Catherine (Brent) Paynter (abt. 1840)

Born about 1840 in District of Columbia, United States

Ancestors

Biography

Catherine (Brent) Paynter is a part of US Black heritage.

Catherine was born about 1840 in Washington, DC. She was the eldest child of John Brent and Elizabeth Edmonson. Both her parents had been enslaved earlier in their lives; Catherine appears to have been born shortly after her mother obtained her freedom so was born free.

She grew up with her parents and a number of younger siblings in Washington, DC. In 1848, six of her mother's enslaved younger siblings were involved in an escape attempt that has come to be known as the "Pearl Incident".

Kate married James H Paynter in 1861 in her parent's home in Washington, DC, as described in "Escape on the Pearl" by Mary Kay Ricks. She may have passed away prior to 1870 when a "James Painter", age 39, is living with her parents but she is not present.

No further information is known at this time.

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Sources

• 1850 US Census, Catharine Brent, age 12, bp DC, with inferred parents John and Elizabeth, 7 siblings. Year: 1850; Census Place: Washington Ward 1, Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: 56; Page: 37a. Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. [Free Ancestry Image]

• 1860 US Census, Catherine Brent, age 20, bp DC, with inferred parents John and Elizabeth, 7 siblings, Year: 1860; Census Place: Washington Ward 1, Washington, District of Columbia; Page: 235. Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Free Ancestry Image

• "Escape on the Pearl" by Mary Kay Ricks, Harper Collins, 2009, p.336: "In May 1861 Emily Edmonson Johnson’s twenty-year-old niece Kate Brentmarried a young man from Sussex, Delaware, named James H. Paynter,in her parents’ home at Eighteenth and L Streets, NW. The Washington correspondent of the Christian Recorder, the official organ of the African Methodist Episcopal Church based in Philadelphia, described the “brilliant wedding” in the Brent home as “more than usually solemn and touching.” Kate Brent was the oldest of the eight living Brent children."