lucy mcrae
1823-death unknown
Life Story
An Enslaved Mother, a Mount Moriah Church Member, and an Ancestor of the Evans Family of Newton County, Mississippi
Early Life and Enslavement
Lucy McRae was an African American woman enslaved by John McRae in nineteenth-century Mississippi. Although her exact birth date, parentage, and early circumstances remain unknown, her name survives in the records of Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church in Newton County, Mississippi, where she was admitted into membership on November 3, 1844. Her identity was also preserved through the death certificate of her daughter, Clara (Clarissa) McRae Evans, who died in Newton County in 1920.
Clara’s death certificate identifies her mother as Lucy McCray, an apparent variation or misspelling of McRae, and records Virginia as her birthplace. This information suggests that Lucy may have been born in Virginia before eventually arriving in Mississippi, although the circumstances of her migration remain unknown.
During the early nineteenth century, thousands of enslaved African Americans were forcibly relocated from Virginia and other older slaveholding states into the expanding cotton-growing regions of Alabama and Mississippi. Some were sold through the domestic slave trade, while others accompanied enslaving families migrating westward. Lucy may have experienced one of these forms of relocation, but no surviving record has established when or how she came to Mississippi.
A possible reference to Lucy appears in the 1850 United States Federal Census Slave Schedule for John J. McRae of Beat 3, Clarke County, Mississippi. The schedule identifies seven enslaved individuals, including a 27-year-old Black woman, born about 1823, and a 12-year-old Black girl, born about 1838.
These two individuals may have been Lucy and her daughter Clara. However, the schedule does not identify enslaved persons by name or establish family relationships. Furthermore, the household was enumerated in Clarke County rather than Newton County, making it necessary to determine whether John J. McRae was the same individual identified in the Mount Moriah records.
If the 27-year-old woman was Lucy, she would have been approximately twenty-one years old when she was admitted to Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church in November 1844.
A Profession of Faith at Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church
On Sunday, November 3, 1844, Lucy appeared before the governing session of Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church. The church minutes recorded her admission into membership:
“Lucy female slave of Mr. Jno. McRae presented herself before the Session & after examination on experimental piety, she was recd. and subsequently upon baptism was admitted into fellowship & communion of this church.”
The entry confirms that Lucy appeared before the church elders, underwent examination concerning her religious faith, and was received into fellowship following baptism.
In nineteenth-century Presbyterian practice, the term experimental piety referred to an individual’s personal religious experience, including an understanding of sin, repentance, faith, and salvation. Lucy’s appearance before the session documents her participation in the religious life of the community more than twenty years before the abolition of slavery.
Mount Moriah was governed by white ministers and elders, and its enslaved African American members did not possess the same institutional authority as the white men who administered the church. Although Lucy was accepted into Christian fellowship, the church recorded her identity through the man who enslaved her rather than through an independently recognized family name.
Nevertheless, the entry preserves an important moment in Lucy’s life. At a time when enslaved African Americans were frequently recorded only as unnamed individuals in census slave schedules and property inventories, the church minutes preserved her given name and documented her religious participation.
Her Daughter, Clara (Clarissa) McRae Evans
Lucy was the mother of Clara, also known as Clarissa, whose life is documented through Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church records, her 1920 death certificate, and oral history preserved by descendants of the Evans family.
On October 9, 1853, approximately nine years after Lucy’s admission, Clarissa appeared before the Mount Moriah session and was received into membership following examination. The minutes identified her as a servant of Mrs. McRae. Her admission was recorded alongside that of Matilda, an enslaved woman belonging to Mrs. Catherine Evans.
The two entries establish that Lucy and her daughter participated in the same Presbyterian religious community during slavery. However, they were identified through different members of the McRae household: Lucy through John McRae in 1844 and Clarissa through Mrs. McRae in 1853.
This difference may reflect changes in household ownership, marriage, inheritance, or the death of an enslaver, although the available records do not establish the circumstances.
The Evans Family Oral History and Clara’s Reported Sale
An Evans family reunion pamphlet preserves an account of Clara’s experiences during slavery and the family’s eventual association with the Evans surname.
According to the family history, Peter Evans and his wife Clara were enslaved and became the parents of seven children: Jarrett, Landy, Peter Jr.,Iley Jane, Mattie, Hannah, and Marietta.
The pamphlet states that in 1852, Peter and Clara’s family was sold to John Evans, who lived in Newton County, Mississippi. It further explains that the family subsequently became known by the Evans surname.
This account is important because it preserves a tradition concerning the family’s movement between enslaving households. However, portions of the narrative conflict with surviving church records.
For example, the pamphlet identifies Peter as having previously been enslaved under the surname McCurry. The Mount Moriah records, however, identify Peter as an enslaved man belonging to Mrs. Catherine Evans when he was baptized on July 24, 1853.
The McCurry connection has not been independently substantiated.
The tradition concerning Clara’s transfer from the McRae household to John Evans may nevertheless preserve an actual event. John Evans was a son of Catherine Evans, whose household included numerous enslaved African Americans documented in the Mount Moriah minutes.
If Clara was transferred to John Evans, the transaction would have connected two slaveholding families whose enslaved members participated in the same church.
An important discrepancy remains. Although the family pamphlet places the sale in 1852, the Mount Moriah minutes continued to identify Clarissa as belonging to Mrs. McRae in October 1853.
Several explanations are possible. The family may have remembered the approximate year rather than the exact date. The sale may have occurred after Clarissa’s admission to the church, or the church clerk may have continued to associate her with a previous enslaver.
It is also possible that the family tradition combined separate transactions or experiences.
Without a bill of sale, estate inventory, or other contemporary record, the date and circumstances of Clara’s reported transfer remain uncertain.
The Evans surname alone does not establish that Clara was sold to an Evans enslaver. She may have acquired or retained that surname through marriage to Peter Evans, through enslavement within the Evans family, or through a combination of these circumstances.
The McRae Estate and the Question of Family Separation
Another clue appears in the Mount Moriah baptismal register.
On December 13, 1857, the church recorded the baptism of George, an infant whose parent was identified as an enslaved person belonging to the estate of Duncan McRae.
This entry establishes that Duncan McRae had died by December 1857 and that enslaved individuals remained associated with his estate.
During slavery, the death of an enslaver could have serious consequences for enslaved families. People held in bondage were considered property and could be distributed among heirs, transferred through inheritance, or sold to settle estate debts.
The reference to Duncan McRae’s estate raises the possibility that changes within the McRae family affected Lucy, Clara, or other enslaved people associated with the household.
However, the available records do not establish that Duncan McRae was Lucy’s enslaver or that his estate was involved in Clara’s reported sale.
Lucy was identified as belonging to John McRae in 1844, while Clarissa was associated with Mrs. McRae in 1853. The precise relationship between John McRae, Mrs. McRae, and Duncan McRae has not yet been determined.
The 1857 estate reference therefore represents a valuable research lead rather than evidence that Clara was sold following Duncan McRae’s death.
Whether Lucy and Clara remained together during slavery, were separated by sale, or continued living in neighboring households remains unknown.
A Mother’s Name Preserved Through Her Daughter
Lucy disappears from the currently identified records after her admission to Mount Moriah. No confirmed document establishes whether she survived until emancipation in 1865, where she lived in later years, or when she died.
Her name, however, survived through her daughter.
Clara Evans died on April 8, 1920, in Newton County, Mississippi. Her death certificate identifies her as a Black widow whose husband was Peter Evans. The certificate names her father as Jesse McCray and her mother as Lucy McCray, with Lucy’s birthplace recorded as Virginia.
The informant was Jared Evans of Newton, Mississippi, believed to be the same son identified as Jarrett in the Evans family reunion history.
Clara’s death certificate records her birth as January 1836 and her age at death as eighty-four, consistent with her death on April 8, 1920. This birth date also aligns with Clarissa’s documented admission into membership at Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church on October 9, 1853, when she would have been approximately seventeen years old.
The death certificate is particularly valuable because it identifies both of Clara’s parents. Jesse McRae, whose life remains largely undocumented, may provide another avenue for tracing Lucy’s family.
Jared’s role as informant is also significant. Born during slavery, he belonged to the generation that witnessed emancipation and the transition from bondage to freedom. He may have learned about his mother’s early life directly from Clara, including details concerning her parents and the households in which she had been enslaved.
The later Evans family reunion pamphlet demonstrates that stories of Peter and Clara continued to circulate among their descendants. Although the pamphlet does not identify its original sources or the individuals who transmitted each account, it preserves family traditions that might otherwise have disappeared.
Together, the death certificate and reunion history show how African American families preserved ancestral knowledge across generations, even when contemporary written records were incomplete or inaccurate.
From Enslavement to a Family Legacy
Clara survived slavery and established a family with Peter Evans. Their descendants became part of the African American community of Bethel in Newton County.
According to the family reunion history, their son Jarrett Evans was born in 1855 and later married a woman named Mary. The couple reportedly became the parents of fifteen children.
The pamphlet further states that Jarrett purchased eighty acres of land in Bethel in 1886 and an additional 140 acres in 1918, property remembered within the family as the Prairie.
These accounts reflect the remarkable changes experienced across generations.
Lucy lived during a period when African Americans were held as property and denied legal control over their lives and labor. Her daughter Clara experienced slavery and survived into freedom. Her grandson Jarrett reportedly acquired land and established a family whose descendants continued to preserve their ancestral history.
The contrast between these generations is significant.
In 1844, Lucy’s identity was recorded in the church minutes through the man who enslaved her.
By the late nineteenth century, members of her daughter’s family were remembered as landowners in the same county where their ancestors had once been held in bondage.
The transformation did not erase the hardships of slavery or the racial discrimination that continued after emancipation. Nevertheless, the family’s history reflects the persistence of African American kinship, religious participation, and efforts to establish economic independence.
Remembering Lucy McRae
Lucy McRae’s life remains largely hidden within the historical record.
Her birthplace is reported as Virginia, but the circumstances of her arrival in Mississippi remain unknown. Her birth year is uncertain, and the possible identification of Lucy in the 1850 Clarke County slave schedule has not been confirmed.
Her marriage or relationship with Jesse McRae is known only through the information recorded on Clara’s death certificate. Whether Lucy and Jesse lived together, were enslaved by the same household, or experienced separation during slavery remains unanswered.
Yet two important facts survive.
On November 3, 1844, Lucy appeared before the session of Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church and was received into Christian fellowship.
Seventy-six years later, when her daughter Clara died in 1920, Lucy’s name was still remembered and recorded.
Between those two documents lies a life that cannot yet be fully reconstructed.
The Evans family oral history adds another dimension to her story, preserving memories of Clara’s enslavement, her reported transfer between households, and the family’s emergence into freedom.
Although the surviving evidence leaves important questions unresolved, it establishes Lucy’s place within the ancestral history of an African American family whose descendants continued to live, own land, and build communities in Newton County.
Lucy was more than a name associated with John McRae in an old church register. She was a mother whose identity endured through her daughter and later generations.
Her story illustrates both the limitations of records created under slavery and the importance of preserving family memories alongside documentary evidence.
The church recorded Lucy as an enslaved woman belonging to John McRae. Her descendants remembered her as Lucy, the mother of Clara Evans. It is through those surviving records and memories that her place in history can now be restored.
Historical Sources and Notes
- Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church, Session Minutes, November 3, 1844. Admission of Lucy, identified as an enslaved woman belonging to John McRae, following examination concerning experimental piety and baptism. The corrected date is based on the researcher’s identification of the original entry.
- 1850 United States Federal Census, Slave Schedule, Beat 3, Clarke County, Mississippi, John J. McRae household. Lists seven enslaved individuals, including a Black female aged twenty-seven and a Black female aged twelve. Their identification as Lucy and Clara is unconfirmed.
- Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church, Session Minutes, October 9, 1853. Admission of Clarissa, identified as an enslaved woman belonging to Mrs. McRae, alongside Matilda, enslaved by Mrs. Catherine Evans.
- Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church, Register of Baptisms, July 24, 1853. Baptism of Peter, identified as an enslaved man belonging to Mrs. Catherine Evans.
- Mount Moriah Presbyterian Church, Register of Baptisms, December 13, 1857, p. 191. Baptism of George, an infant associated with an enslaved parent belonging to the estate of Duncan McRae.
- Mississippi State Board of Health, Certificate of Death, Clara Evans, April 8, 1920, Newton County, Mississippi, File No. 7702. Identifies Peter Evans as husband, Jesse McCray as father, Lucy McCray as mother, and Jared Evans as informant.
- Evans Family Reunion, “History,” undated family pamphlet. Family tradition concerning Peter and Clara Evans, their reported sale to John Evans in 1852, their seven children, and the subsequent history of their son Jarrett Evans.
- Bethel Church, Membership Records, June 16, 1866. Admission of Peter Evans following emancipation.
Resting Place
Unknown
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