Went to pay for some corn. : Estate of Sara Brandon Rickey, 2000), 79, available at Historic Natchez Foundation., In 1872, Brandon was still in a legal dispute over an assumption of debt on a plantation he purchased in Tensas Parish (LA) from Hughes, who moved to Texas in 1862 or 1863. ), so Poole (overseer) left, presumably with slaves. Begins September 29 entry. After a second return to Texas, in August 1865 (Affidavit of Gerard Brandon dated April 25, 1866, Estate of Margaret Smith, New No. Begins November 2 & 3 entry, attends a public sale of someones effects. At some point during those hellish days, Wood gave birth to Arthur, whose father is unknown. The Robertson County Tax Rolls for 1866 show him with 25 horses and no real estate. Today, many reparations advocates look to legislation, targeting governments for their complicity in slavery and white supremacy. The Agricultural census of 1860 shows 250 improved acres, 450 unimproved, valued at $10,000. Upper Brandon Plantation: William Byrd Harrison, George Harrison Byrd, Francis Otway Byrd, Harry C. Thompson, Fred E. Watkins, Jim Justice In the first half of the 19th century, there were as many as 85 slaves working at the plantation. A record now at the National Archives in Chicago confirms that he did, in 1879. The mill is out of fix, & too bad to get up a beef and all hands are on short rations. Thoughts of home. Describes the Brazos (he appears to spell as Brassos) as a little, crooked, muddy [? Loundon Co. Duncan, Patricia B. Abstracts of Loudoun County Virginia Register of Free Negroes 1844-1861.Willow Bend Books, Westminster Maryland, 2000. To purchase tickets, call . Yet Wood v. Ward did not set a sweeping legal precedent. PIN IT Sharing is caring! Brandon was also required to pay his wife $127,436 with legal interest and costs of suit. Meat at Bulls but so hard & dry no one could eat it. Meats Esquire Jones, an opponent of secession who fears the postwar. She would one day recall that period of her life as a "sweet taste of liberty.". In November 2015, I retraced some of this route by car when coming back from Natchez. Cirodes daughter and son-in-law, Josephine and Robert White, still lived in Kentucky and disagreed with Jane Cirodes manumission of Wood; they viewed her as their inheritance. In order to identify records of interest, you must first examine the genealogy of slaveholding families. So you may not know you have Virginia ancestors, but you could.. And when the carriage finally rolled to a stop outside of Covington, Ward's men were waiting. With help from his mothers court-ordered compensation, Arthur bought a house, started a family and paid for his own schooling. The database features a public message board, filled with notes posted by users searching for ancestors who may have been slaves. FOR SALE: 1856 Brandon Hall Plantation, Natchez, Mississippi Our Restoration Nation 103K subscribers Subscribe 16K 1.4M views 1 year ago Have you ever wanted to own your own historic mansion. The freedom suit had prevented Ward from selling Wood for nearly two years, but in 1855, he took her to a Kentucky slave-trading firm that did business in Natchez, Mississippi. Advertising Notice After Brandon pursued several possible places to rent in Texas, Joseph S. Able, a resident of Robertson County, offered Brandon a place on his land with 300 acres in cultivation 2 cabins & corn on the ground as well as use of a mill. 1890 ( photo) The Briars , (aka Briers), built 1814-18 possibly by John Perkins, Natchez. The 1860 slave census shows 52 slaves on Fish Haul. You have to read between the lines: Oh, they mention Amy in a letter, and then you have to read another letter in the collection to realize that Amy is a slave and not a family member, Levengood said. Known as the Robintation Tree, it is said to have been quite feared by the slaves of the plantation. Born into bondage in Kentucky, Wood testified, she had been granted her freedom in Cincinnati in 1848, but five years later she was kidnapped by Ward, who sold her, and she ended up enslaved on a Texas plantation until after the Civil War. Gangs worked throughout the antebellum period to capture free black men, women and children and smuggle them into the South, under the cover of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which required the return of runaway slaves. When possible, I have also noted the dates of Brandons entries. Saving Slave Houses Project Preservationist Jobie Hill gave a tour of the Brandon Plantation in southern Virginia and talked about her Saving Slave Houses project and read more Report. I wanted to really know. The house was built c. 1765 by . One of the Grandest Greek Revival Plantation Homes in the South. The value of his real estate was $18,000. Poole gone to the field. Homesick thoughts, trying to read his Bible. The study found 3,777 Negro slave owners in the United States. Gerard Brandon, one of the largest slaveholders in the South, bought Wood and took her to his house, Brandon Hall, on the Natchez Trace. not the care, pains & comfort in fixing up places. He couldnt find corn. 2. Even Juneteenth, the day in June 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Texas to enforce emancipation, did not liberate Wood. Today, many reparations advocates look to legislation, targeting governments for their complicity in slavery and white supremacy. Cirode returned to France in 1844, abandoning his wife, Jane, who eventually took Wood with her to Ohio, a free state. Left for home 4th Feby 1864. On Sunday attended church in forenoon, saw a fistfight in eve, & a company pass having in charge nine deserters. Begins August 24 entry: no beef as yet now for four days. Slaves dissatisfied. Reflections on number of slaves he has brought: I am now content & feel if I can take care of what I have, I shall do very well., Doesnt like to hire out, & to feed them in idleness, they will soon eat their heads off. Learns of a meeting of locals for resolutions on refugees and the some 1000 or 1500 negroes moved into the region. Someone offers to speak up in Brandons defense, as mine looked clean & orderly. Williams has sent a ham, bucket of butter, & three water mellons. Begins August 29 entry: demands from persons wanting to hire negroes.. Not everyone agreed with the verdict, but the facts of her horrific story were widely accepted as credible. Brandon Hall in Natchez, MS was built by Gerard Brandon and his wife Charlotte (Hoggatt). Copyright 2019 Smithsonian Institution. Eats well on the road. Conversation with Dr.Killibrou (?) Woods victory briefly made her lawsuit national news. However, at the height of the slave era (1830-1860), only a few thousand masters owned as many as 300 people. Destructive 'Super Pigs' From Canada Threaten the Northern U.S. Did an Ancient Magnetic Field Reversal Cause Chaos for Life on Earth 42,000 Years Ago? She was suing him for $20,000 in reparations. Yes, Boone Hall Plantation did have slaves right from the time it was established in 1681. Construction on the home began in 1853 and it was completed in 1856.3, Slave schedules for the 1860 Census confirm Brandons large slaveholdings. In 1807, at the death of Benjamin Harrison III (1743-1807), his will divided the . Before the Civil War, large Southern rice and cotton plantations depended on enslaved African Americans to operate successfully. They lived in this original dwelling until 1853, when they began construction of Brandon Hall which was completed in 1856. The Virginia Historical Society finds 3,200 slaves named in private documents, The unpublished documents are from Virginians' attics, basements and desk drawers, "We sold all the negros 43 in number at astonishingly large prices," an 1858 letter says, One user of the society's free database of slaves finds the owner of his great-great-great-grandfather. CNNs Athena Jones reported from Richmond, Virginia and Michael Martinez contributed from Los Angeles. (this book has a wealth of info on slaves - since many of the people listed were freed in wills - details of emancipation are there as well as detailed physical descriptions) While Wood received $2,500 as compensation for more than 16 years of unpaid labor, her former enslaver, Ward, left an estate worth at least $600,000 when he died in 1894, a multimillionaire in todays terms. See menn1964 for more information about this holding., J. H. Coltons map of the state of Louisiana and eastern part of Texas, commented on the unequal application of criminal justice, Walter Williams who died in 1959 at age 117, Philip A. Brandon (b. By suing Ward for the wages she had lost while owned by Brandon, her lawyers made clear that a verdict for Wood was an acknowledgment of the evils of slavery itself. Major Boone was a successful planter and slave owner, and his plantation . It was four years after the Confederate surrender before Wood was able to return up the river, where she tried to locate long-lost members of her family in Kentucky. All accommodations at this luxury home have private in-room (not shared) bathrooms. Suggest edits to improve what we show. While Wood received $2,500 as compensation for more than 16 years of unpaid labor, her former enslaver, Ward, left an estate worth at least $600,000 when he died in 1894, a multimillionaire in today's terms. Wonderful site.. It remains the largest known sum ever granted by a U.S. court in restitution for slavery. She was later removed from the cotton fields and put to work in Brandons house. Those Virginia families found the old, handwritten papers in attics, basements or desk drawers, Levengood said. 1844, d. 1900; married Aaron Tip Stanton on October 12, 1865), James C. Jim Brandon (b. Brandon Hall would make a wonderful family estate. On October 29, 1840, Charlotte Hoggatt married Gerard Brandon III, who was the son of an early Governor of Mississippi and the grandson of a Revolutionary War Hero of the same name. Brandon and Middleton travelling. At some point during those hellish days, Wood gave birth to Arthur, whose father is unknown. whole race. Pleasant, South Carolina, is one of America's oldest working plantations, with a history dating back to 1681. I worked under the meanest overseers, and got flogged and flogged, until I thought I should die.. Two days earlier, the jury had watched as Wood took the stand; her son, Arthur, who lived in Chicago, was in the courtroom. On July 1, 1863, just days before the U.S. Army arrived to free thousands of people around Natchez, Brandon, determined to defy emancipation, forced some 300 slaves to march 400 miles to Texas, far beyond the reach of federal soldiers. On July 1, 1863, just days before the U.S. Army arrived to free thousands of people around Natchez, Brandon, determined to defy emancipation, forced some 300 slaves to march 400 miles to Texas, far beyond the reach of federal soldiers. Slave traders met the demand by buying slaves in Virginia, Kentucky and Maryland and selling them in the cotton states. Many newspapers described Woods suit as an old case or a relic of slavery times, consigning stories like hers to a fading past. Brandon mentions his diary in a letter to his daughter Ella, dated October 21, 1863, and found in the Vonkersburg Family Collection at the Historic Natchez Foundation. Ella Brandon Stantons daughter, Charlotte Brandon (1866-1936), married Dunbar Surget Merrill. If you purchase an item through these links, we receive a commission. The plaintiff was Henrietta Wood, described by a reporter at the time as "a spectacled negro woman, apparently 60 years old." A second ferry location is illegible, but he also paid for ferries across Cocodrie Bayou and Cross Bayou. Ward planned to make Wood the latest victim of this trade, but she resolved to fight. Unfortunately Charlotte Brandon Stanton Merrill had little time to enjoy her undivided ownership of Brandon Hall because on January 27, 1914 the plantation, house and land, was sold at auction to one George Hightower as a result of default on promissory notes held by the First Natchez Bank. 73 Natchez Trace Pkwy,Natchez, Mississippi, 39120, 7 beds 8 baths 10,768 sqft 45 acres, Jackie Smith PAUL GREEN REALTORS 601-442-2768. Article. Dudley I think will die. Arrival of Mrs Spark and her son, other Mississippi refugees, who had found and brought Jack Lancaster. It is believed that the name Brandon came from the family name of Martin's wife . , slave schedules for the 1860 census confirm Brandons large slaveholdings, in 1879 to work in Brandons,! Found and brought Jack Lancaster Hall in Natchez, MS was built by Brandon! Son, other Mississippi refugees, who had found and brought Jack Lancaster sweet... 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