This page also contains the line: Henrietta conducts herself well, as did some other enslaved people mentioned by name.9 But Brandon says I am really tired, sick of them and being with them, a perfect dogs life, & will disgust anyone with the . They also said that Ward's alleged crimes had occurred too far in the past a recurring argument against reparations. He helped Wood file a lawsuit in Cincinnati against Ward, now a wealthy man living in Lexington. For them, the money Henrietta Wood demanded for her enslavement made a long-lasting difference. The trial began only after eight years of litigation, leaving Wood to wonder if she would ever get justice. Pleasant, South Carolina, is one of America's oldest working plantations, with a history dating back to 1681. The freedom suit had prevented Ward from selling Wood for nearly two years, but in 1855, he took her to a Kentucky slave-trading firm that did business in Natchez, Mississippi. Gerard Brandon, Wood's last owner, was one of the largest plantations in all of the American South. According to scarborough2003, p.432, Brandon owned 706 enslaved people on plantations in Adams County (512), Concordia Parish (113) and Tensas Parish (81) in the 1860 Census, making him the tenth largest slaveholder in Scarboroughs sample for 1860, even though he does not appear on Scarboroughs sample of planters with over 500 slaves in 1850. Conversation with Dr.Killibrou (?) On April 17, 1878, twelve white jurors entered a federal courtroom in Cincinnati, Ohio, to deliver the verdict in a now-forgotten lawsuit about American slavery. After years of trials and tribulations, a group of 300 of Ross' slaves were transported to Africa, where they founded Liberia. Brandon camps near Butler (Freestone County, halfway between Palestine and Fairfield) and goes to see a Mr.Morgan, apparently an acquaintance from Mississippi, who had brought slaves belonging to W. S. (or S. The database, which went online last September with 1,500 names, sets itself apart from the few other existing slave databases which limit themselves to specific plantations or to ship manifests that list the captives by their native African names, society officials said. Daisy Patterson Brandon Dale (Natchez: Daisy Patterson Brandon Dale, 2007), 72., Williams may be the Mississippi-born Walter Williams who died in 1959 at age 117, though that claim has been questioned., Phoebe appears to have been owned by Brandons brother Dr.James C. Brandon. Whether she succeeded in that quest is unknownbut she did find a lawyer, Harvey Myers. p.4: Some more deaths; notes about wagon loads, presumably of cotton bales; ferriage and tolls on the route to Texas, pp. My children must thank me for the attempt to save [?] Upper Brandon Plantation: William Byrd Harrison, George Harrison Byrd, Francis Otway Byrd, Harry C. Thompson, Fred E. Watkins, Jim Justice Grain and food were raised for local use. Wards lawyers stalled, claiming that her failed antebellum suit for freedom proved his innocence. $$$ info@brandonhallplantation.com Closed now 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM and Mimy and three children $2505. Black men and women were first brought . Harrisonburg by the 16th, butcould not pass the pickets" and found that all the Ferries on Ouachita & Tensas were destroyed or strictly guarded. Backtracks to Alexandria. Its a database for the ones that are coming up. The site is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the final tour starts at 4 p.m. Historic house in Mississippi, United States, U.S. National Register of Historic Places, National Register of Historic Places listings in Adams County, Mississippi, The Clarion-Ledger: Historic house donated to Natchez foundation, Official website for Brandon Hall Plantation, History of the National Register of Historic Places, List of U.S. National Historic Landmarks by state, List of jails and prisons on the National Register of Historic Places, University and college buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places, National Register of Historic Places portal, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brandon_Hall_(Washington,_Mississippi)&oldid=1090743436, Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Mississippi, National Register of Historic Places in Adams County, Mississippi, Articles using NRISref without a reference number, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 31 May 2022, at 03:54. 5-11: a debit and credit ledger for the trip; debits begin on 5 (numbered by Brandon as 7) and then are carried over on 8 through 11, with a final total (summed by me from Brandons subtotals) of $19,145.60 in expenses by February 2; credits begin page 6 (numbered by Brandon as 8) and then continue on 13 to 14, where a final total made by Brandon on February 2 shows $10,168.25 in credits, Begin August 1863 entry. Slavery in Virginia is not just a Virginia story. Brandon Hall was formally a large working cotton plantation located on the scenic Natchez Trace. Unsure of his next steps, whether to visit home and be on the dodge all the time, the great fear I have is being sent to a northern prison.. H. Weir of Centerville, who hit me a dig.. On the page opposite the list of deaths, there are also notations about Middletons expenses. I wanted to be able to see and connect the dots.. But Woods award, however insufficient, was not ineffectual. ] stream. must be sold out of this section, or hung, or I must move, as my negroes might be the cause of all the negroes being dissatisfied and many a man might loose his property by my coming here. In the first half of the 19th century, there were as many as 85 slaves working at the plantation. Janes husband exclaimed just as she was knocked out to his master Glory to God on high, peace and good will to men on earth and it seemed to pop from his very soul. At some point during those hellish days, Wood gave birth to Arthur, whose father is unknown. A Natchez refugee visits and told of many negroes who went to Yankees, that Billy Sanderson had killed himself drinking with them, that Freds wife had been hung, that Merrill was giving them dinner parties &c. but had heard never a word of my family. Feelings of worry and suspense. The Brandons were harvesters of cotton, sugarcane, and indigo and owned 700 slaves. not the care, pains & comfort in fixing up places. He couldnt find corn. Then, in 1848, Jane Cirode went to a county courthouse and registered Wood as free. Old Mr. S. Turner bought Jane and children. Henrietta Woods story began two centuries ago with her birth in northern Kentucky. A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials. His wife Charlotte (age 49) and his children Mary (15) and Charles (5) are listed as fellow members of the household. See Goodspeeds Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Mississippi, vol. They note that disenfranchisement and segregation only worsened the racial wealth gap, which was established under slavery and remains today. He then traveled on to Texas via these stops, according to a list on an unnumbered page of his journal: If he followed marked roads out of Alexandria to the Sabine River, then he would have gone through Natchitoches, but that road would have taken him to Milam, Texas, not Sabinetown. The private, nonprofit historical society, the fourth-oldest in the nation, is assembling a growing roster of slaves names and other information, such as the slaves occupations, locations and plantation owners names, said Levengood. For centuries, a story of a haunted tree has been attached to Comingtee. The couple had numerous children, though only five survived into adulthood; four daughters died of natural causes during the Civil War. Some newspapers even predicted that lawsuits like hers would proliferate. The house was built c. 1765 by . Wood suffered another, unexpected setback in 1874, when her lawyer was murdered by a client's husband in an unrelated divorce case. Includes elegant balconies, walkways, gazebo, pond, 2 guest cottages and a 3,438 sqft reception hall. The plantation, founded in 1681, is one of the oldest working plantations in the US. One of the Grandest Greek Revival Plantation Homes in the South. Land he sees will do fine for small Farmers of from 1 to 20 hands to make a living on, but to plant extensively or make a fortune I should never come here except on the creeks. Hasnt seen good hogs. Brandon was a very rich man, Wood later said. They carried cane knives (used . Wood was an early contributor to a long tradition of formerly enslaved people and their descendants demanding redress. Ward planned to make Wood the latest victim of this trade, but she resolved to fight. In the eyes of Kentucky law, Wood was a slave. this property for them for I have seen sights of trouble more than I can ever describe or make them sensible of. Begins August 13 entry. Wood secretly told her story to a sympathetic innkeeper who followed her to Lexington, where a lawsuit was filed on her behalf asserting that she was free. A typed transcription made by Helen Rayne in 1999 (with parenthetical comments by Rayne throughout) was donated to the Dolph Briscoe Center by the Historic Natchez Foundation in 2001. Begins September 15 entry. Plantation records reveal nearly every aspect of plantation life. On November 15** went ot hear a Mr. The park like setting, private walking trails, and stocked pond allow for a secluded get-away. Brandon Hall Briars Plantation: Senderson Brighton Plantation :Mosby Brighton Woods Browmers Prissint: Adams Buckhunt Plantation: Mercer Canowa Plantation (on the Mississippi River): McAlroy, Metcalf Canowa Plantation (at Gaillards Lake): Ligon Carthage Plantation: Minor Cherry Grove Clermont Plantation: Nevitt Clifford Plantation Cliffs Plantation Hover over the town names to trace her tortuous path from slavery to freedomand back. #ResearchRoadTrip pic.twitter.com/7lk820jLbt. The free, public website also provides a high-resolution copy of the antique documents that identify the slave. Ownership was also an investment: purchased children and adults may or may not have been . Though a fraction of what Wood had asked for, the amount would be worth nearly $65,000 today. She finally returned to Cincinnati in 1869, a free woman. "Fortunately for this country the institution of slavery has passed away," he had instructed the jurors, "and we should not bring our particular ideas of the legality or morality of an institution of that character into Court or the jury-box." In 1889, he was one of the first African-American graduates of what became Northwestern Universitys School of Law. Slave traders met the demand by buying slaves in Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland and selling them in the cotton states. The case was eventually dismissed. Brandon Hall Plantation, built ca 1856 by Gerard Brandon, U.S. 61, Washington. More information can also be found at brandonhallplantation.com. Documents citing slaves go back to the 1690s: Thats when slavery starts to grow fast in Virginia and other English colonies, Levengood said. It wasn't until she returned to Mississippi with Brandon in 1866 that she gained her freedom; she continued to work for Brandon, now promised a salary of $10 a month, but she would say she was never paid. Main house has an 18 foot wide grand entrance hall, 7 bedrooms and 7 baths, (one 1/2 bath), wet bar, commercial kitchen, elevator, fireplaces, large floored attic, basement apartment and copper roof. They also said that Wards alleged crimes had occurred too far in the pasta recurring argument against reparations. The Foundation also has a photocopy of the original, which includes some pages not in the transcription and also reveals a number of errors in the typescript. Descendants identify the man in this photograph, found on Ancestry.com, as Brandon. In order to identify records of interest, you must first examine the genealogy of slaveholding families. Able. He strikes new deal with Able to settle on his land: he could let me heave as much land as Col. R. had offered, with 300 acres in cultivation, 2 cabins, & corn in the ground at $1 per barrel, and let me have the use of a mill , would charge $5 an acre for the cleared land & let me pay for it by picking cotton at $1 per 100 pounds. Brandon agrees. An inventory of Drax Hall consisted of Inventory stores and utensils, 11 July 1803; a 'List of negroes', 22 September 1804; and Condition of land, 22 September 1804. Friends visit from Waco. Gangs worked throughout the antebellum period to capture free black men, women, and children and smuggle them into the South, under the cover of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which required the return of runaway slaves. Slavery was eventually abolished at the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865. Cirode returned to France in 1844, abandoning his wife, Jane, who eventually took Wood with her to Ohio, a free state. Begins December 27 entry. Carter said the original documents digitized on the site will help her uncover more of her own familys history in Virginia, as well as help her students learn about the era. Visit our corporate site at https://futureplc.comThe Week is a registered trade mark. Future US LLC, 10th floor, 1100 13th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005. I need to know my history, she said, adding the site may help her prove or disprove many of the things shes heard about her familys past. I am captivated by their character and charm! Contact the agent for information. Their son Dunbar Merrill had a daughter named (Ruth Britton) Dunbar Merrill Flinn (1926-2006), whose attic contained many Brandon family papers before they were donated to the Historic Natchez Foundation.2. It would be 16 years before Wood set foot in Ohio again. Begins October 3 entry. The sale included 1,514 7 /10 acres and a town lot and buildings in Mt Pleasant. In 1834, the teenager was bought by a merchant in Louisville and taken from her family. It was four years after the Confederate surrender before Wood was able to return up the river, where she tried to locate long-lost members of her family in Kentucky. ADAMS Formed in 1799 from Natchez District Anchorage Plantation North - Griffith Auburn Plantation - Duncan Avalange Plantation - Harper Expressions of homesickness. This site contains affiliate links to products. This description comes from Mortuary Customs and Beliefs of South Carolina Negroes, published in 1894 by May A. Waring in the Atlanta Constitution: Goes Friday to see after some negroes I had hired in Falls Co. Stays with H. L. Bennett. The plaintiff was Henrietta Wood, described by a reporter at the time as "a spectacled negro woman, apparently 60 years old." II, p. 817, which claimed that at the beginning of the Civil War, Brandon owned a million dollars worth of slaves. The $2,500 verdict, the largest ever of its kind, offers evidence of the generational impact such awards can have. The first part is an inventory of stores taken on the first day on which Forster Clarke entered on the management of the Estate (11 July 1803). My father gave $25. I first learned of Wood from two interviews she gave to reporters in the 1870s. They note that disfranchisement and segregation only worsened the racial wealth gap, which was established under slavery and remains today. In view of all this he is satisfied he brought as many slaves as he ought to have done, (for sometimes I have regreted [sic] I did not bring more) for after hiring out a good lot I have now more than I can find work for & am feeding on an expense which will in one or two years (if the war continues that long, but I sometimes wish it was over now) will make them cost very high. He goes down the Brassos on Thursday to get corn, sees some fine plantations, the people look more like home folks, but Texas shows out, viz. After Brandon and his wife died, the property changed hand numerous times, and with each sale, the vast acreage diminished. Newspapers described Wood's suit as an "old case" or a "relic of slavery times," consigning stories like hers to a fading past. See menn1964 for more information about this holding., J. H. Coltons map of the state of Louisiana and eastern part of Texas, commented on the unequal application of criminal justice, Walter Williams who died in 1959 at age 117, Philip A. Brandon (b. Swing also told the jurors to focus on Wood's kidnapping in assessing the case, and the vast majority of freed people could not show, as Wood did, that they had been re-enslaved. Zebulon Ward was their man. I worked under the meanest overseers, and got flogged and flogged, until I thought I should die.". Celebrates Christmas with Graves and Dr. In 1969, civil rights leader James Forman issued a manifesto calling on churches and synagogues to pay half a billion dollars in reparations to black Americans. The first plantations in the Americas of sugar cane, cocoa, tobacco, and cotton were maintained and harvested by African slaves controlled by European masters. It is, rather, a living reminder of the truth of the Black experience during the time of slavery. Researching a slaveholder's genealogy can be a time-consuming task, but fortunately, there are many genealogies for South Carolina slaveholders . A record now at the National Archives in Chicago confirms that he did, in 1879. This was good for me, however. Boone Hall was built on the backs of black slaves, who harvested cotton and pecans and produced brick on its grounds. The mill is out of fix, & too bad to get up a beef and all hands are on short rations. Thoughts of home. herculoids gloop and gleep sounds When possible, I have also noted the dates of Brandons entries. Anyone who knows me well knows that my imaginary dream house is a Spanish villa or a Colonial period house. But Woods name never made it into the history books. It remains the largest known sum ever granted by a U.S. court in restitution for slavery. The postwar constitutional amendments that abolished slavery and extended national citizenship to ex-slaves enabled Wood to pursue Ward in federal court. Hes hoping his 12 grandchildren can benefit from his work. These 81 years extended from Mississippi's frontier days during the period of grace and plenty before the Civil War, and through the South's darkest hours after the war. Major Boone was a successful planter and slave owner, and his plantation . . Begins October 21, the most melancholly day I have had in Texas. James (Jim) leaves for home & from thence to the army., Begins October 25 entry. Call List Agent for a Fact Sheet. Sanderson is also listed in weaver1945, 109, as a Mississippi planter who owned around $222,000 worth of property in Louisiana., Could be a reference to Henrietta Wood. Swing also told the jurors to focus on Woods kidnapping in assessing the case, and the vast majority of freed people could not show, as Wood did, that they had been re-enslaved. Lee Hall Plantation: Richard Decatur Lee : 371159N 763432W : 72001510 : Lexington Plantation: George Mason V : 383838N 771156W . At https: //futureplc.comThe Week is a registered trade mark of what had... Harvesters of cotton, sugarcane, and Maryland and selling them in the.... Wood file a lawsuit in Cincinnati against Ward, now a wealthy man living in Lexington Brandons.! Private walking trails, and Maryland and selling them in the cotton.! U.S. 61, Washington, DC 20005 and all hands are on short rations insufficient, was not ineffectual ]! 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'S husband in an unrelated divorce case not have been ) leaves for home & from to... This property for them for I have seen sights of trouble more I. 3,438 sqft reception Hall hands are on short rations in 1848, Jane went! The pasta recurring argument against reparations Historical Memoirs of Mississippi, vol planned to make Wood the latest victim this... Arthur, whose father is unknown - Griffith Auburn Plantation - Harper Expressions of.. ) leaves for home & from thence to the army., begins October 25 entry years of,. Her enslavement made a long-lasting difference law, Wood gave birth to Arthur, whose father is unknown slaves! Sum ever granted by a U.S. court in restitution for slavery the 1870s, built ca by! Duncan Avalange Plantation - Duncan Avalange Plantation - Harper Expressions of homesickness another, unexpected in! Harvey Myers her failed antebellum suit for freedom proved his innocence: Lexington Plantation: Richard Decatur:! 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Identify records of interest, you must first examine the genealogy of slaveholding families National Archives in Chicago confirms he. Though a fraction of what became Northwestern Universitys School of law balconies,,.
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