I recently received an email from William "Bill" Low who stumbled across my Goose Creek Island Journal. He has been tracing the roots of his great grandfather, Richard Polk Johnson of Craven County. Through his extensive research, William has found us on Goose Creek Island!! Below is a bio of his research and the connections to Goose Creek Island. I thought many of you would be interested. Thank you Bill for allowing me to share your story. I have included Bill's email address at the bottom of the story for those of you who would be willing to correspond with him.
Six Degrees of Richard Polk Johnson
Some
of you may be familiar with the concept known as "six degrees of
separation." It’s the idea that any two people on Earth are seldom more
than six acquaintance links apart. (There is even a parlor game based on
this idea known as "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" in which participants
attempt to link, within six steps or less, any actor in Hollywood with
the actor Kevin Bacon through common film projects.)
Genealogy
offers us the chance to see that those surprisingly few degrees of
separation mark not merely the relationships of acquaintances but of kin
as well.
My
name is William Low, and I have spent time recently putting together my
family tree. One of the main branches of that tree is my
great-grandfather Richard Polk Johnson (1844 - 1921). Many people
mentioned on this blog can also trace a bit of their ancestry to him.
Richard
was born December 30, 1844 in Craven, North Carolina to Jordan and
Sarah Elizabeth Ives Johnson. He was the fifth child of eleven (though
only five of his siblings lived to adulthood). His brother George
Stevenson Johnson moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts and became a
whaler. His four sisters Nancy Elizabeth, Susan M., Julia Ann and
Ellenor Susan remained in the Pamlico area and married into families
whose surnames may be familiar to you.
Nancy
married William Wallace Leary and then Bernard Carawan. Susan married
Daniel Morris Lupton. Julia Ann married Andrew Dixon and then Tilmon
Gaskins. And Ellenor married William Howard Lupton and then Robert
Lupton Ireland.
Richard,
unlike his more adventurous brother, stayed near his place of birth and
made his living as a farmer. He met his first wife Martha Ann Messick
(1851-1883) through her father John R. Messick. Both Richard and John
had served in the same unit during the Civil War. Martha was quite a bit
younger than Richard when they got married in 1865. (His father had
even admonished him unsuccessfully to “take that little girl home” when
Richard first brought her around.) When his father died, he took his
mother and sister Ellenor and relocated to Richland, Beaufort, North
Carolina. During this time he cofounded the Mount Olive Free Will
Baptist Church in Spring Creek. He and Martha had seven children, but
Martha did not survive the birth of what would have been their eighth
child.
Richard
then married the even younger Josephine Sawyer (1860-1904) and had ten
more children. Josephine, like Martha, did not survive the birth of
their last child, though this time the child did survive. Richard then
married the even younger still Ada Lucille Caton/Cayton (1879-1963) and
had four more children. He died October 17, 1921.
Below is a list of some of the people mentioned on this blog who can trace some kinship to Richard:
Colton
and Henry Carawan — Their brother Leland married Amanda Tetterton. She
was a sister of Veda Tetterton, who was the wife of Richard's son
Herbert.
Melissa
O'Neal Carawan, Melissa Howerin Lewis, Albert Campen — All are related
to Richard through his sister Nancy's second husband, Bernard Carawan.
George Jarvis Jr. — He was a nephew of Arlie Jarvis, the husband of Richard's granddaughter, Jessie Agnes Johnson.
Tildon Potter — He was the father-in-law of Richard's great-granddaughter, Opal Annetta Johnson.
Bryan Rice — He was the father-in-law of Richard's daughter, Mary E. Johnson.
Mollie Rowe Gibbs — She was the mother-in-law of his stepson, Hayes W Clark Jr.
Richard was also connected to the Mayo and Lupton families through his sisters Ellenor and Susan.
Currently
a few of us are trying to trace Richard’s family back as far as we can.
We know that his grandfather was named James Johnson and his
grandmother was named Elizabeth but the trail goes cold beyond these
names. Perhaps there is a surprising connection among this blog’s
readership that can help us.
William "Bill" Low
