Feb 17, 2017 Orange County Review
The search for living descendants of the 16 enslaved Virginians sold in 1834 from the Montpelier Plantation to William Taylor and then removed to Louisiana (good grief, I really need a shorter description) has truly been a Pandora’s Box.
It is not so much the level of evidence that those identified thus far were originally enslaved at Montpelier, but rather the vast number of other pathways that have been revealed.
The stories abound, as literally thousands of others were born in Virginia and sold south. Volumes of research have been compiled regarding this practice and I am grateful now for the opportunity provided by the Montpelier Foundation to do a small part in turning that tragedy into a possible homecoming. We shall see!
Follow the story discovered thus far about one Eugenia [Jenny] Cook, born about 1800 in Virginia. It is my current theory that this woman, commonly referred to throughout Taylor documents and listed in the 1870 and 1880 census records as Jenny Cook, was not one of the 16 slaves from Montpelier. I believe that Jenny Cook was originally enslaved at Berry Hill, the Thom family home in Culpeper County, and accompanied Lucy L. Thom Taylor to Louisiana after her marriage in October 1834 to William Taylor.
Read the supporting evidence and draw your own conclusions.
An entry in Wm. Taylor’s diary dated July 22, 1834 reads “Jenny Culpeper a Cook had a male child baptized by the name William.” There existed no further references to a Jenny Culpeper, however, there were several continuing references in deeds, diary entries and Taylor’s inventory to a Jenny Cook.
Historic records tell us that it is the exception rather than the rule that the names of slaves would include a surname. However, there is reason to believe that Wm. Taylor demonstrated a pattern of identifying certain slaves with a surname which may have indicated their place of origin or occupation. Occasionally, he identified a woman by the given name of the man who was noted as her spouse. As an example: Mary Luke (Luke and Mary Ann Long).
To explore this theory, I searched the Culpeper County Church records for evidence that upon the marriage of Lucy L. Thom to Wm. Taylor, Lucy Thom may have received one or more slaves as part of a dowry or that Wm. Taylor may have purchased one or more slaves from the Thom family. To date, I have been unsuccessful in finding such a record.
Next, I examined the book “My Dear Brother, A Confederate Chronicle,” by Catherine Thom Bartlett, published in 1952 by the Dietz Press, Inc. in Richmond. On page 11, following a description of the Thom/Taylor wedding at Berry Hill and the subsequent journey to Louisiana via Fredericksburg, was written, “Boxes and trunks were piled upon the stage, a place was found for Lucy’s maid, the last farewells were said and they were off.”
Could the woman mentioned as Lucy’s maid have been Jenny?
Based on accounts of the type of individual a planter would be selecting for work on a sugar plantation, those purchased from James Madison would have been field hands—male or female—between the ages of 15 - 25. Their birth years would fall between 1809 and 1819.
Per various records, Jenny was born about 1800; not an ideal candidate for work in the sugar fields, but perhaps well-suited to care for the needs of the new bride.
Until next week, be well.