Slaves of John Anthony Quitman
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Surnames/tags: Quitman Slaves
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Introduction
--UNDER CONSTUCTION--
John Anthony Quitman (September 1, 1798 – July 17, 1858) was an American lawyer, politician, and soldier. Born in Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York, he attend school in Pennsylvania before he was admitted to the bar (1820) and moved to Mississippi, arriving at Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi in 1821.
Plantations
John A. Quitman owned multiple plantations:
- Monmouth, at Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi,
- Palmyra, Davis Bend, Warren County, Mississippi which he acquired through marriage (cotton)
- Live Oaks, near Houma, Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, sugar and molasses
- Springfield, Jefferson County, Mississippi which he purchased in 1834, on the Mississippi River near Natchez, a cotton plantation and dairy farm
- Belen, on Bee Lake in Holmes County, Mississippi, cotton[1]
Monmouth, Natchez, Mississippi
Monmouth evolved from rough timber, mortar, nails and brick to a stately antebellum, suburban villa built from the labor of human hands both free and enslaved (https://www.monmouthhistoricinn.com/history/)
Monmouth a two-story brick house in the Federal style, was built by John Hankinson, a postmaster, lawyer and steamboat entrepreneur, during the depression that followed the War of 1812, and named after his home, Monmouth County, New Jersey. The property included a detached brick kitchen behind it, a garden house, and several outhouses. Hankinson and his wife died soon after completing the house and the house was sold at a public auction to Calvin Smith, who one year later sold the property to John Anthony Quitman, the future Governor of Mississippi.
Forty-nine year old Eliza, a widow with several underage children, and multiple Monmouth household obligations, assumed stewardship of four plantations and the hundreds of enslaved individuals. This great responsibility, however, was short lived. In 1859, Monmouth's matriarch Eliza Turner Quitman died and was buried next to her husband at Monmouth. Quitman daughters would later move their parents to the city cemetery north of town.(https://www.monmouthhistoricinn.com/history/)
1824 - John A. Quitman purchases Monmouth as home for his wife Eliza Turner and newborn daughter, Louisa.
1833 - Cholera claims Quitman’s infant sons, John and Edward. An enslaved woman at Monmouth named Aunt Dicey is put into service as a nursemaid to Eliza and John Quitman’s children.
1834 - Quitman purchases fifty slaves. A house slave at Monmouth name Harry Nichols is put into service as personal valet to John Quitman.
1836 - Harry Nichols travels with Quitman to Texas. Quitman participates in Texas Independence over Mexico.
1842 - John and Eliza’s family grows to seven children. Aunt Dicey is “banished” to Springfield Plantation by Eliza for “misbehaving.”
1846 - John Quitman serves as a victorious general in the war with Mexico he is assisted by “faithful” Harry Nichols. Quitman procures a daguerreotype of Harry.
1850 - John Quitman becomes Governor of Mississippi. A Monmouth house slave named Belle Vessels assists at the “White House of Mississippi.”
1856 - Aunt Dicey is allowed back at Monmouth. Viola Vessels, a Monmouth house slave, is bridesmaid at the wedding of enslaved couple at neighboring Melrose, a suburban estate owned by Quitman’s law partner, John McMurran. Viola is married the following year to Marcellus Brannick, a house slave at Melrose.
1858 - Quitman dies at Monmouth. His wife Eliza dies at Monmouth one year later. Daughters Annie Rosalie, J. Antonia, and Louisa marry and remain at Monmouth.
1861 - The state of Mississippi secedes from the Union. The Quitman daughters see their husbands off to war. Monmouth slaves are asking, “how’s master”?
1862 - Natchez surrenders to the Union Army. Monmouth house slaves begin to run off, including Monmouth house slaves Charles Vessels, Richard Austin and Isaac, all of whom join the Union Army.
1863 - Monmouth is occupied by Union Soldiers whereupon extensive looting occurs. Harry Nichols joins the Union Army, and then returns to Monmouth “demanding wages”. Quitman daughters begin paying wages to eight former house slaves. Aunt Dicey and Old Sarah are compensated in their old age.
1865 - The only staff left at Monmouth is “Fred and his family along with Harry and his wife”. Surviving Quitman daughters sell off Monmouth’s household possessions to former Monmouth enslaved to supplement their income.
1875 - A Lease/Lien agreement is signed with John Williams, giving the Quitman daughters a lien on any cotton grown on Monmouth premises for the payment of rent.
1887 - John Quitman’s granddaughters, Eva C. Lovell and Alice Lovell, move back to Natchez and take up residence at Monmouth. Viola Vessels Brannick’s daughters, Corinne and Hester, childhood companions to Eva, return to Monmouth as paid staff.
1902 - Belle Vessles, a former house slave to Governor Quitman at the “White House of Mississippi”, lives at the edge of Monmouth where she and her husband rent Monmouth land for crops. One year later Quitman’s daughter, Annie Rosalie Quitman Duncan, sells a half acre of Monmouth to Viola Brannick (a widow) for the sum of $200.
1912 - Corrine Scott “a colored woman” who grew up at Monmouth purchases from Rose Duncan one-half acre of Monmouth property as “her residence for the sum of $100”. Former house slave, Charles Vessels also purchases a portion of Monmouth property.
1914 - Annie Rosalie Quitman Duncan, the last surviving child of John and Eliza Quitman, dies at Monmouth, leaving Monmouth to her nieces, Eva Lovell and Alice Lovell. Descendants of Monmouth enslaved and staff, Corinne Scott, Frank Tolles, Viola Brannick, and Kitty Austin are listed as beneficiaries in “Aunt Rose’s” will.
1924 - Monmouth passes from the hands of Quitman descendants when it is sold to Annie Gwen. Corrine Scott sells her portion of Monmouth to Mamie Davis for $500 (https://www.monmouthhistoricinn.com/history/timeline)
The house passed to five daughters and one son following the death of both parents in 1858 and 1859. Not long after that, the war came calling – and so did the Union army. Most of the family possessions were either stolen or destroyed – leaving the Quitman children with their backs against the wall.
Enter three of the sisters – Louisa, Annie Rosalie and Fredericka – who apparently decided that enough was enough. History only records that the three ladies “befriended” a Union general, following which the house was somehow spared any further destruction. (https://southernvoice.net/2018/05/17/the-three-quitman-sisters-of-natchez-mississippi/)
Additional Source: Monmouth Plantation: Its Majesty and Legacy, Published on Aug 13, 2013 (https://issuu.com/megaheartmedia/docs/monmouthplantation)
Palmyra, Davis Bend, Mississippi
See Palmyra Plantation, Warren County, Mississippi
Not counting house servants, at Palmyra, he enslaved 311 people under sixty years of age in 1848[2]
Live Oaks, Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana
their sugar cane plantations Live Oaks and Dulac in Terrebonne Parish, La.,
Not counting house servants at Live Oaks, he enslaved 85 in 1850; at Springfield, 39 in 1842; and at Belen, 32 in 1858[2]
Springfield, Jefferson County, Mississippi
Section 33. T 9N. R1W (near the South Fork of Coles Creek)8 miles west of Fayette, Mississippi
Volume 7 is a memoranda book for Springfield Plantation kept by John Quitman between 1833 and 1839 and in 1849. Included are entries on the purchase of the plantation and lists of slaves and slave families at the plantation. In the middle of the volume are descriptions, dated 1842, of fruits and vegetables grown at Monmouth Plantation (http://www.lexisnexis.com/documents/academic/upa_cis/2442_AnteBellSouthPlanSerJPt6.pdf)
He enslaved 39 at Springfield in 1842[3]
National Register of Historic Places - Springfield Plantation https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MS/71000454.pdf
Thomas Marston Green, Jr. (1758-1813), Springfield, was a member of the first general assembly of the Territory of Mississippi and the second man to represent the territory in the U. S. Congress. He was a son of Colonel Thomas M. Green (1723-1805), who was instrumental in the establishment of the short-lived Bourbon County (which included the Natchez district) by Georgia in 1785. Thomas M. Green, Jr., was a brother of Abner Green, territorial treasurer of Mississippi, and brother-in-law of Cato West, acting governor of the territory, 1803-1805, and a Jefferson County delegate to the state constitutional convention of 1817. Colonel Thomas Hinds, who distinguished himself in the Pensacola and New Orleans campaigns with Jackson and was also active in the territorial period and early statehood of Mississippi, was a son-in-law of Thomas M. Green, Jr. The Springfield estate was retained by members of the Green family until 1850, and in 1914 the house and 533 acres were acquired by James H. Williams, father of the present owner.
Belen, Holmes County, Mississippi
Belen Plantation was located on Bee Lake near the Yazoo River, in Holmes County, Mississippi, which Quitman did not develop into a plantation until the mid-1850’s.
During an inundation of Palmyra in the spring of 1850, Quitman decided that he had tolerated partial crops long enough and set out upriver on the Yazoo with Henry Turner to locate higher ground. In Holmes County he found what he was looking for. Amid a healthy stand of cypress trees, he established his last cotton plantation. Set back from the Yazoo a half mile at its closet point, Belen extended over 1,640 acres along a body of water shaped vaguely like the letter B and named appropriately Bee Lake. Quitman expected Belen to produce consistently, and he allotted it some thirty of his Palmyra slaves.[4]
Belen had 29 slaves under 60 in 1855 and 32 slaves under 60 three years later. [5]
He enslaved 32 at Belen in 1858[6]
An ad in The Yazoo Herald on 28 January 1876 offered "at a sacrifice to raise money. the fine Bee Lake Plantation, Section 20, Township 14, Range 1 West, Holmes County, Miss. L. N. Perry, County Auctioneer."[7]
Census
Will
Sources
- ↑ Robert E. May, "John A Quitman and His Slaves: Reconciling Slave Resistance with the Pro-slavery Defense," The Journal of Southern History 46 (November 1980), 554-555.
- ↑ May, Robert E. (November 1980). "John A. Quitman and His Slaves: Reconciling Slave Resistance with the Proslavery Defense". Journal of Southern History. 46 (4): 551–70. doi:10.2307/2207202. JSTOR 2207202.: 554–555
- ↑ May, Robert E. (November 1980). "John A. Quitman and His Slaves: Reconciling Slave Resistance with the Proslavery Defense". Journal of Southern History. 46 (4): 551–70. doi:10.2307/2207202. JSTOR 2207202.: 554–555
- ↑ Robert E. May. John A. Quitman: Old South Crusader LSU Press, 1985. page 133.
- ↑ Robert E. May. John A. Quitman: Old South Crusader LSU Press, 1985. page 138.
- ↑ May, Robert E. (November 1980). "John A. Quitman and His Slaves: Reconciling Slave Resistance with the Proslavery Defense". Journal of Southern History. 46 (4): 551–70. doi:10.2307/2207202. JSTOR 2207202.: 554–555
- ↑
1876 Newspaper:
"Newspapers.com"
The Yazoo Herald (Yazoo City, Mississippi) Fri, Jan 28, 1876, page 2
- Find A Grave: Memorial #6446812
- John A. Quitman on Wikipedia
- FamilySearch: John Anthony Quitman FamilySearch Person: KJ5Z-GM8
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