My southern family's name was Lay, William and Sytha Lay. They were born and raised on a plantation. Yes, they did have slaves. How many they had I'm not certain. He was raised in a fairly wealthy family, and, being the oldest child, was likely to inherit the estate; however, he was estranged, with the exception of one sympathetic brother, because he'd chosen to marry a person of a different faith (his family was Baptist, hers was Methodist), and also since one of her family joined a viler one than hers. Such connections were not to be tolerated!
As anyone else in the bible belt area, they were proclaimed Christians. His wife joined her brother and other family in this new religion. William didn't convert but joined the religious community, because his wife's family were his new family after being disowned by his own. Unfortunately, the locals didn't welcome this new religion. It wasn't unusual for these missionaries to receive threats on their lives on a daily basis, and those few who converted weren't treated much better. I recall a horrific story about a time when William was a distance away trying to assist the new church, and upon his return found his wife clearly impregnated during his absence. The story goes that she was doing some activities in town one day, and a group of men spotted her and started mocking her religion. A few nights later after the house was shut down for the evening and she had gone to bed; the group of men found a way to break into the house and worked their way up to her bedroom. They raped her in her bed and left. Can you imagine how scary that might have been to tell your husband that? Anticipating his reaction had to be scary, but I was greatly impressed by his reaction. It couldn't have been easy to hear that another man had touched your wife like that, but he took it in stride. I'm sure there were some feelings of anger, but it also must be understood that there were other dangerous things they were having to deal with, just for joining another religion, so they had to stick together, the few that lived there, most of which were family. He accepted the situation and took care of his wife. She bore twins from that pregnancy. One lived only a few days, but the other lived to adulthood, and he raised her as his own.
The religion was moving West, and so they decided to move as well. It's just as well, considering the environment continued to be hostile toward them. They started west on the Oregon trail with a band of wagons, but due to complications delaying them, they decided to find a place to winter, and ended up in Pueblo, Colorado, and that became a matter of importance when the Mormon Battalion found itself in need of a place to take care of their ill. They soon after ended up in Utah with their slaves. Most people understand that when Utah became a party of the United States after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Utah became a territory that the United States Government assigned to be a slavery state. William was able to keep his slaves while in the territory; however, there was a movement to create settlements throughout the West, and William was asked to relocate to San Bernardino. Since this was located in California, which was selected as a free territory, he was well aware that if he took his slaves with him, they would no longer be considered slaves. He accepted that reality and invited them to follow along to be freed.
There was one complication. His slave Hark Lay had married another slave who was owned by someone else. He wanted to bring them together, but he lacked the money needed to be able to purchase her, and the owner refused to hand her over otherwise. There were efforts to find solutions in order to keep his family together, but none of them worked out. Poor Hark had to be separated from his family to go to California alone. Hark was freed in California, and as a ceremonial custom for freed slaves, he changed his last name and lived in California for some time before returning to Utah later when slavery was no longer practiced and worked his own trade.
William enjoyed his years in California, but they were asked to return to Utah. Going back to the dry dusty desert probably wasn't easy. He ended up his last years in southern Utah. I can't help but think of what he had to give up throughout his life. He was born into a life of likely some comfort and in a lush ground to a world depleted of his wealth and living in an environment of dirt, rock, and with a constant concern of water supply. The things people will give up for their beliefs!
I know that there was some communication between the descendants the Lays and their former slaves on a friendly basis at least until the 1990s, and they even attended a few reunions together. Time has passed, and it may be that the correspondents have as well. The Lays held reunions for a long time, and my grandma invited me to one once. I spent most of the time attending to an activity for the kids, and didn't become much acquainted with the adults there, but it was an interesting experience.
For those wanting to know about Hark Lay, who was an impressive historical figure linked to this holiday, I looked up some information on him and will attach a link. It's very difficult to find a balanced presentation of stories concerning slavery due to the sensitivity of the issue. I found this link to be probably the most objective and balanced presentation of his story and his connection with my ancestors: Hark Lay (Wales)
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| Taken from a television screen, so the quality isn't great, and the captions were on for my hard-of-hearing dad. |
