Isaac Tillitt (1800-1851)
My Maternal 3rd Great Grandfather married Mary “Polly” Hall (1807-184os)
Isaac Tillitt, born April 1, 1800, was the second child of Captain Thomas Tillitt and Dolly Baum. His first wife, Mary (“Polly”) Hall, was the daughter of wealthy landowners who owned most of the property now known as Point Harbor at the tip of the Currituck peninsula. Polly Hall was descended from the immigrant Phoenix Hall, who was born in Scotland in about 1650 and immigrated to Maryland as a young man. Isaac had purchased his father’s schooner, the “Gen’l Jackson”, at auction, but instead of sailing the seas like his father and grandfather, he bought a windmill for grinding corn from his brother in-law and began to acquire land.
[Image: Isaac Tillitt]
Isaac and Polly had three children: Mary Hall (born 1829), Durant Hall (my 2nd great grandfather born 1831) and Isaac Newton (born 1833). Polly died in the 1840’s. Isaac’s second wife, Margaret (“Peggy”) Torksey, was the wealthy childless widow of Joseph Seymore. Among other things, she had inherited their home place known as “Blue Bonnet” in Camden, North Carolina. Blue Button became the home of three generations of Tillitts.
[Photo: Blue Button, the Tillitt family home for Three Generations]
In the Camden County census in 1850 Isaac, age 50 was living with his wife, Peggy age 43, his daughter Mary 21, his son Durant 19, and his son Isaac Jr 17, and 42 enslaved persons ranging in age age from two to sixty. Not long after the census was taken, Isaac died in November of 1851 and was buried at Powell’s Point next to his first wife Polly on Halls Harbor Rd. His headstone was found 147 years later in a trash pile in the woods on a private road where it appeared to have been carried and dumped. Polly’s headstone was never found. Apparently the original graveyard had been bulldozed. A kind individual transported the gravestone back to Nags Head so he could be with his parents, his sister and two brothers.
[Photo: Isaac Newton’s headstone.]
After Isaac died, Peggy wasted no time in getting married for a third time, to the widower James Monroe Morgan. She died in 1857.
Mary Hall Tillitt
Daughter of Isaac Tillitt and Mary Hall
Alfred A Ramseur
Husband of Mary Hall Tillitt
In the 1860 census, Isaac and Polly’s daughter Mary, at the age of 32, was living alone in Camden County. She listed her occupation as “lady”, paradoxically owned 28 slaves and had $18,000 worth of real estate. In 1861 she married Alfred Ramseur, the son of a successful merchant and planter. Their only child, Tillitt Hall Ramseur, was born in October of 1862. Alfred was killed in July of 1863 during the bloody slaughter at the Battle of Gettysburg, leaving his grieving wife alone with their eight month old baby. In 1878 Mary sold her home and land and then her genealogical trail goes cold.
Mary Hall Tillitt and Alfred Ramsaur’s son, Tillitt Hall Ramsaur, married Eva Greenleaf in 1890 and settled briefly in Kansas. Shortly after the family moved to Arizona where according to the 1900 census he made his living as a saddler. The family then moved to Centralia, Washington where his wife died in 1906. In Centralia, Tillitt worked as a carpenter (1910), a laborer (1920), an apartment house keeper (1930) and then his life fell apart. At the age of 69, Tillitt became obsessed with a 27 year old woman named Opal Brink. When she refused to go his home and live with him, he shoot her her in the abdomen. That morning before the shooting, he reportedly said to Opal’s sister, “I’ll kill her before I will let anyone else have her.” When taken into custody he attempted to shoot the arresting officer but his pistol failed to fire. He claimed he hadn’t meant to kill Opal only to frighten her and cried when he learned later she had died. The defense entered a plea of not guilty due to insanity. During the jury selection process potential jurors were quizzed about their views on the death penalty. The court psychiatrist refuted the claim that Tillitt was insane. Ultimately on April 15, 1932 the jury found him guilty of 2nd degree murder but the judge reduced it to manslaughter and sentenced him to five to ten years in prison. He was pardoned three years later in 1935. He died in 1940.
[Photo: Tillitt Hall Ramsaur and his wife Eva Greenleaf with son Alfred and baby girl June in 1891]
The baby in the family photo above, June, was 14 years old when her mother died. She raised her younger brothers, three year old Perry and 14 month Reuben. She married Edwin Poore and the two lived an adventurous life together. The 1931 they traveled 23,000 miles by car to every state, 48 at the time. In 1933 they went to Alaska to mine for gold. After three years on the road they came home to Centralia where June opened a dress shop and her husband purchased a sand and gravel business. When they retired in the 1960s they visited to all seven continents, both the north and south pole and many of the islands in the world. Her niece, Betty Ramsaur Ferguson, described her as “a truly remarkable person, a beauty that never faded, a personality full of fun and charm, a story teller of magical quality, children all adored her.” June died in 1977.
Isaac’ and Polly’s son, Isaac Newton, was only 18 years old when his father died but as soon as he reached 21 he began to sell off pieces of the land he had inherited. In the 1860 census he was living with his brother Durant in Camden, listed his occupation as “gentleman” and had $12,000 in real estate and $8,000 in personal property including 19 enslaved persons. In 1862 he enlisted in the military, was captured in 1863 by the Union army in Middleburg, Virginia and imprisoned for the duration of the war. In the 1870s he started a boy’s school in Elizabeth City and built a small building near his home to house the school. He married Alice Adelaide (“Addie”) Overman in 1878. The couple were plagued during their marriage by debts owed by her father but after years of struggle they were finally able to pay them off. The school remained open until Isaac’s death in 1905, and the property is still referred to as the “Tillitt School Lot”. Addie rented the schoolhouse property and in 1910 was living with their son, Melvin. Melvin died in New York City in a hotel where he allegedly had a fatal fall while intoxicated. Addie’s fate is unknown.
[Photo: My mother standing in front of Isaac Newton’s house in the 1980s.]
The blog about Isaac and Polly’s, Durant Hall Tillitt, is presented separately.
