Jun 12 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2708 -
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Sale 2708 - Lot 175

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Letters and diary of a northerner in Mississippi, with vivid descriptions of whippings and slave auctions. 5 Autograph Letters Signed, various sizes (2 of them with postmarked envelopes), minimal wear; and 4to diary (9½ x 7½ inches), original ½ calf over marbled boards, moderate wear, with 49 pages written in Mississippi and many more written later. Lexington and Carrollton, MS, 1859-1860
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Additional Details

William Wood (1830-1903) was a farmer and lawyer from Butler, NY, about halfway between Rochester and Syracuse. He studied law at the University of Albany from 1855 to 1857, then tried his fortunes in central Mississippi in 1859 and 1860, selling atlases on subscription. He was not cordially received, and did not make much money, but left us this chilling record of slavery in the Deep South on the eve of war, told with considerable symapthy despite his frequent recourse to the n-word.

This lot contains his 5 letters home from Mississippi to his parents and sister. His first letter is from Lexington, 28 December 1859: "Although we have received many a side-long & suspicious look, been threatened to be whipped, & even to be hung, still we are here." Race relations are a source of interest: "Christmas lasts all the week here, & by the law of custom the niggers' time belongs to himself during that time, & they improve it by working for themselves, or hiring themselves out & taking the money, others in bringing to market what they have raised during the year. . . . They buy whatever they wish, sugar, coffee, flour, dresses for their wives, handkerchiefs for their sweethearts, or whatever else they fancy. The nigger trade in the town amounts to quite a sum."

On 26 February 1860, Wood was still in Lexington, offering a very long description of an escaped slave who had been captured: "Last night a man about my size or lighter came into the hotel leading a Negro. . . . He was led with a chain . . . locked with a heavy padlock around his neck. . . . He said his feet were very sore, he had walked from the R.R. since 2 o'clock, 12 or 14 miles. . . . This morning I was awoke by the rattling of the nigger's chain when he was going down stairs. . . . He sat in a chair, the farther end of the chain locked to the chair post & his hand-cuffs on. . . . The niggers at the hotel brought him food on a plate 3 or 4 times, as much as he wanted. It seems he left his master in the western part of this county first of Oct. last. . . . He was caught with dogs, he said. He said his mother was a squaw & his father a slave. Said he was trying to get to his old master in Mo. from whom he was stole when he was 13 yrs. old. His master said he was trying to get to the free states."

His 11 March 1860 letter found him in Carrollton, Mississippi, a few miles north of Lexington: "I saw a nigger whipped the other day. He had quarreled with a white boy & the boy said he told him he lied. The boy was so greatly enraged at this that he cried & went & told his father. . . . The father took his horse whip and proceeded to investigate the matter. After asking the nigger a few questions but not seeming to be very particular what the answers were, he struck him 6 or 8 blows. . . . He looked as if he would resist if he had an even chance."

Wood's final Mississippi letter was from Lexington again, on 8 July 1860. He describes a business partnership proposed to him by a local church member: "The proposition is to steal the Africans from the government at Key West or buy them of the slave traders & bring them here & sell to these men who say they would think themselves doing God's service by it. . . . They have families, & if government should get hold of them & hang them, their families would mourn them. The advantage I have is that I have no family dependent on me. The niggers at Key West, they say, can be got at an expense of about $50 each, & I can contract them for about $200 or $300 each & dispose of any number of them. Don't you think it quite the promising speculation?" We think (and hope) Wood's enthused reaction was sarcastic. He also reports that "a man by the name of Holloway . . . whipped a nigger woman one night & she died the next morning. That is what the fuss was about, just as if people had forgotten that niggers are mortal & as well as white folks must die."

Also included in Wood's diary covering 2 September 1859 to 15 April 1860 (49 pages), plus a later 1881-1892 "Family Journal" which fills the remainder of the thick volume. It begins with him attempting to practice law in rural Butler, NY; after giving up the diary for several weeks, he begins again in Lexington, MS on 18 December 1859, describing his long journey south. On 21 December in Lexington he was "warned to leave under penalty of being served like old Brown, of having a rope put around my neck," but he remained in Mississippi. He had a morbid fascination with the horrors of slavery. Here are just a few examples of what he saw in these four months of diary entries.

On 29 December he describes enslaved people being hired out at auction. One man could not be leased, "being crazy or foolish & having lost the use of his hand. . . . Was hurt in a fight with another & made crazy & then getting mad tried to cut his own hand off."

He saw another slave auction on 2 January 1860, in which a girl, "17 years old, tears ran down her cheeks as she stood upon the block."

He witnessed a man sold at a sheriff's sale on 9 January: "Described as 40 yrs old, can read & write & has made two attempts to get away. . . . The sheriff remarks 'You have got a good master & he ought to half kill you,' & the new master remarks '& I'll do it, too.' The Negro says nothing but the face expresses internal emotion."

At another auction on 6 February, "a woman & child in her arms brought $1825. The child had blue eyes. A voice in crowd asks 'Is the child black or white?' Auctioneer: 'Oh, the child is a little whiter than you are.'"

On 27 February: "A woman, yellow, good features, 29 years old with child 3 yrs old, brought $1800. She cried when on the block considerable. Seemed to be anxious about her boy who was put up next, 7 yrs old, brought $742 & bought by the same man who bought the mother."

On a visit to a potential customer on 4 March, who was a slave-catcher with 18 dogs: "The man said he has followed hunting niggers five years of his life, and had never shot but one. Said he had as leave shoot a nigger as a bear if he turned upon him. A woman came to the door & called for her husband. He went out & immediately the crack of the whip & the howling & the begging of the nigger was heard. He probably got in eight or ten blows. The man came back & without a word or comment resumed what he was called off from."

See lot 73 for Wood's other personal papers from the Civil War and later.

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