Hello there! I am a very amateur family historian, but I may have some information that could benefit Kelli Yates, the OP of this thread.

Ms. Derby, your reply post to Kelli triggered my impulse to act - when I read your data including Stephens/Stevens slave owners in Stafford county. Louisa Vittens Stevens was my ggggrandmother (3g) and a widow as of 1842. I have gathered a digital collection of relevant information that may be of interest to you in particular, Kelli.

My family is in possession of one of the Stevens family bibles dating from about 1840's. In the front and back pages, there are many notations of Stevens relations and their births/deaths/marriages and so on. There are similar notations of many of the slaves that were born and died as well. It is my assumption that the Stevens family - especially following Louisa's husbands premature passing at a young age - depended on at least some of their income coming from the selling of slaves that were born and raised just for that purpose.

As a school teacher in Virginia, I have incorporated my own complicated family history into my instruction for a number of years, once I became aware later in my life that I was directly related to slave-owners who quite likely were slave breeders. To further complicate history, and show how difficult the notion of slavery was even in those times, a split in that extended family relocated to Washington DC beginning before and after the war. A cousin of Richard Stevens fled Stafford in 1861 with his brother, and eventually served and died in the Union army on the way to Tennessee.

I am going to post a link or two that might get you started along this search - apologies if any links are broken. 

http://resources.umwhisp.org/census/Stafford/1850_Staf_sch2.htm
page 6, lines 6 through 24 - right hand side of page - 18 slaves owned by Louisa - Richard is 11 years old at this census

http://resources.umwhisp.org/census/Stafford/staff1860-sch2.htm
page 5, lines 4 and 8 - right hand side of pages - Richard Stevens, then Louisa V. Stevens - 4 slaves owned by Richard, 16 slaves owned by Louisa - Richard is now 21 years old

Kelli, I have the bible pages scanned and transcribed for legibility. Once I locate the time and the documents I would be glad to add the names of the slaves listed and their ages.


Not only does the ca. 1740's era Stevens/Atchison family home still stand, which unfortunately is no longer "family owned", the family cemetery is adjacent and deeded to family descendants in perpetuity. The quarter acre plot is still maintained, and it contains many unmarked graves or graves without any stone markers. Only a handful of markers exist, including those of my gggrandfather Richard H. Stevens and his wife, Martha. We also have a Union soldier buried here, as he was killed by a Confederate sniper while on picket duty at the farmhouse - during one stage of the war, the farm was occupied by Union troops and used as a field hospital. Lore has it that Indians are buried on the grounds, and I believe I located where slaves may have been buried as well.

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