed as Bank’s Jr.’s home.)

Banks, Jr. died December 7, 1892 in the home of his daughter, Harriet (Davie) Burrow in Pinson, Madison County, Tennessee.

Civil Districts of Gibson County

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19th Century Burrow Family and American Slavery History