Comments on: Guest Post: Hark (Lay) Wales: A Slave in Zion

By: Amy T

Amy T — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:07:10 +0000

I didn’t mention in the post (it was already way too long!) about contacting the Findagrave volunteers in the area to double-check about Hark not having a gravestone. I just fielded a question from one of them this morning about adding a biography to Hark Wales’s Findagrave entry. I know I’ve said this before, but Findagrave is a wonderful resource with a wonderful community of volunteers.

Margaret — I’ve seen Hark listed a time or two as the son of Vilate and Morris Wales Crosby. Lots of questions here! Not so many good answers! I’m not so far into this project that I’ve exhausted the records in Utah (it will take some time, since I’m looking at around 100 slaves and this project is secondary to my Eminent Women project) but at some point, I plan to start looking at the existence of records in Mississippi and the other states of origin for these families, and hopefully that will help piece together some of the slave families.

By: Margaret Blair Young

Margaret Blair Young — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 19:56:53 +0000

Oscar Smith–makes sense. I was aware that he went to California, but never had any idea of what happened to him after that.
I wonder where Hark Lay got the name Wales. And Martha Crosby Flake (Green’s wife) is listed as Martha MORRIS Flake on one record. So many questions I’ll have for the next life!

By: Max

Max — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 19:03:17 +0000

Thanks to Amy (and Ardis) for this important Pioneer Day post.

By: Amy T

Amy T — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 17:37:29 +0000

Thanks, Margaret. Remembering these pioneers is an exercise in chasing down a few misty family memories and a handful of diary entries and letters and trying to weave them together with the few existing vital and civil records, and in the process making judgment calls about the reliability of stories that were recorded a century or more later.

I wish I could put together this much about Oscar Crosby, but besides the mentions of him here, the only additional thing I’ve found about him is an 1860 United States census record that may be his. It shows an Oscar Smith living by himself in Los Angeles, age 35, a laborer, born in “Missippi.” I haven’t found an alternate identity for Oscar Smith, so I think it’s Oscar Crosby.

By: Margaret Blair Young

Margaret Blair Young — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:04:40 +0000

Wonderful post! I had never heard about Hark Lay’s wife and the forced separation. Charmaine Lay Kohler gives some reason he was named Hark in _Southern Grace_ (a bird song), but not all of her informatin is correct. Unfortunately, Lucile Bankhead’s accounts of her ancestors is not terribly reliable either, though her accounts of things she actually experienced is good.
This was a wonderful piece. Thank you! Darius and I didn’t focus much on Hark Lay or Oscar Crosby in our work, so much of this is new for me–and fascinating.