Matilda (Taliaferro) Helm (abt. 1767 - 1806)

Born about 1767 in Rosehill, Orange, Virginia

Ancestors

Wife of William Willis Helm — married 31 May 1784 in Orange, Virginia, United States

Descendants

Died 1806 at about age 39 in Bath, Steuben, New York, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Harold Cross [send private message]

Biography

Matilda Taliaferro was born in 1767 in Orange, Virginia, her father, Francis, was 24, and her mother, Jane, was 22. She married Capt William Willis Helm on May 31, 1784, in her hometown. She died in 1807^[1] in Bath, New York, at the age of 40.

Matilda TALIAFERRO b c 1767

• m1 Presley Thornton
• m2 31 May 1784, Orange Co, William HELM son of Lynaugh Helm and Hester Netherton, Ne8 wid Pope

Children

1. Lynaugh Helm b c 1785
2. Thomas Helm b
3. Amelia Helm b
4. William Willis Helm Jr b
5. Jane Helm b c 1786
6. Matilda Helm b c 1787
7. Hay Taliaferro Helm b c 1789
8. Francis Taliaferro Helm b 1790 d 1871 Louisville KY m Sarah McKinney

Excerpts from Austin Steward's autobiography

Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman; Embracing a Correspondence of Several Years, While President of Wilberforce Colony, London, Canada West. by Steward, Austin (1793-1869)

Mrs. Helm was a very industrious woman, and generally busy in her household affairs - sewing, knitting, and looking after the servants; but she was a great scold, - continually finding fault with some of the servants, and frequently punishing the young slaves herself, by striking them over the head with a heavy iron key, until the blood ran; or else whipping them with a cowhide, which she always kept by her side when sitting in her room. The older servants she would cause to be punished by having them severely whipped by a man, which she never failed to do for every trifling fault. I have felt the weight of some of her heaviest keys on my own head, and for the slightest offences. No slave could possibly escape being punished - I care not how attentive they might be, nor how industrious - punished they must be, and punished they certainly were. Mrs. Helm appeared o be uneasy unless some of the servants were under the lash. She came into the kitchen one morning and my mother, who was cook, had just put on the dinner. Mrs. Helm took out her white cambric handkerchief, and rubbed it on the inside of the pot, and it crocked it! That was enough to invoke the wrath of my master, who came forth immediately with his horse-whip, with which he whipped my poor mother most unmercifully-far more severely than I ever knew him to whip a horse....

Mrs. Helm's health began to decline, but she would pay no attention to it, following her usual course and regular routine of household duties; but all in vain; she was taken down, alarmingly ill, and it became apparent to all, that the "king of terrors" had chosen his victim. She tried with all her natural energy of character, to baffle his pursuit and escape his steady approach, but all to no purpose. "The valley and the shadow of death" were before her, and she had no assurance that the "rod and staff " of the Almighty would sustain and comfort her through the dark passage. She shrank with perfect horror from the untried scenes of the future.

If any one had ever envied Mrs. Helm in her drawing-room, richly attired and sparkling with jewels, or as she moved with the stately step of a queen among her trembling slaves, they should have beheld her on her death bed! They should have listened to her groans and cries for help, while one piercing shriek after another rang through the princely mansion of which she had been the absolute mistress!

Surrounded as she was with every elegance and luxury that wealth could procure, she lay shrieking out her prayers for a short respite, a short lengthening out of the life she had spent so unprofitably; her eyes wandering restlessly about the apartment, and her hands continually clinching the air, as if to grasp something that would prevent her from sinking into the embrace of death! There was not a slave present, who would have exchanged places with her. Not one of those over whom she had ruled so arbitrarily would have exchanged their rough, lowly cabin and quiet conscience, for all the wealth and power she had ever possessed.

Nothing of all she had enjoyed in life, nor all that she yet called her own, could give her one hour of life or one peaceful moment in death!

Oh! what a scene was that! The wind blew, and great drops of rain fell on the casements. The room lighted only with a single taper; the wretched wife mingles her dying groans with the howling of the storm, until, as the clock struck the hour of midnight she fell back upon her pillow and expired, amid the tears and cries of her family and friends, who not only deplored the loss of a wife and mother, but were grieved by the manner in which she died.

The slaves were all deeply affected by the scene; some doubtless truly lamented the death of their mistress; others rejoiced that she was no more, and all were more or less frightened. One of them I remember went to the pump and wet his face, so as to appear to weep with the rest.

What a field was opened for reflection, by the agonizing death of Mrs. Helm? Born and reared in affluence; well educated and highly accomplished, possessed of every means to become a useful woman and an ornament to her sex; which she most likely would have been, had she been instructed in the Christian religion, and had lived under a different influence. As infidelity ever deteriorates from the female character, so Slavery transforms more than one, otherwise excellent woman, into a feminine monster.

Of Mrs. Helm, with her active intellect and great force of character, it made a tyrannical demon. Her race, however is ended; her sun gone down in darkness, and her soul we must leave in the keeping of a righteous God, to whom we must all give an account for the deeds done in the body. But in view of the transitory pleasures of this life; the unsatisfactory realization of wealth, and the certainty of death, we may well inquire, "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

Slave Owner

The Helm family held more than 100 people in slavery in Virginia. They sold many enslaved people and the estate, then took the cash and moved to Bath, Steuben, NY. In the 1810 census, William Helm is listed with 31 slaves.

Sources

1. ↑ www.multiwords.de/genealogy/netherton.htm)

• https://www.colonial-settlers-md-va.us/getperson.php?personID=I37277&tree=Tree1
• Virginia, Marriages, 1785-1940
• MyHeritage.com [online database], MyHeritage Ltd. [1]
• Record: https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-30207-680112/matilda-taliaferro-and-william-helm-in-virginia-marriages, Matilda Taliaferro & William Helm, Country: USA; State: Virginia; Film: 33031
• Citation: William Helm, Marriage: May 31 1784 - Orange, Virginia, Wife: Matilda Taliaferro