Joel Cephus Bannister (abt. 1862)

Born about 1862 in Henry, Virginia, United States

Descendants

Biography

Joel Bannister is a part of US Black heritage.

Joel was born about 1862.

Annie Bethel Bannister was born in Henry County, Virginia, to Joel Cephus Bannister and Sarah Louise Scales, African Americans who were determined to make a better life for their daughter. Her parents worked on a plantation after their marriage. Both parents, although her father Joel was born a slave in 1862, were part of the first generation of African Americans whose childhood followed the demise of slavery.^[1]

Anne Spencer was born Annie Bethel Scales Bannister to Joel Cephus Bannister and Sarah Louise Scales on February 6, 1882, on a farm in Henry County, Virginia. Both parents were of mixed lineage. Her father, born a slave in Henry County in 1862, was of black, white, and Seminole Indian ancestry. Her mother was born about 1866 on the Rock Spring Plantation in Critz, Virginia in neighboring Patrick County. According to Spencer's biographer J. Lee Greene, Sarah Louise Scales was born to her mother who was a former slave and her father a wealthy Virginia aristocrat, “well known in American aristocracy.”
 Soon after Spencer was born, the family moved to Martinsville, where her father opened a saloon. Within a few years, the parents separated, and her mother took Annie to Bramwell, West Virginia, where she eventually placed Annie in the foster care of William Dixie and his wife, a prominent black couple. Then, in 1893, seeking formal education for her daughter, Scales enrolled the eleven-year-old Annie in the Virginia Theological Seminary and College (now Virginia University of Lynchburg).^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Spencer
2. ↑ http://www.annespencermuseum.com/biography.php

• "Virginia, Death Certificates, 1912-1987," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVRZ-G4WR : 16 August 2019), Anne Spencer, 26 Jul 1975; from "Virginia, Marriage Records, 1700-1850," database and images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2012); citing Lynchburg, , Virginia, United States, entry #, Virginia Department of Health, Richmond. [mentioned in daughter's death cert]