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PELL MELLERS

PELL MELLERS. Miss Leatha Bazemore’s fourth and fifth graders, Askewville Elementary 1934-35. Pell Mellers : Race and Memory in a Carolina Pocosin By K. Paul Johnson. Pell Mell Pocosin on 1918 soil map. Dunlows and Johnsons in South Norfolk. Lillie, Paul, and Bert Dunlow.

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PELL MELLERS

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  1. PELL MELLERS Miss Leatha Bazemore’s fourth and fifth graders, Askewville Elementary 1934-35 Pell Mellers: Race and Memory in a Carolina Pocosin By K. Paul Johnson

  2. Pell MellPocosin on 1918 soil map

  3. Dunlows and Johnsons in South Norfolk Lillie, Paul, and Bert Dunlow Ulysses Johnson family

  4. Dunlows sell Johnsons part of “the John Butler land,” 1910

  5. Dunlow family cemetery Butler Land, now Dunlow and Johnson “220 acres of poor barren, piney, marshy, wet, flat land valued by the assessors at 50 cents per acre” John Butler, 1820

  6. 1792 John Butler buys 150 acres from the Cader Bass estate, inherited from Cader’s grandfather Henry Bunch Butler, Bunch, and Bass are all mulatto families which became white after the American Revolution

  7. Dunlow family cemetery on “the John Butler land” purchased in 1792 from heirs of Henry Bunch, who had bought it in 1727

  8. Josiah’s mother Susanah Butler is daughter of John Butler and Keziah Pritchard, both of whose families were taxable as mulattoes in colonial Bertie lists; his wife Nancy White is granddaughter of mulatto taxables Nathan Cobb and Winifred Mitchell Josiah Dunlow, 1840-1906

  9. Core Melungeon DNA project shows Bertie/Hancock connection HENRY BUNCH YDNA MATCHES VALENTINE COLLINS • Former owner of the land inherited by grandson Cader Bass, bought in 1792 by John Butler and still inhabited by his Dunlow and Johnson descendants today • Direct ancestor of many Collinses in the Melungeon community of Newman’s Ridge, Hancock County, Tennessee

  10. Dunlow descent from Butlers, Pritchards, Cobbs, Mitchells

  11. Pell Meller marriage as described by a Windsor resident • They were known for usually marrying other Pell Mellers and staying isolated in that area. People outside of that area looked down on Pell Mellers and made fun of them…Pell Mellers intermarried for land reasons…not wanting to lose family land that had been owned by the same families for generations and generations…Pell Mellers have the reputation of having children out of wedlock, a lot of extramarital affairs, divorce, etc.

  12. A child’s impressions of Pell Mellers • My mother used to make remarks about Pell Mell. For instance, if someone had a lot of junk in their yard or say a sofa on their front porch she would say it looked like Pell Mell. Also, when I was a child and would come in from playing and had gotten dirty, she would tell me to go get cleaned up…that I looked like a Pell Meller. (grew up in Bertie County 1950s, left many years ago)

  13. Pell Meller isolation in the 20th century • …people from Askewville even speak differently from those in other parts of the county…They have, in the past more than now, had a reputation for not welcoming outsiders, and for keeping to themselves---not given much to southern hospitality…They didn’t believe much in hard work, but would do just enough to allow them to do what they really loved, which was hunting and fishing. • ---lifelong resident of Bertie County, 2007

  14. evidence of mixed ancestry in Pell Mell family photos? l- Whit Johnson, d1898 r- unknown Butler photo found in Askewville house being demolished

  15. autosomal testing identifies non-European ancestry inconsistently No Native American or Asian Asian greater than African • 99% European, 1% African (23andme.com) • 96% European, 4% African (Dr. J. Douglas McDonald analysis) • 93% European, 4% Asian, 3% African (decodeme.com) • 94% European (57% Northern European, 35% Mediterranean 8%South Asian, 8%), 6% East Asian • (ancestrybydna.com)

  16. Analysis of KPJ genome by Dr. J. Douglas McDonald, U. of Illinois Latest explanation of non-European ancestry as indicated by DNA

  17. Family cemetery near Will’s Quarter Swamp The Hawkins-Johnson cemetery on Bull Hill Rd. north of Windsor, NC POCOSIN: “Swamp on a hill”-- Algonquian

  18. Father of eight sons; all left Bertie County by the time of his death Marcus Ryan Johnson, 1831-1916

  19. Melungeon Heritage in northeastern North Carolina THE TUSCARORA PROJECT THE CHOWAN DISCOVERY GROUP • Arwin D. Smallwood’s forthcoming book on the diaspora of the Tuscarora tribe from their homeland in eastern North Carolina will include evidence of possible Melungeon origins • Marvin T. Jones’s research on the Winton Triangle of Hertford County reveals a community with similar ethnic diversity to that of Melungeons, and likely ancestral links

  20. “Melange” applied to Goinstown Indians in WPA cemetery index Other WPA references to the same community refer to alleged East Indian origins

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