Mar 21, 2024 - Sale 2663

Sale 2663 - Lot 406

Price Realized: $ 1,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(SLAVERY.) Group of letters and documents relating to enslaved people in the South. 7 items, various sizes and conditions. Various places, 1826-1869
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Anthony W. Wood, letter to S. Newton Dexter of Whitesboro, NY. Discusses work on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal which Dexter managed. "I cannot assure you about getting the Black boy, for his mistress . . . cannot let me have him unless I go and see her. Mr. Wilson has sent word that he will take $200 for Harry service 5 years after this fall, and he asks 30 dollars for this fall, but I think that is the man that keeps Brit's mistress from letting me have Brit, but there is another boy offered to me for ten years for 100. I have not seen him yet." Back Creek, Elkton, MD, 13 September 1826.

A.N. Read to brother Thomas H. Read of Decatur, GA. Discusses a Barksdale family probate dispute: "She is collecting evidence from her mother & other sources to make it appear that the consideration, viz the girl Tabitha, which was given her in lieu of the piano, was a failure & then to base her claim for the amount of the piano, between 4 and 5 hundred dollars." Also, "Negroes have advanced within 3 or 4 months, but I fear one diseased as your boy Phil will command but a small price." Stewartsboro, TN, 2 April 1847.

Bill of sale of "two Negro girls of dark complexion, viz Rachael aged about sixteen and Aery her sister aged twelve years," from John Scantlin to George St. Clair. Worn, with tape repairs. Apalachicola, FL, 9 October 1849.

Testimony in the case of disputed ownership of "a certain Negro man Yasham" and "Negro woman named Adeline" formerly owned by William J. Norwood in Yalobusha County, MS, 8 pages, 6 October 1856.

Order to determine the value in probate of "the slaves belonging to Emma S. & Thos. V. Lewis, minor heirs of P.V. Lewis." With attached appraisal of "Arthur a man aged 28, wife Alvira aged 24 & 2 children, one 2 years, the other 6 mos.; boy James aged 15 years; Mary 55 years and child Dick 7 years, girl Laura aged 15 years; Isaac aged 50, wife Rosette 55 years, 4 children, Allen 15 years, Martha 12, Cornelia 8, Everline 6; Charlotte aged 26, child Emelia aged 6 yrs." Hinds County, MS, January 1852.

Writ of fieri facias ordering the seizure of property to settle a debt from M.R. Morton and others, including "one Negro woman named Kitty and child, also one book case, six cushion bottom chairs, one rocking chair, one center table, one carpet." Separations at folds, partial tape repairs; signed as clerk by future Confederate generate Marcus J. Wright. Shelby County, TN, 17 March 1856; with November 1856 summons also signed by Wright.

With--a letter from the Reconstruction era: Reuben Chapman, to S.D. Cabaniss of Huntsville, AL. Discusses sharecropper arrangements. "I have just bought the Negroes' part of the cotton, all men in Mobile being held up for better prices. The cotton made in this county last year is so low in quality, the merchants all say, I fear a loss by buying them out at 24 cts. Taking the weights here (and I find now the Negroes weighed it by themselves) and I paying all the charges. But they become so impatient and suspicious I found I had to buy them out and pay them, or there would be no crop made this year." Sumter County, AL, 5 February 1869.