Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Isaac Rawlings Jr. (b. 1788 - d. 1839)
MSA SC 5496-050779
War of 1812 Claimant, Calvert County, Maryland

Biography:

Isaac Rawlings Jr. was born in Calvert County on April 13, 1788 to Dr. Isaac Rawlings and his wife Susannah.1 Rawlings was born into a slaveholding family. In 1813, he traveled to Tennessee as a sutler (seller of provisions) in Andrew Jackson's army.2 He remained in that area, working for the U.S. Government as an "Indian Factor" at the Chickasaw Bluffs from 1814 until around 1816 or 1817.3 Although he relocated to Memphis, Isaac Rawlings continued to travel to Maryland. At various times Rawlings removed slaves into the state of Maryland.  

One of Rawlings' slaves in Maryland, Charles Gray, fled to British forces in July 1814. Rawlings was still working at the Chickasaw Bluffs Factory at the time of Gray's escape.4 Gray, on the other hand, was working on the farm of Rawlings' father, Dr. Isaac Rawlings, in District 1 of Calvert County, Maryland.5 Slaves also escaped from the farms of Isaac Jr.'s mother, Susannah Rawlings, and his niece, Juliet Rawlings.6 In May 1821, Isaac Rawlings Jr. wrote to the Secretary of State explaining that he knew very little of the details surrounding Gray's escape. He did not even seem to know the slave's name, referring to Gray simply as "a valuable young negro man." Consequently, he appointed his father to represent his claim for compensation from Britain.7 In 1821, Dr. Rawlings wrote to the Secretary of the State explaining that his son was still absent from the state.8

Isaac Rawlings, or "Squire Ike" as he came to be known, remained in Memphis as a merchant, selling his goods at Fort Pickering.9 He served as the second mayor of Memphis from 1829 to 1831, and again from 1833 to 1836.10 Rawlings began a relationship with an enslaved mulatto woman Hannah, whom he purchased from William Love in 1819.11 Isaac and Hannah had at least one child together, William Isaac Rawlings.12 On February 2, 1837, Isaac Rawlings petitioned the Shelby County court to emancipate his son William Isaac Rawlings.13 Hannah Rawlings had other children, although it is not clear whether Isaac fathered them. Isaac Rawlings died in Memphis on September 29, 1839 and was buried at the Rawleigh Cemetery.14 In his will Isaac Rawlings manumitted Hannah Rawlings and her children.15 He also made provisions that all his estate, real and personal, should go to his natural born son William Isaac Rawlings, who was the executor of the last will and testament.16 


Footnotes

1.     James E. Roper, "Isaac Rawlings, Frontier Merchant," Tennessee Historical Quarterly 20 (September 1961): 262-281.
        Beverly G. Bond and Janann Sherman, Memphis: In Black and White (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2003) 19.

2.     S.G. Heiskell. Andrew Jackson and Early Tennessee History (Nashville, TN: Ambrose Printing Company, 1918) 284.
2.     Will T. Hale and Dixon L. Merritt, A History of Tennessee and Tennesseans. Vol. 2 (New York, NY: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1913) 306.
2.     Austin P. Foster, Counties of Tennessee (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishign Company, Inc., 1992) 120.
2.     Gerald Mortimer Capers Jr., The Biography of a River Town: Memphis: Its Heroic Age (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1939) 48.
2.     John Trotwood Moore and Austin P. Foster, Tennessee, the Volunteer State, 1769-1923, Vol. 1. (Chicago, IL: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1923).

3.     John C. Calhoun, Papers of John C. Calhoun, Vol. 4 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1969) 723.
        Stephen J. Rockwell, Indian Affairs and the Administrative State in the Nineteenth Century (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 96.
        Roper 265.

4.     Claim of Isaac Rawlings, Calvert County, Case No. 561, Case Files, Ca. 1814-28, entry 190, Record Group 76, National Archives, College Park.

5.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Isaac Rawlings, 1820, Calvert County, District 1, Page 3, Line 4 [MSA SM61-65, M 2062-2].

6.     Claim of Susannah and Juliet Rawlings, St. Mary's County, Case No. 557, Case Files, Ca. 1814-28, entry 190, Record Group 76, National Archives, College Park.

7.     Claim of Isaac Rawlings.

8.     Ibid.

9.     Claim of Susannah and Juliet Rawlings.
        James D. Davis, History of Memphis (Memphis, TN.: Hite, Crumpton & Kelly, Printers, 1873) 57.
        Roper 278.

10.   Davis, 33.
        John Mark Long, "Memphis Mayors 1827 to 1866: A Collective Study," The West Tennessee Historical Society Papers 52 (1998): 109.

11.   Janet L. Coryell. Negotiating Boundaries of Southern Womanhood: Dealing with the Powers that Be. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000), 11.  

12.    ibid.

13.   Tennessee Supreme Court. "Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the United StatesTennessee, During the Year 1842." (Nashville: W. F. Bang & Co., 1843), p. 90.   

14.    Katherine Rawlings, ed., "More Tennessee Records," The Rawlin(g)s - Rollin(g)s Family History Association 13.4 (Dec. 2000): 54. 

15.    Coryell, 11.

16.    Tennessee Supreme Court. Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the United StatesTennessee, During the Year 1842. (Nashville: W. F. Bang & Co., 1843), p. 91. 

Return to Isaac Rawlings Jr.'s Introductory Page


This web site is presented for reference purposes under the doctrine of fair use. When this material is used, in whole or in part, proper citation and credit must be attributed to the Maryland State Archives. PLEASE NOTE: The site may contain material from other sources which may be under copyright. Rights assessment, and full originating source citation, is the responsibility of the user.

Tell Us What You Think About the Maryland State Archives Website!
© Copyright May 06, 2014 Maryland State Archives