Is the story of Betsy Dowdy true?
When I was writing An Independent Spirit:
The Tale of Betsy Dowdy and Black Bess I went to the NC State Library and Archives
to see if I could find out. There I learned from a 1790 census record that a
Josiah and Rebecca Dowdy had lived on Currituck Banks in the 1700s and they had
a daughter named Betsy.
I recently found online the will of
Josiah Dowdy in which his daughter, Betsy (spelled Betsey) is mentioned. She was to inherit “six dollars to be raised
out of my lands to her and her heirs.” He had other daughters and sons.
Apparently Betsy’s sisters were not in Josiah’s household at the time of the
1790 census.
In the book, The Heritage of Currituck County, compiled by The Albemarle
Genealogical Society, I learned that Richard B. Creecy, was first to publish
Betsy’s story. General William Skinner’s daughter Penelope handed the story
down to her children, her grandchildren and her great-grandson, Mr. Creecy.
Creecy was the editor of The Economist, an Elizabeth City
newspaper. In 1901 he published the story of Betsy and her Banker pony, Black
Bess, in his book Grandfather’s Tales of
North Carolina.
While my story in An Independent Spirit is based on these
few facts, its details are entirely products of my imagination.
A brief bio of William Skinner
Grandfather’s Tales of North
Carolina https://archive.org/details/grandfatherstale00creeuoft
