Jones COUNTY, GA - Bios James Seaman Gray

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Sylvia Ryce Cornell

JAMES SEAMAN GRAY
1849(?) - 1929

[This is a small portion of the extensive story of
James Seaman Gray. For more details see
CREATVCNCP@aol.com Sylvia Ryce Cornell ]

James Seaman GRAY was the slave son of James
Madison Gray, one of the prominent slaveowners in
Jones County.  His birth date is uncertain.  He is
listed on the 1870 census as being 21 years of age.
His maternal parentage is equally shrouded in
mystery.

In 1952, his daughter, Emma Catherine Ware Gray,
published a family history in The Negro History
Bulletin. (Gray, 1952) She described her father as
"the son of a slave mother and a young white
lawyer."  His original master reputedly died when
he was a young boy and his mother and her younger
children went to live with the Hutchings family.
It is surmised that they had been secretly
purchased by Gray and sent to live on the Hutchings
plantation.  Although Hutchings is said to have
administered harsh punishment to his slaves, the
mother and her children were never touched.

Although James Seaman's beginnings are murky,
several facts are clear.  He was sufficiently close
to his father that he was moved into James Madison
Gray's home at the end of the Civil War.  He is a
named beneficiary in James Madison's will, although
it lists him as "my faithful manservant, Jim."   He
was taught to read and write and served in the
capacity of a "right hand" man to Mack Gray.
Benjamin Mays remembered that, "Although Sadie's
father never attended school a day in his life, he
could read, write, and debate issues." (Mays,
1971).

His death certificate, which lists "dk" (don't
know) for his date of birth and mother, clearly
names James Madison Gray as his father.  James
Seaman named his first-born son for his father.   

James Madison Gray died in 1874.  Although he left
a large estate, the bulk of it went to Mercer
University.  His bequest to his son was Eight
Hundred Dollars in Cash and the house that served
as his law offices in Clinton.  James Seaman worked
hard and parlayed the cash for the sale of that
site.  He was able to the purchase four hundred
acres of the Mercer site. 

James Seaman Gray married twice.  His first wife,
Cordelia Wynans, died soon after the birth of their
third child, Lucia Cordelia.  They had three
children together; Elizabeth Ella, called Lizzie,
or "Sis," James Madison, or "Mack," and Lucia.
Lucia, either through an accident of childbirth, or
soon thereafter, was developmentally delayed.

Jim Gray's second wife, Emma Frances Blount, was
sixteen years his junior.  They married on March
30, 1886 and she reared the three motherless
children with her growing family.  Seven children
were born to their marriage.  Five of these
children lived to adulthood and made their mark
upon Jones County and a larger world.  In order of
birth, they were Madison Blount, Julia Beatrice,
Emory Speer, Emma Catherine Ware, and Sadie.  A
son, Samuel, apparently died in infancy. One of the
children, Cecil, born in 1898, died tragically
before his fourth birthday.  A rabid dog in the
yard attacked him.

James Seaman had a third family whose existence is
documented through census records and other oral
and written history.  His relationship with
Harriet, a fellow slave on the Gray plantation,
began before the death of his father in 1874.  Two
of the children born to them appear on the 1870
census with Harriet. This family remained in close
proximity to J.S. Gray throughout his lifetime.
Harriet appears on the 1880 census as the next site
on the visitation records with her family, which
continued to expand.  She is enumerated as Harriet
Blount in 1880 and Harriet Gray in 1900.

It appears that Harriet and her family lived in the
tenant cottage described by Mack Gray.  By 1900,
one of her daughters and her husband, Dave Gray,
occupied the site next to the J.S. Gray plantation.
Harriet and the children who remained at home lived
only slightly further away close to Queen Farler
and her family.

James Seaman Gray died in 1929 of a cerebral
hemorrhage.  He was blind and frail by the time of
his death, but his children often surrounded him in
the original eight room home