by AUDREY CREEL / November 14, 2020
©Audrey Creel, 2020 (All rights reserved.)

Ellen Maney was born in Tennessee in approximately 1853.[i] It is uncertain where Ellen was enslaved, and there are several members of the Maney family who owned young female slaves about the same age. David D. Maney is the only member of the Maney family who enslaved someone approximately the same age as Ellen’s mother.[ii] It is possible that Ellen was enslaved by a family other than the Maneys; however, her last name suggests otherwise. As a younger child before the Civil War, it is uncertain what Ellen’s role would have been on a plantation.

Ellen was about twelve-years-old at the end of the Civil War.[iii] Ellen likely was the daughter of Dempsey and Betsy Maney, and she lived with them in Rutherford County.[iv] As a teenager, Ellen worked as a farm laborer, though it is uncertain for whom she worked.[v] There are no further known records of Ellen Maney’s life after 1870.

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References

[i] United States Census, “Maney, Ellen,” 1870 United States Census, 1870, accessed October 23, 2020 from ancestry.com database, https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7163/images/4275524_00217?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.140146800.2111514632.1603413495-1700215809.1599080803&pId=4853330.

[ii] United States Census, “Maney, D.D.,” 1860 United States Census – Slave Schedule, 1860, accessed October 23, 2020 from familysearch.org database, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9BSD-FR2?cc=3161105&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AWKT5-VW6Z. 

[iii] United States Census, “Maney, Ellen,” 1870 United States Census.

[iv] United States Census, “Maney, Ellen,” 1870 United States Census.

[v] United States Census, “Maney, Ellen,” 1870 United States Census.