NC, Greene Co., Bible, Harper-Pope Bible Records ========================================================= USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non- commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be repro- duced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations.   Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access.   Copyright © 2000 by Anna Branscome. This copy contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives. by Anna Branscome abranscome@pop.mindspring.com ========================================================= ROBERT HARPER BIBLE AND LETTER Letter from Edward Oscar McGowan, Jr. (1887-1968) to Leta McGowan Hedgpeth (1876-1969), undated but probably written in the 1950s or early '60s. Scrawled in pencil, but still quite legible. Dear Sister:- Here is the family record of the Harper family you asked me to copy. I wish our ancestors, God rest their souls, had recorded deaths and marriages it would certainly make things much clearer now. Perhaps they did record them and they have been lost or destroyed or for all we know may be packed away in some old family trunk some where. Who knows? To try to make the record clearer, I have given each one of the persons recorded a number. No (1) Robert Harper son of Alexander and Margaret his wife was your great-grandfather. No 2 is Nancy his wife her name does not appear in the records again. Ann Harper is recorded in No 3 as being the mother of the first child. Could it be that Nancy Harper recorded in No 2 as the wife of Robert died and Robert married Ann? If this is true then why was grandmother McGowan named "Nancy" and why did she so frequently mention the Popes as her kinsfolk? Pope was Nancy Harper's maiden name. [Of course the solution to this problem is that Ann and Nancy are the same person-I'm not sure why this didn't occur to my great-grandfather, seeing as how his own granddaughter was named Anne after her mother Nancy McGowan James.] No 4 Reading Harper, grandmother's brother (I think) was her guardian after her father's death. She often spoke of Uncle Reading or brother Reading and one of them was her guardian. I can't remember which. It could have been either of the two. No 6 Lourainy Harper, Marsey's older sister, is the one Aunt Emma was named for though by the time she came along the spelling had been changed to Laurainy. Marsey sometimes called Aunt Emma Reeney, which was probably a contraction of Lourainy. ["Marsey" was the family nickname for their grandmother, Nancy Harper McGowan, see next.] No 7 Nancy Harper is as you know our grandmother. She was the youngest child. The name Robert Harper appears twice on the list. No (1) her father and No 4 her brother. Our Uncle Robert was probably named for him, as was Robert Anderson our cousin named for our Uncle Robert. [A daughter of Nancy Harper McGowan married Isaac or Ike Anderson; their child was this cousin Robert Anderson.] No 8 is "Peggy daughter of Dina" is almost illegible. She was born 1825 one year before Marsey. No 9 is just one word "Charity." [Looking closely at the original, this name is "Charry" rather than "Charity".] These two entries mean nothing to me. Could it be that these were slaves? It seems to me I have heard Marsey speak of Dina and Charity as being among the slaves in the family. I am not sure about this. Nor did I know that family slaves were recorded in family bibles. Only given names being recorded might indicate that they were slaves. What do you think? Wish I could get more out of this but I am afraid it's the best I can do. Am not shure you can read all this as I can't write legibly any more. Suppose you copy it in your neat plain handwriting. Bud HARPER-POPE FAMILY BIBLE Tucked into the McGowan family diary along with a cover letter from my great-grandfather E.O. McGowan Jr. to his oldest sister Leta McGowan Hedgpeth, the Harper-Pope family "bible" is really only one page and a fragment of another torn from the Family Records section of a Bible. The pages are very worn and crumbled at the egdes, and the "complete" page is in fact torn across the middle fold and taped back together at some poin (probably by my great-grandfather?). The two taped sections clearly match up. Originally the pages must have been 8 1/2 x 10 1/2 or a little smaller, with a decorative motif as a border: the motif resembles two acanthus leaves or pilasters separated by two rows of four dots, sort of like {::} {::} , and there is a stylized sunburst A4 in each corner. Each page is headed at the top with FAMILY RECORD and MARRIAGES or BIRTHS or DEATHS, with a vertical line dividing the page into two halves. All inscriptions are in the same hand, I believe, and written in black ink faded to brown but still clearly legible. Page 1: This page is numbered [677] at the top center, 86 at the bottom left, and 4R at the bottom center; all numbering is outside the motif border. MARRIAGES Robert Harper and Nancy Pope was [sic] married the 16th of March 1809 - - Page 2: [verso of Page 1] Numbered [678] at top center, no other numbering. BIRTHS Robert Harper Son of Alexander Harper and Margaret his wife was born July 21st A.D. 1775 - - [line drawn here and after each entry] Nancy Harper wife of Robert Harper and daughter of John Pope was born April 3rd A.D. 1787 - - John P. Harper son of Robert Harper and Ann his wife was born July 4th A.D. 1810 Robert C. Harper son of Robt. Harper and Ann his wife was born August 31st A.D. 1812 [top of second column] BIRTHS Readin Harper son of Robert Harper and Ann his wife was born December 25th A.D. 1815 Lourainy Harper daughter of Robert Harper and Ann his wife was born September 21st A.D. 1819 Nancy Harper [page crumbled, prob. "daughter"] of Robert Harper and Ann his wife was born July 28th A.D. 1826 [A line in ballpoint blue ink is drawn from this last entry and the words "My grandmother McGowan" written in-surely either by E.O. McGowan Jr. or Leta McGowan Hedgpeth. Nancy Harper McGowan was the mother of E.O. McGowan Sr. and therefore their grandmother.] Page 3: This is the upper left quadrant of another page, badly crumbled at the edges, torn along the horizontal fold in the middle. There's no evidence of more writing on the page being lost in the tearing, however. BIRTHS Peggy the daughter of Dinah was born the 4 of may [sic] A.D. 1825 [a line drawn here] Charry