Re: Rev RL Woodyard of Wood Co. WV
-
In reply to:
Rev RL Woodyard of Wood Co. WV
Philip Gambrel 9/26/00
I'm afraid I don't know much about the abolitionist movement. I just started researching the local stations of the Underground Railroad this summer.
The Ross family, which married into the Webb and Nutter family/families, had abolitionist tendencies. One Meshack Ross moved his family and slaves to Indiana and then they set the slaves free and helped set them up housekeeping. Then they used to visit their former slaves from time to time.
Marci O'Malley is a cousin of mine and she told me that family history. I still haven't located the descendant of the Woodyard family who has the diaries of Rev. Woodyard.
If found they could maybe be published by a nonprofit publisher. Or the state Archives could just buy them?
Could the Gambrels have been Melungeon? There is a book about the Melungeons by Brent Kennedy you should read. The only mass movement of people from the Carolinas that I've heard of in that time period was the movement of Melungeons.
That is why I wonder if my Moats ancestor could have been Melungeon. The mountains were such a barrier to travel that anyone moving through them should have had a good reason.