your grandson: Thomas Jefferson Randolph.

The trial of Billy, Hercules, and Gawen, enslaved laborers of TJ at Poplar Forest, took place at the Bedford County courthouse on 23 Dec. 1822. The first record of the events leading up to this proceeding is an advertisement signed by Thomas Jefferson Randolph and bearing the headline: “A MURDERER ESCAPED.” It stated that “Fifty dollars will be given for the apprehension and delivery of BILLY to the subscriber, or for his being lodged in any jail in the commonwealth so that he may be brought to trial for his offences. Billy is a bright mulatto, about 22 years old, 5 feet 6 or 7 inches high, who escaped from the neighborhood of New London on the 3d of November. It is believed that he will endeavor to reach Richmond in a boat;—or the neighborhood of Charlottesville, Albemarle, through Amherst and Nelson, or through Campbell and Buckingham, crossing at Warren; and may probably endeavor to proceed from Albemarle to the District of Columbia” (Richmond Enquirer, 19 Nov. 1822).

Billy was quickly captured. Elizabeth Trist reported from Liberty to her grandson Nicholas P. Trist on 28 Nov. 1822 that “we had the pleasure of seeing Jefferson Randolph last Sunday week his visit to this place was in consiquncs of an event which took place at poplar Forest a mulatto attack’d the Overseer knock’d him down and wounded him in several places with a knife he wou’d have bled to Death but with the assistance of one of the Negroes and Hannah a Black woman who has the care of the House Staunch’d the Blood by holding the wounds together till they sent for a Doctor he had eleven or twelve wounds and tho his face was horibly mutulated they entertain hopes of his recovery they say that he was by no means a severe task master I understand that there are 3 or 4 of them in the jail here and in the course of a month their fate will be decided there has lately been two executions in this Place one Black Man for the Murder of his wife and the other for destroying a child” (RC in DLC: NPT).

In the trial that resulted, Christopher Clark acted as attorney for the three men, each charged with having “unlawfully and feloniously stabbed William Gough With intent to maim and kill and also wickedley and feloniously having consulted upon the Subject of rebeling and making insurrection against the law and Government of the Commonwealth of Virginia and against the Said Gough their Overseer.” Hercules and Gawen were acquitted, but the court found Billy “Guilty of the first & Second Counts and not Guilty as to the rest” and ordered that “he be Burnt on the left hand and receive thirty nine lashes on his Bare Back at the publick Whipping post and that the Sheriff execute the said Sentence” (23 Dec. 1822 trial proceedings, MS in Bedford Co. Order Book, 18:318–9; with Gawen’s name spelled “Going”).

Elizabeth Trist wrote to Nicholas P. Trist on the day of the trial that Gough had recovered and would attend the proceeding, adding that “we shall know when the Court ajourns what will be the Punishment of the Villians their intention was to go off with them selves after having perpetrated the murder.” Continuing her letter the next day, she informed her grandson of the verdicts rendered and commented that “I dont immagin that Mr Jefferson will have them again on the Plantation and consiquently will have them sent out of the State to be disposed off” (RC in DLC: NPT). TJ did indeed send these enslaved men to Louisiana for sale “as an example” (TJ to Bernard Peyton, 28 Aug. 1824, and note).