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 Bills of Sale and Rental for Slaves, West Virginia, 1829-55, over 60 of them, all from William Dickinson of Dickinson &
Shrewsbury of Kanawha County Virginia (now West Virginia), most 8.5 x 11 in. or smaller, usual file folds. The company, founded in 1814 by Dickinson and Joel Shrewsbury along the banks of the Kanawha River, was a large user of slave labor in their
salt works and mines, often rented from local slave owners. In December 1865, William Dickinson initiated dissolution proceedings against Joel Shrewsbury. At the time, the company owned four salt furnaces and 59 parcels of land in Kanawha County and
Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and the company claimed ownership of 130 enslaved laborers. In the fall of 2019, a group of over 2,000 documents (some of which are slave-related, others business-related) were sold for $140,000 hammer
(https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/Lots/LotDetails?salename=%28SLAVERY-AND-ABOLITION.%29-Records-of-the-Dickinson-%26-Shre-2517%2B%2B%2B%2B%2B204%2B-%2B%2B759975&saleno=2517&lotNo=204&refNo=759975). The lot description reads in part, "The
connections between the renowned educator Booker T. Washington and the salt works of Kanawha Salines were numerous and deep. He was born circa 1856 in Hale's Ford, Franklin County, VA, in the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, close to
Bedford County where Dickinson and Shrewsbury had first joined forces. His mother Jane was enslaved; the name of his white father was not known, but was thought to be likely his owner James Burroughs (1794-1861) or a member of Josiah Ferguson's
family on a neighboring plantation…Booker's stepfather Washington "Wash" Ferguson, owned by T.C. Ferguson, had apparently been hired out to work at Kanawha at least intermittently from 1844 onward, returning long enough to marry Booker's
mother Jane in the early 1860s. A few months after the war ended, Wash summoned Jane, Booker and the rest of the family to join him in West Virginia. 9-year-old Booker was set to work packing barrels of salt. His stepfather only grudgingly allowed
him to attend school between shifts at the salt works, working a schedule of 4 to 9 each morning and then returning for two hours after school. Circa 1867, Booker was able to leave the salt works for life as a household servant with Lewis Ruffner,
one of the area's rival salt moguls (and a son-in-law of Joel Shrewsbury). See Harlan, "Booker T. Washington's West Virginia Boyhood," in West Virginia History 32:2 (January 1971), pages 63-85", Fine to Very Fine, see the entire group online.
Shipping charges apply - weight 2.2 lbs. (Video for this lot) (Video2 for this lot) (Image)
Get Market Data for [Ephemera Collection] Visual Pricing Guide Sample Census |
Estimate $2,000-3,000
SOLD for $10,000.00
Will close during Public Auction |
