Augusta County

Biographies of Emancipated Slaves

• Mary Blackburn
• Hardy Shaw
• Henry Carter
• Joseph Walker
• Richard & Marshall Washington
• Thomas & Nancy Jefferson

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Biography: Mary Blackburn

Mary Blackburn was born around 1825.  She began working as a slave for wealthy Staunton farmer Henry Mish when she was about 15.  During her years as a slave, Blackburn gave birth to three children, John, Patrick, and George.  She did not, however, have any control over their fates.  She later recollected that her children were “sold to traders” and that she had “never heard from them since, and know not where they are or whether dead or living.”

Mary recalled that her first husband, John Patrick, purchased her from Mish “the year the War commenced.”  Patrick, who had belonged to Benjamin G. Hailman, was emancipated in 1844.  After he gained freedom, he rented land and became a farmer.

During the war, Union soldiers confiscated two horses, two head of cattle, bacon, flour, a saddle, and two bridles from the Patrick farm.  Mary successfully pursued reimbursement for these items, although the Southern Claims Commission awarded her $355 rather than the $476 she claimed.

After Patrick died in the late 1860s, Mary remarried.  Her second husband, Samuel Blackburn was a farm laborer who lived near Middlebrook.