Jane Pagan Copen
May 2, 1806 - January 24, 1875
Genealogist all have them. The handful of ancestors that they have been relentlessly trying to find. Something. Anything. Mrs Jane Copen is one of mine.
In 1996 I found her marriage to William Copen easy enough. On May 14, 1827 William Copen married Jane Piggins/ Peggins in Kanawha County (now) West Virginia. WHAT! What kind of name is Piggins? There wasn't a soul in any of the Kanawha County records with that name. I poured through them all....at the library....on microfilm. New genealogist have no idea how lucky they are. NO Piggins anywhere.
Then a miracle happened. I found a biography in Hardesty's Encyclopedia about her oldest son Augustus Copen. It's really one of the greatest gifts to a genealogist because we get to hear their story and sometimes we get a few answers on their family. As it turned out this biography was one of the worst things for research into Jane. The information Augustus, or his immediate family, supplied to the author was simple....his mother was born in South Carolina and her last name was Pagent.............This lead me down a twenty year rabbit hole.
I started looking at Pagent. There were none of those in the Kanawha County records. I looked at variations on the name like Piggot.....nothing. How did she get to Kanawha alone without a hint of family? According to Augustus, she was ten years old when she came to Virginia. I wish I never found that biography and just stuck to the source records it may have saved me twenty years.
I went back to the records I had. Jane Copen was in the 1850, 1860, and 1870 census. The information she supplied to the census taker was that she was either born in Virginia or Ohio. No mention of South Carolina. I looked at her children who were alive in 1880 and 1900. All of them but Augustus said she was either born in Ohio or West Virginia. I started looking at how she would have met William Copen. I started in Wood County where he lived for ten years.
In the Wood County marriage records an Alexander Pagan married Elizabeth Haymond on May 19, 1816. I thought "That name sounds like hers and he could have known the Copen's". It was a eureka moment for me. This is her name......I just knew it but she was born too early for that marriage so those people could not have been her parents. I tried everything to find information on him and his family. He was in the 1817 Personal Property tax digest for Wood and then nothing else.
I really began earnestly searching for the Pagan family and found Alexander Pagan was previously in Brooke County (now) West Virginia in the 1810 census. There was a daughter about Janes age in that census but by 1820 he was living in Brown County Ohio and had no girls in his house Janes age. I looked at his family. Some of his uncles and aunts had moved to South Carolina. Was that a coincidence? Maybe that is where the story came from? I searched the South Carolina branch, the Ohio branch, the Pennsylvania Branch and then I got frustrated.....I knew this was it, this was her name but I was spinning my wheels and needed a break from Jane.
Then last week I got a message from a fellow Pagan researcher. She wanted to point out some possible errors in my Pagan research (which happens when you abruptly quit in frustration). It spurred a conversation about Jane and trying to fit her in somewhere in this family. It was the same conversation with her that I had with myself when I quit working on her lineage. I knew she was a Pagan but she had no idea where my Jane would fit in her Pagan research.
I dove back in. I looked at my DNA matches and there in my matches were Pagens! Not just any Pagans, all except for one were to Alexander Pagan......the Alexander Pagan I believed she was connected to for so many years. Soooooo, I went back to the records and now I will share the scraps I have found up to today and my hope to find more soon.
Jane Pagan was the daughter of:
Alexander Pagan. His first wife may have been named Mary. He was born before 1785 (estimated from early census records) in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His first marriage probably took place in Washington County, Pennsylvania but it could have been in Brooke WV or Jefferson Ohio because the early marriage records are incomplete. He lived in Brooke County, (now) WV in 1810 and he appears sporadically in the personal property tax records there. He is in the 1811 and 1816 Personal Property Digest for Brooke and in 1816 he was in Wood Co where he was made guardian of Sarah, Lewis, Matilda and Prudence Hayman, infant heirs of Stephen Hayman dec. Stephen Hayman was killed or died on Dec 5, 1815 in service of his country. On May 19, 1816, Alexander Pagan married the widow, Mrs Elizabeth Hayman in Wood Co.
In the Court Order books of Wood County we find our Jane...finally. In July 1817, Jane Pagan, one of the poor children of the county is to be bound out to Jesse Gandee until she reaches the age of 18. On the next page Alexander Pagan has his guardianship of the Hayman heirs revoked for not paying what looks like security. The wording of the apprenticeship is important because she is not called an "orphan". She was either a burden on the poorhouse with her whole family or her father abandoned her after his new marriage. By 1820 Alexander Pagan had moved to Brown Ohio with his new wife and their daughter Elizabeth. Jane is living with Jesse Gandee and his wife Nancy Hutchison. Jesse and Nancy had married in 1816 and Jane is the female in the household that was born before 1810.
Jesse Gandy was in Kanawha County from 1825-1827 because he appears in the personal property tax records during those years. It is in Kanawha that she likely finished her apprenticeship. She appears again in 1827 before the May court term when she has John Slack appointed as her guardian. The likely scenario here is that she wanted to get married and she was in need of a marriage bond. Jane was still considered an "infant" because she was under 21 so she either needed permission from her father or a legal guardian. John Slack was a servant of the Kanawha County Court so he may have been a convenient choice or maybe she knew him. He was a near neighbor of the Copen's. The marriage bonds of Kanawha County are lost so we don't have a copy of it. This does call into question the birthdate Augustus Copen supplied to his biographer. Why would Jane need a guardian he she was going to turn 21 in one day?
Alexander Pagan is missing from records for most of the years he was alive. He appears several times in the court records of Brooke County with a man named Walter Cain over a debt that is not explained in the official records. There were two Walter Cain's who were contemporary with Alexander Pagan. One was the elder, who was the neighbor of Andrew Pagan, father of Alexander. Another was the elder Cains son and namesake. Interestingly, the elder Walter Cain is on a list of "squatters. According to the United States Government, he and several other people from Pennsylvania and Maryland presumed to sell parcels of land in Jefferson County, Ohio that they did not actually own. This may be why we cannot find the Pagan's owning any land during this time. Walter Cain the elder died in Brooke County in 1830 and his son Walter Cain the younger died in Jefferson Ohio in 1831.
It is possible that Alexander Pagan was in Jefferson Ohio during the years he is missing from the Brooke personal property. He may have been involved in some venture with Walter Cain the younger. This also would explain Jane Pagan Copen listed frequently as being born in Ohio. It is also possible that he was in Washington County Ohio. Marietta Ohio is right across the Ohio River from Parkersburg West Virginia and a "Mary Pagan" appears in the "Letters at the Post Office" section of the local newspaper in January 1814.
Here's where we get creative and take some liberties. Alexander Pagan had four children in the 1810 census that we must presume to be his. We can be pretty sure that Jane Pagan Copen was one of those children. In 1819 a Mary Pagan married William J. Palmer in Gallia County Ohio. The marriage notice is posted in the Marietta Ohio papers. Which implies that she was either a resident of Marietta, recently a resident of Marietta or had family in Marietta. In 1826 a John Pagan marries a Hannah Pettijohn in Gallia and is living next door to Mary Pagan Palmer in 1830. Lastly, in 1831 a Catherine Pagan married James Johnson in Gallia County. All these folks, according to early census records, fit in the age groups of the children in the 1810 census with Alexander Pagan. We already know that he let Jane be apprenticed out to Jesse Gandee. Eli and Levi Gandee, who were brothers of Jesse lived in Marietta and Gallia County around this time.
There are too many possibilities here. Was the "Mary Pagan" getting letters in 1814 a wife of Alexander of was it the young teenager, who according to her heirs was in Ohio around the age 10? Did they move to Gallia Ohio from Marietta because of older family members or did they all go with Mary upon her marriage to William Palmer and his purchase of land? There are lots of coincidences. The Copen family were also in that area around the same time, Samuel W. Copen (Jane's brother-in-law) had run away from indentured servitude and fled into Ohio. He finally settled in neighboring Scioto Ohio mid 1820's. George W. Copen was in Gallia by 1830. Zaccheus Copen was briefly in Vinton in the mid 1830's (created from Scioto). Two of Janes younger sister-in-laws married in Highland Ohio where Alexander Pagan and his kin settled. Did William Copen meet Jane while visiting his father in Wood while she was apprenticed to the Gandee family or did he meet her in Ohio while visiting his brothers?
The family of Mary Pagan Palmer Cheney have for years now assumed that her parents were John Pagan and Mary Russell of Allegheny Pa. As far as I can tell this is just based on similar names and being from Western Pa. The author of The Palmers of Gallia County has said in message boards that this is just an educated guess on his part. That he has no proof of the connection. I have seen no record that places a John Pagan in Gallia or Washington prior to the John that married Hannah Pettijohn in 1826. I don't have one that places Alexander there either. The records for Ohio are miserable prior to 1820. I do have Alexander in a record that places him nearby. I have a record of him abandoning his daughter to indentured servitude. It stands to reason that he would abandon the rest of his kids as well.
If a fellow researcher can supply me with evidence of John Pagan of Philadelphia being anywhere near or in Gallia I may be inclined to change my opinion but right now they seem to fit pretty well with Alexander.
Ordered that Alexander Pagan be appointed guardian to Matilda Haymond, Sarah Haymond, Lewis Haymond & Prudence Haymond all under the age of fourteen years heirs of Stephen Haymond decd and the said Alex Pagan being here in court entered into bond with - in the penalty of four hundred dollars - -------
Jane Pagan guardianship Kanawha 1827
