Last week, at Emancipation Day at Mt Zion/Female Union Bank Society cemeteries, gifted DC violinist Justin Silvey accompanied the readings of over 3,100 names of those emancipated in the District of Columbia, April 16, 1862. Naturally we are all curious if the members of the “Silvy family” emancipated in 1862 were kin to him and his family.
Here are a few preliminary notes. The 1862 compensated emancipation petitions in Washington DC record that the enslaver Susannah “Susan” Maria (Wilson) Burche (1790-1874), widow of the late Col. Samuel Burche (1787-1846) filed for compensation for three enslaved people, Verlinda (or Virlinda or Veolanda) Silvey, born about 1827, and her daughters Anna Elizabeth Patterson, born 1847 and Maria Edmonia Silvy, born 1859. Mrs. Burche specifies:
Virlinda Silvy 35 years of age Black, about 5 feet 3 or 4 inches high, Slender made very fine woman, good Cook, Washer and Ironer &c.—
Anna Patterson 14 years of age, very Black, about 5 feet high & well made
Maria Edmonia Silvy 4 years old, Dark Copper Color, about 3 feet hight, very healthy and sprightly—
A. Patterson and M. E. Silvy are the children of said Virlinda Silvy.
She further notes she “acquired her claim to the aforesaid service or labor of said Persons in manner following, to wit: to Virlinda Silvy and Anna Patterson by purchase from Sheckels and Company, called Negro Traders—Maria E. Silvy was born my property after the purchase aforesaid”
What can we determine about where Virlinda, Anna. and Maria came from, and what became of them after Emancipation?
Some light is cast on the story by a Freedman’s Bank application in New York City by “Annie Elizabeth Patterson,” dated 29 October 1870, indicating that she is employed as a chambermaid by a Mrs Bartholomew at 114 22nd street in New York City. She indicates that her father was a William Patterson, now dead, of Virginia, and that he stepfather was Anthony Silvery, Her living siblings include “James Edward”(which might be one name, or which might mean James and Edward) and her dead brothers are Billy and Reuben, both twins, whom she never saw alive. (Oddly, I don’t see Annie Patterson listed in the 1870 census or city directory in New York.)
An Anthony Silvy or Selvey was a coachman or hack driver, residing as a free man in 1860 in the Susan M Burche residence, which is where presumably he became connected to Verlinda, then enslaved. (I do not see Anthony in the 1850 census and I am not sure when he became free.) A marriage record in DC notes Anthony married a “Malinda Patterson” on 28 June 1859, which presumably is a reference to Verlinda, who was still enslaved and still bearing the surname of her late husband William Patterson. Anthony is charged in 1863 with ‘overcharging hack rates” and being drunk and disorderly. Anthony Selvey enlisted in the 23rd United States Colored Infantry regiment, Company E, on March 19, 1864 and was discharged June 5, 1865. His birthplace is listed as Prince George’s County, Maryland. His widow, Malinda Selvey, filed for his pension July 8, 1871, by which time he must have been deceased. I assume “Virlinda” and “Malinda” are the same woman.
This same woman, under the name Malinda Selvey is listed in the 1870 census as a washerwoman in Washington Ward 7, with her children Edward Selvey, age 19 (born about 1851), and Maria Selvey, age 12 (born about 1858). The 1878 city directory shows her as Anthony’s widow, working as a washer at 222 C St SW. The 1879 city directory shows her, again as Anthony’s widow, residing at 525 3rd St SW, with her daughter Maria E, servant. I do not see a subsequent reference to her.
Verlinda’s daughter Maria Selvey died on 11 April 1880, about 20 years old. of pneumonia, while residing with her mother at 525 3rd. St. SW., having been ill for five weeks. She was buried in Becket’s Cemetery, also known as the Union Beneficial Association Cemetery, on C street SE in Anacostia.
I am not sure what became of Verlinda’s elder daughter, Anna Patterson, after she was listed as a chambermaid in Mrs. Bartholomew’s in New York City in 1870.
I am unclear on the background of Edward Selvey, b. 1851, who is listed by Anna Patterson in he 1870 Freedman’s Bank application as her brother, and who appears living with his mother “Malinda” Selvey in Washington DC that same year. He is not listed as a free person in the 1860 census or in the DC Compensated Emancipation petitions of 1862. I am unsure if he was the child of William Patterson or Anthony Selvey or a different man.
There are several references in newspapers and other records to one or more younger Black men named Anthony Selvey in DC in the late 1800s and early 1900s, who may be kin to the Anthony Selvey who served in the 23rd USCT Co E and was married to Verlinda (Malinda).
The reference to the slave trading company Sheckles and Company must be to the slave traders Benjamin Owen Sheckles (c. 1806-1879), who appears in multiple local court cases concerning the purchase of slaves and freedom petitions. Sheckles, evidence suggests, was actively engaged in kidnapping of Black individuals in the District of Columba in the 1840s. As chronicled in Chapter 22 of Solomon Northrup’s Twelve Years a Slave, Sheckles in 1853 provided perjured testimony in the case against slave trader James Burch, who had kidnapped Northrup in DC in 1841. (The case was ultimately dropped since the testimony of Black witnesses against white men was not accepted in court) Sheckles in at least one case flouted the 1850 Compromise which prohibited slave trading in the District of Columbia, after he had transported slaves to Alexandria. Virginia. (He won the suit field against him on the grounds that Virginia was a sovereign state and not subject to “foreign” jurisdictions. )
I am not sure of the date when Susan M Burche purchased Verlinda Patterson (later Silvy or Selvey) and her daughter Anna Patterson from Benjamin O Sheckles; it must have been some point between 1848, when Susan’s husband Colonel Samuel Burche died, and 1851, when Verlinda’s younger daughter Edmonia Silvey was born (since Susan Burche attests in the 1862 petition that her younger daughter Maria Edmonia Silvey was born after she purchased Verlinda).
I hope we will be able to trace the descendants of Anthony and Verlinda (Malinda) Silvey and determine if there are connections to present day Silvey’s in the DMV.
Mark Auslander 