Farmers
Tablertown, now known as Kilvert, was also a place where a family sought a better life for their Black children. Michael Tabler was a white man whose father owned a plantation in Berkeley County, Virginia. Michael had children with a slave, Hannah, but his children were enslaved because status followed matrilineal lines. Michael freed his children, according to an 1830 deed book from Ohio County, West Virginia: “Michael Teabler for and in consideration of the services of the said parties of the second part heretofore rendered to him, and of the affection which he has for them, hath emancipated and set free […]”[1] Despite his children being free, they were unable to inherit his land in Virginia, so Michael bought fifty acres of land and moved with his family to Tablertown in 1836. Tablertown would remain a long-term home for the Tabler family; many of their descendants still live in the region, including David Butcher, who maintains an exhibit documenting his family’s legacy.[2]
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The Tabler family continued to earn income as farmers through the Civil War Era; the 1860 federal census lists Jesse Tabler, Michael Tabler, and William Tabler as farmers, each with real estate worth $1,000 and at least $250 worth of personal estate.[3] Work on the Tabler farms was not always easy. William Tabler, one of the freed children who moved to Ohio, was paralyzed later in his life, possibly due to “snake oil” or another dangerous medication. He still worked his garden by “walking on his hands” and scooting on the ground to pull out the weeds.
Tabler Family Emancipation Deed. People of Color Exhibit.
His wife Ruth, a woman of indigenous descent who was raised by the prominent white Grosvenor family, may have taken on more responsibilities on the farm to support her husband and their children. The family had no horse, but Ruth was resourceful and used the family cow to take their grain to the nearby mill to be ground. Although these Tablers faced hardships due to William’s disability, their hard work let them sustain themselves with the property they owned, property William had moved to Ohio to have.[4] The Tablers were not alone in Rome township. South Carolina native David Coursey, who was sixty-eight years old in 1860, supported his wife Jane and their two children with his farm. George Coursey, a young Ohio native, held a personal estate worth $75. James Whitfield’s job as a day laborer supported his wife Anne and their four-month-old daughter Elizabeth on a personal estate worth $100. Virginia native William Dalton’s work as a farm laborer on his $340 personal estate supported a wife and six children. As Black pioneers had spread into the Northwest Territory in pursuit of free labor and better futures, families settled in Athens County during the Civil War Era and provided for themselves through farm labor.
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Notes
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1. Wall text, Deed Book 15, Ohio County (West) Virginia Page 316, People of Color Exhibit, Stewart OH.
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2. David Butcher, curator, People of Color Exhibit. Interview. February 26, 2021.
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3. 1860 United States Federal Census. Rome Township, Athens, Ohio, USA. Ancestry Database.
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4. “William and Ruth Tabler,” People of Color Exhibit, David Butcher.
