I've been into genealogy for several years. I love being immersed in census records, old Bibles...and I will hike anywhere I need to go to get to a cemetery-they're my favorite places. When I found out that David Henderson's cabin was still standing down in that holler, I couldn't wait to go. But first, I had to go to the cemetery next to it. What I found there was Henderson after Henderson after Henderson...but no David. He's not even buried in that cemetery, although he gave the land for it to be created from. His wife is there--Elizabeth--but her grave isn't actually marked. Her grave is approximated. It's a beautiful cemetery, really, as cemeteries go. The best-kept cemeteries, though, of all the ones I have been in, are in West Virginia. My husband says when I go I am "digging up bones". I prefer to call it "visiting relatives".
I'll never forget going to Stewart Cemetery with my mother. I was going from grave to grave, snapping pictures and looking at the family connections--the Lincoln County Henderson's were a HUGE group of people--and my Mom says "let me know when you find Cootie Brown". "Brown" is a family name I was researching, and I had seen a couple of "Brown" stones, so I start looking at every single headstone, searching for the one she needed. I finally just said "Momma I have been all over this cemetery and I have not seen Cootie Brown anywhere." And then she started laughing so hard at me that she cried--in my "genealogical stupor" I had never even realized that she had me looking for a mythical person--that the phrase "drunker than Cootie Brown" had been used since as long as I could remember, and that wherever Cootie was, he was ripped.
But that's how it goes...sometimes you find what you are looking for, sometimes you don't. I have often wondered in my life the reasons people do the things they do. I do believe in God, so I know that whatever the reasons, they are according to His will and not ours. Some things on this earth we'll never know, and I am good with that--that means they just don't matter that much, really. I'd like to know if David and Elizabeth Henderson fell in love, or if they married because it was expected of them, but in the grand scheme of things, it probably doesn't matter one way or the other in my life now. It was what it was.
Now understand, I think David was probably a living paradox. He farmed, made whiskey (which was actually a cash crop back then), he owned slaves...and some of the things written by family members say that he was as hard on his children and white workers as he was the slaves. He didn't allow anyone to loaf. Everyone worked, not just the slaves. I am not, for the record, condoning slavery. I never have, never will, and certainly would never in a million years pretend that it is okay for one man to own another. And I don't for two minutes believe he was "just as hard" on the whites...history is always written by the "winners", remember? But, slavery was a fact of life--all the way back to Genesis, and it's something we have had to deal with and try to understand for that long, as well. So, now that we have that ugliness out in the open, let's keep thinking about what I said about David being a paradox...In the same cemetery that David Henderson's wife is buried, along with hundreds of his relatives, there is a small marker up near the edge of the property line. It reads "Will--beloved slave of David Henderson". A beloved slave buried in a white cemetery before the Civil War ...yet he owned slaves to begin with...paradox. Did he love Will? I believe he did. I read a post by a lady on a popular cemetery website (yes, we have those), and she saw this headstone and posted "If he had been beloved, he wouldn't have been a slave." That's true, in a perfect world. God allows things to happen for the good of those who love Him...and we don't live in a perfect world, and never will. (That's what Heaven is, hello?). David Henderson, in the early 1800's, publicly buried a slave in a white cemetery, and didn't care what the world, or his family, thought. He loved Will. And that speaks volumes to me about the kind of person David was. He may have been ornery, and he may have been cocky and mean...I'm sure he probably was after hearing other stories about him...but he cared enough about Will to make sure that he had the best of what he could give him...in David's world. Not ours.
Now please, don't misunderstand what I am saying. Slavery in any shape, form, or fashion is morally wrong in my opinion. I am not saying David Henderson was a saint or that slave owners should all be painted in pastels with butterflies and bubbles. But I am saying that I believe he did love Will, and there's nothing wrong with that. Some parents push their children to have only straight A's in school...even when the child may not get to do the things other kids get to do on a regular basis (watch TV, for example). Those parents will tell you they do it because they love their children. I don't doubt that they do. They are giving their kids the best they have--in their world. See? The perspective changes according to the circumstance. What's okay in one person's mind becomes completely wrong in another's--and no one can ever win those arguments.
I have gone over and over this in my head...and in my heart. I don't want to argue with anyone about the rights and wrongs of it. The bottom line is that it was for God to judge then, and it's for God to judge now. But when one person gives to another the best of what they have in their world, then that's love. And I cannot find fault with love. So that being said, I think David did love Elizabeth. He wasn't a man who would waste time on things that didn't matter to him...and all those things I talk about inheriting? That love without surrender thing? That's what I got from him.
The toad thing I think came from my relative Cootie Brown.
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