Papers, 1766-1825

Containers:

Box 1

Scope and content:

Assorted manuscript documents from the Massie family, arranged chronologically. Items include land surveys and hand drawn plot maps; correspondence from acquaintances and business contacts regarding crops and prices for tobacco, corn, wheat, rye, hemp, and other agriculture; planning and maps for planting fields, raising pigs, or other farming activities; some family correspondence about travel plans and different health of various family members. Includes some exchanges between Thomas Massie and his sons, William and Thomas Massie, as well as between the two brothers themselves; also includes small amount of correspondence to Sarah Massie. Includes a deed with a seal granting land to Thomas Massie from Governor Wilson Cary Nicholas in 1814. There are at least two references to sales of enslaved people. One is a note from William Garland to Massie, offering to send a courier with a "boy with him - if you think proper to take him at the six hundred dollars, Mr. Ware will deliver to you a Bill of Sale." A later bill of sale, issued in Lynchburg on 1815 August 5, notes that William Massie purchased "negro woman by the name of Lady and her son Bob" for six hundred seventy five dollars, from Davidson Bradford.

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