The Bulletin

of the
Northumberland County
Historical Society

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Vol. XLV ~ 2008

 The Kelley Brothers and the
American Colonization Society:
From Northumberland County to Liberia
by Craig M. Kilby.

The Monday morning of February 18, 1856,
started off like any other Court Day at Lancast-
er Court House. People were busily buying and
selling wares, exchanging gossip, and looking
forward to conducting their business before the
court.
But this was not going to be an ordinary
day at the courthouse. It was not going to be
a normal day anywhere in the Northern Neck,
and it would be a decidedly abnormal day in
Northumberland County. At Lynham's and
Richland Plantations at Bluff Point Neck, it
certainly would be a day none of its inhabitants
would ever lorget. Their lives, and the lives of
their posterity, would be dramatically and irre-
vocably altered.
On this Monday morning, Col. Addison
Hall, Baptist minister, and Thomas W. Mere-
dith, partner in the mercantile firm of Meredith
& Cundiff in Kilmarnock, came to court to pres-
ent the last will and testament of their friend
and neighbor, the eccentric wealthy bachelor
merchant of Kilmarnock, Mr. James Kelley. It
must have been difficult for them to keep secret
the contents of the bombshell they were about
to burst in the courthouse. For reasons we shall
see, this was probably one fuse that Addison
Hall relished lighting.
The will of any wealthy bachelor was
bound to be a greatly anticipated topic of gos-
sip for months to come. Who would get what?
Who would get nothing? Why? More than a few
relations were probably sitting in the front row
of the courtroom eager to learn the answers to
those very questions.
Besides his fabulous stock of store goods in
Kilmarnock, and his house full of fine furniture
and family heirlooms, James Kelley was also a
prominent Northumberland County planter in
nearby Bluff Point Neck. There he owned just
over one thousand acres comprised of three
plantations called Lynums; Richland; and Mid-
dle Quarter, Lee's and Jones's, which were ac-
quired between 1825 and 1839.1
Living on these plantations were forty-
four slaves who were most assuredly not in the
courtroom this Monday morning. To their utter
surprise, they would soon learn, they had just
been set free and were on their way to Africa.
And very soon at that.
Slaves and Free Blacks in
Northumberland County
The total 1850 population of Northumber-
land County was 7,336 persons. Of these, 42
percent were white, 7 percent were free blacks,

*The author is a native of Missouri where he earned a BS degree in public administration from the University of
Missouri-Columbia and served three terms in the General Assembly. He moved to the Northern Neck in 2005,
where he is actively engaged in genealogical and historical research. This article is dedicated to the late W. Preston
Haynie, who encouraged it. The author also acknowledges Marie Tyler-McGraw and Deborah Lee for sharing their
in-depth knowledge of the history of the American Colonization Society, and Joan Horsley for her very helpful
editorial suggestions. The author takes sole responsibility for any errors of commission or omission in this article.
All websites cited in this article were active as of September 30, 2008.
1. Northumberland County Record Book 24, 92-93 (Lynums, purchased from Mary Ball of Lancaster County
in 1825); Northumberland County Record Book 28, 559-561 (Richland, called Fleet's Bay T~act in the deed,
bought from Edward and Eliza Henry of Fauquier County in 1835); and Northumberland County Record
Book 30, 21-25 (called Middle Quarter, Lee's and Jones's in the will of James Kelley, conveyed by Col. Robert
Wormeley Carter of Richmond County in 1840). Lynum's is now spelled Lynhams. See also Mrs. W. G. Bates,
"Lynhams," The Bulletin of the Northumberland County Historical Society 16 (1979): 67-78.

34
 and 51 percent were slaves.2 The percentages
for Lancaster County, though smaller in popu-
lation, were 38 percent white, 6 percent free
black, and 56 percent slave.3
Given these demographics, and others like
them throughout Virginia, it goes without say-
ing that the issue of slavery, manumission, and
free blacks living in the Commonwealth had
had a very long and vexing history.
Slaves had been manumitted in Northum-
berland County before, and would be later.4 Cer-
" tainly the elder members of the audience at the
I.J
the importation of slaves from Mrica and the
West Indies, either directly or through anothor
state. Any slave brought into Virginia contrnry
to this act was to be freed after twelve months
of cumulative residency. Any person moving to
Virginia with slaves had to take an oath that he
was not attempting to evade this act and had
not brought any slaves with him with the inten-
tion of selling them.8
This law was amended again in 1793. The
preamble to the 1793 Act reads, ''Whereas great
inconveniences have arisen in many, if not all

Lancaster courthouse this Monday would have
" been aware of the most famous manumission of
all-that of Robert Carter III of Nomini Hall in
Westmoreland County. Carter's shocking "Deed
of Gift" of 1791, filed with the District Court
that met at the Northumberland Court House,
freed more than 450 slaves throughout his far-
flung Virginia real estate empire.5 The late W.
Preston Haynie provided numerous anecdotal
accounts of Northumberland County manumis-
sions in the 1996 issue of The Bulletin.6
Emancipation and Slave Codes in Virginia
In 1782, the Vir.ginia legislature enacted a
law enabling the emancipation of slaves by will
or by deed. Several restrictions applied to both
" ~' the emancipator and the rights of freed blacks.7
.~
..!Z.
...
In 1785, Virginia became the first state to ban
J
,
the towns within this commonwealth, from the
practice of hiring negroes and mulattos, who
pretend to be free, but are in fact, slaves: For
remedy thereof." This Act required all free
blacks to register with the clerk of each local ju-
risdiction every three years and to carry a per-
mit with them at all times. A provision of this
Act banned any free black or mulatto from com-
ing to Virginia at all, unless in the employ of a
white person.9
In 1806, an even stricter law was passed.
Section 1 repealed the provision in the 1785
Act granting freedom to slaves brought into
the Commonwealth and residing there for more
than one year. Instead of being freed, such
slaves became the property of the county's Over-
seers of the Poor and held in trust for the benefit
of the poor of that county until the owner went

2. Bayne Palmer O'Brien, Northumberland County, Virginia 1850 Census (Richmond: privately printed, 1972),
Appendix. . .
3. Bayne Palmer O'Brien, 1850 Census of Lancaster County (Lancaster, Va.: Mary Ball Washington Museum and
Library, 1968), 79.
4. The 1847 will of Methodist Minister Benedict Burgess gave his twenty-three slaves to his wife in a life estate,
and upon her death they were to be sent to Liberia, although the records do not show that this trip ever took
place (Northumberland County Will Book A, 11-13; Northumberland County Estate Book B, inventory, sale
and account, 170-198). The 1853 will of Robert S. Noel, whose daughter Fanny had married a son of the
Reverend Burgess, also liberated two of his slave families comprising nine persons "for the mutual peace of my
surviving family." He had twelve other slaves whom he did not liberate (Will Book A, 49; Northumberland
County Estate Book C, inventory, 362). Only one of the families made the trip to Liberia, in 1857.
5. District Court Orders and Deeds 1789-1825, Part 1, 232-236.
6. W. Preston Haynie, "African-Americans: Obstacles To Freedom," The Bulletin of the Northumberland County
Historical Society 33 (1996): 59-72.
7. "An act to authorize the manumission of slaves," in William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large, vol. 11,
(1823; reprint, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1969), 39-40.
8. "An act concerning slaves," Hening, Statutes, vol. 12, 182-183.
9. "AnACT for regulating the police of towns in this commonwealth, and to refrain the practice of negroes going
at large," in Samuel Shepherd, The Statutes at Large of Virginia, vol. 1 (1835; reprint, New York: AMS Press,
1970), 238-239.

35
to trial. If the owner failed to appear or lost his
case at trial, the slave was to be sold at auction
and sent out of the Commonwealth, and the pro-
ceeds were to be used by the Overseers of the
Poor.10
The most important provision of the 1806
Act was contained in Section 10. Though rarely
enforced and left to local jurisdiction, it legis-
lated that any slave emancipated in Virginia
was to leave the Commonwealth within twelve
months or forfeit his freedom and be sold by the
Overseers of the Poor. 11
In other words, freed slaves were only free
to leave.
As these Acts show, the presence of free
blacks posed a problem in Virginia, for many
reasons. For example, they had easy access to
the slave population and could easily dispense
information. They could act as bootleggers by
trading alcohol and other commodities in return
for goods stolen from the master. They compet-
ed for labor with slaves who could be hired out.
Free blacks could also act as agents of rebellion,
always a fear in the South. Perhaps most impor-
tant, their mere presence served as a reminder
to enslaved blacks of their condition.
Above all, despite moral objections to slav-
ery, most whites-in the North and the South-
simply could not conceive of a society in which
blacks and whites lived side by side as equals.
This was the conundrum of post-Revolutionary
America. One proposed solution to that prob-
lem was to send the blacks to Africa.12
The American Colonization Society and the
Colony of Liberia13
In order to ameliorate these and the broad-
er problems of race in general, real or imagined,
the American Colonization Society (ACS) was
founded in Washington, D.C., in 1816. Its full
name was the "American Society for the Colo-
nization of Free People of Color." Through its
agents and with help from the U.S. government,
the ACS created the colony of Liberia on the
west coast of Africa. Liberia became an inde-
pendent republic in.1847.
The American Colonization Society was
national in scope"Its founders came from many
backgrounds, geographic areas of the country,
and often quite conflicting ideologies. To the ex-
tent that it had any defined core philosophy, its
leaders tended to be Whig in their politics, phil-
anthropic in their motives, missionary in their
religion, and nationalist in their patriotism.
Its raison d'etre was to promote the voluntary
return of free blacks and, later, emancipated
slaves to Africa.
Two of the dominant personalities behind
the Society's organization were Francis Scott
Key and Charles Fenton Mercer. Key was an
Episcopalian and a prominent attorney from
Baltimore who is best remembered as the au-
thor of the "Star Spangled Banner." Mercer was
a protege of Henry Clay, served in the Virginia
House of Delegates from 1810 to 1817, and was
elected to Congress in 1816 where he served
from 1817 until 1839.
Virginia and Virginians played a leading
role in both the American Colonization Society
and the early development of Liberia.
The Society's first president was Bushrod
Washington, a nephew of George Washington
and a longtime associate justice of the U.S. Su-
preme Court. Other prominent Virginians who
were charter members included James Monroe,
James Madison, and John Marshall. Free blacks
from Virginia such as Lott Cary and Joseph
Jenkins Roberts were early church and political
leaders in the Liberian colony, the former as its
first black acting governor and the latter as the

10. "An ACT to amend the several laws concerning slaves," Shepherd, Statutes at Large, vol. 3, chap. 63, 251-253.
11. Ibid. .
12. Early discussion of this topic included the idea of sending them to a nebulously described "far western area" in
the United States. This idea did not prevail for the same reason: It was inconceivable to most people that
America could include blacks as free and equal citizens.
13. Unless otherwise noted, the bulk of this brief history of the American Colonization Society (ACS) draws on
Marie Tyler-McGraw, An African Republic, Black and White Virginians in the Making of Liberia (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2007); and David Bearinger "Virginia and Liberia,"VHF Views
(Charlottesville: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Winter 2007): 1-3.

36
first president of the new republic in 1847.14
The philanthropic and missionary ideal-
ism of the ACS enlisted the energetic support of
many religious leaders.
The Society's first executive director was
the Episcopal priest William Meade (1789-
1861). His father, Richard Kidder Meade, had
been an aide-de-camp to George Washington.
Meade was a close friend of Francis Scott Key.
In 1823, William Meade was a founder of the
Virginia Theological Seminary, and, in 1839, of
the Seminary's high school in Alexandria. In
1841, he became bishop of the Diocese of Virgin-
ia, in which position he served as president of
the Board of Trustees of the Seminary until his
death in 1862.16 As we shall see, Bishop Meade
may well have had considerable influence on
James Kelley's thinking on the subject of eman-
cipation.
The ACS auxiliary in Richmond attracted
many men of able leadership. According to Ty-
ler-McGraw:
The ACS was fortunate to have as manag-
ing officers in the Richmond Auxiliary men
whose attentions to the tedious strategies
of the account ledger had advanced their
own fortunes and might advance the ACS.
Without their patient attention to detail
and ability to save pennies, the enterprise
would never have survived its first decade.
Famous names might lend cachet,
ministers hired as traveling agents might
exhort, politicians might debate, but it was
men such as William Crane, Benjamin
Brand, and David Burr who carried out the
agenda. 16
To this list of able ,men with good business
acumen can be added the name ofthat same Col.
Addison Hall (1797-1870), who, as an executor,
presented James Kelley's will to the Lancaster
Court in 1856. Hall was born in Northumber.
land County, but moved to Kilmarnock as a
young boy (his father became a merchant there).
He had served briefly as the Virginia Society's
general agent in Richmond in 1835 while wait-
ing for a pulpit vacancy to open up at a Baptist
Church on the Northern Neck. By this stage
in his career, he had already been an attorney
and served ten years as a delegate representing
Lancaster County in the General Assembly.17
The American Colonization Society was
considered by many to be naive at best and rac-
ist at worst. Its detractors were a coalition of
strange bedfellows. Abolitionists deplored it as
a thinly veiled attempt to gloss over the evils
of slavery. Many Southerners considered it to
be an Abolitionist effort to emancipate all slaves
everywhere and, if nothing else, an organiza-
tion whose aims were nothing but incendiary
fuel for slave insurrections and directly aimed
at destroying the established Southern order.
Like any group attempting to claim the middle
ground, the ACS was attacked from both sides.
It is therefore surprising that the ACS had
any success at all.
It was chronically short of funds. It never
held much appeal to free blacks, especially in
the North, who viewed it as a way simply to get
rid ofthem. It had somewhat more appeal to the
free blacks in Virginia, who though free in name
had few of the liberties of trade and movement
available to them in the North, or the potential
for economic and political opportunity offered
to them in Liberia. Those who did go to Libe-
ria scoffed at their Northern brethren and con-
sidered them delusional in their self-conceived

14. Lott Cary had purchased his own freedom with money earned from working in a Richmond tobacco factory,
and he lived in Richmond as a free man until emigrating to Liberia. Joseph Jenkins Roberts was born free.
15. Phone interviews on September 8 and 25, 2008, with Julia Randle, chief archivist, Protestant Episcopal
Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Virginia. Also see John Johns, A Memoir of the Life of the Right Rev.
William Meade, D. D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Virginia (Baltimore: Innes
& Co., 1867).
16. Tyler-McGraw, An African Republic, 41.
17. Isabel Gough, "Col. Addison Hall-Lawyer-Minister-Statesman, His Lineage, His Biography and His
Dedication to God," The Bulletin of the Northumberland County Historical Society 6 (1969): 62; and
manuscript titled "Colonel Addison Hall-A Man of Great Works With Very Little Instruction," Addison Hall
Family File, Mary Ball Washington Museum and Library (MBW),Lancaster, Virginia.

37
 I
,_I

status as equals in a white America. Yet, the
idea of voluntarily moving to a foreign land on
distant shores was bound to have only limited
appeal.
In 1833, the Virginia General Assembly ap-
propriated $18,000 annually for five years to the
American Colonization Society for the removal
of free blacks to Liberia. This Act required that
each county select "such free persons of colour
. . . if such free persons of colour can be found
. . . willing to emigrate." The Act provided that
sums would be appropriated to each county on
the basis of its proportion of the total revenues
that were paid by all counties to the Common-
wealth. 18
At the expiration of this Act in 1838, a Nor-
thumberland County legislative petition to the
House of Burgesses asked for the continuation
of funding to the Virginia Colonization Society
for this purpose.
Mter reaffirming the county's long-held
commitment to the colonization plan "notwith-
standing the recent reckless and ruinous course
of the Northern Abolitionists" and "detesting as
we most heartily do the principles and practices
of the Abolitionists of the North," the petition
described the free blacks of Northumberland
County as "the most degraded as well as the
most wretched class of our population." It sum-
marized the lamentable funding situation in
these words:
It is known to the Legislature, that nothing
short of colonizing them in Mrica, could be
done to ameliorate effectually their condi-
tion. . . . in consequence of the numerous
restrictions and limitations accompanying
[the 1833 Act,] it has been almost entire-
ly unavailable. Not a single individual in
this County-though there are here many,
whom the Act regards, and though the
Commissioners under the Act were most
vigilant in the discharge of their duty-has
realized its benefit. To us it has been a per-
fect nullity.19
In 1850, the Virginia legislature appropri-
ated for the American Colonization Society the
sum of $30,000 annually for five years for the
removal of free blacks from the Commonwealth
to Liberia. This law, however, came with so
many strings attached as to render it that same
"perfect nullity" as in 1838.20
In all, only 11,909 Americans of African de-
scent are known to have emigrated to Liberia
between 1820 and 1866. Of those, nearly one-
third were from Virginia. Many of them had
little choice in the matter and had been eman-
cipated on this express condition. The periods
of greatest migration were in the 1820s and
early 1830s, followed by a revival in 1850 with
the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. This act
resulted in the very real threat of kidnapping
of free blacks in the upper South to be sold as
slaves in the Deep South, and gave free blacks
in Virginia a very good reason to leave for dis-
tant shores.
The ACS ceased functioning as an agent of
emigration shortly after the Civil War. The last
contingent from Virginia left Lynchburg a few
months after the conclusion of hostilities. After
many years of peripheral involvement in Libe-
rian affairs, the ACS was formally dissolved in
1912.21 .

18. "An ACT making appropriations for the removal of free persons of colour,"Acts Passed at a General Assembly
of the Commonwealth of Virginia Begun and Held at the Capitol, in the City of Richmond (Richmond: Thomas
Ritchie, Printer to the Commonwealth, 1833), chap. 12, 14-15.
19. Legislative Petitions, Northumberland County 1777-1859, Box 185, Folder 73; also microfilm reel 141, Library
of Virginia, Richmond.
20. "An ACT making appropriations for the removal of free persons of color, and for other purposes," Acts of the
General Assembly of Virginia Passed at the Extra and Regular Sessions In 1849 & 1850 (Richmond: William
F. Ritchie, Public Printer, 1850), chap. 6, 7-8. The law limited state expenditures to $25 per free black over
the age often years and $15 per person under the age often years. To meet these expenses, an annual tax of
$1 was imposed on free black males between the ages of 21 and 55.
21. "American Colonization Society," in The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., Micropedia, vol. 1, (Chicago:
The University of Chicago, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1988), 327.

38
James and William Kelley: Vestrymen,
Planters, Merchants, and Tavern Keepers
It is not difficult to imagine how James
Kelley and his brother, William Kelley, anoth-
er bachelor, could be influenced to emancipate
their slaves and send them to Liberia by repre-
sentatives of such different religious communi-
ties as William Meade and Addison Hall. Mer
all, both Meade and Hall had much in common
when it came to the American Colonization So-
ciety.
The Kelley brothers were staunch Episco-
palians. Both of them served on the vestry of
Christ Church Parish, and James Kelley was
also a churchwarden. 22 When the roof of the
church needed to be replaced in 1838, they gave
$1,200 of the $1,500 that was required, and per-
sonally supervised the work.23
There can be no doubt that James and Wil-
liam Kelley were personally acquainted with
Bishop William Meade. As vice bishop of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia in
1838, Meade had spent several days at Christ
Church in Lancaster County. Meade wrote a-
bout his arrival there on June 23:
This day was appointed by the Convention
to be observed as a [statewide] day of hu-
miliation, fasting and prayer, on account
of the languor of the Church, and the sins
and troubles of the nation. No temple of
religion, and no spot in the diocese, could
have been selected more in accordance
with the solemn duty of that day. ,,-. .
Of the Kelley brothers,Meade wrota In
1857 that they were "descendants of old Epi..
copalians of the Northern Neck," praised thoir
generosity in repairing the roof of Christ Churoh,
and lauded their respective wills, which left gen.
erous amounts to the theological seminary and
high school in Alexandria and to the foreign and
home missions.25
As for Addison Hall, James and William
Kelley had probably known him from childhood.
In late 1799, when Hall was less than three
years old, his father moved from Northumber-
land to Kilmarnock, where he opened a store
in 1803.26 The earliest reference to the Kelleys
in Kilmarnock is in 1812, when Charles Kelley
(brother of William and James) was granted a
tavern license.27 The Kelley deeds for their town
lots in Kilmarnock show they lived adjacent to
John Hall in 1824 and, later, to his son Addi-
son.28 John Hall was a fellow merchant, and Ad-
dison Hall had clerked in his father's store until
1821.29
Even though Addison Hall was a Baptist
minister by the time of James Kelly's death, he
was certainly the Kelleys' very close friend, as
evidenced by James Kelley's will, which named
Hall as one of his executors. Addison Hall was
co-pastor (with Dr. William H. Kirk) of both
Coan and Morattico Baptist Churches in Nor-
thumberland County from 1836 to 1853.30At
the time of James Kelley's death, Hall was the

22. Margaret H. Tupper, transcriber, Vestry Book 1832-1869, Christ Church Parish, Lancaster, Virginia
(Irvington, Va.: Foundation for Historic Christ Church, 1993), 1-20.
23. Delma Conway Bates, 'The Kelleys of Christ Church" (Manuscript, Foundation for Historic Christ Church,
Archives Collection, 1967), 1.
24. Bishop William Meade, Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia (philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott
Company, 1857), vol. 2, 117.
25. Meade, Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, vol. 2, 118.
26. Lancaster County Deed Book 23,245. See also James F. Lewis, "Additional Notes on the Ancestry of Addison
Hall," The Bulletin of the Northumberland County Historical Society 6 (1969): 65.
27. Christine Adams Jones, "Ordinaries or Taverns & Houses of Entertainment 1799-1848" (Manuscript, MEW,
n.d.), 7, citing Lancaster County Order Book 24,87.
28. Lancaster County Deed Book 33, 135, 139; and Lancaster County Deed Book 41, 348. See also Lancaster
County Deed Book 34, 385.
29. Gough, "Col. Addison Hall," 61-62.
30. Stop and Look: The History of Coan Baptist Church 1804-1979 (Tappahannock, Va.: Barbour Printing.
Services, Inc., 1979), 53,65.

39
-

pastor at Morattico Baptist Church near Kil.
marnock, Lebanon Baptist Church in Alfonso,
and master commissioner for Lancaster County.
In these and other positions he was held in high
regard and wielded enormous influence in the
two counties both in and out of government.
William and James Kelley were among
the ten children of James Kelley Sr. and Judith
Campbell, whose marriage bond in Lancaster
County was dated January 16,1778.31 The fa-
ther died in Lancaster County in 1795, and the
mother in 1809.32
Of their ten children, only six-all boys-
survived to adulthood. All six served in the War
of 1812.83 Four of them were merchants, but
four ofthem had died by 1834.34
Only one of the six sons, John (occupation
unknown), married and had children. He died
in Northumberland County in 1821, leaving a
widow, Alice, who was the daughter of Cyrus
and Alice (Ball) Pinkard of that county, and two
children, James W. Kelley and Judith Ann, who
became the wife of Dr. Porteus Towles of Lan-
caster County.36
Cyrus Pinkard was a tutor to both young
Addison Hall and William H. Kirk, the even-
tual co-pastors at Coan and Morattico Baptist
Churches.36
William Kelley was the eldest of the two
surviving brothers. He was born March 22,
1781, and was the first to die, in Baltimore on
May 18, 1848, where he had gone for medical
treatment for a "prolonged sickness." That in-
formation comes from his memorial tablet erect-
ed by his brother at Christ Church in Lancaster
County. James Kelley was born in 1784 and
died February 1, 1856.37The closeness of these
two brothers is reflected not only in their many
joint real estate and mercantile ventures, but
especially in the words of James Kelley himself,
etched on the large marble tablet to his broth-
er's memory:
An only surviving brother, James Kel-
ley who lived with him for many years in
fraternal intercourse & harmony and who
cherishes for him the kindest recollections,
Erects this stone as a last tribute of respect
and affection to his memory.38
The Five Wills of William and James Kelley39
In one sense, it is amazing that the forty-
four slaves of William and James Kelley ever
made it to Liberia at all. William Kelley left
two wills, of which only the second one men-
tioned emancipating his slaves. His two wills
were only discovered when James Kelley died.
James Kelley died leaving three wills-identical

31. Lancaster Marriages 1715-1852, 48. The name is spelled Judith Cammell in the transcript of the bond.
32. Memorial tablet, Kelley plot, Christ Church Lancaster; Lancaster County Estates 1796-1806, 49 (inventory
of James Kelley, 1795); and Lancaster County Estates 1806-20, 65a-67a (inventory and account of sales of
James Kelley, 1809).
33. Christine Adams Jones, "War of 1812 Veterans of Lancaster County, Virginia," typed from handwritten notes
by Margaret Forrester (ms., 2007), n.p.; Myron E. Lyman, Sr., "The War of 1812 in the Southern Northern
Neck of Virginia," (ms., 2004),16; Myron E. Lyman, Sr., "Index of the Location of War of 1812 Veteran Graves
in Virginia," (ms., 2007), 27. All three manuscripts are housed at MBW.
34. For more information, see Memorial Tablets in the Kelley Plot at Christ Church, Lancaster; Richmond County
Deed Book 20, 558, and Richmond County Deed Book 24, 386; Richmond County Land Tax Books 1820-35;
Lancaster County Deed Book 26, 572; Lancaster County Will Book 28, 321; Lancaster County Estate Book 35,
154-157,166-168; Lancaster County Estate Book 36,125-133,227-238, and Towles et al vs. Executors of
Charles Kelley, Lancaster County Chancery Records, Library of Virginia, file #1841-04.
35. Memorial tablet in the Kelley Plot; and Stratton Nottingham, The Marriage Bonds of Northumberland
County, Virginia From 1783 to 1850 (Onancock, Va.: privately printed, 1929),63,83.
36. Gough, "Co!.Addison Hall," 6; Stop and Look, 64.
37. Tombstone erected by James Kelley's executors, Kelley plot, Christ Church.
38. Tombstone of William Kelley, Kelley plot, Christ Church.
39. Lancaster County Will Book 29, 152-164.

40
I
in substance and all of the same date-but he
did not mark which was intended as his "last"
will and testament.
None of the five wills were witnessed. Wil-
liam Kelley wrote in his first will, "There is no
necessity for witnesses to this my will as my
write [sic] is well knowne," and in his second
will, "I deem it unnecessary for a witness as my
hand write is well known." James Kelley was
even more terse and methodical. He wrote at
the bottom of each page of his three wills, "my
hand writing can be easily proven."
That two educated men whose executor
was an attorney would deliberately choose not
to have their wills witnessed suggests that they
wanted to keep the terms of the wills a secret
between themselves. This was probably for
good reason. According to Tyler-McGraw:
In letters to the ACS, Virginia coloniza-
tionists noted that they had to keep their
emancipatory plans undiscovered by hos-
tile neighbors, who believed that talk of
colonization stirred their slaves to rebel-
lion. Early in the American colonization
movement, an Amelia County slave owner
wrote, "What are likely to be the horrible
consequences upon our slaves by the public
discussion of such topics, in sermons and
other public harangues?"40
It comes as no surprise that both wills were
submitted to chancery court in Lancaster Coun-
ty in August of 1856, seven months after James
Kelley's will was brought into court for probate.
In this suit, titled James Kelley's Executors vs.
James W Kelley et al, the executors state that
"James Kelley and his brother William Kelley
. . . lived together for many years and were part-
ners in the mercantile business, in farming and
a part of the time in the tavern business."41
The suit was brought by the executors to
obtain court direction in carrying out the terms
of the several wills. Seven years had elapsed
since the death of William, and the brothers' af-
fairs were so intertwined that it was impossible
to sort out who owned what or when, except
40. Tyler-McGraw, An African Republic, 66.
41. Lancaster County Chancery Records, Library of Virginia, file #1857-011.
41
that seven of the forty-four slaves woru ownod
jointly, and the remaining slaves wero ownad
by James Kelley individually. Even the jointly
owned land (which was most of it) raised quo..
tions as to who were the proper owners undor
the terms of the various wills.
As interesting as the myriad legal issues
may be that comprise the 173 pages in this suit,
all of them were moot as far as the emancipa-
tion of the slaves was concerned. By the time
the chancery suit was filed, the freed slaves had
already arrived in Liberia.
The Two Wills of William Kelley
We are fortunate that William Kelley left
two different wills. The first will was dated May
4, 1846. It mentions no slaves, except to the ex-
tent that he left all of his property, both real and
personal, to his brother, James. It is the second
will, dated November 25,1847, that states in its
second clause:
I emancipate all my slaves after the death
of my Brother James Kelley and give to
them the use of one Thousand five hundred
dollars for their own use and benefit, and
it is my wish and desire that my Executor
hereafter named shall purchase for them
a plantation in some state in the united
states that admits free people of color to
reside on as my Brother James Kelley may
wish and direct in his will and Testament.
William Kelley had no legal right to eman-
cipate any of his seven slaves, as he only held
a one-half interest in them. Therefore, the two
brothers must have had an understanding on
the slaves' fate, and that agreement seems to
have been reached between the dates of Wil-
liam's two wills, May 4, 1846, and November
25, 1847.
The Three Wills of James Kelley
All three of James Kelley's nearly identical
wills were dated November 4, 1854. They do
not vary in substance, but merely in grammar,
choice of words, and punctuation. Not knowing
which of the three was intended to be the final
version, the executors, Addison Hall and Thorn.
as W. Meredith, filed all three wills on that mo.
mentous Monday of February 18, 1866.
The first clause of his will is devoted to the
emancipation of his slaves, and is given here in
its entirety, keeping much of the original spell.
ing:42
In conformity with my dec'd brother's Wil-
liam Kelley's Will I do hereby emancipate
all my slaves and give and bequeath to
them the sum of Thirteen Thousand Five
Hundred Dollars for their own use and ben-
efit in addition to the sum of one Thousand
Five hundred Dollars given & bequeathed
by my dec'd brother William Kelley in his
will, to his emancipated slaves, making the
sum total given and bequeathed to them
in both of our wills Fifteen Thousand Dol-
lars.
And it is my wish and desire that
each and all of our emancipated slaves
shall move off together in company unless
it should be considered that my servants
Mary and Suckey should be thought to be
too old to travel and they should wish to
remain on my Farm, they can do so, and
be supported out of my Estate and owned
by my nephew James W. Kelley, as I wish
particular care taken of them.
And further it is my wish and desire
that my Executors hereafter named shall
purchase a plantation in some state in
the United States that admits liberated
slaves to move to and reside in, in peace
and harmony-but if otherwise, upon de-
liberate consideration of my Executors it
should prove best meet and proper in their
estimation that these emancipated slaves
should be moved to Libery [sic] in Affrica
[sic]. It is my wish and desire that my Ex-
ecutors hereafter named shall send them
to the American Colony43in Affrica (being
authorized by my dec'd brother William
Kelley in his will to do so as I may direct
42. The author is ofthe opinion that James Kelley wrote the three wills with two as drafts. In this quote, the
author has used an amalgamation of the three, which vary only slightly in spelling and syntax.
43. The term "colony"was already an anachronism. Liberia became an independent republic in 1847.
42
in my will) and farther I wish my Execu-
tors to furnish them with agricultural im-
plyments to till the land when they arrive
to their distant homes, or any other article
they may want if necessary to promote
their comfort and pay for Them out of the
money given & bequeathed to them and
the residue to be paid to them at the time
of their embarkation.
I hope and trust that my Executors
will attend and give these free people of
colour justice done by and carried on board
some vessel bound to that distant port, as
it is my wish and desire that every effort
should be made to promote their comfort
and happiness in this World.
The thirteenth clause of the will, quoted
below, follows the disposition of Kelley's real es-
tate. This section may have been meant to ap-
ply only to provisions made for his land, though
this is unclear. Regardless, it may explain why
no one contested the terms of the will when am-
ple financial reasons and numerous legal tech-
nicalities were available upon which to do so:
Nevertheless In case any of my legal heirs
or any person or persons whatsoever for
them should take any exceptions or make
any effort in any way whatsoever to upset
or invalidate this my last Will and Testa-
ment or that of my dec'd brother William
Kelley's will, or in any way to upset or in-
validate his will in any way whatsoever,
in that event I give and bequeath all my
Landed Estate to my friend Dr. William H.
Kirk's two oldest sons (names not recollect-
ed) to have and to hold the same forever,
the said land, as a token of my respect for
the many friendly and kind favors done
and manifested by his Father Maj. William
Kirk dec'd towards myself and my dec'd
friends and relations.
(At this time, Dr. William H. Kirk, men-
tioned earlier, was the pastor of Coan Baptist
 Inventory of James Kelley-Slaves
Men Value in $ Boys Value in $
Henry (Wm & Jas Kelley's) 800 Spencer 700
Thomas 800 Soloman 500
Bass (Wm & Jas Kelley's) 900 Steptoe 500
William 900 Elias 450
Robert 850 Jesse 350
Richard (Wm & Jas Kelley's) 350 Lewis 350
Armstead " 250 Sprigg 200
Charles " 300 Simion 250
" 300 Hiram
Harry 150
Jerry (Wm & Jas Kelley's) 25 James 150
Opie 800 John 700
Sam 700 Cyrus 125
George 100
Women Value in $ Girls Value in $
Hannah 700 Lizzie 500
Charlotte 700 Susan 500
Paulina 650 Margaret 500
Rachel 700 Winney 500
Bettie 300 Rebecca 500
Polly 600 Sally 400
Esther 400 Leonora 250
Nancy 400 Milla 100
Susan 25 Martha
Mary 100

-Slaves listed in the Inventory of James Kelley's personal estate, February 1856

Church in Northumberland County, where he James Kelley's Estate

had become the full-time minister in 1854 after
previously serving along with Addison Hall.)
Although the will mentions the possibility
of removing the slaves to another state "that
admits free slaves," this option was apparently
not viable or given little or no consideration ei-
ther by Kelley or his executors. In any event,
the slaves themselves had no role in making the
decision. That was made by the executors, Ad-
dison Hall and Thomas W. Meredith, with Hall
probably playing the leading role.44
The estate of James Kelley was invento-
ried and appraised on February 20-21, 1856, by
William Henderson, James Hurst, Thomas H.
Hunton, and James Anderson. The locations
of the inventoried properties were given as Kil-
marnock, Lynham's, and Richland. Both Rich-
land and Lynham's were taxed as one parcel
on the 1855 Northumberland County land tax
list, simply described as "on Indian Creek" and
twenty-four miles southeast of the courthouse
in Heathsville. Improvements were valued at

44. Little is known of Thomas W. Meredith, except "that he was a partner in two mercantile firms in Kilmarnock,
Meredith & Beane and Meredith & Cundiff, and died in 1859. See Lancaster County Deed Book 42, 340.

43
 $1,152. The third tract, called Middle Quarter,
Lee's and Jones's, in the will, was without build-
ingS.45
The listing of the forty.four slaves appears
in the inventory immediately after the personal
I
or by surnames such as "John Lee" and "John
Jones."47
The 1850 census was the first to segregate
whites and free blacks from slaves on two dif-
ferent schedules. The creation of the new 1850

property listed for Richland. That is to say, all
the slaves were listed as a separate item, regard-
I' less of where they were actually living.46 They
were organized in groups of men, boys, women,
and girls as shown in the box on page 43.
James Kelley's will only mentions two of his
slaves by name: Mary and Suckey, who may ''be
thought to be too old to travel." Inventories of
this period usually listed old or enfeebled slaves
at a minimal value or as "a charge," meaning of
no financial value and an expense to the estate
for their maintenance. In this case, we find two
females named Susan ("Suckey" being a nick-
name for Susan) worth just $25, and Mary, val-
ued at only $100. As will be shown later, both
women did make the journey to Liberia.
The case of Kelley's Executors vs. Kelley
states that seven of the slaves were owned joint-
ly by William and James Kelley. On this list,
all seven are identified, and all were men. Two
of them, Armstead and Jerry, did not make the
trip to Liberia.
As is typical for inventories of slaves, no
family groupings or surnames are provided. Al-
though slaves did have family names, they are
rarely found in county records. On the surpris-
ingly rare occasions when two slaves in the same
estate had the same given name, they tended
to be differentiated by some description such as
"Old Tom" and ''Young Tom," or by occupation
such as ''Mary the cook" and "John the miller"
population schedules engendered lively debate
in the U.S. Congress. Southern legislators vig-
orously opposed listing slaves by family or even
by name. They argued that slave owners could
not possibly know the names of all their slaves
or their family groupings, and to attempt to do
so would be a burden of time and energy for the
census taker. This objection rings hollow in the
face of the wills and inventories of estates in
courthouses throughout the South, and of many
of the slave owners' plantation account books.48
Considering the increasing tension be-
tween North and South over the issue of slav-
ery, such objections appear to reflect a refusal
to put a human face on human bondage. In the
end, the 1850 Slave Schedule lists slaves only
by owner, sex, age, and race (black or mulatto),
but not by name. James Kelley's slaves appear
in the slave schedule for Lancaster County be-
cause that is where he had his residence.49
The estate accounts for James Kelley cov-
er the period from February 28, 1856, to Octo-
ber 20, 1857. They reveal that the overseer of
Lynum's was James H. Coleman and that the
overseer of Richland was William Clarke. Both
were paid a percentage of the crops produced in
1855.50
To Liberia!
It is remarkable that the preparations for
the trip of forty-four people to a foreign coun-

45. Northumberland County Land Tax Book 1855, 19. In the will of James Kelley, the Kilmarnock properties
were left to the children of his niece, Judith A. Towles. The lands in Northumberland County of Lynham's
and Richland were left to his nephew James W. Kelley in a life estate, and at his death to his eldest son,
James Fourth Kelley. Middle Quarter, Lee's and Jones's was also left to James W. Kelley in a life estate, and
at this death to John W. Kelley, "second surviving son of James W. Kelley."
46. Lancaster County Estate Book 40, 233. .

47. Abstracts by the author of the records of 465 estates have been compiled for Lancaster County for the period
1835-65; these are expected to appear on the MBW website in 2009.
48. David E. Paterson, "The 1850 and 1860 Census, Schedule 2, Slave Inhabitants," Chapter 2-B, "To Name or Not
to Name," Afrigeneas Library, www.afrigeneas.comllibrary/slave_schedule2.html#2b_naming. .
49. 1850 Census, Virginia, Lancaster County: Special Census, Slave Schedules; image 29 at www.ancestry.com.
50. Estate Book 40 (this record book is actually titled, in the Lancaster County courthouse, Estates from 1854),
292-301.

44
try were undertaken and completed with such
speed and efficiency.
The sudden turn of events was probably not
greeted with overwhelming joy in the slave com-
munities in Kilmarnock and Northumberland
County. Most of the slaves probably had never
heard of Liberia, and the thought of crossing a
vast ocean probably was frightening for most.
Whatever they knew about that unpleasant
experience had been handed down from slave
ancestors. Moreover, most of these slaves prob-
ably had friends or family members outside of
their home plantations whom they would have
to leave behind.
But to Liberia they did go. The final ac-
count for James Kelley's estate includes this
payment of $13,500:
June 11, 1856. for outfit etc. of eman-
cipated slaves passage to Liberia, their
board etc. for six months after their arriv-
al in there and cash paid over to them on
their embarkation this day on board ship
"Elvira Owen" making the full amount of
their Legacy under decedent's will as per
receipts of said emigrants. 51
The entire endeavor was not a modest
proposition. The total valuation ofthe forty-four
slaves amounted to $19,425, or 62 percent ofthe
$31,126 total value of James Kelley's personal
property. Combined with the $13,500 expended
for outfitting and passage to Liberia, the total
amount expended by the estate for the emanci-
pation was $32,925.
Although any attempt to measure the in-
trinsic value of human lives is purely quixotic,
in 1856 there was a set monetary value on slaves
in the marketplace. The purchasing power of
$32,925 in 1856 U.S. dollars would probably
amount to between $630,000 and $830,000 in
2007 U.S. dollars. 52 Considering its social, po-
litical, and financial ramifications, one can well
51. Ibid., 294.
52. "Measuring Worth," at www.measuringworth.comlppowerus/result.php. based on Lawrence H. Officer and
Samuel H. Williamson, "Measures of Worth, 2007," MeasuringWorth.com 2007.
53. An original set of these journals is housed in the Special Collections of the Library of Virginia, Richmond.
54. The African Repository 32, no. 6 (June 1856): 161-162.
55. Ibid.
45
imagine that such a scheme would hnvu Imhmd
been kept under very tight wraps by thu Kc~l1uy
brothers.
The Elvira Owen and Its Expedition to Liberia
The American Colonization Society in
Washington, D.C., published a monthly journlll
aptly named The African Repository.53 From
these journals, we learn a great deal about tho
ship Elvira Owen and its passengers.
The June 1856 issue led off with a story
titled "Expedition for Liberia."
Here we learn that the Elvira Owen was "a
fine ship of about 873 tons" and had been char-
tered by the ACS to "take out a party of emi-
grants." It sailed from Boston on May 27 and
had on board "two houses, each 96 feet by 36
feet, and containing 21 rooms." From Boston
the ship was proceeding to Hampton Roads,
where it would pick up "some two hundred per-
sons from Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Mary-
land and North Carolina." From there it would
proceed to Savannah to take on "about one
hundred and fifty more." We also learn that "a
larger proportion than usual of these emigrants
have been freed for the purpose of emigration,
and provided with more or less money towards
defraying their expenses."54
The Reverend John Seys, a missionary
of the Methodist Church who had spent many
years in Liberia, was to accompany the emi-
grants and see to their settlement once arrived.
After that, he was to make exploration of the
"upland country of the interior" in order to make
preparations for a future settlement there in the
autumn. 55 This article concludes with an appeal
for funds. Its patriotic piety reflects the Chris-
tian beliefs of its members when it says:
[Our friends] cannot fail to perceive the
greatness and moral grandeur of the enter-
prise, and to feel its claims upon the chris-
tian sympathy and liberal support of ana-
 SHIP EL VIM OWEN, OFF TYBEE BAR, SAVANNAH RIVER
II June 21,1856

Rev. and Dear Sir: We are just about discharging our pilot, and will soon
take our final departure from the American coast on our voyage to Liberia. It will
be pleasing to you and to the friends of colonization generally, to know that thus
far we have been most highly favored.
On the 11thinstant [i.e., June 11, 1856, the same day James Kelley's Estate
paid $13,500 to send the former slaves to Liberia] our party of emigrants from
Kentucky and Maryland.. consisting of 83, were conveyed from Baltimore in the
steamer Louisana, and joined the ship in Hampton Roads on the 12th, where 96
from Virginia and other places had already been put on board.
On Friday the 13thwe sailed for this place [Tybee Island] and after a very
pleasant and short passage of five days, anchored abreast of the Tybee lighthouse
on Wednesday at 12 % P.M.
During the passage opportunity was afforded for making those arrange-
ments, and organizing such a system of discipline and order, as I trust will great-
ly conduce to the comfort and improvement of the entire company.
The 179 emigrants were divided into fifteen messes, and over each mess one
superintendent, appointed, and to each mess the quantum of provisions appor-
tioned by Mr. McLain, the Financial Secretary, duly and faithfully served.
We have abundance of everything necessary to the comfort of the people,
and their accommodations are ample and commodious. I cannot refrain from say-
ing that the Society are greatly indebted to Mr. McLain for his selection of so fine
a ship. During my many passages to and from Liberia, I do not know that I ever
was a passenger on board as fine a vessel as the Elvira Owen. Her commander
too is an intelligent, refined gentleman, and from my few days acquaintance with
Capt. Alexander and his noble ship, I anticipate, with the Divine blessing, a short
and most pleasant passage to Africa.
The school books, bibles and testaments which I obtained at Boston, were
soon distributed, and one large school established, consisting of bible, reading,
and even alphabet classes; and the thirst for instruction manifested, the aptitude
in learning, and perseverance, even on the part of the old persons, amply repay
for the effort put forth.
In fact, the deck of our fine vessel presents every day at certain hours one
large school, every one intent either in acquiring or imparting knowledge. Mr.
and Mrs. Powers, from Litchfield, Conn., who go out as emigrants, are most inde-
fatigable in the assistance which they render me, and their capabilities for teach-
ing promise much for their future usefulness in Africa.
Besides family prayer in the cabin at seven bells every morning, I have ser-
vice every evening from 8 to 9, with the emigrants in the steerage. We have a
goodly number of professed christians on board, and the hour is spent in singing
and prayer, with exhortation. Several unite with me in thus taking public part

46
 and provoking others to love and good works.
My first attempt to preach on board was on Sunday at 3 P. M., and at the
close of the service, when I urged upon all who were living without God and with-
out hope in the world, the necessity of serving him, and doing it now, six persons
in tears of godly sorrow, desired the prayers of God's people.
That night in prayer meeting three professed to be blest, and the serious-
ness among the people seems increasing.-To God be all the praise.
We have received at Savannah 142 more, making in all 321 emigrants.
There has been some sickness on board, some old chronic cases, and some of in-
termittent fever, but I have the pleasure to report all better.
I beg to assure the Committee, through you, my dear sir, that nothing shall
be wanting on my part, so far as life and health will permit, in taking the utmost
care of this very large and interesting emigration during the voyage, providing
for their settlement on their arrival, and carrying out all the purposes connected
with my agency.

I am, very respectfully yours, etc.

John Seysl

1. The African Repository 32, no. 6 (June 1856): 194-195. The original of this letter from the Reverend John
Seys on board the Elvira Owen, June 21,1856, and the later article and letter reproduced in this article were
originally written in paragraphs that were very long and difficult to read. They have been broken up into
shorter paragraphs here to enhance readability.

47
 tion so eminently favored and enriched as
this by that Providence, which brightens
or darkens human affairs, which is but the
agency of Him who can prosper or destroy
us. May the people of these United States
forget not the Rock of their salvation, nor
that to nations as to individuals, benefi-
cenceis the duty, securityand glory.56
The next issue of The African Repository
gave many more details of the Elvira Owen's
journey. 57 Its lead story was titled "Departure
of the Elvira Owen; Three Hundred and Twenty-
One Emigrants For Liberia." Quoting from the
June 21, 1856, issue of the Savannah Republi-
can, the journal reports that the Elvira Owen,
under Captain Alexander, arrived at Tybee Is-
land near Savannah on June 19 after sailing
from Baltimore to Hampton Roads. It was met
there by a schooner bearing 142 passengers,
and the Elvira Owen set sail for Liberia on the
afternoon of June 21. On board was a medical
library "of great value, left to the people of Libe-
ria by the will of the late Dr. Rufus Kittridge"
of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The ship ''has
the best accommodations, and ample stores and
provisions carefully selected."
In the Savannah Republican article, Wil-
liam Duncan of Savannah gave a detailed list of
emigrants from ten states, their home counties,
and their emancipators. Also on board were
two Liberian citizens who were returning home
from business.
Included in his account were "43 from Vir-
ginia, liberated by will of two brothers, Messrs.
James and William Kelley, and by will, through
their executors, Messrs. Hall and Meredith,
of Rappahannack, Virginia, furnished with
$15,000 for their emigration and settlement."
Also on the list were forty slaves from Gwinnet
County, Georgia, emancipated by G. M. Waters.
Among that group was a young mulatto named
Jefferson Waters, of whom we will soon read
more. 58
Duncan's report states that $15,000 toward
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid., 32, no. 7 (July 1856): 193-195.
58. Ibid., 193-194.
59. The African Repository 33, no. 8 (August 1856), 250. Not all of the groupings of the same surname were
marked as "One Family."
48
the slaves' passage and maintenance was paid
according to the wills of William and James Kel-
ley. But as shown above, the estate of James
Kelley estate expended only the $13,500 be-
queathed in his will. Indeed, the chancery suit,
Kelley's Executors vs. Kelley, mentions that the
estate of William Kelley did not have enough
funds to pay for any of his bequests.
The next item in this Savannah Republi-
can article is the touching firsthand account of
the ensuing trip in a letter from the Reverend
John Seys to the Reverend R. R. Gurley at the
ACS headquarters. It is quoted in its entirety
on page 46, as this author could not conceive of
a single sentence that should go unrecorded.
Ship's Passenger List of the Elvira Owen
The August 1856 issue of The African Re-
pository gives the complete list of passengers
aboard the Elvira Owen. This article states that
the ship sailed from Norfolk on May 13, 1856,
and sailed from Savannah on May 20, 1856. We
know from the preceding articles and letters,
however, that these dates are not correct, and
that the ship sailed from Tybee Island, Georgia,
for Liberia on June 21, 1856. Nevertheless, it
is from this manifest that we are able to place
the former slaves of James Kelley into family
groups, with surnames and ages, as shown on
page 49.59
It is rare indeed when two lists such as the
Kelley estate inventory and the ship's manifest
compare so favorably, but there are still three
discrepancies:
. Two men named Charles on the mani-
fest, but only one in the inventory;
. Armstead, man, $250 in the inventory,
not on the manifest; and
. Jerry, man, $25, in the inventory, but not
on manifest.
With respect to Armstead and Jerry, it is
possible that both were old and simply either
refused or were told they did not have to go to
I

Comparison of the Elvira Owen's Manifest (as printed in The African Repository)
with the James Kelley Inventory
From the Inventory
No. Name and residence Age Born free Remarks (Value)
or slave
94 Charles Carter 60 slave 300 (man)
95 Nancy Carter 40 slave 400 (woman)
96 Winny Carter 14 slave 500 (girl)
97 Charlotte Carter 18 slave 700 (woman)
98 Elias Carter 8 slave 450 (boy)
99 Cyrus Carter 2 slave 125 (boy)
100 Richard Armstrong 55 slave 350 (man)
101 Polly Armstrong 35 slave 600 (woman)
102 Spencer Armstrong 15 slave 700 (boy)
103 Steptoe Armstrong 12 slave 500 (boy)
104 Jesse Armstrong 10 slave 350 (boy)
105 Sprigg Armstrong 8 slave 200 (boy)
106 James Armstrong 5 slave 150 (boy)
107 Charles Jones 35 slave 300 (man)
108 Betty Jones 40 slave 300 (woman)
109 Margaret Jones 15 slave One 500 (girl)
110 Samuel Jones 14 slave Family 700 (man)
111 John Jones 12 slave 700 (boy)
112 Simeon Jones 10 slave 250 (Simion, boy)
113 Martha Jones 5 slave 100 (girl)
114 Harry Cook 45 slave 300 (man)
115 Sukey Cook 65 slave 25 (Susan, woman)
116 Esther Lee 38 slave 400 (woman)
117 Hannah Lee 18 slave 700 (woman)
118 Paulina Lee 16 slave 650 (woman)
119 Rebecca Lee 14 slave One 500 (girl)
120 Opie Lee 13 slave Family 800 (man)
121 Solomon Lee 12 slave 500 (boy)
122 Lewis Lee 19 slave 350 (boy)
123 Leonora Lee 9 slave 250 (girl)
124 Milley Lee 3 slave 100 (Milla, girl)
125 Robert Williams 40 slave 850 (man)
126 Rachel Williams 20 slave 700 (woman)
127 George Williams 2 slave 100 (boy)
128 Susan Velvet 18 slave 500 (girl)
129 Sally Velvet 16 slave 400 (girl)
130 Eliza Velvet 12 slave 500 (Lizzie, girl)
131 Hiram Velvet 8 slave 150 (boy)
132 Thomas Lee 30 slave 800 (man)
133 Henry Wright 30 slave 800 (man)
134 Bass Latimer 20 slave 900 (man)
135 William Wright 28 slave 900 (man)
136 Mary Campbell 45 slave 100 (woman)

49
 Quite an excitement prevailed in our city on Friday last at the appearance here
of Jefferson, one of the liberated slaves of the late G. M. Waters, of Gwinnet county,
in this State. It is known to most of our readers in this vicinity that "Jeff," with some
forty other slaves, in accordance with the will of his late owner, was sent to Liberia in
the ship Elvira Owen, Capt. Alexander commanding. . . "Jeff," with his fellow passen-
gers . . . arrived safely at Liberia, but after a stay there of about seven months, during
which, he states, that, of his own immediate family, mother sisters and brothers, six of
seven of them died; and [many others died as well] we may say perished from the want
of wholesome food, and from disease common upon the African coast. . . .

[In Liberia, Jeff stowed away on a ship bound for Baltimore, took another ship to
Charleston, and from there by rail to Atlanta via Augusta.] Once arrived [in Atlanta] at
the Misters Wallace he stated. . . that all he wanted or desired was to reach the planta-
tion of young Master Mr. T. J . Waters, of Gwinnett, so as to be permitted for the balance
of his life either to handle the plough, or to take up the shovel and the hoe. . . .

This is, truly, a rare incident. "Jeff' is not one of your stupid fellows, but an intel-
ligent mulatto. His age is about 26, and we would take his opinion of the condition of
the liberated slaves in Liberia as soon as that of any white philanthropist who has not
actually visited Liberia. . . Jeff says, with but very few exceptions, their condition is
miserable indeed, and that ninety-nine out of every hundred of them would, like himself,
gladly return to servitude upon the plantation. As for the natives of Liberia, he pro-
nounced them lazy, filthy, and on their diet, worse than beasts - worms and snakes and
toads, and creeping things, being luxuries. Corn bread and bacon were things only re-
membered; upon fruits and roots all had to subsist. . . We asked him if he could get work
there; his reply was, "no; [unless] he would work for nothing." In fact, said he, there is no
work to do there, and that is what makes everything so bad. Of the snob aristocracy, the
big niggers of Liberia, Jeff has a most contemptible opinion. They will [accept], he says,
Northern niggers, but upon one w,hohas been a slave, they look with contempt. He could
lick a plantation of them any day, provided the law was clear.

-Extracts from "An Arrival from Liberia," Atlanta Examiner, May 4, 1857

Liberia. From the inventory, Jerry was clearly Surnames

old, and Armstead, "man," was valued at only
$250. One man named Charles on the manifest
may have been a free black. It is also of inter-
est that Richard Pinn, age 21, a free black mu-
latto from Lancaster County,5Owas listed on the
manifest immediately following the Kelley con-
tingent.) Further research is needed in order to
explain the discrepancies noted above.
It is widely believed that freed slaves took
their surnames from their masters. Though
many times this was true, it is by no means an
established "rule" or fact. The passenger list for
the Kelley slaves proves this-not one of them
used the name Kelley. By contrast, it should
be noted that most of the other slaves on this
particular ship did, according to the manifest,

60. O'Brien, 1850 Lancaster Census, 64. Richard Pinn, mulatto, age fifteen, was reported living in the household
(#352) of Washington Thomas (mulatto), a farmer. (Finn family file at MBW.)

50
 use the surnames of their former masters. As
will be shown below, at least one former slave
who went to Liberia, Randal Bunch, changed
his name to Randal Kilby once he had arrived.
The origins of African American surnames is a
topic shrouded in mystery, and is deserving of
more scholarly research than this article can
hope to present.
Life in Liberia
Seys's description of the Elvira Owen de-
picts a modern, well-equipped ship. Neverthe-
less, the transatlantic crossing was certainly no
pleasure cruise. Such a trip often resulted in at
least a few deaths. And if the voyage to Liberia
was precarious, life in Liberia was anything but
paradise. At this point, the fate of the Kelley
slaves who survived the passage to Liberia is
not known. This should be a subject of future
research.
In the meantime, we do know what be-
. came of at least one passenger on board the
Elvira Owen. This young man, Jefferson Wa-
ters, was one of 41 slaves who had been freed by
G. M. Waters of Gwinnet County, Georgia (see
above).61 Jeff Waters' story is related in the ar-
ticle on page 50 titled "An Arrival from Liberia"
in the Atlanta Examiner dated May 4, 1857.62
Jeffwas not alone in his disgust with the Li-
berian experience. According to Tyler-McGraw:
Some of those who found Liberia's
shortages, squabbles, wars, and deaths too
much to bear were able to leave the colo-
ny. The Atlantic traffic went both ways,
and it was not uncommon for dissatisfied
emigrants to return to the United States
or travel on to Sierra Leone. . . This was
a pattern that would be repeated with al-
most every shipload of emigrants. In each
year, there were some who relocated within
Africa or returned to the United States to
complain bitterly of Liberia or its inhabit-
ants. 63
61. The African Repository 33, no. 8, 252-253.
62. "A House Divided," (Carlisle, Pa.: Dickinson College), http://housedivided.dickinson.edulmainlindex
.php?q=printJ1910.
63. Tyler-McGraw, An African Republic, 140.
64. Ibid., 140-141.
65. Kilby Family Papers.
51
In his first letter back to Virginiu, Sft~P,
son Ceasar wrote: "The natives are numorous
in this place and they do most of the work for
the people in this place [Monrovia]. They wilt
Steal every Chance they have. They are mORL
all Croomen." Gilbert Hunt complained that tho
Kru men who rowed out to the ships in canoes
had cheated him of his tobacco, his chief trading
commodity. In fact, the Kru were experienced
mariners and traders whose knowledge of geog-
raphy and trade values gave them an edge over
the American emigrants in any transaction.64
But not everyone was discontent, despite
the chronic shortage of basic supplies. The letter
on page 52 is typical of the pleas for money and
materials that comprised the bulk of the letters
from Liberia. It was from Randal Kilby, aka
Randal Bunch, a freed slave from Nansemond
County, Virginia, who settled near Buchanan in
Grand Bassa County, and it was addressed to
James Hunter Godwin and John R. Kilby of Suf-
folk, Virginia. John R. Kilby was an attorney,
Whig politician, and ACS member. His family
had once owned Randal.
We learn in later letters from Randal Kilby
that he was farming ten acres ofland and grow-
ing corn, potatoes, cassado, arraroot, cotton, and
coffee. He sends his regards to various people in
Virginia, including one to "my daughter Lefvin-
ia & her mother"; one postscript adds, "My son
says master please send me a knife." The letters
ask for basic supplies such as axs, hoes, cloth,
flour, saws, knives, and shoes. We note with in-
terest that Randal Bunch Kilby had two wives
both living at the same time-one free and in
Liberia, the other apparently still enslaved.65
Home At Last
Though the fate of the forty-four former
slaves from Lynham's and Richland plantations
in Northumberland County is yet to be discov-
ered, presumably at least some of them survived
and left descendants in Liberia. According to
an anecdote related to the author by a docent
 Letter from Liberia:
Randal Kilby to James H. Godwin and John R. Kilby,
Suffolk County, Virginia, 1856

Sirs, you will be informed by the few lines that We have arrived safe in Africa after a
tedious passage of more than two months[.] [W]e suffered a good deal from sea sickness whilst
on board & lost one, Abraham, before we got to land[.] [W]e found a different Country here to
that from which we came & we was so unfortunate as to lose all our things by the Vessal being
wrecked after she got to Monrovia[.] [I]t was a great loss to us all for what things we had was to
have been of great to service to us in a new country like Africa[.]
We have drawn our lots & some of us have get and got our houses up[.] I have my house
up & got my Deed in my house[.] I am well pleased with the Country some of my people does-
bot like is somewhat dissatisfied but perhaps it is mostly owing to [the]loss we sustained by the
Brig Harp.
I have got some caffy out with other things which I look for to be profitable to me by paying
strict attention to it.
Gentlemen my candid opinion is if a man is Industrious and pays attention to his business
he can get a long well in africa but I believe many suffer from Indolence & are discontented[.]
[T]he people here are like in other places good and bad kind and unkind but I find the best way
to be used well is to do well ourselves[.] I [have] no difficulty[.]
Chaney [his wife] and the children [Solomon, George and Moses] is well & wishes to be
remembered to you most kindly[.] [p]lease inform our Mistress Mrs. Bunch that we are well
[and we] remembers our most special Respects to her and the friends[.] [M]y respects to Mr.
Julius Godwin and Henson Crump[.]
One favor I must ask of them that is, to favor me with about three hound pupys [puppies]
two of them sluts if possible for that kind of dogs is need here[.]
)

I must not forget Doctor Philips [and] please tell him I am well and getting along quite well
as I could expect under the circumstances. I am hard put to for tools to work with and I must ask
you to send me a small cross cut saw for this is Shingle Country but for want of the right sort of
tools we are hard put to do work as we would like[.]
And best respects to all the Colored friends[.] Do me the favor to write to me & let me know
[how] you all are.
Yours with greatest respect
Randal Kilby
P.S. If you please tell Mrs. Crump to direct them pupys [puppies] to Mr. [Shett?] Benson,
Buchanan G. B. [Grand Bassa] County and I will get them. R. Kl

1. Kilby Family Papers, Library of Virginia, Archives Collection, Box 1, Folder 7, "Correspondence 1801-1858."
Randal Kilby was named Randal Bunch when he departed for Liberia aboard the ship Sophia Walker
on May 1, 1854. He had been emancipated by Joseph Bunch of Nansemond County, Virginia. On board
the Sophia Walker were also Chaney Bunch and her three sons ages five to twelve. See Marie Tyler-McGraw
and Deborah Lee, Emigrants to Liberia (Charlottesville: Virginia Center for Digital History, University of
Virginia), www.vcdh.virginia.edulliberialindex.php?page=Home for a searchable database of Virginia
emigrants to Liberia and their Virginia emancipators.

52
with the Foundation for Historic Christ Church,
sometime in the 1990s a man from Liberia, said
to be a bishop, appeared at Christ Church for
the specific purpose of finding James Kelley's
grave. Once arrived and in front of his benefac-
tor's tombstone, he sighed and said reverently,
"At last, I've come home."
Appendix: Liberia Today66
The population of Liberia today is roughly
3.5 million, of whom only 5 percent are "Ameri-
co-Liberians" (descendants of American blacks).
Liberia proclaimed its independence in 1847
when the American Colonization Society in-
timated the colony should cease depending on
the ACS for financial support. Recognition from
most of the great powers came soon thereafter.
The United States, however, did not officially
recognize the new republic until 1862, during
the Civil War.
Its first constitution limited citizenship to
Americo- Liberians and any blacks who would
come later from America. Whites could not be-
come citizens. The indigenous peoples were not
granted citizenship until 1904.
Liberia had been anticipating an influx of
at least 100,000 immigrants from the United
States after the Civil War. In attempting to
make his Emancipation Proclamation accept-
able, President Lincoln offered financial com-
pensation to slave owners "not in rebellion" and
dabbled with the idea of American financial as-
sistance to those freedmen willing to go to Af-
rica. That idea was soon abandoned after pro-
tests by African American leaders, who were not
the least bit interested in going to Liberia.
Liberia struggled through many decades
of near ruinous economic conditions, and was
66. This Appendix is based on U.S. Department of State, Bureau of African Affairs, "Liberia: Background Note,"
September 2008, www.state.gov/r/paleilbgn/6618.htm; and "Liberia," in The New Encyclopedia Britannica,
Macropedia, vol. 29 (Chicago: University of Chicago, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. 1988), 886-887.
53
in deep debt to foreign nations, especially Oront
Britain. This situation was finally reBolvud in
1926, when the Liberian government conCQ..
sioned one million acres to the Firestone Tiro
and Rubber Company. At the same time, Libo.
ria received a line of credit worth $5 million from
The Finance Corporation of America, which en.
abled it to payoff its foreign debts with ample
surplus funds in reserve.
Liberia played an important role in the
Allied effort during World War II. Apart from
Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), it was the allies' only
source of natural latex rubber. A 1942 defense
agreement with the United States resulted in a
program of road building, construction of Rob-
ertsfield airport (for many years the longest
runway in Africa), and completion of a deep wa-
ter harbor at Monrovia.
The country was a one-party state under
the True Whig Party until 1980, when Samuel
K. Doe, an indigenous member of the Krahn
tribe, seized power in a coup d'etat. Despite
Doe's questionable human rights and demo-
cratic credentials, he enjoyed considerable U.S.
financial support and was a staunch U.S. ally.
Doe's rule was overthrown in another bloody
coup by Charles Taylor in 1987. The nation
was plunged into a civil war until 1996, when
an uneasy peace was achieved. In a fraudulent
election, Taylor was elected president in 1997.
The country continued in a violent and destruc-
tive decline until finally, in 2003 and under im-
mense international pressure, Taylor resigned
and went into voluntary exile in Nigeria.
In 2005, Liberia held its first free, open,
and fair election, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf be-
came Africa's first democratically elected female
president.