Transcript Slide 1

Miss Leatha Bazemore’s fourth and fifth graders, Askewville Elementary 1934-35
PELL MELLERS
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
Ulysses Johnson family
Dunlows sell Johnsons part of “the John
Butler land,” 1910
Butler Land, now Dunlow and Johnson
Dunlow family cemetery
“220 acres of poor barren, piney, marshy, wet,
flat land valued by the assessors at 50 cents per
acre” John Butler, 1820
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
Dunlow family cemetery on “the John Butler land” purchased in
1792 from heirs of Henry Bunch, who had bought it in 1727
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
Core Melungeon DNA project
shows Bertie/Hancock
connection
HENRY BUNCH YDNA MATCHES

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
VALENTINE COLLINS

Direct ancestor of
many Collinses in the
Melungeon community
of Newman’s Ridge,
Hancock County,
Tennessee
Dunlow descent from Butlers, Pritchards,
Cobbs, Mitchells
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.
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)
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
evidence of mixed ancestry in Pell Mell
family photos?
l- Whit Johnson, d1898 r- unknown Butler photo
found in Askewville house being demolished
autosomal testing identifies nonEuropean ancestry inconsistently
No Native American or Asian


99% European, 1%
African
(23andme.com)
96% European, 4%
African (Dr. J. Douglas
McDonald analysis)
Asian greater than African



93% European, 4%
Asian, 3% African
(decodeme.com)
94% European (57%
Northern European,
35% Mediterranean
8% South Asian, 8%),
6% East Asian
(ancestrybydna.com)
Analysis of KPJ genome by Dr. J. Douglas McDonald, U.
of Illinois
Latest explanation of non-European ancestry as indicated by DNA
Family cemetery near Will’s Quarter Swamp
The HawkinsJohnson
cemetery on Bull
Hill Rd. north of
Windsor, NC
POCOSIN:
“Swamp on a
hill”-Algonquian
Father of eight
sons; all left
Bertie County by
the time of his
death
Marcus Ryan Johnson, 1831-1916
Melungeon Heritage in northeastern
North Carolina
THE TUSCARORA PROJECT

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
THE CHOWAN DISCOVERY GROUP

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
“Melange” applied to Goinstown
Indians in WPA cemetery index
Other WPA
references to
the same
community
refer to
alleged East
Indian origins