Slave Narrative of John Rudd

Interviewer: Lauana Creel Person Interviewed: John Rudd Location: Evansville, Indiana Place of Birth: Springfield, Kentucky Date of Birth: December 25, 1854 Age: 83 Ex-Slave Stories District #5 Vanderburgh County Lauana Creel TOLD BY JOHN RUDD, AN EX-SLAVE “Yes, I was a slave,” said John Rudd, “And I’ll say this to the whole world, Slavery was the worst curse ever visited on the people of the United States.” John Rudd is a negro, dark and swarthy as to complexion but his nose is straight and aqualine, for his mother-was half Indian. The memory of his mother, Liza Rudd, is sacred to … Read more

A Genealogy of the Lake Family

Ancestor Register of Esther Steelman Adams

A genealogy of the Lake family of Great Egg Harbour in Old Gloucester County in New Jersey : descended from John Lade of Gravesend, Long Island; with notes on the Gravesend and Staten Island branches of the family. This volume of nearly 400 pages includes a coat-of-arms in colors, two charts, and nearly fifty full page illustrations – portraits, old homes, samplers, etc. The coat-of-arms shown in the frontspiece is an unusually good example of the heraldic art!

The Wilson Family, Somerset and Barter Hill Branch

The Wilson family, Somerset and Barter Hill branch

In the preparation of “The Wilson family, Somerset and Barter Hill branch” I have discovered two lists of the names of the sons and daughters of Col. Ben and Ann Seay Wilson of “Somerset” in Cumberland County, Virginia, in addition to the list found in my father’s notes. None of these was arranged in the same chronological order. It was my good fortune in 1915 to find the Bible, claimed to be the Bible of Col. Ben and Ann Seay Wilson of “Somerset” in Cumberland County, Virginia. At that time this was in the hands of Miss Clementine Reid Wilson, Col. Ben’s great-granddaughter, and it was my privilege to copy, with the aid of a reading glass, for the ink was badly faded, the names of their children from that Bible in the same chronological order in which they were recorded. This chronological order, and military records found, support each other. I therefore believe that this sketch contains the most accurate chronological list of Col. Ben’s and Ann Seay Wilson’s children to be found outside of his Bible.

Biographical Sketch of L. Snyder

L. Snyder, hardware dealer, was born in Strausberg, Germany, in 1838; came to America in 1871, and located at Joliet, Ill.; moved to Mondamin, Ia., in 1880, and engaged in his present business.