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Sepio Morehand

Posted by Deloris Williams <delwilliams@insightbb.com> on Sat, 02 Jul 2005, in response to Sepio Morehand, slave, posted by doris perkins on Thu, 30 Jun 2005

Doris,
Have you done any census work on these individuals? That should be one of the first things that you do to find out who was in the household and where they were at any particular time.
I checked the 1880 census and found this:

1880 Madison County,New York, Lenox Election Dist.#4,Dist. 65, Image 31, #293/302:
LOUISE FAY (WIFE) -W - F - 42 - M - RESTURAN -NY NY CONN
LEWIS J.F.FAY (SON) - W - M - 15 - S - PEN MIS? NY
ESTELLE FAY (DAU) - W - F - 5 - S - NY MASS NY

IMAGE 32, #301/210:
SEPIO MOREHAND (HUSBAND) - B - M - 44- WD - LABORER- MA MA MA
GEORGE MOREHAND(SON) - B - M - 14 - S - AT HOME - NY MA NY
FRANK MOREHAND (SON) - B - M - 12 - S - AT HOME - NY MA NY
FRED MOREHAND (SON) - B - M - 5 - S - NY MA NY
CHARLES MOREHAND (SON)-B - M - 4 - S - NY MA NY

I would advise you to check for them in 1870, and then forward thru 1930. I didn't find either family in 1870, myself, but I didn't do an especially intense search. the name MOREHAND wasn't a common name and there were only a few that I crossed in looking for them. It's possible they had different surnames in 1870, which wouldn't be too surprising if they had been former slaves. I have seen many former slaves change their names to another after gaining their freedom.
As far as surnames for slaves go, it's a toss -up about that. Some slaves did take the surname of a former slaveholder, the ones that owned them at the close of the Civil War. But there were also those who used the surname of another earlier slaveowner whom they may have been fond of. Then there were those who just used names that we may not even know the reason for. The name MOREHAND was so rare it probably would be worth your time to try to locate deed and willbooks for Massachusetts (the state that the 1880 census indicates SEPIO was born in) for the name of MOREHAND, or something similar, and check out any kind of accounts for the names of their slaves. The name SEPIO could also be the name SCIPIO, another form I've seen usually for Italian heritage people. That could be a clue about the owners of SEPIO.

Deloris

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