Finding Your Roots, Season 3, Episode 1

Post date: Jan 6, 2016 9:59:41 AM

If you missed last night's episode of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on PBS, read no further, and catch up on what you missed here.

If, however, you had the opportunity to watch what was yet another fascinating episode, you may read on.

Season 3 of Finding Your Roots profiled the family histories of Donna Brazile, Kara Walker, and Ty Burrell (you can find their profiles at the link above). These are 3 very interesting individuals, with at least as interesting family histories. In the case of Ty Burrell, Dr. Gates painted a fascinating story about an amazing woman, "Susannah WEEKS". It was a story of triumph, about a women who, against all odds, somehow managed on her own to make her way from North Carolina and Tennessee all the way to Oregon, and then to stake a claim, again, all by herself, under the Homestead Act. At no time was there any real mention of the men who might have helped her along the way, or even a mention of any of her siblings. The men who fathered her children did not appear to have been worth mentioning.

But the records tell a slightly different story, though not necessarily about the men (perhaps they really were not worth mentioning). This is not the story of a young woman who managed to make her way all alone across thousands of miles from one corner of this country to the other, all in the quest for the dream of staking a claim to her homestead.

Before we go any further, it is important to clarify that this is still an incredibly impressive story, and one worth telling, but the triumph described in this story is one that is shared by Susannah’s entire family; especially her mother, but also by her siblings.

To begin with, having been born in Montgomery County, North Carolina in April of 1822 or 1823, Susannah didn’t magically find her way nearly 3,000 miles away in Oregon by 1860, nor did she manage this journey alone (as implied by Dr. Gates). In fact, by 1850, Susannah had been nearly 1,000 miles closer to Oregon (though probably only about 400 miles from where she may have been living in Tennessee in 1840), and not only was she with her mother (Mr. BURRELL’s great-great grandmother, Nellie), but she was also with a fairly large number of siblings, many of whom had been born in Tennessee and possibly in Missouri (indicating that Nellie may have had a husband in Tennessee and possibly even in Missouri). On top of this, by 1850, Susannah had not been living alone. She was living with a “white” farmer (and landowner) by the name of Lewis JOHNSON.

The 1850 US Federal Census shows us that Susannah (now “Susan MATHES”) at age 26 was living in Mercer County, Tennessee. At that time, she is living with an older widower (born circa 1794) by the name of “Lewis JOHNSON”, and Lewis’s two sons from his previous marriage(s), Benjamin (age 21) and Moses (age 17). Living with this is William MATHES (later to be William R JOHNSON), son of Susannah MATHES and Lewis JOHNSON. Over the following 8 years, Susannah and Lewis will have at least 4 more children together.

The very next page of the 1850 census shows us a number of Susannah’s siblings, most, if not all, journeyed with Susannah to Oregon, and most, if not all, also obtained land patents under the Homestead Act. Even their mother, Nellie (aka “Ellen R” and “Ellender”), came to Oregon. Nellie lived to over the age of 80 (which is impressive in and of itself) at that time.

By the time of the 1860 US Federal Census, Susannah is already living in Jackson County, Oregon, and she had already had a child there as early as 1855 (as well as another in about 1857 and one more in about 1858 – bringing her total to at least 7 children by this time). The rest of her siblings, as well as her mother, are also in Jackson County, Oregon.

So, what was it that drew this family to Oregon?

Dr. Gates states that “[w]e also found a record that suggests why she (Susannah – still implying that she did this alone) may have made this incredible journey.” This statement makes no sense whatsoever. The record to which Dr. Gates referred, is dated 1878 in Jackson County, Oregon, and it relates to the Homestead Act, which wasn’t passed until 1862. As discussed above, Susannah had already been in Missouri by 1850 and had been in Oregon as early as 1855. Had Dr. Gates intended to imply that Susannah somehow had the clairvoyance which allowed her to know that the Homestead Act would be passed more than a decade in the future, and that she journeyed to Oregon in order to be well-positioned to apply for a land grant there, and furthermore, that her entire family ended up in the same place purely by coincidence.

Logic dictates that one should discard the 1862 Homestead as Act as having had anything to do with Susannah’s journey from North Carolina to Tennessee, or her journey from Tennessee to Missouri, or even her journey from Missouri to Oregon.

It is far more likely that it was the early days of the Oregon Gold Rush (which began in Oregon before it began in California) which drew Susannah's brothers and sisters (and mother) Oregon. Not necessarily to prospect themselves, but perhaps to take advantage of the money that was beginning to move through that territory.

The story of this family is quite incredible, and is worth of being told but, I think that if it were to be told correctly, Susannah would have been less of a central character.

I can't wait to see what the next episode will bring! On Thursday, 7 January, Finding Your Roots presents "The Irish Factor" with Soledad O'Brien, Bill O'Reilly and Bill Maher.