After writing the last entry, I realized I had one group of Southern ancestors whose slaveowning status I hadn’t yet checked, the North Carolina Quakers on my mother’s side. I should have known better, but I had assumed for the purposes of my search that Friends didn’t let other Friends own slaves. Then I remembered one of their surnames: Coltrane.
I looked up John, and sure enough, the famous jazz saxophonist and composer was from North Carolina. His paternal grandfather, Rev. William H. Coltrane, was born into slavery in January 1858. His parentage is uncertain, his origin less so. There were four slaveowners named Coltrane in North Carolina in 1860, all in Randolph County. Fittingly, this was in Liberty Township. All these Coltranes were nephews of my last Coltrane ancestor—Abigail Coltrane [Thornburgh]. Two of them, Abner and John, each held two two-year-old boys (three black, one mulatto), any one of which could be young William.
Abigail’s father was William Coltrane, who was enumerated in 1790 as the owner of 11 slaves. Perhaps some of these men and women were ancestors of John Coltrane. He may even be my seventh cousin.
