1876-026: Mildred W. Hutcheson vs. Exrs. Ambrose Hutcheson etc. by etc.

Scope and content:

Estate suit. Commissioners’ reports and depositions reference enslaved people, including dates of purchase and amounts paid for named enslaved people. One 1863 report notes that: “The slaves are family servants and, though most of them are women and children, they produce to the estate annually more income, in proportion to their value than the real estate which has been sold or that is unsold—Indeed the real estate that remains unsold, being unimproved, produces no income whatever. Mrs. Hutcheson the widow, with her family of little children, is keeping house and needs dome of the servants to wait on her and them. If the slaves were sold to pay debts, other servants would have to be hired to wait on the family.” 1859 deposition includes ages and other details of individual enslaved people, such as “Phoebe’s value is impaired by a gun shot wound in the lower jaw.”

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