By Tom Perry
Their names were Peter, Jack, Charles, Bob, Moses, Jefferson, Suckey, Catharine, Lucy, John, Caroline, Winney, Amy, Lavina, Walter, Celia, Henry, Sucky, David, Luther, Louisa, John, Charles, Scott, Jackson, Seth, Nancy, Margarett Jefferson, Martha Jane, Alice, Sally, Gustavis, Samuel, Betty, Sampson, and Archibald. They were the largest group of people living at the home of Archibald and Elizabeth Stuart. Other than their names, we know little about them. They were the slaves of Laurel Hill.
William Letcher’s will mentions nine enslaved people living at Laurel Hill in 1780. Their names were David, Ben, Randolph, Craft, Nann, Look, Abraham, Will, and Dick. These people probably returned with Letcher’s widow, Elizabeth, and lived at Beaver Creek Plantation in Henry County, the home of George Hairston, the second husband of Mrs. Letcher. The Hairstons are considered the largest slave owners in the nation before the Civil War.
The personal property records report enslaved people above the age of sixteen for tax purposes. The number of taxable enslaved people ranges from three in 1824, sixteen in 1846, to eleven in 1856, after Archibald Stuart’s death the preceding year. The 1850 slave schedule of the United States Census shows nearly thirty slaves, primarily women and children, living at Laurel Hill.
The information we have is from several sources: the slave schedules of the 1840 and 1850 Censuses, personal property records, and indentures in the deed books at the Patrick County courthouse. Indentures were agreements between Archibald Stuart and others, involving the exchange of money and land, with the slaves serving as collateral.
We are aware of relationships between individuals from these sources. In 1839, we know that Charles, age 40, and Suckey, age 43, had an infant child named Nancy and other children: Margarett, age 19, Jefferson, age 19, Catharine, age 17, Lucy, age 15, John, age 13, Louisa, age 11, Charles Henry, age 5, and Martha Jane, age 3. The majority of the enslaved people were women and their children: Suckey, her children: Catharine, Lucy, John, Charles, and Caroline, Winney and her children: Amy, Lavina, and Walter, Celia and her children: Henry, Sucky, David, Samuel, and Luther, Catharine and her children: Alice, Sally, and Gustavis.
Little is known about the fate of the slaves of Laurel Hill. No black Stuarts are known to be living in Patrick County, assuming that the formerly enslaved people took the name of their former owners. Any information about these people would be greatly appreciated so that we can tell the whole story at Laurel Hill.
The J.E.B. Stuart Birthplace does not shy away from telling the story of these people who lived on the farm and are part of the many histories of Laurel Hill that this series of articles tries to share. The traditional gravesite of the slaves has been cleared and marked with a granite stone similar to the one denoting the state and national register of historic places. It reads simply “Dedicated To The Memory Of The Servants Who Lie Here,” but for us all, theirs is a lost history.
Tom Perry can be reached at freestateofpatrick@yahoo.com, and the J.E.B. Stuart birthplace’s website is www.jebstuart.org.
