This document is the consolidated working bibliography for I Am Coming, Volume II. It is organized by source category, not by chapter. Each entry names the source, says briefly what it establishes, and flags the chapters and sections that rest on it. Where a fact stands on more than one instrument the entry says so; where it stands on a single soft estimate the entry says that too. The volume’s discipline is to name what the record gives, name what it withholds, and keep the open questions open rather than close them with invention. The open questions are gathered at the end, under section XIV, in the same numbered form they carried through drafting.
Tier marks follow the volume’s spine: (D) documented on a primary instrument; (P) probable, resting on a secondary instrument or a sound inference; (S) secondary or contextual. A fact with no mark is documented or is a working commitment named as such in the chapter.
I. Family Bibles and fly-leaf records
The Christopher VI de Graffenried family Bible (D). The object the volume is structurally about: a small leather-bound Bible, roughly eight inches by five, bound in dark calf. Given to Christopher VI by his father the Baron at Worb in 1710 with the fly-leaf clean; carried in the sea-chest from Worb through Bern, London, and Charleston. The first entry on the page is Christopher VI’s own hand at his marriage in Charleston, 22 February 1714 — the formal French entry the Baron had instructed him to write, with a private English entry below it. The keeping passed to his son Anton Tscharner at Christopher VI’s death (October 1742 by the volume’s commitment; see XIV, ODQ-V2-06), and to Mary Baker DeGraffenreid Johnson at Tscharner’s death in February 1794. Carries the family’s hands across eighty years. [Bridge; Ch 1 §1.1, §1.3, §1.5; Ch 4 §4.3, §4.4; Ch 5 §5.7; Ch 6 §6.6, §6.7; Interlude — The Keeping Forward; Epilogue]
The Bernberg Bible (the Baron’s, at Worb) (S). Christopher V’s Bible, the origin of the family’s keeping convention — the formal-French-entry-on-the-fly-leaf practice, traceable to a 1697 death entry. The convention crossed to the Christopher VI Bible; the object did not. The Bernberg Bible stayed at Worb with the Baron. Named to keep the two books distinct in the prose. [Ch 1 §1.3]
The Chadwell Bible record (P). A collateral family Bible carrying entries that cross the volume at two points: Ursula DeGraffenreid Johnson’s birth, ~13 December 1787 (page 93), used to date Chapter 6 §6.2’s household; and the alternate death date for the heroine — 1 January 1823 — set against the Reynolds family’s 7 January 1823. The two-attestation question on the death date is held open. [Ch 6 §6.2; Interlude — The Keeping Forward; Epilogue]
The Reynolds family canonical record (P). The maintained genealogical line for the family, carrying the canonical vital dates used throughout: the heroine’s birth (3 September 1764) and the Reynolds death date (7 January 1823). The alternate readings are noted at each point of conflict rather than resolved. [throughout; Epilogue]
II. Wills, probate, and estate records
Will of Col. Henry Baker II, Chowan County, North Carolina, probated 1739 (D). Names his daughter Mary — the elder Mary Baker, who married Tscharner DeGraffenreid in 1742. One of the two instruments fixing the heroine’s paternal-grandmother’s parentage. [Ch 1 §1.2]
Will of Edmund Chancey, Chowan County, North Carolina, 1753 (D). Names the grandchild “Mary DeGrafinred” among the children of Ruth — the maternal-grandfather bridge the 1925 printed History lacked. With the Henry Baker will, this closes the elder Mary Baker’s parentage on both sides. [Ch 1 §1.2]
Tscharner DeGraffenreid’s will and inventory, Lunenburg County, Virginia, February–March 1794 (D). The keeper’s estate at death. Anchors the chapter’s closing span and the household at Lunenburg in his last winter. [Ch 6 §6.6, §6.7]
Christopher VI de Graffenried — death and probate, Prince George County, Virginia (S; open). The 1925 History places him settled permanently in Prince George County and gives a soft “ca. 1750”; the volume commits to an October 1742 death for the Bible’s accession. No hard probate date is in hand. A Prince George County will/probate or land-record search would settle it. (See XIV, ODQ-V2-06.) [Ch 1 §1.5]
Baker DeGraffenreid — absence of probate (D, by absence). No estate record survives because his death was never registered; his widow Sarah Vass operated as administratrix of an estate whose body was never recovered. The absence is itself part of the record. [Ch 2; Ch 3; Epilogue]
III. Land, deed, and grant records
Governor Caswell’s grant to Sarah Vass DeGraffenreid, 13 November 1779 — 400 acres, Guilford County, North Carolina (D). Guilford County Deed Book 2, pp. 21 and 94. The land that anchors the middle of the volume, standing in a woman’s name because the man whose name it should have carried had ridden out in 1775 and not returned. [Ch 4 §4.4; Ch 6; Epilogue]
Baker DeGraffenreid’s deed of trust, 20 October 1775, Guilford County, North Carolina (D). The last instrument on which he is documented alive — the near edge of the four-year silence the volume keeps open. [Ch 2; Ch 3 §3.1]
Gideon Johnson Jr.’s deed of attorney, 19 December 1783 (D). Establishes the household’s post-war legal footing in the Rockingham/Guilford country. Genealogical texture in the keeping chapter. [Ch 6]
IV. County court order books and administrative records
Lunenburg County Order Book 14, p. 38 (D). Records Sarah Vass DeGraffenreid acting as administratrix of Baker’s estate by 10 September 1779 — the far edge of the four-year not-knowing. The single most-cited administrative instrument in the volume. [Ch 3; Ch 4; Epilogue]
Lunenburg County Order Books, 1775–1794 (multiple volumes) (D/P). Carry Tscharner DeGraffenreid’s standing in county affairs across the period, including his elevation to Justice of Lunenburg County, 1781–1783. [Ch 3; Ch 5 §5.7; Ch 6]
V. Revolutionary War military and pension records
Gideon Johnson Jr. — pension file S4456 (D). Establishes his service as a Private in the 2nd North Carolina Continental Line under Captains Armstrong and Gates and Colonels Alexander and Martin, 1776–1777, terminated some nine months before the November 1779 wedding by date arithmetic against the file. The instrument behind the volume’s central question — whether his service was understood, that morning, as concluded, paused, or continuing. [Ch 4; Ch 5; Ch 6]
Vincent DeGraffenreid — pension file R.2845 (D/P). The brother’s war. References roughly seven years’ Continental service; the named engagements are Brandywine (September 1777), Stony Point (July 1779), Guilford Court House (March 1781), and Yorktown (October 1781). The substitute enlistment at Lunenburg in January 1777, at age fourteen, and the full muster-roll trail and discharge are partly open (see XIV, ODQ-V2-03). The spine of Chapter 5. [Ch 5 throughout]
2nd North Carolina Continental Line muster rolls, 1779–1781 (S; open retrieval). Would fix whether Gideon served in the southern campaign in the gap before or after the wedding, and would pin Vincent’s company composition. Named as a retrieval target, not yet in hand. [Ch 4; Ch 5]
VI. Lineage-society (DAR) references
Anton Tscharner DeGraffenreid — DAR Patriot A031346 (D). The Bible keeper; recognized patriot service; Justice of Lunenburg County, 1781–1783. [Ch 1; Ch 3; Ch 5 §5.7; Ch 6]
Gideon Johnson Jr. — DAR Patriot A063204 (D). The heroine’s husband; Private, 2nd North Carolina Continental Line. Corroborates pension file S4456. [Ch 4; Ch 5; Ch 6]
Reynolds A097611 patriline reference, National Society DAR (P). Carries open documentary questions on the Rorie collateral material that touches Volume II at the closing pages of Chapter 6 and is carried forward to Volume III. [Ch 6; forward to Vol III]
VII. Census schedules
United States Census, 1790 — Rockingham County, North Carolina, and Lunenburg County, Virginia (S). Contextual for household composition in the keeping chapter’s early span. The volume’s action is largely earlier than the first federal enumeration; the schedule supplies texture, not anchors. [Ch 6]
VIII. Vital records, death dates, and burial
Mary Baker DeGraffenreid Johnson — death, January 1823, Williamson County, Tennessee (P). Age fifty-eight. The family records disagree by six days: Chadwell gives 1 January, the Reynolds line 7 January. The volume holds both. Her own death entry was made in another hand of the line. [Interlude — The Keeping Forward; Epilogue]
Anton Tscharner DeGraffenreid — death, second week of February 1794, Lunenburg County, Virginia (D/P). Age seventy-one; exact day and cause unrecorded; buried in the family ground beside the elder Mary Baker. The closing image of the volume turns on this death. [Ch 6 §6.6, §6.7]
Elder Mary Baker DeGraffenreid — death, ca. 1756 (P; primary record pending). Tscharner’s first wife and the heroine’s namesake-grandmother, who died young — long before the heroine’s 1764 birth, making the namesake a figure of record rather than of memory. The figure “7 June 1773” carried in early drafting was a false precision on a wrong year and was corrected. A primary death record is wanted. [Ch 1; Ch 2 §2.3; Ch 6 reconciliation]
Family burying-ground, Lunenburg County (D, by use). The ground holding the elder Mary Baker’s stone, where the child meets the Bible in Chapter 2, and where Tscharner is buried beside her in 1794. [Ch 2 §2.3; Ch 6]
IX. Manuscript collections and archival repositories
East Carolina University — DeGraffenreid Association Collection, Manuscript Collection 0796 (S; retrieval target). Holds related family materials. Named as the principal repository for settling the Bible’s eighteenth-century custody chain and the descendant custody of the surviving Bible (see XIV, ODQ-V2-06). [Ch 6; Epilogue]
X. Published primary and genealogical sources
Thomas P. de Graffenried, History of the de Graffenried Family from 1191 A.D. to 1925 (1925) (S). Transcribes the relevant fly-leaf entries and supplies the Prince George County settlement note behind the “ca. 1750” death estimate for Christopher VI. The volume treats it as a transcribing-and-tradition source, not a primary instrument, and corrects it where primary records (the Baker and Chancey wills) supply what it lacked. [Bridge; Ch 1; Ch 6]
XI. Scholarly and contextual secondary sources
Revolutionary War campaign histories (S). Period military context for Chapter 5: the September 1777 engagement at Brandywine; Anthony Wayne’s night bayonet assault on Stony Point, 15–16 July 1779; Guilford Court House, March 1781; and the Yorktown surrender, October 1781. Used for the war as it arrived to the household and the soldier, in fragments, not as campaign narrative. [Ch 5; Ch 3 interludes]
North Carolina and the ratification of the federal Constitution (S). Context for the Chapter 6 interlude — the state’s refusal at Hillsborough in 1788 and ratification at Fayetteville in 1789, arriving at the household as news. [Ch 6 — Interlude: The Constitution in North Carolina]
XII. Narrative-craft calibration models
Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City (S). Narrative-nonfiction calibration model — the discipline of telling documented history at close range without invention.
The novels of Sarah J. Maas (S). Close-third heroine-voice calibration model — the somatic, interior-counting register tuned to the volume’s documentary discipline and its women’s ages.
**I Am Coming, Volume I, and its planning document (S).** The prior volume’s voice and discipline, carried forward intact: the Bridge draws Barbara’s close-third from Volume I Chapter 6; the historian’s middle distance is modeled on Volume I Chapter 4; the heroine’s and the soldier’s close-third are modeled on Volume I Chapters 5 and 6; the Epilogue is modeled on the Volume I Epilogue.
XIII. Project working files
Searcy Family Ancestral Workbook, v7.11 (D, canonical). The project’s consolidated genealogical reference — every named ancestor, vital date, place, and kinship, calendar-verified. Cited at every chapter as the canon against which drafting is reconciled.
Volume II planning document (`vol2_planning_v1_2`) and the voice-architecture addendum. The governing plan: the heroine, the question, the closing image, the through-line phrase, the architecture, the forbidden-words discipline, and the compression principle.
Direction memos, jumping-off points, and per-section audit memos (Sessions 01–45). The working record of how each section was set, drafted, and audited against canon and voice.
The reconciliation instruments — the Chapter 6 reconciliation docket and the Bible-provenance reconciliation memo. Where the drafted chapters’ disagreements with the record and with each other were tracked and resolved to a single canon.
XIV. Open documentary questions
Named openly so they are held openly and not papered over. Numbered as they were carried through drafting.
ODQ-V2-01 — Where did Baker DeGraffenreid die, and on what date? Family tradition (Reynolds): “killed at the outset of the Revolutionary War.” Last documented alive 20 October 1775 (Guilford County deed of trust); Sarah Vass operating as administratrix by 10 September 1779 (Lunenburg Order Book 14 p. 38). The four-year window is the volume’s central kept silence. Retrieval targets: Guilford County, NC; Pittsylvania and Henry Counties, VA — probate, deed, and county-court records, 1775–1779. Affects Chapters 2, 3, 4, 6.
ODQ-V2-02 — Did Gideon Johnson Jr. serve between his February 1779 discharge and the November 1779 wedding, or after it? Pension file S4456 establishes 1776–1777 service; the nine-month gap before the wedding and the southern campaign opening immediately after are open. Retrieval targets: 2nd NC Line muster rolls 1779–1781; Rockingham County militia records; pension-file supplements. Affects Chapters 4, 5, 6.
ODQ-V2-03 — Vincent DeGraffenreid’s full enlistment history and discharge date. Pension file R.2845 references roughly seven years and names four engagements; the full muster-roll trail and his return to Lunenburg are not yet documented. Retrieval targets: Continental Line muster rolls 1777–1783; Lunenburg County return-of-veteran records. Affects Chapter 5 centrally.
ODQ-V2-06 — The Bible’s custody chain across the eighteenth century, and Christopher VI’s death date. Christopher VI to Tscharner (the volume commits to October 1742, against the 1925 History’s soft “ca. 1750”); Tscharner to Mary Baker in 1794 rests on the structural fact of the family — Baker twenty years dead with no grave, his daughter the one to keep the record — rather than on a documented transfer. Retrieval targets: ECU DeGraffenreid Association Collection (MC 0796); the 1925 History’s manuscript sources; a Prince George County, VA, will/probate or land-record search. Affects Chapter 6 and the Epilogue.
Lucretia Townes’ status in 1785 — living, and at Lunenburg? — needed to set the Chapter 6 opening’s household composition; non-blocking.
A primary death record for the elder Mary Baker — to firm the ca. 1756 estimate and decide whether a day can be asserted; non-blocking.
Certified-copy firm-up of the Henry Baker (1739) and Edmund Chancey (1753) wills, and photographic inspection of the surviving Bible fly-leaf — carried from the Volume I open items; non-blocking.
Compiled at the close of the Volume II draft, Session 45. The bibliography is a working document: as the open questions in section XIV are answered, the entries they touch are revised, and the answers are folded into the chapters they affect.
— DLS