52 Ancestors #17 John B Rice

Posted on by Lori Crane

52ancestors-2015

This challenge is set forth by No Story Too Small, and this week’s theme is “Prosper.”

downloadMy 5th great grandpa was John B. Rice. I’m sure the B is for Benjamin as that was one of his son’s names. John was born in 1755 in Red Bud Creek, Bute County, North Carolina. In 1779 Bute County was divided into Franklin and Warren Counties and ceased to exist. John was born to Jared Rice and Lettie Potts. (My 2nd great grandmother’s name was Martha Lettie Carpenter. I always wondered where Lettie came from. Turns out it was her great grandmother’s name.) John signed up to serve in the American Revolution in 1776 at the age of 21 as a private and sergeant, and received a pension according to the North Carolinians list of pensioners as reported by the Secretary of State to Congress in 1835. He married Elizabeth Hopkins a year into the war and they had a total of eight children. By age 27, the family had moved to Nash County, NC, where John lived a long life and died on 29 April 1836, at the age of eighty-one.

last-will-and-testamentJohn’s will contains info as follows:

Probated August 1837. Page 443, Will Book I. Nash Co, NC. It names wife Elizabeth and son John. Daughter Nancy and her husband Benjamin Carpenter (my 4th great grandparents). Daughter Elizabeth and her husband William Richardson. Son Hopkins Rice. Two people I can’t place Reden Richardson and William Earppe. Grandson: Richardson Rice, son of William Rice. Children of son Benjamin Rice: John B. Rice, Nicholson Rice, Boykin Rice, heirs of Jincy Strickland. Legatee: John Leonard. Exec: Benjamin Merritt, John Rice. Witnesses: William M.B. Anndell, Boykin Denton.

The above named daughter Nancy Rice Carpenter was my fourth great-grandmother who married Benjamin Carpenter. They moved to Lauderdale County, Mississippi in 1821 when Indian land was being sold by the U.S. Gov’t for cheap. She lived as a pioneer woman, raising ten children in near squalor. After reading the following story, I’m under the impression she either must have been rebelling against her family or she really, really loved Benjamin Carpenter. But I found in John Rice’s will that he left items to Benjamin and Nancy and their children, so if she did rebel, they must have made up before John’s death.

I found the following somewhere on line:

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Nash County, North Carolina 1787.

A black woman by the name of Chaney was born. Little is known about her background, but it is believed she was the daughter of an African. She and her sister were slaves of the Hopkins Family.

Peter Hopkins, born in 1730, was the first in his family to move to Edgecombe County, North Carolina. He married Wilmoth Fowler who was born in Wake County, North Carolina in 1747 to Joseph and Anne Fowler. The couple had the following children:

  1. William Hopkins
  2. John Hopkins
  3. David Hopkins
  4. Elizabeth Hopkins-Rice (the above wife of John Rice)
  5. Susannah Hopkins-Russell

Elizabeth married a Revolutionary War Hero named John Rice. The two purchased about 800 acres of land on Lee’s Creek. They had eight children as follows:

  1. John Rice Jr
  2. William Rice
  3. Elizabeth Rice-Richardson
  4. Nancy Rice-Carpenter (my 4th great-grandmother)
  5. Mary Rice-Marriott
  6. James M. Rice
  7. Benjamin Rice
  8. Hopkins Rice

Chaney was brought to this 800 acre plantation of John Rice and Elizabeth Hopkins Rice. Most of her children were born here. She had at least five children. In the early 1800’s, John Rice deeded Chaney and her children to his youngest son Hopkins Rice and his wife Jane.

In the early 1820’s Hopkins Rice and his family migrated to Greene County, Alabama and in 1828, they purchased land in the Clinton and Pleasant Ridge areas. Over the years, some of the slaves were sold to various plantations in the area. One of Chaney’s sons, Anderson, was sold to Eldred Pippen. Jesse was sold to Gaston Wilder of Pickens County, Alabama. Richard was sold to William Gilmore of Mantua. The last son, whose name is unknown, was sold to a Mr. Harkness. Her grandsons were also sold.

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Nancy Rice-Carpenter is my 4th great-grandmother. Her parents, Elizabeth and John Rice are my 5th great-grandparents. Elizabeth’s parents Peter and Wilmoth Hopkins are my 6th. Though Nancy, being a girl, probably didn’t stand to inherit much of the family’s wealth, I still think it strange that she moved away from her obviously prosperous family.

It’s Monday! What are you reading?

Posted on by Lori Crane

2a2It’s Monday! What are you Reading?

 

 

This week I read “Behind the Bar” by PC Zick.

 

 

 

81G7RBonO5L._SL1500_The first thing that came to mind while reading this story was the movie “The Breakfast Club” –except ten years later. The relationships are intricate and sometimes painful as there tends to be a lot of psychological baggage carried from teenage years into adulthood, especially when done in a group like these characters. Sometimes one must forgive and forget to move on, but in the case of Susie Williams, one must remember in the first place. Susie is a young woman who has blocked out a majority of her abusive childhood, until her friends help her piece the puzzle back together.

I absolutely loved these characters, especially Sally Jean, and the final conversation between Susie and Sally Jean literally brought tears to my eyes.

“Behind the Bar” is the second book in the “Behind the Love Trilogy.” If you start with this book, you’ll find the first few chapters move pretty fast, and you’ll have to figure out who everyone is, which I’m sure is explained in more detail in the first book. That being said, you can start with this book and catch up quickly, not feeling as if you’ve missed anything because this is a stand-alone story. I guarantee you will love this group of misfits and find yourself going back to the first in the series “Behind the Altar.” The third in the series, “Behind the Curtain,” will be released soon, and I can’t wait!

For those sensitive to adult language and situations, there is a little bit in this book, but not enough to curl your hair.

088eb14324190ad8956eff.L._V146807737_SX200_Check it out at Amazon!

Visit Ms. Zick’s website!

Saturday Snippet – I, John Culpepper

Posted on by Lori Crane

Culpepper_1My new book, I, John Culpepper, has been released!!

It is the story of young John Culpepper, whose only dream is to own a merchant ship. As you will see in the snippet below, his aristocratic father is not the most supportive. Some of the story occurs simultaneously with historical events we know well. The follow snippet happens on September 6, 1620.

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Fourteen-year-old John stood on the banks of the Thames and stared at her. She was the most majestic creature he had ever seen. He admired her pear shape, her curved lines. From the beak of her prow to the tip of her stern, she must have been nearly one hundred feet in length. Three masts towered above her decks and her white sails billowed, straining against their ropes. Fluttering atop her mainmast, the red-and-white English flag proudly announced her pedigree. She rode the gentle waves toward the English Channel, sailing into the rising sun. Her sharp silhouette stood in contrast to the backdrop of a clouded pink-and-purple sky.

“What are you looking at, boy?” his father bellowed from the carriage.

He pointed at the river as he turned. “Look at the ship, Father!”

“Stop gawking and get over here and unhitch these horses.”

“Yes, sir,” John mumbled. He trudged back toward the carriage, wondering why there wasn’t a footman or stable boy to take care of the animals. He walked around to the other side of the horses and wrapped his fingers around one of the halters.

He peeked around the horse’s nose, watching his father march through the puddles as he crossed the road toward the inn. His father’s long black cloak billowed behind him, caught by an unexpected breeze. John looked up at the sky. Last night’s storm clouds were dissolving and large pockets of blue sky were beginning to show through. When he looked back at his father, the man’s shadow was walking beside him, just as formidable as the real man.

Thomas appeared by John’s side and plopped their father’s large trunk on the ground at John’s feet. The horse jumped and John quickly released the halter.

Thomas complained under his breath, “You’ll never learn, will you? That’s not one of our ships sailing for the Virginia Company. That’s a competitor’s ship. Father isn’t interested in that ship. As a matter of fact, Father has lost so much money investing in these expeditions, he’s not interested in any ships or your fascination with them.”

“How much money?”

“What?” Thomas asked from the back of the carriage, where he was now retrieving another trunk.

“How much money has he lost?”

“I don’t know exactly, but he’s been waiting for shipments of timber from Virginia that never arrived. He said the men who sailed there were too busy trying to survive to cut any trees. So, each time a ship returns empty, Father loses money.”

“But money aside, how can he not love them? All of them. They’re beautiful. Imagine where that ship is heading, sailing off to some enchanted seaport. Silk from the Orient, cotton and tobacco from the colonies. I can picture it coming ashore in Virginia, where one can view rolling land as far as the eye can see, so much land and it’s nearly free for the taking.” John turned to gaze again at the ship as it rounded the bend of the river. He took a step away from the horses so he could see her better, if only for the next few moments until she disappeared.

“Don’t admire that ship too fondly. She’s not going to the Orient. She’s called the Mayflower and she’s going to Plymouth.” Thomas looked at the ship. “And she’s not so grand. As a matter of fact, she’s rather old. She’s already crossed the ocean quite a few times.” He looked back at John. “And why are you talking about rolling land? You’ll never own land.” He laughed as John struggled with the horse’s buckles. “Father will leave everything to me. You will be sent to Middle Temple to be trained as a lawyer, and someday you will oversee my estates.”

John gave up on the buckles and marched toward his brother. “I don’t want to oversee your estates. Oversee them yourself.”

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I, John Culpepper is available at Amazon.

Stop by the Culpepper Saga Facebook page to see more of the people and places of the series.

Here is my interview with Lori Crane

Posted on by Lori Crane

Interview with yours truly at “Author Interviews” with Fiona McVie. Check it out!

fionamcvie1964's avatarauthorsinterviews

2013-03-12 01.25.24-6

Name – Lori Crane

Age – fifty mumble

Where are you from? I’m originally from Mississippi, now live in Nashville.

A little about your self `ie your education Family life etc  

I live in Nashville with my trophy husband and a menagerie of critters. I have two grown children, two horses, a donkey, a cow, twenty-two chickens, two geese, two ducks, one cat, one dog…and a partridge in a pear tree. I work nights as a professional musician and days as an indie author. I don’t sleep.

Fiona: Tell us your latest news?

April 2015, I released the first in the four-book Culpepper Saga, “I, John Culpepper.” It is the story of the real man historians refer to as John Culpepper the merchant who was born in 1606 in England. As a lad, he was trained to be a lawyer, but against his father’s wishes, he decided to be…

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52 Ancestors #16 John Culpepper of Wigsell

Posted on by Lori Crane

52ancestors-2015

This challenge is set forth by No Story Too Small, and this week’s theme is “Live Long.”

Strangely enough, my parents and my maternal grandmother all died in their 50s, so I’ve always had this notion that I would probably die in my 50s also. Not really a morbid thought, just a weird likelihood. When I started looking at the ages of my ancestors for this blog, I was surprised to find a majority of my ancestors lived into their 80s. Maybe I’ll get a few more years out of this life than I thought.

One of my ancestors lived to be 82…back in 1612. I think that is a considerable age for the time. According to early English records, an infant had a 30% chance of dying before the age of 15, 60% for working-class children in the city. As people had no concept of immunity, many died of childhood diseases, and as they grew, they were likely to die of food-borne illnesses or communal diseases like the plague and typhus. In 1665, 80,000 people died of the plague in London, 45,000 were children. Sanitary practices weren’t invented, and medicine wasn’t even a factor. Most thought one survived only because of luck, and many families named their children with identical names, knowing only one had a chance of surviving into adulthood.

book 1 different angleSo, in 1530, my 12th great-grandfather John Culpepper of Wigsell was born in Salehurst, Sussex, England. He had at least two brothers who also lived to a considerable age, all breaking the above mortality rates. He married Elizabeth Sedley at the age of thirty, had seven children who all survived, and remained in his childhood home of Wigsell Manor until his death 20 October 1612 at the age of 82. The home is still standing today and is privately owned. Mostly, John lived a quiet life in the country, but records show him an active Justice of the Peace in public testimonies and an involvement in Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council from 1558 to 1592.

St_Mary_the_Virgin_Church,_Salehurst_(Geograph_Image_2366571_3456e22f)He was buried at St. Mary the Virgin Church in Salehurst on 21 October 1612 as “Johanes Colepeper, armiger, etatis 82.” Armiger means having the right to a coat of arms, and etatis means age. If there was a monument, it was destroyed during the Commonwealth’s desecration of the local churches in the mid 1600s.

52 Ancestors #15 Colepeper/Culpeper/Culpepper

Posted on by Lori Crane

52ancestors-2015

This challenge is set forth by No Story Too Small,

and this week’s challenge is “How do you spell that?”

choctawMost of my family comes from England and Ireland, so the names are very pronounceable. I have a maternal Choctaw Indian great-grandmother in my history, but in 1801, the Treat of Fort Adams was signed, giving 2.6 million acre of Choctaw land in Mississippi to the U.S. Government. By 1830 and the signing of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, a total of 23 million acres had been ceded to the government. The Indians were relocated to Oklahoma, but the ones who didn’t go assimilated into the white European culture and gave up their Indian names. I’m sure her father or grandfather had an unusual name, but I will never find out what it was as the Choctaw people didn’t keep good records like the Cherokees did.

So, that leaves me with two choices for this blog. 1) A host of men in my family who have the name Bluett/Bluitt in their lines, or 2) the explanation for Colepeper/Culpeper/Culpepper.

I think I’ll go with #2.

The name began as “de Culpeper.” The French translation of “de” means “of” referring to a place, and “cul” means “the bottom.” Hopefully, it means the bottom of a hill or a road, and not the bottom of your rear end. 🙂 One of the first family manors sat at the dead end of Pepenbury, and we assume Peper is a slang/shortened translation. Eventually, the “de” fell out of fashion, and the name became simply “Culpeper.”

There is some suggestion that the name had something to do with peppers, either farming them or selling them, but the first known Culpeper in 1170 held an office, so he was probably Norman as the Normans were in control politically at that time. This leads us to believe the name had nothing to do with any Anglo-Saxon practice of selling vegetables.

From 1400s to 1600s, many members of the family used “Colepeper” interchangeably with “Culpeper” though I have no idea why, except for the fact that spelling wasn’t standard.

There are a few ancestors who traveled to America and left their mark:

80516215Mid 1600s – My 10th great-grandpa, John Culpeper, and his sons and nephews ran a merchant route between England, Virginia, and Barbados, and there is an island off the coast of Barbados called “Culpepper Island” which is pretty much an uninhabited rock.

Late 1600s – Lord Thomas Culpeper 2nd baron of Thoresway (the above guy’s cousin) was a governor of colonial Virginia, and there is a town and a county named after him—Culpeper, Virginia and Culpeper County, Virginia. That’s better.

VA_25402

Work in Progress Blog Tour

Posted on by Lori Crane

I’m excited to participate in a different kind of blog tour today. It’s the Work in Progress Blog Tour!

088eb14324190ad8956eff.L._V146807737_SX200_One of my favorite authors, PC Zick (photo), nominated me to share with you my current Work in Progress. Check out Patricia’s WiP on her blog HERE and her books on Amazon HERE.

The rules of the tour are:

  • Link back to the person who nominated you.
  • Nominate other authors.
  • Write the opening line(s) of your first three chapters from your WiP.

Since I’m super late in joining the tour and my other author friends have already participated, I’m only nominating one writer, so you have no excuse but to check her out…

downloadAnna Belfrage! Anna (photo) is an amazingly talented writer responsible for the eight-book “Graham Saga.” Check out her blog HERE and her books on Amazon HERE.

11109430_501104980043857_173471212737687744_n

 

 

 

 

 

And now…

My current WiP is the second book in the Culpepper Saga. Our hero, John, is spending most of his time in the colony of Virginia, but his family is living in England under the dark cloud of a civil war. Here are the opening lines of the first three chapters of my WiP, “John Culpepper the Merchant,” releasing in May 2015.

Chapter 1 – The King

The King marched into the room, unannounced. His footfall echoed off the stone walls as he paraded through the middle of an active session of Parliament and was greeted with stunned silence.

Chapter 2 – John

John Culpepper had been sitting idle in Jamestown for the last ten months. He had never tarried in Virginia for such a length of time before.

Chapter 3 – The Doldrums

She sat idle, unmoving in the dim morning light. Her sails hung limp just as they had for the last two days. John restlessly stared across her bow at the unending sea of glass that lay before him.

It’s Monday! What are you reading?

Posted on by Lori Crane

2a2

It’s Monday! What are you reading?

 

 

I just finished “Roanoke: The Lost Colony” by Angela Hunt.

 

 

 

910gx90keKL._SL1500_Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this book. As you can see, the cover is absolutely stunning, but it has nothing to do with the story, not even a little bit. As the title indicates, the story is about the missing colonists of Roanoke, and I always enjoy seeing personalities put to historical figures. While I sincerely appreciate the time and energy that went into researching the documents and the history, the characters in this story weren’t very likeable. Reverend Thomas Colman was pretty much a jerk, and his wife Jocelyn starts as a sassy woman who speaks her mind but becomes weak and spineless as the story progresses. The book is touted as a romance, and the two finally get together in the last pages of the book, but it was too little too late and completely out of character for him, seeing as he had been a jerk for the first 98% of the book. The other characters were hit or miss, most disappearing before you even got a chance to know them. The one thing that kept me reading was to find out the author’s impression of what happened to the colonists, but nope, we didn’t. Not even a theory. Nothing. The book just ended.

There were a couple things that drove me to drink. There were no upholstered chairs in the 1500s and certainly no tea in the colonies. Historical inaccuracies like that make me wonder how true the rest of the history-part of the story was. Also, I understand the characters speaking with ‘twas and ‘tis, but it really didn’t need to be ongoing ad nauseum throughout the narrative. ‘Twould be better if it ‘twas written without all the ‘tis and ‘twas. ‘Twouldn’t it?

In general, I wanted to like it, but I really, really wanted an ending.

Amazon link

Ms. Hunt’s website

 

Saturday Snippet – I, John Culpepper

Posted on by Lori Crane

Culpepper_1My new book, I, John Culpepper, has just hit the shelves! I’m so excited.

If you haven’t heard anything about it yet, John Culpepper is my 10th great-grandfather, born in England in 1606 and the progenitor of the modern-day American Culpeppers. The book is the first of four in the Culpepper Saga, the story of John’s life, beginning on the day of his birth, through the settlement of the American colonies, the turbulence of the English Civil War, and the rebellions in Virginia and Carolina which one-hundred years later would lead to the Revolution. It is a series of historical fiction, filled with drama and danger. Yet, there are moments of lightness and humor in John’s life.

When John was fifteen, he attended law school in England, and he was under the understandable impression that his headmaster resembled a goat. The joke between him and his friends carries on for quite a few chapters, as young boys typically can’t let a good laugh go without beating it to death with a stick. At one point, they played a prank on the man just as John’s father stormed into the school, angry about John’s behavior.

Below is one of my favorite scenes featuring John, his brother Thomas, his father Johannes, and Headmaster Barnaby.

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Johannes Culpepper stomped in through the archway of the library door. His heavy boots echoed off the stone floor and paneled walls and disturbed the quiet room, causing every student to look up from their studies. Johannes’s sheer size was daunting, and in his broad-shouldered jerkin with his large hat, he looked even more intimidating. His face was red and his eyes were narrowed. His jaw twitched in anger. He marched straight to the table in the center of the room where John, Thomas, and their friends sat.

Thomas looked up in surprise. “Father! What brings you here?”

“I’ve gotten word in London that someone is misbehaving.” He glared across the table at John.

“No, Father, that’s not true,” countered John.

“We will discuss this outside. Both of you, come with me.” He marched out the back door and into Temple Garden with John and Thomas trailing close behind. By the time they reached the middle of the yard, faces of schoolboys had pressed against the diamond-shaped panes of glass, watching and listening for the heated argument that was surely to begin.

Johannes stood with his hands on his hips, chastising the boys about something, but the students inside the library couldn’t make out what he was saying. Johannes’s face was red and veins bulged from his temples, but John didn’t look angry. As a matter of fact, he looked quite amused.

John and Thomas faced their father, and directly behind him, picketed in the middle of the garden, was a white goat, dressed in a black robe with gold cords around its neck. Next to the goat stood Barnaby, his hands on his hips, his face purple with anger as he glared at the goat. The goat looked up at Barnaby and let out a loud “baaaa!” John couldn’t stifle his laughter. He turned away from his father and pretended to have a coughing fit.

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I, John Culpepper is available at Amazon.

Please stop by the Culpepper Saga Facebook page to see photos and to find more information about the settings and characters.