Magazine of American History
With Notes and Queries, Illustrated
Edit by Mrs. Martha J. Lamb
VOL. XXV, January-June, 1891
Page 258:
The Tennessee Historical Society held an interesting meeting on the 9th of December last, at Nashville, Judge John M. Lea presiding. Colonel Reese, on behalf of the committee to consider the eligibility of women as members, reported that there was nothing in the rules to prevent, and, in fact, that the society now had a lady member—Mrs. Martha J. Lamb of New York.
After the reports of various committees had been read, and other business transacted, Judge Lea addressed the society on the subject of the Melungeons. He outlined the early history of the settlement of North Carolina. A party under the protection of a friendly Indian chief had gone into the interior when the first settlers came to that coast and had been lost. No other settlers came till a century afterward, and they were told of a tribe who claimed a white ancestry, and among whom gray eyes were frequent. This people were traced to Buncomb and Robeson counties, where the same family and personal names were found as in the lost colonies. They are now called Croatians, on account of a sign they made on the trees to keep their way. The Bosques of the Spanish coast have been said to have settled in that country, but this theory was not thought to be trustworthy. It would be impossible for negroes to form a distinct race, because the number necessary for a colony would not have been allowed to run at large. The race has several old English words which are used as they were in England two hundred years ago, and a case of civil rights has been won in court by a Melungeon displaying his person and proving to the court that he was of Caucasian blood. North Carolina gives the Croatians $1,000 a year for a normal school, and they have excellent roads. This colony, whose early history is thus so clearly traced, lies within forty miles of the Tennessee Melungeons.
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