Appendix F. List of Dower Slaves, 1760–61
Appendix F
List of Dower Slaves
[1760–1761]
A List of Working Dower Negroes, where settled, & under whose care, 1760 At Claibornes John Roan [overseer]
AD, DLC:GW. GW made this list on the blank pages at the beginning of William Hunter’s The Virginia Almanac . . . 1760 (Williamsburg), after writing a number of memoranda about the crops raised on the various Custis plantations summarized in note 3 of GW to Robert Cary & Co., 30 Nov. 1759. See also GW to Capel & Osgood Hanbury, 25 Nov. 1759, n.1. All of the Custis slaves living when the county inventories were taken in 1757 and 1758 are listed in the Combined County Inventory (doc. III-A–1). Of these, the eighty-five slaves going to Martha Washington as part of her dower are listed in Schedule A: Assignment of Widow’s Dower (doc. III-A). At some point, probably in 1759, GW listed twenty-four estate slaves as being artisans and household servants (Appendix C), and there appears to be here in his list of working dower slaves a total of forty-two. Most of those listed on GW’s two lists are among the names listed in Schedule A and in the Combined County Inventory. GW’s specific purpose in making the two slave lists (appendices C and F) is not clear.