(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION) Manuscript document William Patillos

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THE OWNER OF MARY TODD LINCOLN'S "MODISTE" (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Manuscript document. William Patillo's bill for the treatment of Colonel Burwell's Negroes. Folio leaf, written on both sides; creases where folded; paper deeply toned with some loss of paper at the folds, still readable. [Dinwiddie County, Virginia,] 1802

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The Colonel Burwell mentioned here is Colonel Armistead Burwell, a major Virginia slave-owner from Dinwiddie County, father of "Colonel" William Burwell, the owner of Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Todd Lincoln's "modiste" (personal servant); the author of "Behind the Scenes" (1868).
The bill presented here, for one hundred and nine pounds and ten pence, was for various poultices, purges, plasters and herbals, including a "mercury treatment" (which might well have contributed to the eventual death of a slave). The bill might have been late, in that it is witnessed and "settled" on September 12, 1803. There is an additional earlier bill to Armistead Burwell which has been crossed off; presumably paid earlier. Such detailed bills for medical service to slaves are rare.