Table 1: Slaves Belonging to Bushrod Washington,

1815-1830

 

Bushrod Washington inherited 42 slaves from his father, John Augustine Washington, in 1787. Some of them had become Bushrod’s property upon his marriage, two years earlier, and his father’s will confirmed the transfer. He inherited more slaves from his parents’ estate after his mother, Hannah Bushrod Washington, died in 1801. He brought some of those people, or their descendants, to Mount Vernon in 1802.

 

The stories of several of these people are told in greater detail in Sarah Johnson’s Mount Vernon. Oliver Smith (#49), Bushrod Washington’s closest manservant for nearly 50 years, also became many visitors’ guide at Mount Vernon in the 1820s and 1830s. His son Phil (#51) was Mount Vernon’s skilled gardener as late as the mid-1840s, and his daughter Hannah (#54) was tried and convicted of attempting to poison Bushrod Washington’s overseer. Venus, who appears last (#88) on this list, was the mother of West Ford, whose manumission at the age of 21 (c. 1806) was mandated by Hannah Bushrod Washington’s will. West Ford worked as a free carpenter and sometime manager at Mount Vernon for the rest of his life; he also owned a farm of more than 200 acres, which became the origin of the Gum Springs neighborhood near Mount Vernon. Lewis Wiggins (#81), bequeathed to Jane Charlotte Washington by Bushrod’s will, received his free papers in 1849 and emigrated to Liberia.

 

Table 1 is based primarily on two documents: Bushrod Washington’s “List of my Negroes,” dated July 24, 1815; and the 1830 inventory and division of Bushrod’s estate (see Sources). It does not reveal the names of any slaves whose time at Mount Vernon began after the 1815 list and ended before the 1830 inventory. For example, it does not include children born in the late 1810s or 1820s who died before Bushrod Washington did. (This omission surely includes some of the 83 slaves enumerated by the 1820 U.S. census as belonging to Bushrod Washington; only 79 people appeared on his 1815 list.) This table identifies people as “acquired” by inheritance or by purchase, including children born after Bushrod Washington inherited or bought their parents. If the enslaved person remained at Mount Vernon when Bushrod Washington died, that person’s inventoried value is listed here, along with which heir received him or her in the estate division (see note for initials).

 

This table reveals the presence of large family groups at Bushrod Washington’s Mount Vernon, but surviving evidence of these relationships is generally sketchy. For example, we know that Oliver and Doll Smith’s son Jack (#52) was married to James and Hannah’s daughter Betty (#38) because this fact was recorded on a manuscript copy of the estate division in 1830. But we do not know much about other marriages between families, because few of Bushrod Washington’s personal papers survive.

 

In addition to enumerating the women, men, and children enslaved at Mount Vernon during Bushrod Washington’s ownership, this table also suggests answers to another question: Which slaves did Bushrod Washington sell in 1821? No list survives, but entire families disappear between the 1815 list and the 1830 inventory. Individuals might perish, but sale is a likelier explanation for the disappearance of entire extended families. See, for instance, the families of Joe and Sinah (#1-17), Ham and Pat (#18-23), Robin and Nell (#24-29), and Ben and Suck (#44-48) below. Washington claimed to have sold families intact, in order to keep them together.

 

When compared with the 1787 division of Bushrod Washington’s father’s estate (Table 4), these documents raise another question: What happened to the 42 slaves Bushrod Washington inherited from that estate? Only two of them appeared on his 1815 list: Oliver and Doll Smith, who had been his household servants ever since the late 1780s.  As a young lawyer in Alexandria, Virginia, in the 1790s, he did not need dozens of field workers. Those people may have remained at Bushfield while Hannah Bushrod Washington lived; when Bushrod Washington sold that plantation in 1804, it is possible that he sold some of its laborers too.

 

 

 

Notes and abbreviations:

          

Washington generation #1: Bushrod’s parents

JAW 1 = John Augustine Washington: father of Bushrod Washington; brother of George Washington

HBW = Hannah Bushrod Washington: wife of John Augustine Washington (I)

 

Washington generation #2: Bushrod’s generation

BW = Bushrod Washington

JABW = Julia Ann Blackburn Washington: wife of Bushrod Washington

WAW = William Augustine Washington: brother-in-law of Bushrod Washington; husband of Jane (Jenny) Washington, Bushrod’s sister

 

Washington generation #3: Bushrod’s nephews

JAW 2 = John Augustine Washington: nephew of Bushrod Washington; son of Corbin and Hannah Lee Washington; inherited historic part of Mount Vernon

BCW = Bushrod Corbin Washington: nephew of Bushrod Washington; son of Corbin and Hannah Lee Washington; younger brother of JAW 2

RHLW = Richard Henry Lee Washington: nephew of Bushrod Washington; son of Corbin and Hannah Lee Washington; elder brother of JAW 2; died 1817

BWJ = Bushrod Washington “Junior”: actually Bushrod Washington’s nephew; son of Jane (Jenny) Washington and William Augustine Washington

GCW = George Corbin Washington: nephew of Bushrod Washington; son of Jane (Jenny) Washington and William Augustine Washington

B&NH = Bushrod and Noblet Herbert: great-nephews of Bushrod Washington; sons of Bushrod’s deceased niece, Mary Lee Washington Herbert

 

* = remained at Mount Vernon after Bushrod Washington’s death and estate division

A Mount Vernon Slave Census, 1815-1861