Mar 30, 2023 - Sale 2631

Sale 2631 - Lot 21

Price Realized: $ 3,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Archive of covering sixty years and three generations at Virginia's White Hall Plantation. 41 items sleeved in one binder; condition varies, with generally minor wear but a few items worn or dampstained. Cumberland County, VA, 1804-1865
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These papers from White Hall Plantation in Cumberland County, west of Richmond, VA were kept by three generations of William Walkers. Almost every item relates to the family's enslaved people, including multiple slave-carried letters, bills for medical treatment, letters and receipts regarding slave sales, and more.

The earliest papers relate to Capt. William Walker (1757-1839), a veteran of the American Revolution (his 1833 receipt for his Richmond Whig subscription is addressed simply to "the old Revolutionary soldier." His correspondence includes an apparently slave-carried 1804 letter "pr Jim"; an 1815 letter asking "if you will hire Moses privately . . . he will be clothed and treated well"; and an 1822 letter regarding the winter clothing provided to a hired woman named Charity.

Capt. Walker was administrator of the Elisha Meredith estate in 1811. An inventory of the estate names 26 enslaved people, some bearing notable names from Virginia history such as Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and Martha. Also included is a "list of Negroes hired to William Walker" in 1820 naming 4 enslaved people; an 1826 shoemaker's account listing shoes naming 8 enslaved people; an 1828 receipt for "the hire of two Negroes"; and an 1828 statement regarding "a fee for defending a Negro man named Lew belonging to the estate of Wm Walker dec'd, charged with felony."

An 1839 transcript of his will (worn and dampstained) names several enslaved people, one with an unusual clause: "Sam Webber and his wife Patty shall have the privilidge of chooseing their master from among my children." It also settles a couple of non-slavery-related scores: "I give and bequeath to John or Jack Miller, who married my daughter Sarah Judith, and went off with a strumpit, and left his wife in distress, which was the cause of her death, a head board with the inscription 'Here lies the body of Jack Miller, who was the cause of the death of his wife.' Secondly, I give and bequeath to my grandson William T. Miller, who treated his grandfather and the ashes of his mother with such contempt as to go off to his father, and refused to return, saying that he would work up to his chin in mud first, to him I give ten feet square to be picked out of the muddyest part of my farm." A codicil revokes this clause and gives the grandson three enslaved people.

Other papers from 1833 onward relate to Capt. Walker's son William Baker Burton Walker (1806-1873). A mundane 1835 slave-carried letter is marked "pr Abram, with 1/2 bbl sugar, 1 bag coffee, 1 bundle leather, 1 bundle shoethredd." An 1845 letter from his brother-in-law asks for the current prices of "Negroes & pork, that is what pork will bring at killing time" and notes that "Beaty took your boy Stephen fifteen or 1800 miles, sold him for a first-rate price & brought the money to you." Accounts include an 1833 invoice for slave hire (among other things); an 1835 agreement for the hire of Cornelius; receipts for the hire and medical care of enslaved people, tax receipts for enslaved property, and more.

A few later papers relate to the third generation, William D. Walker (1835-1918) from 1859 to 1865. They include an 1860 receipt on the printed letterhead of notorious Richmond slave dealer Hector Davis for "girl Mary," sold for $900, less fees deducted for shoes and clothing, and a 2% commission. An 1860 letter describes a Richmond shop as being "on the same street that those negrow auction houses are." His 1863 letter to his father, announcing a furlough from the Confederate army, was carried "pr Henry." A 17 September 1864 promissory note promises to pay $300 "for hire of Jim Bowles." One receipt post-dates the war. A doctor billed Walker for an 1864 "visit Negro boy", and then on 15 April 1865 (days after the fall of Richmond and the day of Lincoln's death), "one night visit child medicine."