Meet My Grandmother Carrie
By Donna Dabney-Jeffress
About ten years ago a newspaper story, A New Use for Burnt Cork, How a Young White girl was Enabled to Marry a Negro in Ulster County, (The Milwaukee Sentinel, November 15, 1880) brought to life a young girl, Miss Carrie Plant of Gardiner, NY,, my Great Grandmother. The title alone shook me to my core. Carrie’s life had been a secret to me for over 130 years. As I read about my great grandmother as a young girl, her journey started mine. It was unearthed for me by Susan Stessin- Cohn, and followed not just by our three-hour phone conversation but also by my own exploration of documents & photographs; conversations with family members continue today. Those pieces shaped who I am and help answer the question, “What are you?” The parallelism of our lives explains why things were meant to be. My father and his sister, who are still living today had no knowledge of Carrie’s story or the kind of life she lived. Perhaps, they chose to leave Carrie’s story non-existent which has led me to come up with my own conclusions. Carrie apparently took her secrets to her unmarked grave on South Wall Street, Mount Zion Cemetery in Kingston, NY. I know this, because my father, now in his nineties, and I would take walks to clean off the graves of his Grandmother and others.
I was intrigued by the newspaper story, “A New Use for Burnt Cork” and it helped me to make sense of my life as a biracial woman. Carrie’s story was definitely MY “missing piece,” the reasons for many of my life occurrences. The reason, I became a teacher and taught lessons about empathy. The reason, why the question, “What are you?” always angered me because as a teenager in the 70’s, I didn’t have the answers. I, became Carrie’s voice, the voice of someone who was in so many ways pushed aside because of choices that she had made. In my mind, her story became a love story of a white seventeen-year old and a “mulatto” farm worker, James Wesley Sampson. Throughout the years, Carrie’s story evolved though questions remain unanswered and the plot continues to stir, even with a new revelation, “THE STRANGE ELOPEMENT.”
Carrie is my “Romeo and Juliet,” my “West Side Story,” she was ahead of her time during an era when interracial marriages were not celebrated. Her courage to even think and actually marry a person of color during the 1880’s was unthinkable. My question is, why would a seventeen-year old, educated, high society and financially secure girl leave to marry a person of color? It leaves one to wonder was it for love or for something else?
As I travel through the newspaper articles and pictures of a woman who seemingly gave up everything, I am saddened that her struggles became the fiber that built the Dabney/Jeffress Family. What Carrie went through to survive as an outcast became the core and answers to my own existence. She laid the foundation for the family, with her first step across Ulster County searching for a pastor to perform a marriage. I believe that Carrie and James Wesley endured many disappointments, but that their love was unwavering during that journey. In respect to all the people of Lapala and Eagle’s Nest, who endured all the naysayers, life was lived, you survived and carried on. The people of both sides of the mountain were strong willed, feisty, and confident. Survival and family kept their ‘rivers’ running.
After reading the entire article, “That Strange Elopement” my husband and I felt bad for the new bride and that Carrie ‘might’ have been with child way before the marriage. If this was true, what a continuing challenge for Carrie. This information was only found in this article and one other that I have read; It seems to me that a pregnant, seventeen-year-old would have been sensationalized in the other articles, as well. It leads me to think that the newspaper reporter wanted to add more misery and negativity to Carrie’s character, as a teenager gone wild. This is not the Carrie I envision. Was there abuse in the Deyo home? More research is needed, and this is probably a question that will not get answered. So for now, Carrie is still part of a puzzle with many pieces missing.
Rumors swirled around the Hudson Valley and beyond but Carrie’s feistiness rose above it. She stood on her own two feet and showed bravery against all the odds and the prying paparazzi. She was confident that her life as a married “black” woman would be all that she needed. Carrie was a woman who has my respect and love for what she endured and how she survived in Lapala and Eagle’s Nest and beyond.
Of course, the 1880 newspaper stories were all written with negative racial tones and from a white person’s view. As I see Grandma Carrie, she was a woman of many secrets who created a life for herself and her family up in the mountains and on South Pine Street in Kingston. She survived and created a bloodline of strong children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren and… Me.
History will definitely uncover secrets and reasons why people just don’t talk about them. We are definitely uncovering the myths, but we need to do it with care and respect for the families of Lapala and Eagle’s Nest. We need to look through their eyes to tell their story. For me, Carrie will always be that ‘smitten’ seventeen-year-old who fell in love with James Wesley. History is not pretty or glamorous and in many cases happy endings are not to be found. But I know for sure that my Great Grandmother had good intentions. Her journey led her to Lapala and Eagle’s Nest and I am following her footsteps…call her a Trail Blazer. Her humble life as a ‘negress’ caught the eye of the public and raised the bar of interracial marriages in the 1880’s. The question of “What are you?” which has angered me for years, has been calmed by my familiarity with Carrie’s life. Carrie chose to blacken her skin for love, not revenge. My choice to be a Black American/biracial was chosen way before I met Carrie, but it is strengthened with my knowledge of her.
Since this project is one of ‘findings’, hypotheses, assumptions, we need to work together as a team to pull in all the information available to create an informative and respectful piece that explores the myths and gives the souls and people of Lapala and Eagles’ Nest voice and peace.
~Donna Dabney Jeffress~Great Granddaughter of Carrie Plant Deyo Sampson Hasbrouck Dewitt