It once belonged to Captain Isaac Ross, who freed his slaves at the time of his death. Cirodes daughter and son-in-law, Josephine and Robert White, still lived in Kentucky and disagreed with Jane Cirodes manumission of Wood; they viewed her as their inheritance. By suing Ward for the wages she had lost while owned by Brandon, her lawyers made clear that a verdict for Wood was an acknowledgment of the evils of slavery itself. The plantation, however, plays a role in the darkest period of American history. Ward planned to make Wood the latest victim of this trade, but she resolved to fight. 1800 kitchen/slave house with its unusual extended cornice. Not everyone agreed with the verdict, but the facts of her horrific story were widely accepted as credible. Its a model and I hope the rest of the states catch up real quickly.. Then the crops of choice became cotton and indigo. Some newspapers even predicted that lawsuits like hers would proliferate. This inventory lists the names, ages and capabilities of Arnold's newly . Got me excited. Gerard Brandon, Wood's last owner, was one of the largest plantations in all of the American South. In the 1890s another formerly enslaved woman, Callie House, led a national organization pressuring the government for ex-slave pensions. 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. It would be 16 years before Wood set foot in Ohio again. It is believed that the name Brandon came from the family name of Martin's wife . Updated Her captors destination was Lexington, Kentucky, where prices for slaves had risen in tandem with the Southern cotton economy. What a pity, that amount would have supported you during the war. Finally, they announced a verdict that few expected: We, the Jury in the above entitled cause, do find for the plaintiff and assess her damages in the premises at Two thousand five hundred dollars.. Call List Agent for a Fact Sheet. Between 1820 and 1860, nearly one million people were sold down the river.. Enough to make a man gloomy. Reads Ellas letter. 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. Ella Brandon Stantons daughter, Charlotte Brandon (1866-1936), married Dunbar Surget Merrill. Her official freedom papers, at a courthouse in Cincinnati, had been destroyed in an 1849 fire, and her kidnappers had confiscated her personal copy. Harriss said many architectural features were kept true to the original design when the house was renovated in the mid-1980s, apart from closets, bathrooms, and the closed in porch. Whether she succeeded in that quest is unknown but she did find a lawyer, Harvey Myers. So you may not know you have Virginia ancestors, but you could.. In 1834, the teenager was bought by a merchant in Louisville and taken from her family. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. $$$ info@brandonhallplantation.com Closed now 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM Stayed at a house in which the Ladies (3) of the house washed their feet (in our presence) in the common wash pan. He owned 700 to 800 slaves on several plantations, and he put me to work at once in the cotton field, she said. He would charge $5 an acre for cleared land & let me pay for it by picking cotton at $1 per 100 pounds. For more on Able, see Able Family. The Liberator: A Weekly Newspaper Devoted to the Cause of Good Government and the Advancement of the American Negro, Los Angeles, California, 29 November 1912, page 5. He helped Wood file a lawsuit in Cincinnati against Ward, now a wealthy man living in Lexington. ] stream. All they needed was someone to do the dirty work of enslaving her again. The bulk of his papers are in several collections at Historic Natchez Foundation. For them, the money Henrietta Wood demanded for her enslavement made a long-lasting difference. The corn we sold yesterday brought 3.15$ per barrel. Eats well on the road. [1] [2] [3] A Warner Bros. These searches were performed by Christina via HeritageQuest as part of her RA Assignments.4. Mandys child died. His ancestors were slaves here, but the longtime math and science teacher at McComb High School felt no anger or bitterness. Wood spent the next several years performing domestic work around Cincinnati. Then, in 1878, jurors ruled that Ward should pay Wood for her enslavement. Brandon Hall was formally a large working cotton plantation located on the scenic Natchez Trace. Plantations in Mississippi In addition to the plantation name and owner, the date the county was formed is also shown. He had cautioned the jurors against an excessive award, claiming falsely that many former slaveholders already regretted slavery. (That route is supported by a notation on page 5 of his journal showing that he paid a toll at Neches on July 21.). Louisiana, U.S., Slave Manumission Records, 1719-1820. On the page opposite the list of deaths, there are also notations about Middletons expenses. On July 1, 1863, just days before the U.S. Army arrived to free thousands of people around Natchez, Brandon, determined to defy emancipation, forced some 300 slaves to march 400 miles to Texas, far beyond the reach of federal soldiers. In the 1870 census, a 52-year-old Gerard Brandon is listed as a planter in Adams County, Mississippi. Poole gone to the field. Homesick thoughts, trying to read his Bible. Sends Sandy to post office hoping to hear from home. When the United States banned the importation of slaves after 1807, Virginia became the largest provider in the nations internal slave trade, Levengood said. Most rural enslaved people were owned by masters who had 10-20 enslaved people, who often were housed in closer proximity to masters, perhaps sharing housing, and perhaps having access to closer relations with their masters than plantation slaves had. Betsy brought $1400. Brandon Hall would make a wonderful family estate. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.[1]. She would one day recall that period of her life as a sweet taste of liberty.. For them, the money Henrietta Wood demanded for her enslavement made a long-lasting difference. This was the most valuable property they owned, and they wanted to make sure it was recorded. The site is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the final tour starts at 4 p.m. Wood suffered another, unexpected setback in 1874 when her lawyer was murdered by a clients husband in an unrelated divorce case. Major Boone was a successful planter and slave owner, and his plantation . 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. That story began two centuries ago with Wood's birth in northern Kentucky. The postwar constitutional amendments that abolished slavery and extended national citizenship to ex-slaves enabled Wood to pursue Ward in federal court. In 1807, at the death of Benjamin Harrison III (1743-1807), his will divided the . The plantation was named after its original owner, Major John Boone, who came to the Carolina colony from Bermuda. Wonderful site.. With help from his mother's court-ordered compensation, Arthur bought a house, started a family, and paid for his own schooling. The society stores the documents in an archive spanning thousands of square feet, he said. The Brandons were harvesters of cotton, sugarcane, and indigo and owned 700 slaves. "Brandon was a very rich man," Wood later said. The Week is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. It reaches across all of the slave South, Levengood said. She would one day recall that period of her life as a "sweet taste of liberty.". Brandon Hall Plantation. Destructive 'Super Pigs' From Canada Threaten the Northern U.S. Did an Ancient Magnetic Field Reversal Cause Chaos for Life on Earth 42,000 Years Ago? But Wood's award, however insufficient, was not ineffectual. Yet Wood v. Ward did not set a sweeping legal precedent. Reflects on James in the field. Ownership may have meant the purchase of a spouse, an individual's children, or other relatives who were not emancipated. 3:10 PM EST, Mon February 6, 2012. 1847, d. 1885; married Joseph C. Pierce, Agnes Brandon (b. June 29, 1851, d. January 19, 1862; see, Sarah Brandon (b. June 29, 1851, d. December 13, 1862; see, Charles Gerard Brandon (b. Slave traders met the demand by buying slaves in Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland and selling them in the cotton states. Danish West Indies, Denmark, Records of Enslaved People, 1672-1917 The Agricultural census of 1860 shows 250 improved acres, 450 unimproved, valued at $10,000. The New York Times observed, Files of newspapers of the five years following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law are filled with stories of the kidnapping of free men in free States. (In fact, free black Northerners had been kidnapped for years before the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.) He helped Wood file a lawsuit in Cincinnati against Ward, now a wealthy man living in Lexington. See Gerard Brandon, The Brandon Family, ed. 33 slave dwellings were also noted. A copy was made, 6 October 1804. In January 1914, the plantation, house, and land was sold to George Hightower as a result of a default on a promissory note, thus ending an 81-year chain of ownership by the Brandon and Hoggatt families. Wipple preach. He was sent a bottle of wine, jelly cake, & pies. Loundon Co. Duncan, Patricia B. Abstracts of Loudoun County Virginia Register of Free Negroes 1844-1861.Willow Bend Books, Westminster Maryland, 2000. Meat at Bulls but so hard & dry no one could eat it. Meats Esquire Jones, an opponent of secession who fears the postwar. After years of trials and tribulations, a group of 300 of Ross' slaves were transported to Africa, where they founded Liberia. Yes, Boone Hall Plantation did have slaves right from the time it was established in 1681. I wanted to be able to see and connect the dots.. Brandon was originally a vast land grant to John Martin, companion of Captain John Smith, on his first voyage to America. The Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names website is the first online resource listing slaves names across all of slaveholding Virginia, the nations oldest state which had the largest enslaved population, numbering a half million people, at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, society officials said. is brandon hall plantation haunted? Inside, behind the handsomely recessed main entrance, were parlor rugs from the Orient, services of English silver, mantels of the finest Italian marble and great pier mirrors from France., Since the 1860 slave schedule was not searchable at the time, the page numbers are provided for the Mississippi and Louisiana slave schedules., The affidavit says that on the 1st of July, 1863, the pending war, and the exigencies of the times compelled his hasty departure from this state for the state of Texas, where he was detained until February 1864. Often they appeared in the records of the owners who owned slaves as human property, which to us sounds so obscene and alien, said Levengood, whos also a historian. This is terrific. At Boone Hall Plantation Black history is not something that is defined by a certain time of year. Terms of Use 2023 Smithsonian Magazine 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. Describes the Brazos (he appears to spell as Brassos) as a little, crooked, muddy [? This article originally appeared in Smithsonian Magazine. Brandons family was one of the staunchest supporters of the Confederacy in the area. By 1983, only 40 acres remained and the house had fallen into disrepair. 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. 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. She spent the first nights of her captivity locked inside two roadside inns. Then, in 1878, jurors ruled that Ward should pay Wood for her enslavement. Zebulon Ward was their man. Horse foundered, took him to Middletons camp. Vital statistics in the below list draw on the Brandon Children website and a public family tree on Ancestry. An equally important feature at Brandon Plantation is the rare, carefully restored ca. The Robertson County Tax Rolls for 1865 show G. The land on which Brandon Hall now stands first passed into private ownership as a royal grant from the Spanish King Carlos III in 1788. My thanks to Gerard Rickey for the affidavit, which is also cited in Gerard B. Rickey and Alan C. Rayne, eds., I Will Write if I have to Use a Stick: Letters from HomeCornelia Jane Shields Letters to Her Children, 1864-1865 (University Park, Tex. In the eyes of Kentucky law, Wood was a slave. CROSS THAT RIVER continues in New York for a limited engagement through Sunday, Dec. 31 at the 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues). The advanced search fields include the slaves first name or last name; gender; occupation; owners last name; date range; and record type. Pity, that amount would have supported you during the war his papers are in collections... 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