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Lee liberated the slaves of Custis during the winter of 1862-63 and checked the list of Negroes and had the deed of manumission recorded in the Hustings Court of the City of Richmond.

 

 

George Washington Parke Custis' Will  

A Memo

1. G.W. Parke Custis died October 10, 1857, in his 77th year

II. According to Custis' will Robert E. Lee was named as one of the four executors. the other three were Robert Lee Randolph, of Eastern View, Right Reverend William Meade, and George Washington Peter. Failure of the last named three men to quality, left the sole duty of "discharging all the duties of settling a troublesome estate under a complicated testament."

III. The will was probated December 7, 1857.

IV. The will provided for all of Custis' slaves to be emancipated, "the said emancipation to be accomplished in not exceeding five years from the time of my decease."

The slaves numbered sixty-three.

Due to his need of funds Lee was forced to hire most of his slaves out to neighboring plantations and to eastern Virginia. This move caused a "petty rebellion" among the slaves and they tried to run away to Pennsylvania, but were caught and returned to Lee. The version of a man who signed a letter he wrote to the Editor of the N.Y. Tribune, June 19, 1859, "A Citizen," is as follows. 

The children Custis had by his slave women numbered fifteen.

On one occasion three slaves ran away and nine miles from Pennsylvania they were captured and returned to Col. Lee, who ordered them flogged. The officer who captured them whipped the two men and Lee whipped the woman. After their punishment, Lee sent them to Richmond from his Arlington plantation to be hired out. This letter was written from Washington, D.C. -- June 19, 1859 and the facts were told the unknown author of the letter, by relatives of the men whipped.

V. Lee liberated the slaves of Custis during the winter of 1862-63 and checked the list of Negroes and had the deed of manumission recorded in the Hustings Court of the City of Richmond. It was (the deed) acknowledged, before Benj. S. Cason, J.P. of Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Dec. 29, 1862, and was recorded in Richmond, Jan. 2, 1863.

VI. The following is the list of Negroes freed under Custis' will.

           1. Perry, Lee's body servant

            2. Nancy

Robert E. Lee's Slaves (p. 371)

I. He (Lee) had been in contact with slavery all his life, though he had never owned more than some half-dozen slaves.

II. There are no references in any of Lee's letters to slaves of his own and until the rediscovery of his will in the records of Rockbridge County, Virginia, it was not positively known that he ever held any servants in his own name. That document written in 1846, showed that he then owned a Negro woman Nancy and her children who were at the White House plantation. He directed that they be "liberated as soon as it can be done to their advantage and that of others."

III. Lee's Will -- Obtainable -- Clerk's Office, Lexington, Virginia.

George Washington Parke Custis' Slaves

Eleanor Harris
Ephraim Demicks
George Clarke
Charles Syphax

Selina Grey

6 children -- Emma, Sarah, Harry, Amise, Ada, Thornton
Thornton Grey
Margaret Taylor 4 children -- Danbridge, Ihon, Billy, Quincy
Lawrence Parks 9 children -- Perry, George, Amanda, Martha, Lawrence,
James, Magdalera, Leano, William
Julia Ann Check 3 children -- Catherine, Louis, Henry
An infant of Catherine
Sally Norris 3 children -- Mary, Sally, Wesley
Len Norris
Old Shaack Check
Austin Bingham 12 children -- Harrison, Parks, Reuben, Henry, Edward,
Louisa Bingham Austin, Lucuis, Leanthe, Louisa, Carolina, Jem and her infant
Obediah Grey
Austin Banham
Michael Merriday
Catherine Grey  and her child
Marrianne Burke
Agnes Burke
Slaves Belonging to the White House Estate
Robert Crides
Desiah Crides
Locky Zack Young and child
Fleming Randolph and child
 
Source: R.E. Lee by Douglass S. Freeman, Vol. 1 (page 379); Vol. III (page 228).

 

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posted 29 June 2008

 

 

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Related files:   GWP Custis' Will  A Memo   Will of George Washington Parke Custis    An Archival Search for Sterling Brown  Education and History