On November 15** went ot hear a Mr. Thinks about people at home. Describes the Brazos (he appears to spell as Brassos) as a little, crooked, muddy [? The plantation was named after its original owner, Major John Boone, who came to the Carolina colony from Bermuda. I wanted to really know. Begins December 26 entry, very rainy. The trial began only after eight years of litigation, leaving Wood to wonder if she would ever get justice. Not only business operations and day-to-day labor routines, but family affairs, the roles of women, racial attitudes, relations between masters and slaves, social and cultural life, the values shared by members of the planter class, and His wife Charlotte (age 49) and his children Mary (15) and Charles (5) are listed as fellow members of the household. 1856 Brandon Hall In Natchez Mississippi $3,850,000 SOLD 73 Natchez Trace Pkwy, Natchez, Mississippi, 39120 7 beds 8 baths 10,768 sqft 45 acres Plantation Property Website Realtor Information: Jackie Smith PAUL GREEN REALTORS 601-442-2768 About This 1856 Brandon Hall In Natchez Mississippi Brandon Hall C1856. 163, Probate Court, Adams County, Miss.) Arranges situation for Phoebe.11 Feels gloomy, homesick. "Not so many complications of a legal nature arise out of the old relations of master and slave as might have been expected," the New-York Tribune argued with barely concealed relief. Now, she watched nervously as the 12 jurors returned to their seats. Zebulon Ward was their man. But Wood and her lawyers had argued that the case was about much more than damages from abduction. Born into bondage in Kentucky, Wood testified, she had been granted her freedom in Cincinnati in 1848, but five years later she was kidnapped by Ward, who sold her, and she ended up enslaved on a Texas plantation until after the Civil War. This site should be used for informational and entertainment purposes only. Whether she succeeded in that quest is unknown but she did find a lawyer, Harvey Myers. They led me to archives in nine states in search of her story, which I tell in full for the first time in my new book, Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America. ] stream. Snowfall, the deepest I ever saw in the South. Begins December 31 entry, bitter cold, water freezes on the shelf inside his cabin. All they needed was someone to do the dirty work of enslaving her again. Construction on the home began in 1853 and it was completed in 1856.3, Slave schedules for the 1860 Census confirm Brandons large slaveholdings. After her suit, she moved with her son to Chicago. The ghost of a woman whose fiance died before they could be . 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. . 2023 Cable News Network. You have to read between the lines: Oh, they mention Amy in a letter, and then you have to read another letter in the collection to realize that Amy is a slave and not a family member, Levengood said. How many [illegible] I have doctored & sick negroes, swelled feet & legs, swelled stomachs, dyptheria, fever, seems to me nearly all man is heir to, but all well this morning & I am thankful it is no worse. Medicine nearly out. His ancestors were slaves here, but the longtime math and science teacher at McComb High School felt no anger or bitterness. Severe rain and wind. Copyright 2023, Sanford has gone to Monroe, returned about the 1st, and the authorities say I have not had any negroes in their hands. Hears that the Yankees had not molested anyone in our neighborhood, & all were getting on pretty well. Sanford saw a family wash their feet in the skillet in which they had cooked their supper! On October 29, 1840, Charlotte Hoggatt married Gerard Brandon III, who was the son of an early Governor of Mississippi and the grandson of a Revolutionary War Hero of the same name. ), so Poole (overseer) left, presumably with slaves. Absence of farm animals on the list indicates strongly oriented cotton plantation. Even "Juneteenth," the day in June 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Texas to enforce emancipation, did not liberate Wood. 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. Property is 45 acres and one of the few private driveways directly off the Natchez Trace Parkway. Brandon kept her enslaved on a cotton plantation until well after the war. Gerard Brandon, one of the largest slaveholders in the South, bought Wood and took her to his house, Brandon Hall, on the Natchez Trace. Yes, Boone Hall Plantation did have slaves right from the time it was established in 1681. , had a good dinner & supper, spent a pleasant evening. Asthma & cramp colic. Begins November 13th & 14th" entry, discusses hunting for deer. The other refers to Sandys desire, like his, to hear from home. When he died in 1951, after a long career as a lawyer, he left behind a large clan of descendants who were able to launch professional careers of their own, even as redlining and other racially discriminatory practices put a chokehold on the South Side neighborhoods where they lived. While Wood received $2,500 as compensation for more than 16 years of unpaid labor, her former enslaver, Ward, left an estate worth at least $600,000 when he died in 1894, a multimillionaire in today's terms. His next ferry payment was to cross the Red River on July 11, likely on his way out of Alexandria. Read more Suggest edits to improve what we show. A Note to our Readers Upper Brandon plantation was part of an original land patent known as Brandon, granted to Captain John Martin, one of the founders of Jamestown.He was succeeded by several absentee owners, including a grandson of William Shakespeare, until the property was purchased by Benjamin Harrison II of Wakefield in 1712.. Bowens was born at Drayton in 1908, and returned to Charleston from Chicago in the 1970s. The plaintiff was Henrietta Wood, described by a reporter at the time as a spectacled negro woman, apparently sixty years old. The defendant was Zebulon Ward, a white man who had enslaved Wood 25 years before. Horse foundered, took him to Middletons camp. In order to identify records of interest, you must first examine the genealogy of slaveholding families. Few white Americans wished to dwell on those evils. In the eyes of Kentucky law, Wood was a slave. The study found 3,777 Negro slave owners in the United States. But Wood's name never made it into the history books. "And I know some people might think that's strange," says Belton, 76.. The letter continued: Jane and three children brought $2795. Gerard Brandon (1818-1874) was the Mississippi planter who purchased Henrietta Wood and then took her to Robertson County, Texas, during the Civil War. 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. | READ MORE. The building is an example of the fast-disappearing service structures that once were a ubiquitous feature of the Southern agrarian landscape. Updated Ward began to plot with a group of these notorious "slave catchers." Eats water melons at Joness, drinks a mint julep, has dinner with good soup & a peach cobbler. On Monday (August 17?) A copy was made, 6 October 1804. Parole denied for RFK assassin Sirhan Sirhan, Ship that sank in 1894 discovered in Lake Huron, Why Fox News pushed Trump's bogus election claims, Tennessee governor says photo of him in skirt and wig irrelevant to drag show ban, Jurassic-era insect discovered at Arkansas Walmart, Why space experts want to establish a lunar time zone. Wood suffered another, unexpected setback in 1874 when her lawyer was murdered by a clients husband in an unrelated divorce case. I created this site because I have a passion for old houses! Old Mr. S. Turner bought Jane and children. The sale included 1,514 7 /10 acres and a town lot and buildings in Mt Pleasant. 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. Two hundred and five years ago, on the night of January 8, 1811, more than 500 enslaved people took up arms in one of the largest slave rebellions in U.S. history. ) If some of the enslaved people owned by James Brandon were also taken to Texas by Gerard, it is possible that this is the woman referred to in the journal, who would have been a teenager at the time. Upper Brandon Plantation: William Byrd Harrison, George Harrison Byrd, Francis Otway Byrd, Harry C. Thompson, Fred E. Watkins, Jim Justice See Goodspeeds entry on the Brandon family. She had not forgotten Ward and sued him the following year. This list is by no means complete. More critical talk from his dinner partners about rich planters, whose negroes are dressed better than Texas soldiers. Brandon feels it unfair but holds his peace. Two days earlier, the jury had watched as Wood took the stand; her son, Arthur, who lived in Chicago, was in the courtroom. He helped Wood file a lawsuit in Cincinnati against Ward, now a wealthy man living in Lexington. (this book has a wealth of info on slaves - since many of the people listed were freed in wills - details of emancipation are there as well as detailed physical descriptions) The plantation, however, plays a role in the darkest period of American history. So using a $100,000 corporate grant from Dominion, one of the nations largest producers and transporters of energy, society researchers began examining some of its 8 million manuscripts that Virginia residents have been giving to the historical society since its founding in 1831. The site is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the final tour starts at 4 p.m. It is currently used as a successful wedding venue and bed & breakfast. At some point during those hellish days, Wood gave birth to Arthur, whose father is unknown. Then, in 1848, Jane Cirode went to a county courthouse and registered Wood as free. how Texas has been over stated. With help from his mothers court-ordered compensation, Arthur bought a house, started a family and paid for his own schooling. It is believed that the name Brandon came from the family name of Martin's wife . 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. The Brandons had numerous slaves and most likely used them for tobacco growing, resulting the in the prosperity that enabled the construction of the ca. [1] [2] [3] I wanted to be able to see and connect the dots.. The value of his real estate was $18,000. The search for enslaved ancestors requires research in the records of slaveholding families. For them, the money Henrietta Wood demanded for her enslavement made a long-lasting difference. Notations on page 5 of his pocketbook indicate that on July 1, he first paid $140 for a ferry at Quitmans (a reference to a contemporary place in Adams County known as Quitmans Landing and referred to in papers and military records of that time; it was north of Natchez). Goes Friday to see after some negroes I had hired in Falls Co. Stays with H. L. Bennett. Wonderful site.. Ward planned to make Wood the latest victim of this trade, but she resolved to fight. 468 Filed Under: Mississippi Natchez Natchez These searches were performed by Christina via HeritageQuest as part of her RA Assignments.4. 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? She would one day recall that period of her life as a sweet taste of liberty.. $$$ info@brandonhallplantation.com Closed now 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM Charles S. Darden 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.. Ward planned to make Wood the latest victim of this trade, but she resolved to fight. The family plans to occupy the. whole race. They lived in this original dwelling until 1853, when they began construction of Brandon Hall which was completed in 1856. If he followed the road from San Augustine to Crockett pictured on Texas Map (1865), then he likely passed through Nacogdoches as well. Call List Agent for a Fact Sheet. Wood was among them. Brandon strictly instructs them not to trade with anyone. 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. In which they had cooked their supper make Wood the latest victim this! Only after eight years of litigation, leaving Wood to wonder if she would ever get justice she succeeded that. Building is an example of the few private driveways directly off the Natchez Trace Parkway study 3,777. In Falls Co. 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