Hardin Perkins (ca. 1773–1821) owned land along the James River in Buckingham County in 1815. Five years later he resided in New Canton in that county. Perkins left an estate that included nineteen slaves valued at $5,270 (William Kearney Hall, Descendants of Nicholas Perkins [1957], 26–9, 87–8; Roger G. Ward, 1815 Directory of Virginia Landowners [1997–2000], 1:51; DNA: RG 29, CS, Buckingham Co., 1820; Perkins’s will in Executors of Littleberry Moon Etc. vs. Administrator of John Perkins Etc., case no. 1837-021, Circuit Superior Court, Albemarle Co. Chancery Court Records).

The enclosed, witnessed version of the May 1808 will of Randolph Jefferson has not been found. It presumably corresponded closely to extant versions in which Jefferson directed that all the slaves he owned at his death and those already given to his five sons, Thomas Jefferson (ca. 1783–1876), Robert Lewis Jefferson, Field Jefferson, Isham Randolph Jefferson, and James Lilburne Jefferson, were to be valued and the aggregate brought “into hotchpot,” so that each son would receive “only so much as, with those before given, shall make his portion of slaves equal to that of each of his other brothers”; stipulated that “all my lands and other property whatsoever be sold after my death, and the proceeds be equally divided among my said five sons, my son Thomas bringing into hotchpot with those proceeds the sum of one thousand pounds (at which I estimate the advantages I have Given him during my life) and takeing from the proceeds only so much as, being aded to the sd thousand pounds shall make his portion under this bequest equal to that of his other brothers”; and named Perkins, Robert Craig, Randolph Jefferson’s son Robert Lewis Jefferson, and TJ as his executors (FC in ViU: TJP-CC, entirely in Randolph Jefferson’s hand, dated 28 May 1808, unsigned; Dft in ViU: TJP-CC, entirely in TJ’s hand, dated 27 May 1808; endorsed by TJ: “Jefferson Randolph. rough draft of Will”). The 1808 will was presented as evidence in an unsuccessful effort by the five sons therein named to set aside a more recent will favoring their stepmother, Mitchie B. Pryor Jefferson (TJ’s Deposition regarding Randolph Jefferson’s Estate, 15 Sept. 1815).