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Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Slaves Sold in Louisiana by Skelton Hardgrave, 1818

My 5th-great-grandmother's brother Skelton Hardgrave lived in both Tennessee and Louisiana during his adult life. The Ancestry.com database Louisiana, Slave Records, 1719-1820 provides information about slaves that Skelton sold in Louisiana. The information in this database comes from the Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy 1719-1820 database, which was compiled by Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall. The information on these slaves can also be found by searching that database. Skelton's name is sometimes recorded as Kelson Hardgrove in the databases. Perhaps his first name, which is rather unusual, was hard to read. I have seen many variant spellings for his surname.

Mariah
Age: 20
Gender: female
Race: mulatto
Seller: Kelson Hardgrove
Buyer: Baptiste Simon Fontenot
Seller from Tennessee
Sold with one female child under 5 years of age (Lucinda)
Selling value: $1150
Document location: St. Landry (Opelousas Post). [Calcasieu 1840, Cameron 1870, Acadia 1886, Evangeline 1908, Allen 1910, Jefferson Davis 1912, Beaureguard 1912]
Date of document: 5 May 1818
Document number: 2236
Notary name: Notarial Acts Reel 4
http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/individ.php?sid=76971

Lucinda
Age: 1
Gender: female
Race: mulatto
Seller: Kelson Hardgrove
Buyer: Baptiste Simon Fontenot
Seller from Tennessee
Sold with her mother, age 20 (Mariah)
Mother's race: 4
Selling value: $1150
Document location: St. Landry (Opelousas Post). [Calcasieu 1840, Cameron 1870, Acadia 1886, Evangeline 1908, Allen 1910, Jefferson Davis 1912, Beaureguard 1912]
Date of document: 5 May 1818
Document number: 2236
Notary name: Notarial Acts Reel 4
http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/individ.php?sid=76972

There is another entry which includes the designation mulatto rouge, with no additional information. Because the number is the same as for Mariah and Lucinda, it may pertain to them.

Document location: St. Landry (Opelousas Post). [Calcasieu 1840, Cameron 1870, Acadia 1886, Evangeline 1908, Allen 1910, Jefferson Davis 1912, Beaureguard 1912]
Date of document: 5 May 1818
Document number: 2236
Notary name: Notarial Acts Reel 4
http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/individ.php?sid=76973

Jacob
born in Kentucky
Age: 20
Gender: male
Race: black
Seller: Kelson Hardgrove
Buyer: Louis Pitre
Seller from Tennessee; slave from Kentucky
Sold or inventoried as an individual
Selling value: $1000
Document location: St. Landry (Opelousas Post). [Calcasieu 1840, Cameron 1870, Acadia 1886, Evangeline 1908, Allen 1910, Jefferson Davis 1912, Beaureguard 1912]
Date of document: 5 May 1818
Document number: 2238
Notary name: Notarial Acts Reel 4
http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/individ.php?sid=76998

Sukkay, Wolof Female Name (listed as Soukay in Louisiana, Slave Records, 1719-1820)
Age: 3.0 (Louisiana, Slave Records, 1719-1820 gives her age as 17)
Gender: female
Race: Grif (usually means mixed black and Indian) (Louisiana, Slave Records, 1719-1820 gives her race as black and says she was described as "Yellow Negress")
Seller: Skelton Hardgrove
Buyer: HIlaire Gradenigo
Seller from Tennessee
Selling value: $1100
Document location: St. Landry (Opelousas Post). [Calcasieu 1840, Cameron 1870, Acadia 1886, Evangeline 1908, Allen 1910, Jefferson Davis 1912, Beaureguard 1912]
Date of document: 24 November 1818
Document number: 2452
Notary name: Notarial Acts Reel 4
http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/individ.php?sid=79787

The Wolof people are from Senegal, the Gambia, and Mauritania.

Julienne
born about 1803 (age 15)
Gender: female
Race: black
Seller: Skelton Hardgrove
Buyer: Simon Fontenot
Sold or inventoried as an individual
Selling value: $950
Document location: St. Landry (Opelousas Post). [Calcasieu 1840, Cameron 1870, Acadia 1886, Evangeline 1908, Allen 1910, Jefferson Davis 1912, Beaureguard 1912]
Date of document: 25 November 1818
Document number: 2457
Notary name: Notarial Acts Reel 4
http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/individ.php?sid=79796

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing this information and your resources. I am curious as how the got Kelson out of Skelton which is a very unique name. Do you know how your ancestor got that name? Good post.

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  2. I'm guessing bad handwriting! Edythe Rucker Whitley, who did research on the Hardgrave family, claimed that Skelton was his mother's surname. However, his mother was actually named Sarah Greer, not Sarah Skelton. Other associated families also named sons Skelton. I think the name could be a family surname, but that it goes further back in time.

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