In the Upside Down

Photo by Patrick Jones. Glenn Ligon's Double America 2. 3 Jan 2016.

As currents events continue to be incredibly frustrating, I thought it was worth sharing a photo of art, taken while visiting The Broad museum in Los Angeles last year. Glenn Ligon's Double America is representative of this current feeling, showing the word America on top and inverted below, with alternating lights. It certainly feels like we're living in an alternate reality.

Friends of Emancipation

In looking back at Newspapers.com for references to the Holsclaw family, I stumbled on this gem from 19 April 1849. Enoch Holsclaw and his father Benjamin appear on a list of delegates to a constitutional convention in support of removing slavery from the Kentucky Constitution. The article is titled Emancipation Meeting at Taylorsville, and appeared in the Louisville Courier.

Louisville Courier, 19 Apr 1849

An early Kentucky pioneer

Charles-François Daubigny, Harvest. 1851.

Working backward from Benjamin Holsclaw, his father was Jacob Holsclaw (also spelled Holtsclaw or Holtzclaw), my 6th-great-grandfather. Jacob was born in Virginia on 17 February 1738, and was the son of Hans Jacob Holtzclaw, the founder of the Holtzclaw family in America. The story of the family is well detailed in the book The Genealogy of the Holtzclaw Family, 1540-1935, by B.C. Holtzclaw, and this book can be viewed online via the Hathi Trust.

Jacob married Susanna Thomas in Culpeper County, Virginia about 1758. They had a very large family, and the family is documented in the Holtzclaw book. Jacob and Susanna lived together in Culpeper County up to about 1774 or 1775, when they sold their land and moved west to Kentucky. According to the book, Jacob served in the Revolutionary War in the Lincoln County Militia commanded by Captain Samuel Kirkham in 1782 as part of an expedition by General George Rogers Clark.

Jacob claimed preemption on a tract of land raising a crop of corn in 1776 on the north side of Dicks River adjoining land of James and Edmund Archer.

In February 1780, Jacob entered land for 400 acres on Dicks River in Lincoln County. In September 1780 he entered another 1000 acres with Jacob Fishback. In the following years, more settlers arrived in the area.

Source: Ancestry and Kentucky Secretary of State.

Jacob appears on the Mercer County, Kentucky tax list in 1789.

According to the Holtzclaw book, Jacob died on 21 October 1812 in Mercer County, Kentucky. Susanna died on 10 October 1821 in Mercer County.

They had at least the following children:
- Leeanah Holsclaw (1759-
- Elijah Holsclaw (1764-
- Jacob Holsclaw (1767-
- Elizabeth Holsclaw (1769-
- Nellee Holsclaw (1772-
- Susanna Holsclaw (1775-1827)
- Benjamin Holsclaw (1777-1859)
- Ruth Holsclaw (1779-
- Jesse Holsclaw (1782-
- Mary Ann Holsclaw (1785-
- Sarah Holsclaw (1791-
- James Holsclaw (1797-

Jacob's signature appears on a letter he signed on 19 November 1792 giving his daughter Leeanah consent to marry John Collier.

Source: Ancestry. Kentucky Marriages.

Benjamin's inventory

An inventory of the estate of Benjamin Holsclaw was filed with the Spencer County, Kentucky Court on 7 November 1839. His most expensive possession was a bay horse. Benjamin's son Stephen bought the horse in the estate sale.

Source: FamilySearch. Kentucky Probate Records.

Source: FamilySearch. Kentucky Probate Records. Image 407.

Source: FamilySearch. Kentucky Probate Records.

From the estate sale, we can also see Benjamin owned 106 acres of land, likely in Spencer County. Proceeds from the estate sale were distributed in September 1866. The estate sale generated almost $6600. The heirs received $525.44 each.

FamilySearch. Will Book G, p 323.

Benjamin was 82 when he died. His wife, Sarah Sally Kemper Holsclaw, had preceded him in 1828. Benjamin and Sarah are my connection to German immigrants who moved to Colonial Virginia in 1714, the Germanna Colony. Both of their parents were descended from these immigrants, and several of their siblings intermarried in the Holsclaw and Kemper families. The Germanna Colony is on our list of places to visit over Spring Break. I will have much more on this in the near future.

Will of Benjamin Holsclaw

FamilySearch. Kentucky Probate Records. Image 270 of 712.

FamilySearch. Image 270 of 712.

My 5th-great-grandfather Benjamin Holsclaw executed a will in Spencer County, Kentucky on 13 August 1859, providing for his children and several of his grandchildren. The will was proven in Court on 1 October 1859. He likely died in September 1859.

Benjamin Holsclaw married Sarah Sally Kemper in Garrard County, Kentucky on 26 November 1799. They had a very large family. The children listed in the will included:
- Jacob Holsclaw (born about 1800, died 1848)
- Enoch K. Holsclaw (born 6 January 1804, died 28 August 1889)
- Narcissa Holsclaw (born 1805, died 2 April 1864), married Harmon A. Stidger
- Sarah A. Holsclaw (born 1806, died 1886), married Henry Terrell
- Charles K. Holsclaw (born 1809, died 28 February 1853)
- Elizabeth Holsclaw (born 1816, died 26 April 1859), married John Hopewell
- Jesse Holsclaw (born 8 March 1818, died 20 May 1872)
- Stephen K. Holsclaw (born 1820)
- Mary Nevil Holsclaw (born 26 December 1821, died 14 August 1880), married Soloman Froman
- Isaac N. Holsclaw (born 12 April 1823, died 21 February 1914)
- Martha Ann Holsclaw (born 24 September 1826, died 12 February 1857), married Joseph Watson

Children not listed in the will but known included:
- Dewilton Holsclaw (born 1811, died 1812)
- Samuel K. Holsclaw (born 17 November 1814, died 22 July 1834)
- Benjamin Holsclaw Jr. (born 1821, died 17 September 1851)