DUDLEY MATTHIS STORY - Part 2

MATTHIS, GEARY, MASK, DUDLEY, MATHEWS

Posted By: Nancee Seifert (email)
Date: 6/28/2014 at 17:43:56

DUDLEY MATTHIS STORY - Part 2

"SETTING THE ROGUE VALLEY; THE TOUGH TIMES - THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE"
1995 by Barbara (Morehouse) Hegne; Oregon.
The following genealogical information is handed down through generations
and is confirmed by wills, probates, death & marriage certificates, land
records, and all available records. When Maranda Geary* began to raise her
own family, she wanted to know where her slave roots originated. Some
members of the family could pass for white, others in the same family showed
Negro features. Although most everyone married into the white nationality,
each child and generation varied.
Maranda's* great grandmother came from the island of Madagascar, off the
coast of Africa, where she had been stolen when she was about
twelve-years-old. Although the island of Madagascar was an isolated land,
protected by rough seas and a rugged shoreline, the slave traders came. The
island became a living nightmare, and the blood of the natives stained the
already red soil, fighting the final act of bondage. In 1797, the young
girl was brought across the seas on a Dutch ship to Virginia. She was sold
on the auction block to the JOHN MASK family. The Mask family had sailed
from England and helped settle the colonies in 1638. They were cotton and
tobacco planters around James City, Virginia.
Earlier in 1652, WILLIAM MASK was brought to Virginia by Captain RICHARD
DUDLEY. They were good friends and the DUDLEY name was honored through
every generation. The MASK people were stately and handsome and one of their
most extraordinary features was their intense, penetrating eyes, a trait
that carried through the family.
In the mid-1700s, the Masks migrated to North Carolina. They helped make
the laws, change boundaries, and start education academies. They purchased,
and were granted, thousands of acres of land along the great Pee Dee River
where they developed large self-contained plantations. They established the
Mask Ferry that crossed the Pee Dee River at the mouth of the Little River.
Many slaves pulled the big ferry across the river loaded with men, animals
and supplies.
During the battle of Camden in 1780, General Horatio Gates, and his army,
crossed the Pee Dee River at Mask's ferry. General Gates granted protection
to the Masks for procuring supplies, and for services to the American cause.
Maranda's* great grandmother was a slave on the Mask plantation. When she
was a young girl she gave birth to a child she named PENELOPE (NELLY)
ELLENDER MASK. When Nelly was old enough, she became a domestic slave in
the Mask household. As happened in many slave plantations, Nellie had
several children by the master, (half-brother) Colonel DUDLEY BYRON MASK.
All her children were named after Mask descendants: JOHN D., born 1816,
DUDLEY born 1821, SUSANNAH born 1823, DRURY born 1824, and MARY AMANDA born
1828.
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Information by BILLIE JOE HALL; SUSANNAH MASK's descendant:
When JOHN MASK died in 1830, he freed PENELOPE and her children. They left North Carolina shortly after and traveled west. They stayed at several States for a time and finally settled in Oregon. Penelope's children changed their name from MASK to MATTHIS, then to *MASK. *(Mathews)