Creator: Wilkerson, Anne Golden.
Collection number: 2433
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Abstract: Wilkerson’s memories of her mother’s account of an 1841 journey from Virginia to Missouri. Making the journey were Wilkerson’s maternal grandfather and grandmother, James Blakely (1811-1887) and Anne Johnson Payne Smith (b. 1816) as well as several brothers and sisters of James B. Smith. More than forty slaves accompanied them on the journey, which required several months of travel. Most of this account, however, is not about the journey, but about the Smith and Payne family genealogies, their views of slavery and of particular slaves, and accounts of Quantrill’s Raiders spreading terror near their home (between Richmond, Mo., and Lexington, Mo.) during the Civil War. Written ca. 1941 this account jumps backward and forward in time, but offers few dates to identify events.
Repository: Southern Historical Collection
Collection Highlights: Most of the account discusses family genealogies, views on slavery, and views on particular slaves. Microfilm only.