WILSON AND HAIRSTON FAMILY PAPERS, #4134, 1751-1928
Correspondence, financial and legal papers, and account books of six generations of the
Wilson and Hairston families, planters and merchants of Henry and Pittsylvania Counties,
Virginia, and Davie, Rockingham, and Stokes Counties, North Carolina. The papers include
bills of sale for slaves; receipts for hiring out slaves (1789-1813); jailors' bills for
keeping runaway slaves; and doctors' bills for attending slaves (1814-1832). The collection
also contains five letters (1832) about the American Colonization Society and the manumission
of six slaves who were sent to Liberia; lists of clothing for slaves; work agreements with
former slaves (1833-1860); slave lists; an order to return a slave (1780- 1799); letters
discussing the legality of a will designating a slave child sole heir to an estate and
discussing arrangements for moving slaves from one plantation to another (1830-1860), and a
letter written by a white man describing a fight with a black man (1892). Several volumes
contain information on the sale and purchase of slaves; lists of slaves; and lists of clothes
and other items given out to slaves. A memorandum book also mentions runaway slaves (1800).
Microfilm available.