Rita Goldberg,

	I offer only a little light.  Others who do people genealogy might
provide more help if you mention the testator's name

	I have seen several references to Quakers in Cedar Creek, Waynoke or
White Oak Swamp Monthly Meeting in Hanover, Charles City, or Henrico County
or in Richmond City freeing their slaves in their wills.  I recall reading
of a famous Virginia lawsuit on such a provision in one of the STANLEY (or
STANDLEY) or PLEASANTS wills.  By late in the 18th Century [White Oak Swamp
MM bought the first Richmond meetinghouse in 1797] and certainly by 1818,
the Quakers' Virginia Yearly Meeting had made it a disciplinary offense to
own slaves.  That suggests the testator could not have been a Quaker in
1818, but he might have been previously or he might have been related to
Quakers.  As various southern States passed laws that required freed slaves
to emigrate to a free state, the Quakers often helped them pay for the
travel or even transported them to the North where they would not have been
again enslaved.

	I have also seen various Quaker wills where female relatives with
different names received bequests; however, the family relationship was
generally spelled out.  The final Quaker possibility is that the testator
was an elder who had accepted responsibility for the care of a widow in his
local meeting or another congregation in the broader monthly meeting, and he
was establishing a fund to carry out that responsibility.

		Tom Hill 

Thomas C. Hill 
Charlottesville, VA  22901-6355 U.S.A.
www.QuakerMeetings.com   
E-mail: [log in to unmask] 


-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history On Behalf Of
Rita Goldberg
Sent: Wednesday, 03 September, 2014 5:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask] 
Subject: [VA-HIST] Help interpreting 18th century will

This is a request for help understanding two aspects of a will that was
filed in Richmond in 1818.

1. The gentleman in question frees several slaves and allows them to stay in
the homes where they were living until these homes are sold as part of his
estate. He also provides for a yearly amount ranging from $40-$150 to be
paid to each of these individuals. In addition, he provides assistance if,
because of the law, these freed slaves were not allowed to live in Virginia.
My question is: Was it normal at the time for slave owners to free some or
all of their slaves when they died? Are the provisions in the will normal or
do they seem especially generous?

2. The gentleman leaves amounts ranging from $2000 to $8000 to a series of
women, most of them married but some not. Since several of these woman were
well known in Richmond society, it's hard to imagine that they had all been
lovers of the gentleman and that he would speak of them so openly in his
will. Does anything you know about Richmond society of the time provide a
clue as to the significance of these generous clauses?

I'd be very appreciative of any ideas that could help explain these two
points in the 1818 will.

Rita Goldberg

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