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Conway, Henry R. Conway, and John Moncure — are listed as prominent customers by “Negro Hirers and General Agents” firm P.M. Tabb and Sons of Richmond in October 1860.    

Increasingly, failure to control enslaved persons attracted legal attention. In October 1856, Staffordian John W. D. Ford was cited for “permitting slaves under his control to go at large.” Especially during tense times – such as during the Chatham Slave Revolt in 1804-1805, the Nat Turner Revolt in Southampton County in 1831, and the John…

John Brown’s 1859 Harpers’ Ferry raid renewed old fears of enslaved insurrection and Virginia militia companies were rapidly formed or re-formed.  Prewar business-as-usual continued in Stafford where enslaved persons now worked as domestic and plantation/farm workers.   Falmouth’s “Captain Pickett” continued to whip errant enslaved people for fees.  Also continuing in the area was the “underground…

Hannah Coalter of  “Chatham” attempted to emancipate her 92 enslaved people in her 1857 will.  Their manumission was to take place in January 1858.   But, it was blocked successfully in the Virginia courts by J. Horace Lacy, a Coalter in-law relation who bought the plantation. Featured Image: Chatham, National Park Service

Not all enslaved people remained enslaved.  Sully Watson, originally enslaved by the Moncure family at “Windsor Forest” in northern Stafford, was described as light-skinned, with green or blue eyes.  Born there in 1780, Watson managed to buy his freedom and lived as a free man in Stafford until 1834, when he moved to Ohio and…

A December 1804 revolt at Chatham warned the region of potential insurrections by those enslaved.  A January 1805 “Virginia Herald” article related that the Chatham enslaved rebelled at having their Christmas holiday cut short, then seized and whipped the overseer, a Mr. Starke.  Militiaman Benjamin Bussell of Falmouth was wounded and died.  An enslaved leader,…

Potential revolts by enslaved persons kept Virginia militia strengths at high levels. By 1840, Virginia’s organized citizen-soldier militia fielded over 111,000 men (compared to a U.S. Regular Army of over 8,000). Maintained throughout the antebellum period, historian Kelly O’Grady relates: “Militias, as state-level military organizations, were mustered by counties and even small communities like Hartwood.…

Over 220 year-old pick marks are still visible where Federal-era immigrant stone-cutters and enslaved workers cut and moved the Aquia sandstone from Government Island quarry to build the President’s House and U.S. Capitol in D.C., as well as many public and private buildings throughout the new nation. Sprinkled throughout the county were other stone quarries…

Even though no side came out the decisive winner, the Southerners had a different take of the engagement.  According to an article in “The Fredericksburg News,” dated June 4, 1861, the final result was reportedly limited to the death of a chicken and horse, the destruction of the wharf, and damage to part of the…

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