This letter was probably written by Nicholas Sinnott, Jr. (1816-1889) of New Orleans, Louisiana. He was married to Arabella D. Kenaday (1826-1906). For most of his career, Nicholas worked as a coal dealer. He wrote the letter in 1858 to John Calhoun, President of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad to complain that his wife’s black nursemaid—a young slave—had been forced to get off the train because the ticket agent was told she was a free black, which prohibited her from entering the State of Mississippi. Apparently she really was a slave but she had been told she was free because it was the intent of her owners to award her manumission papers once the estate was settled.

The irony is that she would have been allowed to remain on the cars and enter Mississippi as a slave but not as a free black.

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Magnolia, Mississippi
December 19, 1858

John Calhoun, Esq.
President of N. O. J & G. N. Railroad

Sir—A quadroon girl who has resided in my family both in Mississippi & New Orleans for several years, was compelled to leave the cars by Mr. McGrath on Saturday, 18th inst., leaving my wife with the care of an infant, to come on alone to this place. The case is one of peculiar hardship. My wife was unaware of the regulation excluding free people from Mississippi. The ticket seller gave her a pass to Magnolia for a Colored servant without asking any questions nor did she become aware of the difficulty until called upon by Mr. McGrath for tickets some time after leaving New Orleans. The girl is the daughter of a wealthy planter of Rapides by a slave.  The mother was manumitted after her birth, and by an oversight, the child’s name was omitted in the Act. The White family intend to perform this act as soon as the Estate is settled but she is a slave. She was placed in my wife’s charge by her father’s lawful heirs and having been raised respectably in consideration for her feelings, is represented as free. And although my wife explained this as far as was possible for a lady, Mr. McGrath refused to permit her to pass. As my wife feels that she is in a manner responsible for the girl, and moreover, she is my child’s nurse, I hope you will order her to be passed over the road as early as possible. Please notify me that I may order her to come what day. By so doing you will oblige. Yours respectably, — N. Sinnott

Magnolia Depot

The following letter was written by William N. Alexander Peers, the son of Thomas Peers Jr. and Elly Parsons, both of whom were also from Louisa, Virginia. He married Sarah Ann Sturdivant about 1838 in Mechanicsburg, Yazoo County, Mississippi. They had four children born to their marriage. Sarah Ann died at the birth of their last child, William Henry Peers, born about 1815, Louisa, Louisa, Virginia. William died on 20 November 1855, Yazoo, Mississippi. William was a planter in Yazoo county and of course owned many slaves.

In his letter, datelined from Yazoo county in August 1851, William informs his sister that “our country is under some excitement now about the great slave question but I hope it will be settled in a way which may add honor and strength to all. I am anxiously waiting for the time to roll around when we can make one more stripe out of Cuba and then I am bound for her shores, as a place where I should like to live & die.” Of course William is referring to the agitation of the slavery question brought on by the admission of more states into the Union which resulted in the Compromise of 1850, temporarily suspending threats of secession. Plantation owners were particularly optimistic and enchanted with the idea of acquiring Cuba from Spain and making it a new state in the Union. Hopes for wrestling Cuba from Spains’s control by the Lopez Expedition were soon dashed when Lopez was taken prisoner and garroted not long after this letter was penned.

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Yazoo County, Mississippi
9th August 1851

Dear Sister,

I have to ask pardon for not writing to you before this time. I have no reasonable excuse to make for so doing for I have spent many an hour which might have been used in doing what I now have resolved to do. But for the future I shall try to write you often and shall expect you to do the same. I have just received a letter from Mary dated 7th July which gave information of the ill health of Aunt Judeth. I hope ere this reaches you, she may be restored.

Our county has been extremely warm and very dry this year but until lately, unusual good health. Now we have sickness in every direction and many deaths. The bloody flux seems to be the great cause of disease and death. On last week I had an attack of fever, but by using the Lobelier tea freely—with other assistance of the steam [ ] and full reliance on my God, the fever fled and I am up and eat my three meals per day, and between times a small share of watermelons, figs, peaches, apples, &c. &c. My wife is just now up & about from a severe spell of sickness. Our summer season is getting to be our best time for health, and the fall and winter is getting to be very sick & is now more dreaded than summer ever was.

Many of our fashionable folks who have been in the habit of visiting the celebrated watering places during the summer months have made a sudden stop, and resort to our own watering places, and fishing shores for health and amusement. Upon the whole, in thinking about my old place of residence in Virginia in regard of health, I have come to the conclusion that Mississippi is far more preferable for health than Virginia. I should think I was risking a great deal if I were to undertake to live in Virginia one half year. The cotton crop in our country is not good owing to the great drought. Corn in only middling.

Our country is under some excitement now about the great slave question but I hope it will be settled in a way which may add honor and strength to all. I am anxiously waiting for the time to roll around when we can make one more stripe out of Cuba and then I am bound for her shores, as a place where I should like to live & die. I could write you a great deal about the changes of our people & country if you were acquainted but as you are not, it would not interest you.

James is in fine health. Melissa I have not heard a word from for 3 or 4 months or thereabouts. But I take it for granted they are all well or I should have been informed of the fact if otherwise. Write often and plenty of it. My love to all my old friends. Tell them to write to me. I should be pleased to see a line from one and all. Adieu my sister, — Wm. N. Peers

The following letter was written by William Henry Anderson (1836-1902), the son of Francis D. Anderson (1807-1866) and Jane Davidson (1808-1880) of Londonderry, New Hampshire. William attended primary school in Londonderry, before studying at the Pembroke Academy (Pembroke, New Hampshire, 1852-1853), Phillips Academy (Andover, Massachusetts, 1853), and Kimball Union Academy (Meriden, New Hampshire, 1854-1855). He considered attendance at Dartmouth, favoring instead Yale College, which he entered in 1855. An 1857 disciplinary action notwithstanding, Anderson graduated in the spring of 1859. [See: The Demise of the Crocodile Club: A Town/Gown Tragedy at Yale]

After graduating from Yale College at New Haven, Connecticut, William accepted a job as a private tutor on the Sligo Plantation near Natchez, Mississippi, teaching students from Sligo as well as the nearby Retirement Plantation from 1859 to 1860. Prior to the Civil War, it was a widespread practice for a wealthy southern planter, or planters banding together, to hire a college graduate from the North to teach the white children on the plantation. Public schools were virtually non-existent in the South. By the late 1850s planters monitored the schooling closely to make certain that tutors from the North did not attempt to introduce ideas about racial equality into the heads of their children.

During his time in Mississippi, William wrote numerous letters home to his parents and to his future wife Mary A. Hine. He arrived at Bennett’s Retirement Plantation in early September 1859, and shortly thereafter settled in at David P. Williams’ Sligo Plantation. In his letters from Natchez archived at the University of Michigan, William described his relative isolation, loneliness, teaching and wages, corporal punishment, thoughts on slavery and the enslaved men and women on the plantation, games he played with his scholars, travel between the Sligo and Retirement plantations, and leisure activities such as hunting and horseback riding. In late December 1859, he provided a lengthy description of a (largely) steamboat trip to New Orleans with his students for Christmas.

Anderson noted that no poor white people lived between Sligo and Natchez; he was uncomfortable with the aristocratic lifestyle of white people living in the south, and expressed this view on multiple occasions in his correspondence (see especially September 30, 1859). Although his father appears on list of members of the American Anti-Slavery Society, William H. Anderson did not write with disgust at slavery, but rather used racist epithets, accepted the “servants” who assisted him in various ways, and wrote unmoved about abuse doled out to children (see especially June 9, 1860). In one instance, he wrote about enslaved women who gathered near to the house in the evenings before supper to sing and dance (October 25, 1859). One of the highly detailed letters in the collection is William H. Anderson’s description of the use of the cotton gin on the Sligo Plantation, which includes remarks on its history, its functioning, the various jobs performed by enslaved laborers, and the rooms in which the jobs took place. He included calls made by enslaved workers between floors of the “gin house” and the roles of elderly men and women in the grueling labor (October 1859). In 1860, Anderson planned to take a summer break in Tennessee and then teach another year, but on the death of his oldest scholar Susie (14 years old) by diphtheria, Williams decided against having a school the next year (July 4, 1860).

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Natchez, Mississippi
December 1st 1859

Dear Mother,

It is too warm altogether to be comfortable. I have had no fire for three weeks and the very thought of one puts me in an additional perspiration. It has been as warm some days as it is at home in August and thin clothing has been not only desirable but comfortable. Some say we shall have such weather all winter but I hope not for it makes me feel like a “wet dish cloth.”

One of my scholars—my oldest boy—comes up in the evening and studies his Latin a half an hour or an hour and a half just whether he is very sleepy or not. He is now at it but it is like pulling teeth for us both—at least it is for me. I get terrible tired of this constant “punching up” of small boys and girls who know nothing about studying and care less. I think it is the last business for a man to engage in permanently and if I am not much mistaken, my anticipated term of teaching will be cut short a year or so, if I can find any other way of getting along.

You must not conclude from what I have said that I am having any difficulty or trouble. Not the least. Only that I am worrying and fussing over examination, which is expected to come off on Monday the 19th of this month. The parents are calculating on having a huge examination and will invite all their friends and relations for miles around—and they are not a few—to be present at the show. I did not expect they would make so much of it and have made no great preparation although I am trying to so something now. I am bothering over French dialogues, declamations, and compositions. The reviews do not go off smoothly enough either to promise a very brilliant examination.

Sometimes I flatter myself that I don’t care anything about the thing and so it goes. [Joel Jackson] Hough is as much exercised in mind as I am. I don’t want him to have a better one than I do for the people here would not like that as they consider their children superior to the Retirement children and they are. But enough on this point.

On the Wednesday after the examination, the family here leave for New Orleans and Hough goes up river somewhere to visit his “intended.” I expect to have a more lonesome time then than ever.

Christmas is really a great occasion here—especially for the negroes. The gardener—an old black fellow—asked me the other day how long it was to Christmas. I told him. “Ah,” said he, “dat’s de time to hop ub & down.” I asked him if he hopped up then and he replied, “No! when I goes to jumps up, I tumbles down.” He said, however, that “some of dem does.”

The negroes, I believe, then have a week or so to make merry in, and also have various “goodies” (as they call them) to eat. They are busy making the dresses for them. They also get their presents then.

Hough was down here last Saturday and we went gunning as usual. I flatter myself that I am a little better shot than he is. Sometimes I get behind him when he has got good aim on a bird, and shooting before he does, destroy the necessity of is firing. It makes him rather provoked but then it takes him so long to get ready to fire that I like to do it. All the good clothes I’ve got can keep till I leave here. I have worn my old light coat all the time except on three or four occasions. My best black coat I have not taken out of my trunk. Hough and I are thinking that we must have more pay if we stay here another year. Please write a little oftener and oblige.

Yours truly, — W. H. Anderson

You need not be alarmed about my getting married down here as I have not spoke to an unmarried female except my two scholars since I left New Haven.

The following letter was written by 39 year-old Rebecca Ann (Gustine) Minor (1813-1887), the daughter of James Parker Gustine (1781-1818) and Mary Ann Duncan (1790-1863). Rebecca was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, but raised in Philadelphia. She married in 1829 Capt. William John Minor (1808-1869) and lived most of the time in Natchez at the family residence they called Concord.

Minor owned three sugar cane plantations: the 1,900-acre Waterloo Plantation in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, as well as the 6,000-acre Southdown Plantation and the 1,400-acre Hollywood Plantation in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. However, as an absentee plantation owner, he did not live on those plantations. He hired overseers to make sure the slaves were working on the land. He corresponded via mail with his overseers regularly, sending them precise instructions while living in Natchez himself. Moreover, his sons lived on the plantations part of the time. From 1855 to 1861, his son Stephen lived on the Waterloo Plantation until he joined the Confederate States Army; in 1862, his other son Henry took over.Another son, William, lived at the Southdown Plantation and also managed the Hollywood Plantation.

He served as the second President of the Agricultural Bank in Natchez, Mississippi. He was well connected among the planter elite, and visited planters Duncan F. Kenner (1813–1887) and Henry Doyal as well as the McCollums, the Cages, and the Gibsons. He read De Bow’s Review and kept a diary. Politically, he was a supporter of the Whig Party. He was in favor of tariffs on sugar, which meant more profit for domestic sugar producers like himself.

During the Civil War of 1861–1865, he supported the Union and opposed secession, as he believed that would be bad for the sugar industry. However, he was arrested by Union forces with his son Henry in Houma in 1862; they were released a week later in New Orleans. Meanwhile, Unionists stole sugar and molasses from his Hollywood and Southdown plantations, under the false pretext that it had been deserted, even though overseers and servants were there. Minor was on friendly terms with Union Generals Benjamin Butler (1818-1893) and Lorenzo Thomas (1804-1875), whose forces protected Concord (his Adams County, Mississippi, plantation) on September 29, 1863, and on March 10, 1864. Both during and after the war, Minor asked for reparations for the financial losses he had endured due to the theft of commodities by Unionist forces, to no avail. By 1863, he had realized his slaves had become unwilling to work; they also killed hogs and sheep.

Because of General Order No. 12 imposed by Union General Nathaniel P. Banks, he was forced to pay them wages. Slaves, who had gotten used to working “under the threat of punishment,” were not motivated by their salaries; as a result, Minor tried to reduce their wages if they failed to work. By 1865, Minor paid one third of the crop profit at the Waterloo Plantation to his slaves. He signed a work contract with his slaves at the Southdown and Hollywood plantations whereby they agreed to work ten hours every day except for Sundays and received specific hourly wages as a result. Moreover, Minor agreed to clothe, feed and house them all. Minor was a supporter of Abraham Lincoln, whom he called “the most conservative & ablest man in the Washington Government.” He deplored his assassination, as he believed Lincoln would have been fair to Southern agriculturalists. [Wikipedia]

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Cherry Grove [Plantation] ¹
July 13th, 1852

My Dear Son,

You will no doubt be much surprised to hear that we are yet in Adams county. Major [James Pierre] Surget invited us down to recruit the health of the family and he has shown us every kindness and attention. Little Frank is now recovering. He is gaining slowly his strength and is fed some six or eight times a day. Just as Frank ² became convalescent and your Father had left me for Waluter [?] taking George Morton, and Celey Halley was taken sick with violent fever and a threatened inflammation of the stomach. I thought my evils would never end. He has however recovered having been skillfully treated by Dr. Foster. He had 12 leaches applied on his stomach and at the same time Indy was sick so that I only had Betsy and Jim Black to assist in nursing. And Kate ³ still has her screaming fits—which alarms Major Surget very much. Night before last she screamed so long that he was fearful she would go in convulsion. He ordered her a bath and with salt in it stood by, saw her put in, and then had her rolled up in his flannel gown—Kate screaming all the time. After she came out, she insisted upon Hally’s getting out of his bed for her to sleep in and then ordered the sheets to be changed. I wish only John and yourself were here.

Cousin Catherine ⁴ is still my favorite. She is a fine girl. I fear John will be too late. I think my prophesy will yet be fulfilled. The last of the fortunate family of S[urgets]—-will be the choice. I would rather have her for a daughter-in-law to any one I have ever seen. Her Mother and her Father I have admired more than words can express. You must see Major Surget in his family to find out his amiable qualities. I see new virtues in him every day.

We dine tomorrow at the Hylands, next day at Mrs. Denny’s, and this Friday go over to Dr. Jenkins to roll nine pins. I hope on Thursday morning your Father will return. The health of the plantation is much better. Miss Sarah Surget is a great belle. She has very pretty eyes and I am very much pleased with her. She will soon be married. Jane J. Anderson [ ] match with Dr. or Mr. Ralston has created a great sensation. Only think the marriage ceremony was performed at Richard Chitard. They had written to Henry Chitard to present them to be married at Minorca. Henry refused. I regret Richard had not sent them off. I could fill your sheets with much news but I have not the time as I must write to Aunt Sarah.

Tell John I saw Miss Dunbar this morning. Also Dr. Jenkins who gave me the news of him. I hear of his presenting bouquets to Ladies and that he is a favorite among the fair sex. I will write to him very soon. Only imagine me moving about when the thermometer is at 96 on the galley. I am more than ever anxious to return to Natchez and should not regret (excepting parting with Mr. and Mrs. Kenner) that I never return to Waterloo.

My dear son, I must scold you. you ought never to write anything that is vulgar. Now I think Mrs. Woodman’s message was decidedly so. I am sorry to find you paid this disagreeable and foolish woman any attention, and I fear she has paid court to you and flattered you. Madam Montgomery is not a Lady. She received too marked attention from gentlemen. I wish you to improve in your style of writing. Take pains with the penmanship and the style must be pure to please me. Recollect I am not able to give you a copy—but you have education. Take every advantage.

All have retired with the exception of William and Catherine. They are alone in the parlor. If William was only older, it would do. William rides out with Kate. They spent the day at Magnolia—Mrs. Denny’s place. The gentlemen have not returned from Black River. It is thought there will be no fighting.

Remember me to all friends and do let me know how Mrs. Charlotte Davis is. Tell Grandma Gus I will write to her the very first leisure moment and also offer my sincere congratulations to Aunt Matilda and to Mr. C[harles] P. Leverich on the birth of their daughter. How much pleasure it would give me to see them all. Goodnight. With most affectionate love, ever dear son [and] believe me to be your sincerely attached Mother, — R. A. Minor

¹ Cherry Grove Plantation is located five miles from Natchez in Adams county on Second Creek. The mansion was built by Pierre Surget (1731-1796), a French planter, in 1788, over 2,500 acres of an English land grant, granted to him by the Spanish government. As such, it is one of the earliest private residences in Natchez. After his death, his widow Catharine (Hubbard) Surget expanded the grounds of the property. By 1850, the house belonged to their son James Pierre Surget (1785-1855), with sixteen house servants in residence. Cherry Grove has been in the continuous ownership of the same family since 1788 and has remained always a working plantation. It remains in the family of Surget descendants. Cherry Grove Plantation is today one of the best preserved and most complete plantation complexes in the Natchez area. The original plantation residence constructed by Pierre Surget and his wife Catharine burned in the mid-nineteenth century, and the present picturesque and architecturally significant residence was constructed about 1865 by Pierre Surget’s grandson James Surget, Jr. The form of the house, which consists of a residence constructed upon a fully raised basement with a central five-bay block and flanking single-bay wings, has the regionally early single-pile plan with rear “cabinet” rooms enclosing each end of a rear gallery recessed under the rear slope of the roof. Likewise, the facade of the central block features a gallery that is recessed under the front slope of the roof. These features suggest the possibility that the present house may have taken its basic form from the earlier house which burned. The original flanking wings with octagonal bays and gable-end balconies represent the concession of the builder to the popular taste of the 1860s. The collection of plantation outbuildings is exceptional and includes an unusual tenpin frame alley building with attached late-nineteenth century gymnasium, smoke house, detached kitchen building, corn crib, stables, privy, sheep stalls, and barns. Hand-hewn cypress troughs for feeding and watering the stock are rare plantation survivals, and the plantation cemetery containing the graves of Pierre and Catharine Surget and their descendants is located within sight of the main dwelling house. The plantation gains added significance from its long history of family ownership. Pierre Surget, originally a seaman by trade, was the patriarch of the Surget family in Natchez, a family that formed one of the largest planting dynasties in the entire South. Pierre’s son Frank was described by one contemporary historian as the most extensive landholder and successful planter in Mississippi.

² Francis (“Frank”) Octave Minor was born in 1847.

³ Katherine (“Kate”) Lintot Minor was born in 1849.

⁴ Catherine Surget (1834-1926) was married first to James Gustine Minor (1839-1860) in 1853. She married second John Duncan Minor (1831-1869) in 1855. Catherine’s collection of letters are housed at the University of Michigan.