By Deborah Robinson, Genealogist for the Woodland Cemetery and African American Burial Ground Historic Preservation Project
This post is re-published from the August 2023 newsletter.
The common thread that weaves through all those interred in Woodland Cemetery is each played an integral part in the university’s current existence. Part of the cemetery’s genealogy research agenda is contextualizing the stories of the enslaved African Americans, sharecroppers, domestic and convicted laborers, and wage workers, including their families, who do not have headstones. Genealogists understood early the importance of cemeteries to family history and spent time recording information gleaned from graveyards.1 Through careful documentation, we’re researching descendants to identify current family members by gathering evidence from a variety of sources, including vital records, censuses, wills, and oral histories.
Our research uncovered information on Samuel Barber, a convicted laborer who worked at Clemson College during its inception. The 1880 federal census says Sam was born about 1856 in Fairfield County, South Carolina, to Jacob and Jemima Barber, was twenty-two, and lived at home with his parents and younger brother, Charles.2 Jacob was a farmer. His wife and two sons were laborers. We have not found much about Sam’s daily life at Clemson except that he died at 41, 18 December 1900, while still a leased prisoner.3 Sam was one of twelve laborers, documented so far, who are likely buried in Woodland Cemetery in unmarked graves. Clemson College mainly leased African Americans from the South Carolina state penitentiary. All cleared the land, made bricks, erected buildings, planted and harvested crops, built dikes, and made roads and sidewalks.4
The 1900 federal census listed Sam Barber (transcribed as Bucher) as one of twenty-six prisoners at Clemson College. He and both parents were native-born South Carolinians. Sam was literate, a homeowner, and married for five years. South Carolina did not record marriage records state-wide until 1911. However, some counties did compile them earlier, like Charleston County. For example, [City of] Charleston, South Carolina, U.S., Marriage Records, 1877-1887 are on Ancestry.com. Because Samuel was married in 1895, likely in Charleston, since that’s where he was convicted of Grand Larceny and sentenced to four years, his marriage is not in this record set. We also have not identified his wife yet. That said, we did unearth significant information about Sam’s family through the life of his brother Charles.
A 1937 interview by the Works Progress Administration documents Charles, 81, living with his daughter Maggie. Mary Wylie, his wife, died two years earlier. Charles did not name his children in the interview, but said they had ten “. . . Some dead, some marry and leave.” He related that Ozmund [sic] and Elizabeth Barber enslaved his family in Great Falls, on the Wateree River, in South Carolina, where Charles was born.9 And, according to family lore, both his parents were born in Africa, (the 1900 census lists their birthplace as South Carolina10) brought to Virginia during the transatlantic slave trade, taken to Winnsboro [Fairfield County, South Carolina] by the slave driver, then sold to Osmond Barber’s father. Osmond Barber is the son of Sarah T. Barber according to her Chester County, South Carolina will dated, 14 December 1896.11 His father likely predeceased his mom, since he is not mentioned in the will.
About his parents’ African birth, Charles says, “They never did talk lak [sic] de other slaves, could just say a few words, use deir [sic] hands, and make signs. . . Yes sir, they, my pappy and mammy, was just smuggled in dis part of de world, I bet you!” Charles was likely referring to the Slave Trade Act of 1807 meant to prohibit international importation of newly enslaved persons. It did not affect the domestic slave trade.12
Charles further recounted that during the Civil War “Mistress [enslaver Elizabeth Barber] and de chillum have to go to Chester to git a place to sleep and eat, wid kinfolks.” The 1860 Federal Slave Schedule dated 15 October 1860, for Chester County, South Carolina lists Osmund Barber holding twenty-three enslaved people in bondage.13 The oldest person was a 90-year-old male, the youngest were two eight-month-old infants. Sam and Charles could have been among the children listed since they were born about 1856 and 1862, respectively. Enslaved person’s ages are approximated since few slaveholders kept detailed vital record information for their bondspersons.
Charles died about 1950. He, his wife, and daughter are all buried in St. John’s African Methodist Episcopal Church in Winnsboro, Fairfax, South Carolina, their home church.14
Research on Sam Barber and others vital in building present-day Clemson University continues.
Citations
By Marquise Drayton, Community Engagement Assistant This post is re-published from the February 2024 newsletter. Last month's edition of the […]
By Dr. Mandi Barnard, Research Historian for the Cemetery Project This post is re-published from the January 2024 newsletter. The […]
By Dr. Mandi Barnard, Research Historian for the African American Burial Ground, Andrew P. Calhoun Family Plot, and Woodland Cemetery […]