Black Entrepreneurs
Contract between Solomon Willson and William Skinner, November 17, 1815 (detail)
The whole of the corn and the corn blades, two beds and two bedsteads and bedding furniture, five chairs, one pine table, one cupboard, one trunk, one chest, one crate[?], linen wheel, five cups and saucers, one earthen dish, five pewter plates, five pewter spoons, two pewter basins, three earthen pots, one tub, one bucket, one meal tub, two barrels, one iron pot, and pot hooks, one oven and top[?], one pair of hand irons, one flat iron, one bag, one pair of steelyards, one brass candlestick, one loom, four pairs of harnesses, four flags[?] … knives and forks, the whole of the cabbages, one iron boiler[?], one pair of [?], and one pair of collars.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal this seventeenth day of November 1815.
His
Solomon X Wilson {seal}
Mark
[spelling and punctuation have been modernized]
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal this seventeenth day of November 1815.
His
Solomon X Wilson {seal}
Mark
[spelling and punctuation have been modernized]
The list of household goods sold by Willson to Skinner gives a sense of the material surroundings of ordinary rural people on the Eastern Shore, whether Black or white. The items include a loom, a pine table, pewter plates and spoons, and a brass candlestick.
Willson managed to hold onto at least some of his property. At the end of his life, in 1823, he still possessed a small farm that he bequeathed to his widow, children, and grandchildren.
Click "Commodore Collection" below to return to the main page or "Continue" to read more about this topic.