Mar 30, 2023 - Sale 2631

Sale 2631 - Lot 6

Price Realized: $ 562
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Letter of recommendation for an enslaved woman wishing to transfer to a new church. Autograph Document Signed by William Woodall. One page, 6 x 7 3/4 inches; moderate wear, 3 1/2-inch tape repair along one fold. [Virginia], circa 1830s-1840s
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

"Prudence (a servant of James H. Fitzgerald) wishes to join the church at Angola. I am informed that she has been a consistent member of a church of the same faith and order in Nottaway County, where she received the ordinance of baptism &c. She came up from there without a letter. She has made an effort to get one since, but failed on account (it is said) of the absence or removal of the clerk of the church, of which she had been a member. She has been under my controul for the last five years, and I can only say that I know of nothing that would justify me in objecting to her making this application."

Prudence's legal owner was likely James Henderson Fitzgerald (1786-1852), who was born and raised in Nottoway County, but after coming into a large fortune spent most of his life in France. The village of Angola is in Cumberland County, not far north of Nottoway County. Provenance: acquired at an old estate north of Farmville in Cumberland County, VA.