Collection Search

[Manumission of Phoebe Miller]

One document emancipating Phoebe Miller in accordance with the will of George D. Spratt. Signed by Minor, Carter B. Berkley, Thomas M. Locke, George D. Nicolson and Jonathan Chew as executors of Spratt's estate. Signed and attested by Thomas Muse...

GLC03434.70

[Manumission of Robin Reeves]

One document emancipating Robin Reeves in accordance with the will of George D. Spratt. Signed by Minor, Carter B. Berkley, Thomas M. Locke, George D. Nicolson and Jonathan Chew as executors of Spratt's estate. Signed and attested by Thomas Muse...

GLC03434.71

[Manumission of Reeves Murray]

One document emancipating Reeves Murray in accordance with the will of George D. Spratt. Signed by Minor, Carter B. Berkley, Thomas M. Locke, George D. Nicolson and Jonathan Chew as executors of Spratt's estate. Signed and attested by Thomas Muse...

GLC03434.72

[Manumission of Maria Muse]

One document emancipating Maria Muse in accordance with the will of George D. Spratt. Signed by Minor, Carter B. Berkley, Thomas M. Locke, George D. Nicolson and Jonathan Chew as executors of Spratt's estate. Signed and attested by Thomas Muse as...

GLC03434.73

[Manumission of Beckey Murray]

One document emancipating Beckey Murray in accordance with the will of George D. Spratt. Signed by Minor, Carter B. Berkley, Thomas M. Locke, George D. Nicolson and Jonathan Chew as executors of Spratt's estate. Signed and attested by Thomas Muse...

GLC03434.74

[Manumission of Jacob Murray]

One document emancipating Jacob Murray in accordance with the will of Doctor George D. Spratt. Signed by Minor, Carter B. Berkley, Thomas M. Locke, George D. Nicolson and Jonathan Chew as executors of Spratt's estate. Signed and attested by Thomas...

GLC03434.75

to his mother

He is waiting to join up with his regiment. Due to the expense of staying in the city, he had to release his servant, a contraband from Virginia. He thinks the rebels are in a precarious situation in Maryland and adds that as long as the war lasts...

GLC04662.014

to his mother

A short visit to the front line, followed by a visit to the Commissary Sergeant, Bowen, who has commandeered a plantation. The owners fled and the slaves want Bowen to run the farm. Walbridge describes the house, food and slaves on plantation....

GLC04662.008

to mother

His "boy" Isaac, who is nineteen years old, wants an education. He can read and write a little and "is quite a mathematician." He requests a first grade reader, a geography book, and an arithmetic book for Isaac's education. He was not approved...

GLC04662.053

Spain. --- Cuba.

Discusses Spain's history of slaveholding and the role of other nations to end slavery in Cuba.

GLC04717.64

to John Cochran, Isaac T. Hopper, Daniel C. Eaton, George H. Evans, and William Kemeys

Smith writes to prominent men he chose to designate the distribution of gifts of land and money among five hundred males and females from New York. Notes that he will not give the females land, but will instead bestow $50 upon each of them....

GLC04717.65

The West Point mob.

Smith discusses recent mob activity at West Point, New York: "Nothing else is so frightful as a mob- that many-headed monster, whose every head refuses to be controlled. Mobs and their dramshop inspiration threaten the ruin of our country. Ours is...

GLC04717.66

To the persons who derive title from myself or my late father to land in Charlotte River and Byrne's Tracts, in the Counties of Delaware, Otsego, and Schoharie

Discusses the authenticity of land titles, possibly for land he previously gifted to African Americans in need. Suspects that Native Americans told residents that the land titles were inauthentic in order to obtain timber from the property.

GLC04717.69

From the New York Tribune. Mr. Gerrit Smith on the President's message. The currency and the hard times.

Smith writes, "There is nothing in the nature of civil government, and there is nothing in the Constitution, to justify the Federal Government in banking, or in undertaking to authorize it in others." Also criticizes economists' reference to slavery...

GLC04717.70

to his family

He has turned in his gun and reported to the doctor. He rode in an ambulance to Culpeper. He mentions the capture of two guerrillas and adds that "woman & children & negroes packed up & left for parts unknown."

GLC04189.55

to mother

Does not think his family needs to worry about an outbreak of small pox near their house. He thinks his vaccination kept him from getting the disease, even though he was in the company of small pox victims on several occasions. He has been delayed...

GLC04662.118

to Louise Walbridge

Appointed Inspector of the Quartermaster Department for the Department of North Carolina. Reports that there are 3,500 contrabands colonized on the island, and describes a large seminary at Raleigh.

GLC04663.62

to Louise Walbridge

Writes that he is still selling his stock. "[W]ent within ten miles of the Savannah river. I found the country almost a desert, and all the people as poor as rats. Some who formerly had splendid dwellings surrounded by every luxury, are now living...

GLC04663.71

"Negro Group on Aikins [Aiken's] Farm, The Residue of 65 Slaves. Farm 3000 acres."

Group of twelve African Americans (including men, women, and children), and three white soldiers: one on horseback behind the group, and two visible to the left. Written near Petersburg, Virginia.

GLC03029.41

to: Drazilla Churchill.

Two men, Jonathan Snook and O.B. Boughton have been sent to Michigan to recruit soldiers for the company. Churchill is well and "as fat as a stuffed chicken." The Cavalry took 26 "cotton burners or guerillas," all of whom will presumably be...

GLC03859.04

to: Drazilla Churchill.

Churchill complains of the sheer number of African Americans in the South, and shows reservations about allowing them to become free: "[I]f the nigers are free…then you will see how them Black Devils will flock for the north and I am sure we don't...

GLC03859.11

to Sam Chapman

Scathing response to reunion speeches, especially one minimizing slavery's role in the war. Includes brief account of the Southern defense of slavery prior to the war, noting that he did not approve of slavery; rather, it was inherited as an...

GLC03921.21

to Sam Chapman

article about Lincoln in Cosmopolitan: "It is the best thing I have seen about Lincoln & confirms what I wrote you that Lincoln offered to the South compensation of their slaves when the Confederacy was in its last gasp & even then we rejected it."

GLC03921.25

to Hiram P. Crozier, New York

Defends the Resolutions of the Church of Peterboro, which Crozier criticized. Chastises Crozier for running a store that sells liquor, declaring "iniquity, permitted in one of the branches of the store, stamps the whole store with iniquity."...

GLC04717.52

A letter from the Hon. Gerrit Smith, to the Cuban Anti-Slavery Committee, New York.

Smith writes, "As I view it, our Government should, long ago, have conceded belligerent rights to the Cubans struggling for freedom from the yoke of Spain and from the yoke of Slavery... The world is too far advanced in a rational civilization and in...

GLC04717.62