11-30-2025 4:04pm

Prominent Linked Families by Marion Gamble

John Williams Editor

Eveliane’s Certicate Of Freedom

Guest Essay

Editor’s note

Our guest writer today, Marion Gamble, grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia. Her mother is from the Daniel/Dunnington family in Charlottesville. She is in a writing group with the editor’s sister Sharon Williams. Sharon suggested that she publish this piece in the Spotsylvania Gazette since it of local interest. Sharon and Marion are members of Coming to the Table, a national community with local affiliates which meet for “truth-telling, building relationships, healing and taking action” toward racial repair. Marion is a member of the working group Linked Descendants for “people connected to one another through slavery and its legacies.”

Prominent Linked Families
When I was growing up, my mother liked to tell me stories about her prominent Virginia ancestors – writers, professors, physicians, lawyers, ministers. She was particularly proud of her great-grandmother, Jane Howison Beale of Fredericksburg, who kept a diary from 1850-1862 with entries written during the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg. My family donated the hand-written diary to the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation; they published it in three versions, and parts of it were enacted in the film, Gods and Generals. Recently, I began to explore a shadow branch of my family tree originating with Jane Beale’s maternal grandfather, Edward Moor, “a merchant” of Falmouth Virginia, married to Helen McDonald “a woman of splendid ancestry and noble character.” [i] My mother would have liked that description of Helen. I, however, was beginning to re-examine my “splendid ancestry,” finding it marked by privilege and marred by enslavement.
In 2020, during a time of racial reckoning in our country, I wrote a memoir for my grandchildren. In it I summarized the contents of the diary and told the grandchildren that one day I would need to reckon with the reality of Jane Beale’s two “house servants,” Susan and Martha. After attending a presentation in 2024 about a friend’s linked descendants, I knew it was time to try to find my own. I contracted with my friend’s genealogist, Karen Skelton.
Karen could not find the whereabouts of Susan and Martha after the War, but did bring my attention to a footnote in the published diary. On June 25, 1861, Jane noted: “I wrote a long letter to my children’s nurse Aunt Eva in Detroit.65” Footnote #65 reads: “Aunt Eva Young was a free Negro emancipated by Jane Beale’s grandfather Edward Moor.”[ii] When Karen began to research Edward Moor, she found records of his business dealings and property including 37 enslaved persons.[iii] I had more to reckon with than I knew!
Karen did discover some good news: In 1806, at his death, Edward Moor manumitted four known individuals: a “dark mulatto” called Dinah age about 33, and three “bright mulatto” girls named Fanny age 11, Evelina age 9 and Maria age 6.[iv] Evelina is Jane Beale’s “Aunt Eva.”

Through Ancestry, Karen found two of Evelina’s descendants, Kimberly Cole Crafton of Detroit, MI and Stephannie Addison-Mudd of Midland, VA. Kimberly descends from Evelina and James Williams; Stephannie from Evelina and Stephen Young. Their oral family histories have always presumed that Evelina was a daughter of Edward Moor, and we now have confirmed DNA evidence. Which makes Kimberly and Stephannie my cousins as well as my linked descendants!

I was so happy to connect with them. And the more I learn of them and their ancestors, the greater admiration I feel. I devoured the book, A Different Story: A Black History of Fredericksburg, Stafford, and Spotsylvania Virginia, especially chapter 4 “Free Blacks.” I soon began to realize that the ancestors on the African branch of my family tree are equally as notable as the ancestors my mother told me about on our European side. I believe their “different stories” need to be told. Kimberly and Stephannie have graciously shared from their family stories and have collaborated on this writing, along with Karen, our genealogist.

Walter Williams, son of James Williams and Evelina, was a builder whose skills were sought after for local projects such as the first Mary Washington monument in Fredericksburg and the county courthouses of Fairfax and Culpeper. His obituary notes that he was given a chest as a gift from the Washington family and that he was personally acquainted with Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.[v] Following his migration to Detroit, his descendants made significant professional contributions to that city, including those of Kimberly Cole Crafton, an early childhood educational consultant, advocate for families, and co-owner with her sister of the family’s 106-year-old funeral home business.

Evelina bought Stephen Young’s freedom in 1819 so they could marry.[vi] Stephen bought river-front property in Fredericksburg, was the proprietor of a boot company, and participated in the Underground Railroad. His son Stephen, Jr left Fredericksburg for DC after his first wife died; he remarried and lived in the Freedman's Village on the grounds of the Washington National Cemetery where he is buried in Section 27. In 1883 Stephen and Evelina’s granddaughter Queen and her husband Wesley Fitzhugh built a two-story home on 34 acres in the rural African American community of Midland in Fauquier County VA. The home is still standing and still in Stephannie’s family, along with the family cemetery. Stephannie is a business owner, a member of the DAR, and an accomplished genealogy researcher.

Although African Americans who were freed before the Emancipation continued to face significant discrimination and hardship, these families descending from Evelina were able to begin to build wealth and attain education and status at a time when most were still working for enslavers or as sharecroppers. Stephannie has the legacy of inherited land and a house, assets denied to so many.

In June 2025, a first cousin and I travelled to Fredericksburg and Midland to meet Stephannie. Together we viewed the original Jane Beale diary on display in the special exhibit on African American History in the Fredericksburg Area Museum. I felt embarrassed when I when I read the May 14,1861 post beside the diary, where Jane reflected that her “servants”

“…are of a race who were ordained of high Heaven to serve the white man and it is only in that capacity that they can be happy, useful and respected.”

But we reminded ourselves that footnote #65 about “Aunt Eva” in this diary is what brought us together.

We toured sights relevant to our ancestors of European and African descent.

Here we are in front of the 1815 Jane Beale house, 307 Lewis Street, Fredericksburg, where Evelina (“Aunt Eva”) lived for a while with Jane Beale.

And here is the 1883 family home in Midland, built by Evelina’s granddaughter, which Stephannie and her husband are renovating.

This trip raised more questions for us to explore. For example, we have reason to believe that the trailblazing educator Fannie Mae Richards, also featured in the Fredericksburg Museum exhibit, is kin. However, there are discrepancies in the written accounts of her lineage.

Now I am eager to visit Detroit to immerse myself in the history and culture of those who left Fredericksburg in the 1850s to seek better educational opportunities and hopefully to live with a modicum more respect for their remarkable gifts and contributions.

Endnotes

[i] Larrison, Marjorie. Stephen Howison and Mary Brooke: My Mother’s Family. 2 vols. Grants Pass, Oregon: Privately printed, 1986.

[ii] Barile, Kerri S. and Barbara P. Willis, editors. A Woman in a War-Torn Town: The Journal of Jane Howison Beale. (Virginia Beach: Donning Company Publishers, 1979), p. 127.

[iii] Fredericksburg, Virginia. Deed Book C, 1797-1800, pp 97-99. Mortgage of property by Edward Moor to Robert Dunbar on 27 Sep 1797. Digital images accessed at FamilySearch.org, Film 31542, Image Group 8141197 Item 3, Image 76 of 257.

[iv] 1810 U.S. Census, Stafford County, Virginia, Town of Falmouth, p. 37 (penned at center right), line 20, Dinah More; digital image, Ancestry.com (accessed 24 Aug 2025), citing NARA microfilm publication 252, roll 71.

[v] Walter Williams Obituary, clipping from the Detroit Tribune, 3 Sep 1888, privately held by K. Cole, Detroit, Michigan.

[vi]“ Fredericksburg Historic Records Index,” database, Fredericksburgva.gov, entry for Young, Evelina citing purchase of Stephen in 1819 and his emancipation in 1824 after repeated court challenges. Record ID D-259.

[vii] 1850 U.S. Census, Fredericksburg, Virginia, p. 368 (stamped). E. Young in household of Jane Beale, dwelling/family no. 489. Digital image, Ancestry.com (accessed 24 Aug 2025), citing NARA microfilm publication 432, roll 977.

Marion Gamble, Ed.D currently lives in Greensboro, NC. She would like to hear from you if you think you might be related through either the European or African branch of her family tree or if you would like to comment or ask questions.mariong716@gmail.com

Contact the editor if you would like to see more articles like this about local history or searching for your ancestors at johwilli@gmail.com.

Thank you Marion for providing this valuable information about your Family and your descendants.

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