Family traces ancestry to slave turned soldier
By Dennis Hill
Published in News on June 14, 2015 1:50 AM
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News-Argus/DENNIS HILL
Pecolia Artis Millard points to a photograph of her great-grandfather Jack Sherrod in a family newsletter.
Tracing your family roots can be a demanding, sometimes frustrating challenge, but one Wayne County family has discovered an ancestor who changed their family's fortunes forever with his single-minded determination.
Jack Sherrod was born a slave in Wayne County in 1843. His descendants have found that he not only won his freedom but joined the United States Army as well.
Pension records show that Sherrod served in the U.S. Army in the U.S. Colored Infantry during the last six months of the Civil War. In his old age he applied for a pension, which was eventually granted due to his infirmities. He died in 1915 and is buried in the Sherrod family cemetery near Eureka.
Pecolia Artis Millard is Sherrod's great granddaughter. She lives in Eureka. She said that when members of her family, who are now scattered from coast to coast, discovered their ancestor and details of his life, it made them proud to learn of his achievements.
"It was wonderful to learn who he was and what he went through so long ago," she said. "It makes me very proud. A lot of families don't have this kind of information about their ancestors."
The Sherrod family remains tight-knit, holding regular reunions that bring together hundreds of family members from New Jersey to California. Knowing who their patriarch was is priceless, Mrs. Millard said.
Sherrod took his last name from the man who owned him before the war. He married Cassie Exum in 1868 and lived near Fremont. They had five children: Arthur, Benjamin, Dallas, Fannie and John.
His pension is on file in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. He had to fight to receive his pension. Documents show that Sherrod was examined near the turn of the century by a physician and was determined to be in poor health. His pension request was written by a notary public because he could not write.
The Sherrod family will hold another reunion soon, this year in Maryland. And they will once again celebrate the man who, despite his lowly birth, became a free man and a soldier fighting to help make others free.
"Things have changed," Mrs. Millard said. "Back then they went through so much."