The Blessing of Eliza Thorne

Damine and Stephanie Tulloch on April 22, 2013

On the 20^th of April, 2013, at First Baptist Church of Steelton, Pa., Stephanie Ann Tulloch and Damine Alberto Tulloch renewed their wedding vows that are 10 years old.  Thirty years ago, Stephanie was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. and I prayed that the blessings of Eliza Thorne would fall upon her.

Eliza Thorne was a slave in 1865, living in the Culpeper, Va. area. She was owned by a man that went by the name of Cornel Slaughter.  Eliza was half Native American and could not work totally under her own free will. However, under Virginia Slave law, Eliza could open and run her own business on her free time. Eliza was a carpenter, “self-made” business woman.  I was lucky enough to see bedroom furniture that she made. I was amazed that she used wooden nails to hold the furniture together.  

Eliza Thorne (worked the plantation of Russel Brown or Colonel Slaughter)

     Darnell Williams Family line

 

0. Eliza Thorne married Reubon Walker

1. Eliza J. Walker married George W.  Blue in 1895 at Free Union Baptist Church by Rev. Daniel Brown, Pastor  

2. Eliza Lucinda Blue born Dec. 23, 1899 died July 1966 married John Brown born Jan. 1894 married at Free Union Baptist Church 

 Jean and William wedding at First Baptist Church in Steelton

3. Jean Brown born March 27, 1923 Married William J. Williams II born Oct. 10, 1917 and died Aug. 11, 1974. Married at First Baptist Church in Steelton, Pa.

4. Darnell L. Williams born April 1951 married Amanda Ann Porter born Feb. 1953 at St. Marks AME Church, Wilkinsburg, Pa. on July 15, 1972.  

 5.  Stephanie A. Williams born April 1983 married Damine Tulloch born March 1979 from Western Jamaica married 2003. They renewed their Vowels at First Baptist Church in Steelton, Pa. on April 20, 2013.

6. Daniel Tulloch born 2005 and David Tulloch born 2011.

Stephanie is the fifth generation from Eliza Thorne.

Eliza Thorne was my direct ancestor four generations removed. I believe that she knew of my ex-wife’s direct ancestor Amanda Porter that was also a slave in the area. Amanda was a Native American captured by local people and sold to Noah Smith, a local slave breeder.   Virginia law said that any Native American that could be captured could be sold into slavery. 
 

Amanda Williams Family line

0. Amanda Ann Porter was a little girl when her Native American village was attacked by local enterprising citizens looking to make money off of kidnapping people. They raided and slaughtered all the men and women in the village in what is believed to be Louisa County. Included was Amanda's mother and father. Amanda was either Siouxian, Saponi, or Manahoac. She was sold to Noah Smith, a slave breeder. 

1. Noah Smith and Amanda Ann Porter had Thomas Porter. Tom married Mandy Fry. Tom was born in 1839 and died 1932. Amanda and the first Thomas Porter may have known of Eliza Thorne.

2. Thomas Porter born 1883, died 1928 married Mary Yeager born 1888 and died Oct. 15, 1960.

3. Thomas Montgomery Porter III born March 17, 1914 died May 17, 1998 married Clara Lee Ellis born Jan. 9, 1924 died April 28, 2012 part Native American from West Virginia.

4. Amanda Ann Porter born Feb. 1953 married Darnell L Williams born April 1951,
at St. Marks AME Church, Wilkinsburg, Pa. on July 15, 1972.

5.   Stephanie A. Williams born April 1983 married Damine Tulloch born March 1979 from Western Jamaica married 2003. They renewed their Vowels at First Baptist Church in Steelton, Pa. on April 20, 2013.

6. Daniel Tulloch born 2005 and David Tulloch born 2011.

     

Stephanie is the fifth generation from Amanda Ann Porter.

Toward the end of the Civil War, Union Troops overran Culpeper and ordered all slaves to the Culpeper Courthouse. At that time, the Emancipation Proclamation was read to all slaves in the Culpeper area including  Eliza Thorne and Amanda Porter.  At that point, Eliza could be her own person and make her own money from her own labor.

Eliza left her slave husband and married the man she wanted. She bought a team of horses, a Conestoga wagon, herd of cattle, and 11 acres of land in a place called Stony Point, Va. (at the end of the war it was called Free Union),  just outside Charlottesville, Va.   Eliza started three families; the slave family was Thorne then came the Walkers, and finally the West. Eliza’s land stayed in the family until the 1980s.

No doubt, Eliza Thorne was an upper class land owning woman, coming out of slavery. Very few women of that time especially a slave could do what she did.      

Stephanie comes along about 150 years and 5 generations later and does something that equals the feat of Eliza Thorne. She gains an education (MBA) that turned into a good money making profession. She left the country (to Jamaica) without her father’s permission and finds a good husband that can work with her to make money. She buys a house, transportation, and food for the family. She raises children just like Eliza Thorne did two centuries ago.  Even Rev. Dr. W. Braxton Cooley, pastor of the First Baptist Church had to pause during the exchange of rings and look at the beauty and the value of her ring. He could not help but complement them of such a ring that represents their family wealth during the ceremony.

 

                                                          Jean J. Williams at 18 years old

Plus Stephanie looks like my mother, Jean (Brown) Williams. Jean grew up in First Baptist Church of Steelton from 1923 to 1940 under Pastor Goodwin. This is the same congregation where my mother and grandparents belonged. My grandparents joined the church in Steelton when they moved to Steelton from Stoney Point, Va.  My grandparents in the day belonged to Free Union Baptist Church, the same church that Eliza Thorne belonged to.    
 

Father Darnell L. Williams walking in Stephanie Ann (Williams) Tulloch to her husband Damine Tulloch. 

Daniel’s life under two National Flags

Daniel, when he attended his first outdoor track meet in Pittsburgh, Pa. three years ago at age 5.

Stephanie Tulloch and Coach Lofton of the St. Luke Spirit Track Club, finished negotiating the terms of Daniel’s transfer from Unattached to a member of the St. Luke’s Spirit Club. The agreement is very simple. 

Stephanie and I will train Daniel in the Harrisburg area using St. Luke’s Spirit training documentation. Daniel will run in the USATF indoor/outdoor meets, UAGTCA meets, and USATF Cross Country meets under the St. Luke’s Spirit Track Club. All International Track Meets will be run under St. Luke’s Spirit.

Stephanie and Damine will have Daniel run the Harrisburg/York/Lebanon/Lancaster area local 5k meets under the Jamaican Flag.

 

Daniel will run his first international meet July 6-7; Flying Angels International Classic in North York, Ontario, Canada. At this time, I do not know if he will be running the 1500 Meters, 800 Meters, and Long Jump.   

Daniel may be running for the club as early as May 11th - 8:30AM at Lower Merion HS - SDL MEET #2 in the Philadelphia Area.

For people who want their children to join this track club, I furnished the information in the link below. 

    

 http://stlukestrack.webs.com/membershipinfo.htm

 St. Luke's Spirit Track Club Membership Information

St. Luke Spirit Track Club is an outreach ministry of St. Luke Episcopal Church, Germantown. The ministry's mission is to provide a support system where youth of today can achieve religious conviction, education, fitness, and have fun through group interaction and competition. It also strives to increase youth's self-esteem, motivation, respect for self and others, communication, and conflict management skills.

The track club is registered and participates in both AAU and USATF sponsored events. It is also the host club for the Philadelphia Area Hershey Games.

Daniel at the 2013 Outdoor Development Meet

 Daniel is wearing his Albuquerque, New Mexico championship sweat shirt as he holds up his three ribbons from his track meet this morning in Philadelphia, Pa.  

Daniel the 8 year old Flash started his 2013 USATF Mid-Atlantic Association Outdoor Season. The meet took place at Lincoln High School in northern Philadelphia, Pa starting at 9:00 AM.  This was his last outdoor season of his sub-bantam career. Next year he will be in the 9 to 10 or bantam age group.

Daniel's first event was the Long Jump where he jumped 6 feet 6.75 inches or 2 meters coming in second (red ribbon). The winner jumped over 9 feet.

Next he ran the 1500 Meter Run with a time of 6 Minutes 30.83 seconds finishing first in his age group. A national champion from the St. Lukes Spirit Track Club in Germantown, Pa. that Daniel ran against last year but is now a bantam ran this race today with a time of 6 minute, 17 seconds. The cold and wind made all times for everyone slow today. 

Daniel's last race was the 800 Meter Run against the children of the St. Lukes Spirit Track Club. He won this race with a time of 3 minutes 20.52 seconds.  This race is two laps long. This is how the last lap looked!

2013 Mid-Atlantic Development Meet at Lincoln High School

 

 I noticed something at this meet!

When I stepped up to the registration table to get Daniel's paperwork, I never gave them his name. They looked up his packet and gave it to me. At the clerking table when Daniel went to clerk in, they asked Daniel what event he was in and never asked for his name. That is unusual for this to happen with an unattached athlete that is not in the Philadelphia area. Daniel is known worldwide through his "Daniel's Road to the Olympics" web site.  

http://stlukestrack.webs.com/aboutus.htm

Here is the web site for the St. Lukes Spirit Track Club that resides in Germantown, Pa. This club approached me at the meet after Daniel successfully ran against the clubs sub bantam members. They would like Daniel to join their team. Daniel has been running against them for the past 3 years. I discussed this with Stephanie, Daniel's mother. She has entered into negotiations with the team.  

The good side about joining the team is that Daniel will have team mates to work with and will be given training in areas of track and field where the Tulloch Family and I are weak.  The down side is, we may not be able to create our own schedule for Daniel.   

The Untold History of Black People

 

 Mark E. Brown, LMSW

From the birth of the United States until 1923, my mother’s family gathered together, intermarried, and lived in one of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s free unions. Later it was known as Stony Point.  Free Union areas in the Virginia Commonwealth were places where ex-slaves and people of color could live without threat of being recaptured and forced back into slavery. 

Many people including most people in northern states spread the idea that all slaves came from Africa. What most do not know is that African slaves were expensive to transport from Africa to the Caribbean then from the Caribbean to the states. So many slave breading companies bought a few Africans and use them as slave breeders with indigenous men and women creating slaves to sell in the slave market place. Columbus started taking Americans back to Europe in 1493 and selling them to Africans and Europeans. Lucy Blue’s ancestors before they were freed was probably a product of slave breading. If you think about it, why spend all that money to get slaves from Africa when you can get them by passing a law making it legal to capture and enslave anyone that is not European. If you check slave state laws such as in Virginia, you will see that this was the case.

 

John Brown and Lucy Blue married in Free Union Baptist Church and traveled by train to Steelton Pa. They were on their way to Pittsburgh because John Brown heard that the steel mills were hiring. However they ran out of money. My grandfather had to take a job in the Bethlehem Steel Plant in Steelton instead.  They save enough money to buy a home on Third Street in Steelton. That is where they raised their five children. 

Lucy Blue is a descendent of the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee have seven clans and have had that number as long as there has been contact with Europeans. The 7 clans are;

• Wild Potato Clan or occasionally called the "Blind Savannah Clan"

•       Long Hairs or "Twisters”

•       The Deer Clan

•       Bird Clan

•       Wolf Clan

•      The Paint Clan also commonly called the "Red Paint Clan"

•      The Blue Clan or “Blue Holly Clan.”

The "Blue Clan" has a Cherokee name, Anisahoni. The Anisahoni, or Blue Holly Clan, subdivisions were Panther, or Wildcat, and Bear, which probably has an origin of two separate clans that were later consolidated with a third. Historically, this clan produced many people who were able to make special medicines for the children. The medicine were made from a blue plant which is where the clan gained its name. In other words, they were medical doctors and scientist. This 5,000 year old education tradition has been handed down through the generations to present day.

As I did my initial research on this branch of the Brown/Blue Family, it became immediately apparent that they did not consider themselves Black. In fact, when the Black awareness movement was going full blast in the 1960s, the fourth child, David Brown was telling his children and anyone who would listen that they were not Black. The David Brown branch of John and Lucy Brown (to date as a family) are the most educated of this part of the Brown/Blue Clan. 

 This is the Blue Clan pillar in the Cherokee Capital City of Chota 

David Brown's Branch

His wife, Dr. Jackie Jackson was the first (and only to date) in the family that has a Doctorate Degree. Mark and Vida, two of his children have master degrees. Vida’s daughter has a BS and is studying for her master’s Degree.

Mark E. Brown, LMSW has always been interested in his family’s history and how it relates to world history of people of color. You notice I did not say Black because Uncle David just may come after me from the grave. Here is something that Mark sent me about the history of ancient western people of color. I think you should watch this 1 hour video.

The Olmec Untold American History