?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Slave documents from the Hooe family, including letters on runaways. 39 documents (31 receipts and 8 lengthier manuscripts); light wear and soiling. Prince William County, VA, 1829-49
Small archive of slave-related documents, mostly receipts for hired work. The manuscripts primarily concern John Hooe, Jr. and James H. Reid, two prominent men in Prince William County, VA in the mid-19th century. Reid was the administrator of Hooe's estate following his death. The Hooe family lived on what is today the battlefield of Manassas, at a house called Hazel Plain (no longer extant). A series of three letters dated Philadelphia 1829 seem to concern runaway slaves and their recapture. Written by a C. Knight and addressed to John Hooe, Jr., the letters tell the tale of "a negro man said to be yours in this county . . . his name is said to be Billy or William. If you wish to have him taken, you will please to call on us at the Bull's Head in Market Street." The second letter confirms that the slave does belong to Hooe, while the third calls for Hooe to come to Philadelphia with proof of ownership to claim the man: "As to the proof that will be necessary, bring a person of respectability by hoom you can prove that this fellow was in possession . . . and should you have bill of sale of him, it might be well to bring it." Most of the other manuscripts are receipts for hired labor, a typical example reading, "[We] bind ourselves & our heirs to pay to James H. Reid administrator of John Hooe decd. the sum of one hundred and three dollars with interest thereon from 1st day of January last for the hire of negro man Richard for 1847 & 1848."
