Counting the Dead
The death of one man is a tragedy," Stalin is supposed to have said. "The death of millions is a statistic." There is value, however, in taking a statistical view, if only to reveal the depth and nature of the tragedy. CSI:D digitizes, datafies, and makes publicly available 1,583 coroners inquests taken over the course of the nineteenth century in six South Carolina counties. The counties were chosen for a simple reason: they had the largest, most complete sets of records.

How complete? It is difficult to know. In South Carolina all county-level records from the nineteenth century were supposed to have been sent from their county courthouses to the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. A trip to the Kershaw County Courthouse, however, proved that a small number of nineteenth-century records, including a small clutch of coroner's inquisitions, had been missed. Could some of the records from other counties have been similarly overlooked or lost? Absolutely. Coroner's reports can also occasionally be found inter-filed with other relevant court documents in an individual case file, collected by the court as the case proceeded to trial. Are some such inquests still lurking in the archive's voluminous indictments files? Almost certainly. From a statistical perspective we can only hope that what we are missing is essentially random, leaving us a representative sample from each county.
A more important caveat is that we must always remember that inquests do not remotely represent a complete portrait of how people died at a particular place and time. They represent only what the ruling class of a community chose to investigate. A woman who died on the birthing couch surrounded by family was too common an occurrence to have aroused the coroner’s interest or concern. The coroner specialized in suspicious and sudden deaths, especially those that intruded upon the public view — bodies washed up on shore, suicides hanging from the rafters of public buildings. From the morgue, we get a very skewed picture of a society. We see Death, in a sense, at its very worst, although there were undoubtedly other heinous crimes that went uninvestigated. A planter could murder a slave and usually get away with it. A posse could get away with a lynching.
Anatomy of an Inquest
Before treating the sample in the aggregate, we might examine the anatomy of a single inquest file to get a better feel for the information it typically does and does not contain. Virtually every inquest record has at least two documents. The first is a note from the coroner charging a magistrate near the site of the body with the task of rounding up a jury that must appear and meet the coroner at a specified time. Typical language would be: "These acts require you immediately on receipt … hereof to summon and warn verbally or otherwise fourteen men of the said district to be and appear before … the coroner of said district up the Road leading to the boat yard about the end of York Street at the edge of the town of Camden within the said district between the hours of four & five o’clock this afternoon then and there to enquire upon the view of a body of certain person there lying dead how he came to his death. Fail not herein as you will answer the contrary at your peril."
The other standard document in an inquest file is the coroner’s “cover sheet,” which is similarly formulaic and written in legalese. The typical document records: 1) the place where the inquest was taken; 2) the date; 3) the name of the coroner; 4) the name of the deceased; 5) the names of the jurors; and 6) the finding of the jury, usually preceded by the phrase “do say upon their oaths….” (In the case at left a man considered to be deranged escaped his family’s care and died in the woods of neglect or exposure.)
In addition to these two documents, an inquest often includes the testimony of witnesses, usually dictated to the coroner himself, with the witness's signature (or mark) at the bottom swearing to the truthfulness of the statement. Testimony from a physician (what might be called an expert witness) is also typical. It is critical to emphasize that women and slaves could and often did testify at inquests (though they were often barred from participating at any subsequent trial). Their testimony is not verbatim, and certainly their words and ideas come to us as distilled and edited by the coroner, but at least we have them. Very occasionally an inquest contains what might be called a “minority report” in cases where a juror or jurors does not agree with the majority finding.
The CSI:D Sample
As it happens, the CSI:D counties are predominantly in the Carolina piedmont, a region of moderately fertile clay soils that cotton cultivation devastated over the course of the nineteenth century. By comparison to the antebellum South as a whole, these CSI:D counties had relatively high concentrations of slaves. By comparison to South Carolina as a whole, however, these counties had somewhat low concentrations of slaves, with only Edgefield and Kershaw being above average for the state.
There are important statistical differences between the six counties, and these are explored in the Counties section. But it should be noted at the outset that the counties are more similar than they are different, especially when put into a comparative frame with the (few) other systematic studies of coroners’ reports. Sixty-six inquests survive from Plymouth, Massachusetts, for instance, spanning the years 1636 to 1684 (see below). The overwhelming majority (85%) of cases were found to be accidents. In 1661, Jeremiah Burroughs turned over in his “naughty canoo” and drowned. In 1672, John Barnes was gored by a bull, and John Richmond was run over by a cart. But in the almost fifty year span, only two people were found to have committed suicide and two were found to have been murdered, one beaten to death by his master in 1655, and the other killed by unspecified means in 1684.
Another, much larger study of the inquests conducted on Nottingham, England (see below) came to similar conclusions. Between 1828 and 1866, 86% of the deaths were found to be the result of accidents or natural causes. Burning, scalding, and “traffic accidents” accounted for most of the accidental deaths. Homicides were relatively rare, accounting for just 2% of cases.
In the CSI:D sample, by contrast, homicides were more than ten times more likely. The discrepancy could be explained away, but only partially. Perhaps colonial coroners were less rigorous investigators, finding accidents where there were murders. Maybe Nottingham was the scene of a massive number of homicidal hit-and-runs by horse. But the more obvious conclusion, upheld by all anecdotal evidence, is that South Carolina was simply more violent. Gun-related deaths of any kind were all-but-unknown in Plymouth and Nottingham; in South Carolina men apparently shot themselves and others with an abandon that went well-beyond any conceivable margin of error. There is a danger, though, in presupposing that this simply confirms our notion of the south as an honor-bound region of gratuitous dueling and eye-gouging. There is violence of this kind aplenty, but as Acts lays bare the view from the coroner's office is really much bleaker.
Indeed, what I have learned at a nineteenth-century southern morgue is what I ought to have deduced from the beginning -- what a social worker could have told me before I started. In 1860, seventy-five percent of whites belonged to families that owned no slaves; forty percent of whites belonged to families that owned no slaves and no land, qualifying them for the label 'poor white.' Add to these the massive number of African Americans who were held in forced bondage and illiteracy, and our image of the Old South shifts from a land of massive slave fortunes to a land of large-scale rural poverty. Things did not particularly change in the second half of the nineteenth century. The war laid waste millions of acres of farm and forest in the South, destroyed two-thirds of Southern wealth, slaughtered two-fifths of the region's livestock, killed a third of those who had fought and one-quarter of the South's white males of military age. The industries and labor forms that move in after the war -- debt peonage, chain gangs, sharecropping, extractive industries, over-production of cash crops steadily sinking in value -- ensured that by 1935, Franklin Roosevelt would still call the South "the nation's No. 1 economic problem."
How do people die in such places? The don't die in duels or dandified rituals. They drown because they are not taught to swim. They are beaten to death by underemployed fathers and husbands. They hang themselves in despair or die in suicidal escape attempts. They are malnourished and over-worked and collapse in the field. They die, in short, of the consequences of rural poverty in an exploitative economy.
This at least is how the world looks from the coroner's office. Before descending completely into that world, however, we need some way to compare how people died for the coroner and how they died generally in the nineteenth-century. We know our sample gives a skewed portrait of Death. But is there any way to know how skewed?
NEXT: The Mortality Census
Number of Surviving Nineteenth-Century South Carolina Inquests by County and Decade
County / Decade | 1800s | 1810s | 1820s | 1830s | 1840s | 1850s | 1860s | 1870s | 1880s | 1890s | unknown |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Anderson | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 14 | 26 | 31 | 48 | 22 | 0 | 4 |
Edgefield | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 65 | 102 | 103 | 25 | 39 | 179 | 9 |
Greenville | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 30 | 23 | 41 | 42 | 0 | 1 |
Kershaw | 7 | 17 | 39 | 33 | 44 | 31 | 41 | 13 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
Spartanburg | 3 | 8 | 15 | 27 | 36 | 29 | 31 | 54 | 118 | 0 | 1 |
Union | 2 | 17 | 26 | 40 | 54 | 39 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
Nottingham Inquests
Death Type | # of Cases | Explanation | Category |
---|---|---|---|
abortion | 8 | died as a result of attempts to terminate a pregnancy | abortion |
animal accident | 61 | died when a horse, cow, bull, ram or dog was involved | accident |
balloon accident | 1 | died due to the falling of a balloon | accident |
burnt or scalded | 534 | died from accidental burns or scalds | accident |
cart accident | 195 | killed on the road, usually run over | accident |
child-birth | 21 | mother or child died at the time of child-birth | child-birth |
choking | 18 | accidentally died from choking, usually on food | accident |
coach accident | 3 | run over by a stage coach | accident |
coal-mine accident | 197 | died at a coal-mine, usually from a roof fall or an explosion | accident |
drowned | 354 | accidentally drowned or found drowned in a river, canal, etc. | accident |
exposure | 37 | died from exposure to the weather or lack of care and attention | accident |
fever | 25 | died from an infectious disease, e.g. cholera, typhus, etc. | natural causes |
field accident | 41 | died in a field or in the street, including struck by lightning | accident |
fighting | 7 | accidentally died in a fight | fighting |
found dead | 38 | no explanation for how death occurred | unknown |
gangrene or tetanus | 5 | died from the effects of gangrene or tetanus (lock-jaw) | natural causes |
haemorrhage | 9 | died from loss of blood | natural causes |
hanging | 2 | accidentally hung themselves | accident |
home/public house | 65 | died at home or in a public house, usually falling down stairs | accident |
homicide | 2 | accidental or justifiable homicide | homicide |
inflammation | 6 | died as a result of inflame tissues | natural causes |
intoxication | 37 | died where intoxication was the primary cause | accident |
manslaughter | 35 | died as a result of another person's activity as pronounced by the coroner--a trial would follow at the Nottingham Assizes | homicide |
miscarried | 5 | died as a result of a miscarriage | child-birth |
miscellaneous | 6 | died from eating to excess, over-exertion or by fright, etc. | miscellaneous |
murder, known | 23 | killed by a person present at the inquest--a trial would follow at the Nottingham Assizes | homicide |
murder, unknown | 21 | died as a result of an unknown person or person's activity | homicide |
natural | 1898 | died from natural causes | natural causes |
opiates | 146 | accidentally died from an overdose of a medicine containing opium | accident |
play accident | 17 | children who died whilst at play | accident |
poison | 26 | died after accidentally taking or being given a poisonous substance | accident |
quarry accident | 8 | died in a quarry usually from a fall of stone or earth | accident |
railway accident | 55 | killed on a railway | accident |
shooting or stabbing | 19 | accidentally killed by a gun, bow & arrow, or a knife | accident |
smothered | 72 | died from being accidentally smothered or suffocated | accident |
stillbirth | 31 | born dead | child-birth |
suicide or fel-de-se | 323 | by hanging, drowning, shooting, jumping or taking poison | suicide |
trampled | 1 | died as a result of being accidentally crushed in a crowd | accident |
well accident | 19 | died in a well | accident |
windmill accident | 11 | killed at a windmill, usually struck by a sail | accident |
workplace accident | 83 | died in a workplace other than a coal-mine, quarry or railway | accident |
Credit: Bernard V. Heathcote, Viewing the Lifeless Body: A Coroner and His Inquests Held in Nottinghamshire Public Houses During the Nineteenth Century, 1828 to 1866 (Nottingham: Technical Print Services Limited, 2006), p. 24
Plymouth Inquests
Name | Year | Gender | Primary Cause | Secondary Cause |
---|---|---|---|---|
John Deacon | 1636 | M | exposure | |
John England | 1638 | M | drown | |
Thomas Cooke | 1650 | M | drown | |
John Slocume | 1651 | M | exposure | wolves |
William England | 1651 | M | drown | |
Robert Wille | 1652 | M | drown | drunk |
James Glasse | 1652 | M | drown | in boat during storm |
John Barker | 1652 | M | drown | |
John Browning | 1652 | M | drown | |
Thomas Bradly | 1653 | M | seizure? | |
Henery Draiton | 1654 | M | exposure | |
John Walker | 1655 | M | beaten by master | |
Thankfull Pakes | 1655 | F | drown in well | |
Richard Man | 1656 | M | drown | fall through ice |
Titus Waymouth | 1656 | M | alcohol | constipation |
John Phillipes | 1658 | M | lightning | |
Nathaneel West | 1659 | M | drown | fall through ice |
an englishman | 1659 | M | drown | |
Mary Chase | 1659 | F | natural causes | |
James Peirse | 1660 | M | lightning | |
Jeremiah Burroughs | 1661 | M | drown | "naughty cannoo" |
William Day | 1661 | M | suicide | |
Robert Allin | ? | ? | ? | |
John Bard | 1661 | M | run over by cart | |
Thiston Clark Sr. | 1662 | M | drown | fall through ice |
Robert Allin | 1662 | M | suicide | |
James Wyatt | 1664 | M | natural causes | |
Rebeckah Sale | 1664 | F | suicide | |
Elizabeth Walker | 1664 | F | drown | |
Mary Totman | 1666 | F | poison | accident |
Daniell Dones | 1667 | M | drown | |
Nicholas Nicarson | 1667 | M | choking | |
Timothy Poole | 1667 | M | drown | |
Robert Chapell | 1667 | M | exposure | alcohol |
James Nicolls | 1667 | M | exposure | alcohol |
William Pidell | 1667 | M | exposure | previous sickness |
a child | 1668 | M | exposure | |
an indian | 1668 | M | fall | |
Isacke Robinson | 1668 | M | drown | |
John Paybody | 1669 | M | tree | |
John Barnes | 1672 | M | bull goring | |
daughter of Lake | 1672 | F | drown | |
Peter Trebey | 1672 | M | drown | |
John Richmond Jr. | 1672 | M | run over by cart | |
Experience Leichfeld | 1673 | M | tripped | head crushed by log |
daughter of Phelpps | 1673 | F | drown | |
wife of Tayler | 1673 | F | drown | |
John Fallowell | 1675 | M | drown | suicide |
Bethyah Howland Jr. | 1677 | F | drown | suicide |
Micaell Walker | 1677 | M | drown | saw mill |
Joseph Ellis | 1676 | M | drown | |
John Rose | 1677 | M | exposure | |
Robinson | 1667 | M | tree | |
John Merritt | 1667 | M | fall | |
child of Batson | 1678 | ? | ? | |
Thomas Totman | 1678 | M | fasting | |
Samuell Drew | 1678 | M | drown | drunk |
Thomas Lucase | 1679 | M | fall | |
James Colbey | 1679 | M | drown | |
child of Hatches | 1680 | ? | suffocated | |
John During | 1680 | M | natural causes | |
William Makepeace | 1681 | M | drown | |
George May | 1681 | M | drown | |
Timothy Venor | 1681 | M | drown | |
Daniell Standlake | 1684 | M | killed | Robert Trayes |
John Miller | 1684 | M | suicide |
Credit: Jeff Norcross, The Plymouth Colony Archive Project
Sample of African American Inquests from the Library of Virginia
Name | Date | Status | Cause of Death | Details | Descriptor |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unidentified | November, 1728 | drowning | Drowned | ||
Thomas Savage | June, 1729 | drowning | Drowned in Cowpen Creek | ||
Cato | August 13, 1759 | slave | homicide | Nan by force of arms did assault Cato with a knife. She gave Cato a mortal wound in the left breast, from which Cato instantly died. | |
Unidentified | February 23, 1774 | unknown | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
Kendall | May 2, 1774 | slave | accidental injuries | Lost his life by accident. | |
Daniel | December 28, 1777 | slave | accidental injuries | Died when he fell from a horse and was dragged half a mile due to the rope halter being tyed around his left art | |
Fellow | October 27, 1779 | slave | unknown | Unknown | |
George Innis | November 14, 1780 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Jacob | May 25, 1782 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Polydore | December 8, 1782 | slave | homicide | Death was occasioned by Abram Lockett and John Claybrooks beating him with a large stick and other ill usage. | |
Davey | April 27, 1784 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Bob | November 5, 1785 | slave | injuries | Blow given to him half inch above his right eye, another blow near his right ear and many stripes on his body, by whom given unknown. | |
Jeny | February 10, 1786 | slave | injuries | Died from the whipping given her by William Tuggle. | |
Major | March 23, 1786 | slave | accidental injuries, homicide | Died by the explosion of a gun held by James Hubbard. | |
Unidentified | August 12, 1786 | slave | unknown | unknown | |
Marklin | August 16, 1786 | slave | homicide | Shot by Simeon Walton Jr of Nottoway County | |
Dick | December 17, 1786 | slave | accidental injuries | Death by accident in a scuffle with one of his fellow servants. | |
Ben | July 7, 1787 | slave | drowning | Drowned by accident in the Little Nottoway. | |
Charles Sprouse | August 11, 1787 | homicide | Murdered by John Forsiei. | ||
unknown | February 15, 1788 | slave | accidental injuries | Killed by a tree falling. | |
Emanuel | July 12, 1788 | slave | drowning | Drowned in Allans Creek. | |
Joe | November 3, 1788 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Unidentified | May, 1789 | unknown | unknown, drowning | Cause of death is unknown, the body being so putrified a state, but supposed him to have been accidentally drowned. | |
Dudder | August 27, 1789 | slave | homicide | Died from wound received in a fist fight | |
Gelbert | October 21, 1790 | slave | accidental injuries | Died when a tree accidentally fell on him | |
Dick | April 10, 1791 | slave | homicide | Murdered by Nathan Anderson by blow to the head with stick. | |
Moses | April 19, 1792 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Jim | January 10, 1793 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Daphney | June 9, 1793 | slave | accidental injuries | Died after being forced to eat tobacco and other treatment at the hands of slaves Patty and Abraham | |
Frank | June 25, 1793 | slave | homicide | Assaulted by force and armes with whips, and was given too many strokes of the whip by Robert Self, causing Frank's death | |
Joe | July 25, 1793 | slave | natural causes | Death by an Act of Providence. | |
Mourning | September 12, 1793 | slave | homicide | John B Pittman used sticks or switches to beat and wound Mourning, which caused her death. | |
Tom | November 28, 1793 | slave | homicide, accidental injuries | Killed by a gun fired from the hand of Peter Jones; it was an accident. | |
Joan | December 18, 1793 | slave | suicide | Died by strangling or hanging herself with a small cord or rope. | |
Lewis | December 26, 1793 | slave | natural causes | Death by an Act of Providence. | |
Unidentified | Undated, 1793 | slave | drowning | Drowned. | |
Phil | September 1, 1795 | slave | homicide | An unknown person using a certain weapon struck Phil on the right side of the head and right breast which resulted in a mortal wound. | |
Dilce | March 8, 1796 | slave | homicide | Died from a broken neck committed by a person unknown | |
Humphrey | August 3, 1796 | slave | natural causes | Died by an Act of God. | |
Will | Undated, 1796 | slave | homocide | came to his death be being beaten with a cowhide and fence rail | negro |
Charles | January 17, 1797 | slave | homicide | Death was probably occasioned by a blow on the forehead--also found several burns on his face, arms, breast, knees, and legs, also a few slight marks on his back which appear to be occasioned by a switch, the body of the above named Charles we found in the plantation of ...James Wade Jr laying on a plank near on open grave. | |
David | May, 1797 | slave | unknown, homicide | Cause of death not shown, but possibly murdered. | |
Holland | November, 1797 | slave | unknown, homicide | Cause of death not shown, but possibly murdered. | |
Unidentified | April 28, 1798 | homicide | A person unknown did kill and murder the unknown mulatto by shooting from a gun or pistol a large number of shot into the back of the said unknown mulatto. | mulatto | |
James | July, 1798 | slave | homicide | Death was occasioned from violent blows particularly with one blow to the back of the head. | |
Dick | January, 1799 | slave | homicide | A certain person unknown did kill and murder Dick. | |
Unidentified | April, 1799 | unknown | homicide | Died from being murdered by an unknown person. | |
Unidentified | September 17, 1799 | Infanticide | A certain person unknown did kill and murder the infant daughter of Mary Sadler by mashing the skull in the back of the head. | ||
Joshua Butt | October, 1799 | homicide | Throat was cut from ear to ear by his just purchased slaves while traveling on the main road. | ||
Harris Spears | October, 1799 | homicide | Throat was cut from ear to ear by his just purchased slaves while traveling on the main road. | ||
Robbin | July 20, 1800 | slave | drowning, accidental injuries | Was accidentally drowned in a river commonly called Appomattox | |
Obedience Creasey | July 28, 1800 | homicide, drowning | Believed to have been forcibly drowned by Tom, a slave. | ||
Joe Gooding | December, 1800 | free | homicide | Shot with a gun willfully, deliberately and premeditably, while lying asleep. | |
Dan | July 13, 1801 | slave | homicide | Jury believes that the slave Manuel did kill and knock in the head the said Phill. | |
Peter | September, 1801 | slave | drowning | Being alone at the mill pond voluntarily and feloniously drowned himself. | |
Yender | November 24, 1801 | homicide | Murdered by repeated strokes to the head supposedly inflicted by two mulatto persons namely William Weller Taylor and George Weller Taylor | ||
Roose | January 6, 1802 | slave | injuries | Death by severe beating by Edmund King, not having God before his eyes but by being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil. | |
Judy | January 10, 1802 | slave | homicide | Was killed by--Cowey, --Cowey did--struck and gave Ellick a mortal wound, of which he died. | person of color |
Will | February 8, 1802 | slave | homicide | Was murdered by some person unknown. | |
Lewes | June 18, 1802 | slave | homicide | Supposed to have been shot, but body was in such a state of putrification that jury could not proceed. | |
Unidentified | July 5, 1802 | free | accidental injuries | Accidentally died moments after birth | |
Sarah | September, 1802 | slave | suicide | Alone in a kitchen with certain leather strings which she put around her neck, tied the same so tight--as to suffocate herself and cause her own death. | |
Harry | September, 1802 | slave | unknown | Cause of death is unknown. | |
Edward Fitzpatrick | November 21, 1802 | homicide | Death by mortal wound to the head. | ||
Moll | December 13, 1802 | slave | injuries | The abuse heretofore received was the cause of her death, but by whom we cannot assertain. | |
Aberdeen | March 7, 1803 | slave | accidental injuries | Died from wounds received to both legs when a gun accidentally discharged | |
Dafney | June 9, 1803 | unknown | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Milley | June 9, 1803 | slave | exposure | Death was occasioned by exposure to intense cold while run away on that day, and reexposure again before she had recovered from the effect of the first impression. | |
Peter | March 27, 1804 | slave | drowning | Falling through ice on river and drowning | |
King | April 1, 1804 | slave | homicide | Assault with a black oak club and blows to his head and temples by unknown person. | |
Richardson | May 30, 1804 | free | alcohol, drowning | Intoxicated and drowning | black |
Arthur Stewart | June 30, 1804 | free | accidental injuries, drowning | Crushed between boat and wharf and drowned | black |
Bristol | July 30, 1804 | slave | homicide | Had an affray with Ross Richardson in which he received several blows about the lower part of his belly and upon his privates which might have occasioned his death but the matter is doubtful and he was much intoxicated at the time. | |
Richard | August 24, 1804 | free | alcohol, natural causes | Natural death, causes unknown but known to be addicted to liquor | black |
Amey | November 8, 1804 | slave | natural causes | Died of a natural death. | |
Margaret | November 22, 1804 | slave | natural causes | Died of the infirmities of old age | |
Jack Robinson | January 2, 1805 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died naturally by freezing to death in a field where he had stopped, being overcome with drink and from the severity and inclemency of the weather | |
John | January 27, 1805 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died naturally, caused by drinking too much liquor and was overcome thereby, and by the inclemency of the night | |
Ceasar | January 31, 1805 | accidental injuries | Died from an accidental wound on his left leg by the striking of a stump while riding in a wagon | ||
Unidentified | April 11, 1805 | slave | infanticide | Infant was buried just under the ground with its face downwards; it appears that the infant was smothered to death with dirt, having been buried by its mother Milley, who confessed to the child's death. | |
Peter | April 18, 1805 | slave | homicide | "Stabbed in the stomach with a knife by Isham, a slaved owned by Emanuel Wills after a game of "five coins" | |
Unidentified | June 4, 1805 | slave | natural causes | Was born dead, having been delivered several months previous to the usual time of delivery. | |
Unidentified | June 30, 1805 | drowning | Drowned accidentally while crossing the river | ||
Unidentified | August 3, 1805 | slave | natural causes | Stillborn | |
Ellick | October 14, 1805 | slave | homicide | Was shot and killed by Colonel Richard Kennon's business manager John Clark, because large shot was in Clark's gun instead of drop shot. Emanuel ran off when he was attempted to be taken hold of. --Clark ought to be aquited and exonerated. | |
Rose | October 17, 1805 | slave | homicide | Died from the cruel treatment by Sarah Tucker, wife of William Tucker, from beating and administering medicene improperly and maliciously with an intent to destroy said Rose | |
Aron | October 24, 1805 | slave | drowning | Accidentally and by misfortune got drowned. | |
Charles | December 19, 1805 | accidental injuries | Compound fracture in right leg | ||
Old Simmon | February 16, 1806 | unknown | drowning | by the will of the almighty God had lost the principal force of his eye being on his way to his brothers from the mill and drowned | black |
Julius | March 30, 1806 | slave | intoxication; drowning | being in a state of intoxication and in attempting to cross the Rivanna river in a batteux being then and there alone fell out of said batteux by accident and was then and there casually drowned | negro |
Charles | April 21, 1806 | slave | natural causes | Died of a natural death. | |
Nanny | April 21, 1806 | slave | homicide | Killed by Fras. Houchins, Polly Houchins, and Sally Houchins with a stick or sword to the head. | |
Bob | July 14, 1806 | slave | homicide | Was murdered by the slave Hal, property of David Walker of Mecklenburg County. Said Hal confessed to the murder. | |
Amey | September 25, 1806 | slave | homicide, drowning | A negro woman named Molley the property of Peter Johnson did feloniously murder the aforesaid Amey by drowning, suffocating or otherwise. | |
Peter | October 13, 1806 | slave | drowning | While attempting to cross the middle of Blue Stone Creek at Susanna Burtons Mill, she fell into the mill pond and drowned. | |
Unidentified | November 13, 1806 | slave | infanticide | Died from want of proper attention at the time of its delivery and also from want of proper assistance through the neglect of Sarah, its mother. | |
Arthur | November 30, 1806 | slave | homicide | stabbed to the forehead by a spade | |
Fillis | January 10, 1807 | slave | natural causes | Found dead; died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Tom | April 4, 1807 | slave | suicide, drowning | The said Tom not having God before his eyes but being seduced and moved by the instigation of the devil, at the bank of the Appomattox River--then and there being alone in the said river himself voluntarily and feloniously drowned. | |
Billy Still | April 17, 1807 | slave | inconclusive | Unknown causes | |
Cuatia | May 11, 1807 | unknown | drowning | drowned | black |
Unidentified | May 17, 1807 | unknown | natural causes | Died of a visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Nathan | May 29, 1807 | slave | accidental injuries | Death by a hurt he got from a seat bench of a lighter at the draw bridge of the southern branch of Elizabeth River. | |
Unidentified | July 6, 1807 | drowning | Accidental drowning | black | |
George Butler | July 24, 1807 | drowning | Drowning | black | |
Unidentified | August 17, 1807 | inconclusive | Cause of death unknown due to the state of the body | person of color | |
Jane Murrey | August 18, 1807 | slave | suicide | Suicide by drowning | black |
Patt | August, 1807 | slave | unknown | Cause of death is unknown: she was found dead with no marks of violence appearing on her body. | |
Bob | November 8, 1807 | slave | alcohol, drowning | Intoxicated and strangled in a gully full of water | |
Derny | November 18, 1807 | unknown | exposure | being far advanced in old age and letting down to rest himself and the weather being very cold chilled him so that he died before any relief came to him | black |
Unidentified | January 21, 1808 | slave | Infanticide | Hannah, mother of the newly delivered child, strangled the baby and broke its neck. She then concealed the body in some brush. | |
Henny | January 24, 1808 | slave | suicide | Suicide by hanging | |
James | April 20, 1808 | slave | accidental injuries | Burned to death from his clothing catching fire, when he made a fire near the side of the road by which to lye | |
Bob | June 7, 1808 | slave | natural causes | Died a natural death. | |
William Whittenton | August 25, 1808 | homicide | Killed by being struck in the head and stomach with a club by slave Flora, the property of Nathaniel Jackson | ||
Bob | September, 1808 | slave | unknown, injuries | Cause of death cannot be discovered, but we are of the opinion from the limberness of her neck that it is broke, but by whom we cannot say. | |
Jacob | December, 1808 | free | suicide | Hung himself with a cord around his neck, and tied to a joist. | |
Isaac | January 11, 1809 | slave | drowning | drowned by falling in the creek | black |
Cloe | March 10, 1809 | slave | accidental injuries | Death by an accident in an affray with a negroe woman named Clarisa. | |
Alexander | June 3, 1809 | slave | homicide | Death by blow to the side of the head with a board inflicted by John Thompson, who against his will and therefore casually and by misfortune did kill | |
Unidentified | June 28, 1809 | slave | infanticide | Mother Patty, struck the child's skull with a stone and did break and pierce so as to occasion its death | |
Vainey | July, 1809 | slave | homicide | Was shot by some unknown person. | |
Peter | August 10, 1809 | slave | accidental injuries, natural causes | Came to his death by his own imprudent act by falling on his head upon a rock, as he was walking down a decent; or by the visitation of God by his having a fit. | |
Joe Jackson | November 13, 1809 | slave | alcohol, drowning | Intoxication and drowning | |
Peg | February 24, 1810 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Sam | April 3, 1810 | slave | homicide | Some unknown person murdered the said Sam by sundry blows upon his head which we suppose were the cause of his death. | |
Marsha | May 7, 1810 | homicide | Was killed and murdered by an unknown person | ||
Unidentified Pope | May, 1810 | homicide | Feloniously murdered by choking to death, by his own mother, Marion Pope, wife of John Pope. | mulatto | |
Joe | September 30, 1810 | slave | homicide | Died from a mortal blow received about the body by the overseer in self defense | |
David Gray | October 25, 1810 | free | natural causes | Died by a visitation of God in a natural way | person of color |
Cloe | October 28, 1810 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Phill | November 2, 1810 | slave | homicide | James Campbell -- did feloniously and with malice aforethought by excessive driving cause the death of the slave Dan, who suddenly died upon his arrival at this place. | |
George George | February 9, 1811 | free | natural causes | was going across or in a creek called Wallops Creek in search of some game that he--had just before killed and by the act of providence was attacked with a fit which fit we believe was the occasion of his death | black |
Ned | February 23, 1811 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Unidentified | March 25, 1811 | drowning | Accidental drowning | black | |
Jacob | April 12, 1811 | slave | drowning; alcohol | accidentally drowned while drunk | black |
Peggy Berry | April 13, 1811 | free | natural causes | fainted or was seized or taken with some kind of fit which we suppose was the occasion of her death | black |
John Holt | June 20, 1811 | free | alcohol, drowning | Intoxication and accidental drowning | person of color |
Unidentified | September 9, 1811 | slave | unknown | There is no testamoney to the jury on how or in what manner the infant came to its death, or was born alive. | |
Eliza | September 14, 1811 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning after running away | |
Daniel | September 19, 1811 | slave | accidental injuries | Died from a fall off of a horse | |
John Gibbon | February 10, 1812 | homicide | died from being choked and strangled at the hands of George, a black man slave | ||
Peter | February 25, 1812 | slave | homicide | Death by a blow to the head with a stick resulting from an altercation with slave Jack owned by William Taylor | |
Jeff | April 3, 1812 | slave | suicide | killed himself by using a bridle to hang himself by the neck from an oak tree | |
Guy | April 5, 1812 | unknown | exposure | was attempting to cross the Pocomoke River and by the badness of the weather and the severity of the cold that he got numbed in such a manner that he became helpless--was frozen and died | black |
Unidentified | April 7, 1812 | inconclusive | Cause of death unknown due to the putrification of the body | ||
Jain | April 19, 1812 | slave | drowning | Drowned. | |
Jane Banks | May 11, 1812 | free | alcohol, drowning | Intoxication and accidental drowning | black |
Phill | May 27, 1812 | slave | natural causes | Death by visitation of God. | |
Lucy | June 8, 1812 | slave | homicide | In protest of original ruling, upon mature deliberation of our inquiry we are of opinion that we have made an improper return and are now induced to believe that the abuse which the said Lucy received was the means of her death. | |
Tilbury | June 9, 1812 | drowning | Accidental drowning | black | |
George | June 9, 1812 | drowning | Drowning | black | |
Unidentified | June 27, 1812 | free | drowning | Accidental drowning | black |
Brutus | June, 1812 | slave | suicide | Suicide by hanging | |
Jack | July 7, 1812 | slave | homicide | Jack assaulted an unknown person who then shot him in the back with a gun | |
Edward Teague | July 9, 1812 | free | drowning; alcohol | was drunken or so much intoxicated in spiritous liquors that he had not his reason--he was going down Jenkins Creek in a lighter loaded with corn--without any cause as we understand he jumped overboard and was drowned | black |
James | July 27, 1812 | slave | homicide | killed by Allen, a black slave, by the striking of James' head with an iron hoe | |
Solomon | August 4, 1812 | slave | inconclusive | Jury was unable to locate the body | |
Will | August 4, 1812 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning | |
Dalpney | August 5, 1812 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
George | August 18, 1812 | unknown | drowning | was trying or attempting to cross a cut or a small prong that makes out of Back Creek and not being able to get over it or got in to some hole out of his depth and so was drowned | black |
Charles | September 10, 1812 | slave | suicide | Voluntarily and feloniously with malice aforethought did kill, strangle and murder himself, by putting a grape vine around his neck and the other end of the vine tied about a dogwood tree limb. | |
Wilkes | October 8, 1812 | drowning | Accidental drowning | black | |
Jenny | November 1, 1812 | slave | homicide | died from blows received in a whipping administered feloniously by Benjamin Taylor | |
Gold | November 12, 1812 | slave | homicide | Died from a gun shot wound upon the left thigh, fired by the hands of some person unknown. | |
Anaka | November 16, 1812 | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God, in a natural way, and not otherwise. | ||
Robin Scott | December 16, 1812 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | free person of color |
Ellick | February 25, 1813 | slave | exposure | died by the visitation of God in a natural way, by freezing to death | |
Darcus | February 26, 1813 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
Phill | March 2, 1813 | slave | homicide | killed by the sticking, stabbing, wounding, thrusting and penetrating with a knife in the belly. Knife was in the hands of slave Rose. | |
Sam | March 18, 1813 | unknown | homicide | A certain person unknown, did kill and murder the said Sam. | |
Charles | April 3, 1813 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning due to sloop capsizing | black |
Charly | April 20, 1813 | slave | homicide | Died from being shot with a musket ball through the right shoulder by John Cuffery (free black). | |
Jordan | April 21, 1813 | slave | homicide | Died from wounds inflicted upon his back from whippings or beatings | |
Ellick | May 13, 1813 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Amos | May 16, 1813 | slave | homicide | Struck in the head with a stone in the hands of Simeon Robertson. | |
Mirrus | May 17, 1813 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God, in a natural way, and not otherwise. | |
Edmund | May 19, 1813 | slave | drowning | came to his death by being drowned in a creek | black |
Bob | June 8, 1813 | slave | homicide | Isam a negroe man slave the property of Josiah Perkinson--not having God before his eyes but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, struck Bob on the head with a stick and inflicted a mortal wound. | |
Minga | July, 1813 | slave | homicide | Shot to death by Spratly Holt. | |
Unidentified Vines | November, 1813 | free | homicide, infanticide | Choked to death at the hands of its mother, Milly Vines. | |
Amey Adams | December 8, 1813 | homicide | Feloniously killed and murdered by boy slave named Matt, property of John A Anthony. | ||
Dubling | January 11, 1814 | slave | exposure | died of cold and not otherwise | black |
Tom | January 14, 1814 | slave | homicide | Must have been murdered by some unknown person from number of blows on his face, and his neck entirely broken from the stroke of some unlawful weapon. | |
Unidentified | January 17, 1814 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died from drinking an over quantity of spiritous liquor and he froze to death. | |
Frances | February 15, 1814 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God and in a natural way | |
Nancy | March 24, 1814 | homicide | Assaulted by Samuel Farley with weapons unknown in and upon her head and body. She died from these wounds. | ||
John Smith | April 14, 1814 | homicide | Died from a broken skull from an assault by Tom, his slave, with a grubbing hoe. | ||
Revel George | May 20, 1814 | free | drowning | was on board a small canoe with two other men in Folly Creek--turned over whereby the said Revel George was drowned by accident | black |
Unidentified | July 29, 1814 | natural causes | Stillborn | ||
Sally Whitehurst | August 23, 1814 | accidental injuries, drowning | Death was accidental by an Act of God, drowned after gust of wind upset boat. | mulatto | |
Unidentified | August, 1814 | unknown | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Bob | September 5, 1814 | slave | exposure | Died from fatigue by traveling in the heat of the day and by drinking water being at the same time over heated | |
Mich | September 8, 1814 | drowning | Accidentally drowned when he fell from his boat into the James River | ||
Bob | September 22, 1814 | slave | homicide | Lewis Clark with a gun made of iron and steel--loaded with gun powder and lead did shoot in the right side of his belly of the said negro Bob. | |
Unidentified | October 3, 1814 | drowning | Died by the visitation of God, by accidental drowning | ||
Unidentified | October 6, 1814 | drowning | Accidental drowning | black | |
Abby | November 18, 1814 | slave | injuries | The abuse heretofore received was the cause of her death, but by whom we cannot assertain. | |
Samuel Dover | November 19, 1814 | alcohol, exposure | Drunkenness and exposure to inclemency of the weather | person of color | |
Billy | December 21, 1814 | slave | drowning | Drowned in attempting to cross Blue Stone Creek. | |
Unidentified | January 5, 1815 | slave | exposure | Frozen to death in a stockyard | black |
Tom | January 18, 1815 | slave | homicide | Death was facilitated and happened sooner in consequence of being beaten with a cow hide by James Satterwhite | |
Onisimmious | February, 1815 | slave | homicide | Died from gun shot wound to the back inflictd by Typpe L Charles. | |
Charles | March 10, 1815 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God and not otherwise | black |
Unidentified | March 19, 1815 | unknown | drowning | voluntarily and feloniously drowned | black |
Agga | March, 1815 | unknown | unknown | Died an unnatural death, but by what means we cannot say since she has been dead two or three weeks. | |
Harry | April 3, 1815 | homicide | Shot in the back and killed by a gun shot in the hands of Archebard Johnston | ||
Unidentified | June 16, 1815 | free | homicide | Being delivered thereof and bruises apparent on it, was willfully and feloniously murdered. | |
Lewis Cousins | June 18, 1815 | unknown | injuries | Died from a severe whipping and beating that he received. | person of color |
Tom | June 20, 1815 | slave | homicide | Frances Powell then and there with switches or a cowhide did wound and beat the aforesaid negro man Tom and of such wounds and beating the aforesaid negro man Tom died. | |
Aaron | September 18, 1815 | slave | homicide | Stabbed by his wife Betty, after beating her. Witnesses state she had previously sworn that if Aaron ever laid a hand on her she would kill him. | |
Dick | September, 1815 | slave | homicide | came to his death by violent and unlawful means--beaten, cut, bruised in an unlawful and unmerciful manner--the said Sterling Harwell striked, beat, and abuse the said Dick on and about the head--so that Dick came to his death in consequence of the said wounds, blows, stripes, and bruises. | |
Isaac | October 1, 1815 | free | drowning | was drowned in the creek | black |
David Scott | October 30, 1815 | free | homicide | Shot by a gun by either Stephen Baranzzino or Johnathan Piercy | person of color |
Rhody Lawrence | November 10, 1815 | free | homicide | Violence committed on her body by Joseph Bird | person of color |
Henry | December 20, 1815 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Natt Herring | January 3, 1816 | free | homicide | Joe, a slave of Allen Fulgham, struck Herring on the neck with a stick | |
Jack | January 6, 1816 | slave | natural caues | Died by the visitation of God. | |
Billy Perry | January 15, 1816 | free | exposure | Froze to death. | |
Hardy | January 25, 1816 | slave | homicide | Whipped, beat, and bruised by paddel in the hands of Asa Craddock. | |
Will | January 25, 1816 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God. | |
Tom | February 8, 1816 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way, while being committed to jail for a felony. | |
Egyp | March 3, 1816 | slave | natural causes | died by the hand of providence | black |
Robin | March 26, 1816 | free | natural causes | died by the visitation of God | black |
Jerome | March 29, 1816 | slave | drowning | voluntarily and feloniously drowned | black |
Sarah | April 24, 1816 | slave | homicide | Died from two whippings given her by Stephen Redman. | |
Ben | June, 1816 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Wilson | August 21, 1816 | slave | homicide | Killed by a fractured skull inflicted by Bob, a slave and property of William Stratton | |
Tom | September 26, 1816 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God. | |
Harrison | October, 1816 | slave | suicide | Suicide by hanging | |
Goshen Watson | December 7, 1816 | free | homicide | killed by gun shot to the back of the head by William Goodrich | person of color |
Billy | December 13, 1816 | free | exposure, alcohol | Died from exceedingly cold weather due to his state of intoxication | |
Daniel | January 15, 1817 | slave | drowning | Drowned in Mecraws creek | |
Moses | May 8, 1817 | slave | homicide | James Andrews, age 10 or 11, casually and by misfortune did kill and slay the negro boy Moses by discharge of gunpowder and shot in upon the throat of the said negro. | |
Jim | May, 1817 | slave | alcohol, drowning | Died while attempting to ride across Seacock Swamp, being intoxicated did fall into said swamp and drowned. | |
Andrew | June 25, 1817 | slave | homicide | Murdered by whipping and abuse committed by Pleasants Clarke. | |
Unidentified | June 25, 1817 | slave | unknown | Unable to determine that the said child ws murdered. There was no appearance of violence on the body. | |
John S Pennington | August 31, 1817 | homicide | murdered with a shot gun blast to his breast, by an unknown negro man | ||
Henry W Wells | September 1, 1817 | homicide | Struck in the head with a wooden pestle by Tom, a slave | ||
Caleb | October 23, 1817 | slave | drowning | Either drowned by accident or willfully drowned himself. | |
Peter | October 23, 1817 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God. | |
Dick Edwards | December 1, 1817 | free | drowning | Voluntarily went in the river and was accidentally drowned | |
Peggy | Undated, 1817 | slave | natural causes | Died a natural death, or died by an Act of Providence. | |
Joseph | January, 1818 | slave | accidental injuries | Died apparently from a kick to the belly in a boxing match. | |
Bob | February 18, 1818 | slave | exposure, alcohol | Died by intoxication and freezing to death | |
Unidentified | February 18, 1818 | slave | exposure, alcohol | Died by intoxication and extreme cold | |
Unidentified | March 17, 1818 | unknown | drowning | Death by accidental drowning. | black |
Aggy | March 23, 1818 | slave | drowning | Fell into a creek and drowned while trying to cross the creek on a log. | |
Henry D Carver | May 18, 1818 | homicide | Struck in the head with a swingletree and cudgel by George, a slave. | ||
Unidentified | June 4, 1818 | drowning | Died by accidental drowning in the James River | black | |
Charlotte | June 6, 1818 | slave | injuries | After taking the body of Charlotte out of the grave, found her head, body and legs very much bruised, and of opinion the wounds were the cause of her death. | |
Levi | June 8, 1818 | slave | drowning | died by being drowned in the waters of the Atlantic near Chincoteague Inlet | black |
Isaac Pew | July 12, 1818 | free | drowning | Death by accidental drowning. | person of color |
Jerry | July 20, 1818 | slave | accidental injuries, homicide | Died from being unintentionally thrown upon a seythe blade by Isham. | |
Sampson | July 26, 1818 | slave | suicide | wounds himself willfull | black |
Jack | July, 1818 | slave | unknown | Due to the state of putrification of the body, cause of death can not be determined. | |
Burwell | October 7, 1818 | slave | accidental injuries | died from wound on the upper part of right knee, occasioned we suppose from an accident | |
Adkin | December 24, 1818 | slave | accidental injuries | In the act of cutting a tree the said tree in falling struck against another tree and a limb was thereby broken and thrown back and fell upon said Adkin which gave him one mortal wound on the head. | |
John Noble | December 24, 1818 | homicide | Struck with unknown weapon in the hands of the slave Davy, property of the late John Noble, caused a mortal wound upon John Noble's skull bone. | ||
Hannibal | February 15, 1819 | slave | alcohol | Found dead--no marks of violence appearing on his body and died by intoxication and not otherwise. | |
John | February 15, 1819 | slave | natural causes | Had no marks of violence appearing on his body and died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Mingo | February 19, 1819 | unknown | homicide | Murdered by an unknown person who shot him as they traveled from the county jail to Richmond. | |
Adam | February 27, 1819 | slave | natural caues | Died by the visitation of God. | |
Unidentified | February 27, 1819 | accidental injuries | The death was through the carlessness of its mother and was smothered in the night or morning with out any design or intention | mulatto | |
Unidentified | May 27, 1819 | drowning | Death by accidental drowning. | ||
Jack | June 15, 1819 | slave | drowning | Death by accidental drowning. | |
Soloman Jones | July 3, 1819 | free | homicide | Died from being whipped and burned in a most horrid and shocking manner by Thomas Lawther. Lawther was moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil. The deceased died at the Deep Run Coal pits | person of color |
Unidentified | July 4, 1819 | unknown | drowning | Death by accidental drowning. | |
Ceasar | July 7, 1819 | unknown | drowning | Death by accidental drowning. | |
Jonas | August 4, 1819 | slave | drowning, suicide | Drowned himself in the North River. | |
Samuel Coy | September 16, 1819 | free | accidental injuries | Died by accident | |
James Hunter | September 18, 1819 | homicide | Assaulted by person unknown, supposed to be a coloured man named Jerry who made many mortal wounds and left his body terribly mangled | ||
Nancy Major | October 5, 1819 | free | homicide | Death was occasioned by severe beatings she received from her husband, a negro man slave named John, owned by Thomas Cowls | person of color |
Edward Nixon | November 15, 1819 | homicide | Came to his death by being beaten with a large fence rail or piece of timber--on the right arm and on the forehead and his skull broken by the hands of--Sam, property of Arthur Butt. | ||
Joe | January 3, 1820 | slave | homicide | Died from being stabbed with a knife by John, a slave belonging to the Estate of John Butts. | |
Davey | January 13, 1820 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God, in a natural way. | |
Isaac | January 17, 1820 | slave | homicide | Struck with pipe or some other weapon by Robbin. | |
William Woodram | February 9, 1820 | homicide | Died from a mortal wound to his head by a stick, in the hands of the slave Jordan, owned by Thomas Taylor, deceased most likely a white man | ||
Davy | February 19, 1820 | unknown | natural causes | Came to his death by the visitation of Providence. | |
James Cook | February 21, 1820 | free | natural causes | Died in a natural way by the visitation of God. | |
Ben | March 6, 1820 | slave | inconclusive | Cause of death unknown, body found in mill pond | |
Unidentified | March 11, 1820 | homicide | Murdered by a wound in the head and severe grip around the neck. | ||
Unidentified | March 11, 1820 | homicide | Murdered by mortal wounds to the head and neck. | ||
Jerry | April 16, 1820 | unknown | drowning | Death by accidental drowning. | |
Lew | April 30, 1820 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God in an natural way | |
Lucy | May 15, 1820 | slave | homicide | Some person unknown--did feloniously, volentarily and of malice forethought made an assault--with some unlawful weapons inflicting multiple wounds of which Lucy died. | |
Jim | June 5, 1820 | slave | accidental injuries | Died when a bank of earth fell on him while he was digging gravel | |
Ned | June 15, 1820 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Luke | July, 1820 | slave | homicide | Was shot in the back with a shot gun in the hands of George Sturdevant. | |
James | August 12, 1820 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned by falling into the river. | |
Unidentified | August 21, 1820 | unknown | homicide | Killed by Nicholas P Hairston, who testified that he acted in self defense. | |
Moses | September 21, 1820 | slave | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Fed | October 16, 1820 | slave | natural causes | death from the visitation of God | |
Betsey Turner | November, 1820 | free | accidental injuries | Died of burns received in a house fire. | person of color |
Larn Rann | December 4, 1820 | free | homicide | Was stabbed to death with a jack leg knife by Allen Blythe. | person of color |
Sukey | December 21, 1820 | slave | homicide | Died from assault, mortal wounds, and bruises to the head and body by Anderson Blanton and Elizabeth Blanton | |
Unidentified | December 24, 1820 | natural causes | Visitation of providence | ||
Venus | January 7, 1821 | slave | injuries | Was not killed by violence, but the severe treatment she received from Frances Bashaw hastened her death. | |
Ben | January 12, 1821 | slave | homicide | Shot in the back and killed by William Claud Jr. | |
Unidentified | January, 1821 | slave | infanticide | Violence by mother named Nancy | |
Edmund | January, 1821 | slave | homicide | Blows and bruises inflicted by Randall, a stage driver | |
Unidentified | February 16, 1821 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Peter | March 15, 1821 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Unidentified | June 30, 1821 | drowning | Accidental drowning | black | |
Unidentified | September 6, 1821 | unknown | drowning | The body was in such a state of putrefaction and so disfigured by birds or fish as to render it impossible for this jury to say whether or not any violence had been used toward it; therefore the jury is compelled to suppose that the body was accidentally drowned. | |
Peter | September 8, 1821 | slave | accidental injuries | Died of an accidental death; falling of a tree limb caused his death | |
Daniel | September 16, 1821 | accidental injuries | By accident | ||
Isham | October 18, 1821 | slave | suicide | Died by his own imprudent act by hanging himself by the neck, while a prisoner in the jail. | |
Davy | October, 1821 | slave | drowning | While attempting to cross the Nottoway River in a canoe he fell overboard and drowned. | |
Jane Hunt | December 15, 1821 | homicide | Killed with an ax by the slave Henry, property of James Hunt. | ||
Lilly Ann Hunt | December 15, 1821 | homicide | Killed with an ax by the slave Henry, property of James Hunt. | ||
Obedience Hunt | December 15, 1821 | homicide | Killed with an ax by the slave Henry, property of James Hunt. | ||
Moses Reid | January 7, 1822 | unknown | exposure | Perished from intense cold during the late severe snowstorm. | black |
Garland Harris | January 13, 1822 | free | homicide | Shot in the head by Spencer, property of __ Saunders of Franklin County, for taking Spencer's wife. | person of color |
Barnett | March 18, 1822 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died from an intemperate use of intoxicating spirits and subsequent exposure to the severity of the weather. | |
Lewis | March, 1822 | slave | homicide | Was killed by the blow of an axe across the left side of his head, at the hands of John Harriss' slave Tom. | |
Isaac | April 4, 1822 | slave | homicide | Killed by the blow from an axe by which the skull was broken by a slave named George, belonging to heirs of Richard Adeon. | |
Jesse | May 8, 1822 | slave | drowning | Drowning | |
John | May 13, 1822 | accidental injuries | Accidentally falling and being caught in plaister mill cog wheel and wallower | ||
Epes Allen | May 13, 1822 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | person of color |
Mary | May 18, 1822 | slave | accidental injury | while Mary was amusing herself with a gun--did receive by the accidental discharge of the said gun--in her forehead | black |
Susan | May 23, 1822 | suicide | Willfully jumping into the Potomac | ||
Unidentified | May 30, 1822 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Hampton | June 10, 1822 | slave | suicide | Struck himself with a rasor across his throat, inflicting one mortal wound. | |
Carper | June 17, 1822 | slave | unknown | Died from some unknown cause other than the flagellataion recently received from his master. | |
Parker | June 30, 1822 | slave | drowning | died by being drowned | black |
Daniel | July 24, 1822 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
Ellick | July, 1822 | slave | natural causes | Visitation of God in a natural way | |
Judea | July, 1822 | slave | suicide | Suicide by drowning | |
Priscy Turner | July, 1822 | free | homicide | Was beaten with whips and sticks in the hands of Edwin Croslin, Lemuel Daughtrey, Matthew Gardner and Solomon Daughtrey Jr. | person of color |
Edy | August 6, 1822 | slave | homicide | Feloniously killed and murdered by Plato | |
, property of William Millnor. | mulatto | ||||
Affrica | August 15, 1822 | slave | homicide | Killed by a gun shot inflicted by John R Rays, who was acting in self defense. | black |
Johnathan Carroll | September 4, 1822 | homicide | Loaded gun being discharged at him by a negro boy named Forrester | ||
Unidentified | November 14, 1822 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Daniel | November 19, 1822 | slave | homicide, injuries | Was--assaulted by the striking and beating about the head by William Coleman. | |
Rose | December 11, 1822 | slave | natural causes | Died a natural death. | |
Amy | December 26, 1822 | slave | suicide | Suicide by drowning in Appomattox River. | |
Briscoe | January 6, 1823 | slave | exposure | Died from the want of assistance | person of color |
Israel | January 12, 1823 | unknown | exposure | died by being frozen | black |
Davy Cooper | January 16, 1823 | slave | exposure, alcohol | Died by making too free use of spiritous liquors, and lying out until he freezed to death | |
Sam | January, 1823 | slave | natural causes | Died a natural death. | |
Lucy | February 10, 1823 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God. | |
Claiborn | March 4, 1823 | slave | homicide | Was shot and murdered by Thomas Mason. | |
Peter Dokey | March 9, 1823 | free | drowning | died by being drowned and suffocating in water | black |
Unidentified | March 29, 1823 | drowning | Died by accidental drowning | ||
Bob | April 14, 1823 | slave | homicide | Died from the wounds he received on his head, inflicted by the hands of the negro slave Scott. | |
Billy Branch | April 19, 1823 | slave | drowning | Killed by an accidental fall from the bank of the James River Canal, while engaged in a scuffle or fight with a slave named Shadrach | |
Juda | April 23, 1823 | slave | inconclusive | death by non-violence | |
Peter | May 21, 1823 | slave | drowning | Went to fish in Appomattox River, had a fit, fell into the river and was drowned | |
Philip | May 21, 1823 | slave | homicide | Feloniously killed and murdered by an unknown person with a shot to the forehead from a pistol. | |
Phil | June 16, 1823 | slave | suicide | Hung himself from the limb of a pine tree using a grape vine. | |
Anthony | June 23, 1823 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning. | |
Nat | July 9, 1823 | slave | homicide | Maliciously and feloniously killed and murdered by some person or persons unknown. | |
Nelson | July 10, 1823 | slave | drowning | Accidentally fell out of a raft and was drowned. | |
Nelly | August 1, 1823 | slave | injuries | Died in consequence of the severity of whipping inflicted on her by George Halson and others acting in pursuance of the master's orders. | |
Edmund | August 13, 1823 | slave | accidental injuries | accidentally shot by slave named Ephraim, also owned by Hicks | |
Unidentified | January 5, 1824 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of Providence | |
Polima | January 19, 1824 | slave | injuries | Died from severe, unmerciful and inhuman treatment and wounds inflicted by her owner, William T Fletcher. | |
Unidentified | February 2, 1824 | inconclusive | Died by some causality unknown to the jury | ||
Joe | February 23, 1824 | slave | exposure | Died by stragling off and freezing to death. | |
John Epps | March 8, 1824 | free | homicide | Was murdered by John W G Hardy by assaulting Epps on the left part of his head near the left eye with a wooden hame with an iron ring and staple therein. | person of color |
Unidentified | April 2, 1824 | unknown | drowning | Died from being drowned. Was in the water so long and is so mutilated, jury cannot account for his death otherwise than by supposing he was drowned. | |
Scipio | April 12, 1824 | slave | drowning | While attempting to cross Thomas Coleman's Mill Pond, Scipio was carried over the mill dam and was drowned. | |
Alice | June 14, 1824 | slave | unknown | Cause of death is not shown. | |
Unidentified | June 22, 1824 | unknown | homicide | Feloniously killed and murdered by her mother, Anna Jenkins, alias Anna Martin. | |
Eleanor Harris | June 24, 1824 | suicide | Voluntarily drowned | person of color | |
Nancy | July 23, 1824 | slave | drowning, homicide | Was drowned using force and violence by her mother Milley in Cub Creek. | |
Ceasar | July 26, 1824 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Jim | July 27, 1824 | slave | accidental injuries | Death is assumed to be from overheating himself and then drinking too much cold water. | |
Frank | July, 1824 | slave | accidental injuries | Died from a blow to his head by Cyrus Parkus without an intention to kill. | |
Unidentified | August 5, 1824 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | black |
Jim | August 21, 1824 | slave | drowning | Was scuffling with the slave John, belonging to Holley Welch, when they fell overboard and dJim was accidentally drowned. | |
Henchey | September 20, 1824 | unknown | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Nehemiah | November 28, 1824 | unknown | natural causes | died by the visitation of God | black |
Israel Askins Jr | December 25, 1824 | homicide | Discharge of wadding from a loaded gun without shot by William Roper, a boy of color | ||
Sam | January 3, 1825 | slave | accidental injuries | Accidentally fell from a tree | |
Celia | January 10, 1825 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God. | |
Charlotte | February 2, 1825 | unknown | exposure | Perished from violent cold and fatigue, having lost her way traveling in a very severe snow storm. | |
Joe | February 8, 1825 | unknown | exposure | Perished from fatigue and cold traveling during a violent snow storm. | |
Phill | February 24, 1825 | slave | homicide | Hilliard Johnson (a free man of color) then and there violently struck and gave to the said Phill a blow in and upon the forehead producing a mortal wound. | |
Mourning Browne | February, 1825 | free | homicide | Killed by Benjamin Brown, a free negro, with a stick or club struck her head. | person of color |
Nancy | March, 1825 | slave | exposure | death from freezing in the late snow storm | |
Lucy | May 2, 1825 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Sylvia | May 30, 1825 | slave | suicide | died from cutting her own throat | |
Abram Logan | July 21, 1825 | free | drowning | Accidently drowned in John Aston's mill pond | free person of color |
Frank | July 28, 1825 | slave | homicide | Struck and pierced with stone or some other weapon in the hands of Sencer Chandler. | |
Larkin | July, 1825 | slave | drowning | Drowned when he accidentally fell into the well. | |
Charles | September 16, 1825 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
Jack | October 1, 1825 | slave | homicide | shot six times on his left side with a gun by a person or persons unknown | |
George | October 17, 1825 | slave | unknown, drowning | Cause of death is unknown due to the state of putrification of the body; may have drowned. | |
Taff | November 22, 1825 | slave | drowning | Accidently fell out of a boat and drowned in the James River | |
Allen | November 29, 1825 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God | |
Cyrus | December 2, 1825 | slave | drowning | Drowned | |
Nelley | December 9, 1825 | slave | unknown illness | died from an unknown cause | |
Lettice | December 14, 1825 | slave | exposure, natural causes | Died from excessive cold or in a fit. | |
Unidentified | December 19, 1825 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Dave | December 22, 1825 | slave | unknown illness | died from unknown causes | |
Katy | December 26, 1825 | slave | natural causes | Died by sudden visitation of Providence. | |
Argyle | January 3, 1826 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of Providence. | |
Freeman | January 9, 1826 | slave | homicide | Was murdered by the slave Anthony | |
, by the shooting of a gun loaded with large shot into the body of said Freeman. | |||||
Unidentified | March 8, 1826 | drowning | Died by accidental drowning in the James River | ||
Allen Drury | March 14, 1826 | free | exposure, alcohol | Being overcome by intoxication, did remain exposed to the inclemency of the night and thereby came to his death. | person of color |
Unidentified | April 2, 1826 | natural causes | Died a natural death | black | |
Charles White | April 9, 1826 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning when he fell from his boat while fishing in the James River | |
Richard White | April 17, 1826 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God, in a natural way, and not otherwise. | person of color |
Richmond | June 11, 1826 | slave | drowning | Death by providential visitation which resulted in drowning by either having been strangled with the water or having been seized with a sudden spasm | |
Unidentified | June 22, 1826 | drowning | Died by accidental drowning in the James River | ||
Adam | June 27, 1826 | slave | drowning | Drowned while bathing in the creek. | |
Unidentified | September 26, 1826 | unknown | natural causes | Probable death caused by being stillborn. | negro or mulatto |
Unidentified | October 28, 1826 | slave | drowning, infanticide | Drowned, but not able to determine if it was still born or murdered after its birth by the mother. | |
Chelce | November 8, 1826 | slave | homicide | Killed by the slave Fagan, with a wooden mall struck and broke the skull of Chelce. | |
Henry | November 21, 1826 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
John | November 23, 1826 | slave | homicide | Death was produced by a blow on the right side of his head just behind his ear with some other small signs on the head. | |
Sally Shields | November 26, 1826 | homicide | Was stabbed in the throat and neck by her slave, Nelly. | ||
Henry | December 11, 1826 | slave | homicide | Was killed by Hall with an axe to the head. | |
Unidentified | January 24, 1827 | slave | natural causes | Death during the birth process. | |
Elsey | February 12, 1827 | slave | exposure | Believed she froze to death. | |
Unidentified | April 7, 1827 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
John Hamlin | April 9, 1827 | homicide | Was violently assaulted, choaked and suffocated to death by his own slaves; the said slaves further did burn the body of John Hamlin to ashes with fire, scattered the bones and ashes and partially concealed the same by ploughing over the bones and ashes, and the heart of John Hamlin was found. | ||
Bob | May 14, 1827 | slave | homicide | Was feloniously killed and murdered by the slave names Nelson, by using a bar to strike two mortal blows to the head of Bob. | |
Caesar | May 28, 1827 | slave | natural causes, accidental injuries | died by the visitation of God, or by a fall from a tree | |
Sinah | June 11, 1827 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Unidentified | June 25, 1827 | unknown | unknown, natural causes | Child was born dead, cause of death is unknown. | person of color |
George | July 15, 1827 | slave | drowning | Drowned when John Edmonds upset the canoe. | |
Isaac Reed | July 19, 1827 | free | homicide | Died from acts of violence against his body committed by William Grace, Samuel H Whipple and David Henderson, whipped and hung by rope | person of color |
Billy | July 19, 1827 | slave | homicide | ||
James L Hill | August 4, 1827 | homicide | Died by several blows to the right side of head inflicted by Jerry Brefrie. | ||
Phill | August 29, 1827 | slave | homicide | Killed by Benjamin A Harrison by being shot in the left side of his back with a shot gun. | |
Cooper | September 6, 1827 | slave | drowning | Drowned while running away. | |
Wiche | September 6, 1827 | slave | drowning | Drowned while running away. | |
Unidentified | September 13, 1827 | slave | inconclusive | Death from unknown causes but jury believed death was caused by some improper conduct of its mother Airy who buried the infant in a secret manner. The jury found it equally probable that the infant's death was caused by Airy's fall down some stairs a few days before birth | |
George Robinson | October 2, 1827 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning when he accidentally fell overboard from a boat in the James River | |
Will Wiggins | October 4, 1827 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God. | |
Unidentified | November 18, 1827 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | person of color |
John | November 19, 1827 | slave | exposure, alcohol | Died by intemperance, in having been intoxicated and the night being a cold one | |
Elbert Mosby | December 20, 1827 | homicide | Died from an assault with a knife, pistols, and club by Robert Mendum and Harry | ||
Unidentified | January 9, 1828 | drowning | Died by accidental drowning in the James River | ||
Anne | January 14, 1828 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God. | |
Abraham | March 4, 1828 | slave | suicide | Being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil, died when he hung himself with a rope by the neck from a dogwood tree | |
Unidentified | April 5, 1828 | infanticide | Drowned in a well after birth by persons unknown | mulatto | |
John | April 12, 1828 | unknown | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God. | |
Natt Ash | April 27, 1828 | free | homicide | Murdered by being cruelly and inhumanely beaten or stabbed by four colored persons unknown. | |
Shadrac James | June 18, 1828 | accidental injuries | Died when a brick chimney blew down in a rain and wind storm and caught him under it | person of color | |
Edmund | June 30, 1828 | slave | drowning | accidentally drowned | black |
John | June 30, 1828 | slave | drowning | accidentally drowned | black |
Levin | June 30, 1828 | slave | drowning | accidentally drowned | black |
Mark | July 5, 1828 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
James | July 15, 1828 | slave | drowning | Death came by being alarmed by information of there being patroling at or near Nelson Ferry on Staunton River, he ran off to the river attempting to cross it and drowned. | |
Dick | August 29, 1828 | slave | homicide | Was shot in the face by an unknown person. | |
Willis | October 2, 1828 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Judy | October 17, 1828 | slave | accidental injuries | Died from the fall of a bank of dirt at which she and others were at work. | |
Nancy Green | December 4, 1828 | homicide | Was killed and murdered by being hung by a cord around her neck by the hands of slaves named Sydna and Eliza. | ||
Edward | December 24, 1828 | slave | accidental injury | accidentally burnt to death | black |
Isaac | January 8, 1829 | slave | drowning | Accidentally drowned when boat he was on with four other persons overset and all persons were thrown overboard. | |
Elia | January 18, 1829 | slave | natural causes | died by visitation of God | black |
Unidentified | January 21, 1829 | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God | ||
Jim | February 3, 1829 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died from freezing, as he was intoxicated on the night of his death | |
Rachael | February 16, 1829 | slave | homicide, injuries | Died from the results of being beaten, bruised and whipped by Isham W Clements, from the crown of her head to the sole of her feet. | |
Isabel | February 18, 1829 | slave | homicide | Murdered by her hired owner John S Marley, who struck her with a club or stick on the right shoulder and left thigh in November 1828. Isabel languished under the said beating until she died on 13 Feb 1829. | |
Sarah | March 18, 1829 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Simon Jinkins | March 21, 1829 | free | exposure | Froze to death. | |
Rebecca | March 26, 1829 | slave | drowning | Death by drowning, either accidently falling into Flat Creek or throwing herself into the creek. | |
Willis | March 26, 1829 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned by the sinking of a lighter in Lake Drummond on board of which he was employed. | |
Unidentified | April 3, 1829 | drowning | Died by accidental drowning in the James River | ||
Unidentified | April 6, 1829 | slave | infanticide | Infant died by the inhumane conducy of its mother Judea who wrapped it in cloths and placed it in a closed wooden box | |
Cain | May 15, 1829 | slave | drowning | Death by drowning while endeavoring to escape his pursuers who were trying to apprehend him upon a charge of theft | |
John | May 28, 1829 | slave | drowning | Accidentally drowned in Flat Creek. | |
Ritter | June 15, 1829 | slave | unknown | Said by rumour to have been brought to her death by the treatment of Carter. Body was buried on 1 April 1829 and in ground too long to make examination, so have taken uncommon pains to trace the report to its source which we are fully convinced is groundless and false. | |
Sally White | June 15, 1829 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God, in a natural way, and not otherwise. | person of color |
Isaac | July 20, 1829 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Harvey | August 3, 1829 | slave | drowning | Accidental drownin while bathing | |
Thornton B Stone | September 26, 1829 | homicide | Parker and Fama, slaves owned by Daniel Stone, with their fists struck Stone on the right breast which caused his shoulder and other parts to give way, received two mortal wounds which caused his instant death. | ||
Charles | October 3, 1829 | slave | natural causes | Died under a sudden dispensation of Providence. | |
Unidentified | October 9, 1829 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Nanny | October 23, 1829 | unknown | exposure | came to his death by being exposed to the cold | black |
Caroline | November 2, 1829 | free | inconclusive | Cause of death unknown but jury said it was in evidence before them that William Hall, with whom Caroline lived, tied and whipped Caroline and that after the whipping, Caroline became ill and fell into a stupor state until her death though the jury found no marks of violence on her body | person of color |
Moses | November 12, 1829 | unknown | homicide | Died in consequence of wounds unlawfully inflicted by some heavy weaon upon the breast and body generally by Thomas Hodges and John M Cherry. | |
Sandy | November, 1829 | slave | homicide | Was shot by Jacob B Bryant after he (Sandy) was seen with a stolen hog, which had been killed and was over a fire. | |
Unidentified | December 5, 1829 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | black |
Joshua | December 6, 1829 | slave | natural causes | Died by visitation of God in a natural way | |
Elijah | December 21, 1829 | slave | injuries | Died from a wound to the head over the left eye. | |
Unidentified | January 11, 1830 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | black |
Unidentified | January 28, 1830 | unknown | infanticide | Was suffocated by a string tied around its neck, at the hands of Cherry Green, a free woman of color. | |
Cornelius | March 27, 1830 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Jonas | March 27, 1830 | unknown | drowning | Was intoxicated, fell into the N W River Canal, and was accidentally drowned. | |
Anderson | March, 1830 | slave | alcohol, accidental injuries | Died of intemperance or by some accidents unknown. | |
Unidentified | May 25, 1830 | unknown | unknown illness | death from causes unknown | black |
Hockaday Homes | June 1, 1830 | free | drowning | Died by accidently drowning in the James River | person of color |
George Moore | July 12, 1830 | slave | homicide | Died from an assault with a brick or rock to the right side of his head by Cole Muse (alias Coleman Muse), a free man of color | |
Washington | August 15, 1830 | slave | drowning | Accidentally drowned while attempting to cross the James River | |
Sam | August 21, 1830 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Charles | October 10, 1830 | slave | homicide | Charles made an assault on Ned, another slave owned by Josiah Hunter, who struck Charles on the head with an axe. | |
Billy Wichet | November 3, 1830 | slave | homicide | Was feloniously killed and murdered by John Cumminger Waterman by an assault with a stone to the side and top of his head | |
Peter | December 15, 1830 | slave | suicide | Killed himself by tying a rope about his neck and tying the other end over a joist in the kitchen | |
Lydia Thompson | December 17, 1830 | free | exposure, alcohol | Froze to death, being intoxicated. | |
Fanny Johnson | February 6, 1831 | free | exposure, alcohol | Intoxication and exposure | person of color |
Peggy | February 12, 1831 | slave | natural causes | Died by visitation of providence | |
Unidentified | March 7 , 1831 | free | infanticide | Died from neglect and a broken skull after the infant's mother Letitia Briggs, a free person, placed the infant on the ground and covered it with pieces of wood | person of color |
Phill | April 11, 1831 | slave | drowning | Accidentally drowned in James River by falling from a lighter belonging to French and Jordan of Richmond. | |
Peyton | May 11, 1831 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Harry | June 13, 1831 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Miles | June 30, 1831 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning in the James River | |
Jim | August 1, 1831 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning when he accidentally fell into Great Guinea Creek. | |
Solomon | August 10, 1831 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning when he fell from onboard a steam boat into the James River | |
John | August 16, 1831 | slave | homicide | Assaulted by the slave Reuben with a hand spike to the head and face of the said John. | |
Spencer | August 25, 1831 | unknown | unknown | Death by some unknown person. | |
Frank Lewis | September 21, 1831 | free | natural causes | Died by an act of God in a natural way. | person of color |
Milley | November 3, 1831 | unknown | accidental injury | accidentally burned to death | black |
Manuel | November 7, 1831 | slave | accidental injuries, drowning | Death from a fit or by some unknown accident by which he fell into the spring and was drowned. | |
Milly King | November 7, 1831 | free | homicide | Murdered by Wyat Johnson, a free negro, who struck her in the head and neck with an ax. The blows caused King to fall from her chair onto her infant son, causing the death of the infant | |
Unidentified | November 7, 1831 | free | homicide | Murdered by Wyat Johnson, a free negro, who struck her in the head and neck with an ax. The blows caused King to fall from her chair onto her infant son, causing the death of the infant | |
Milly | November 7, 1831 | slave | disease | Died of a diseased womb | |
Andrew | December 7, 1831 | unknown | exposure | came to his death by accidental freezing | black |
Stehney | January 13, 1832 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died from intemperance, and due to the inclemency of the weather he was frozen to death. | |
Lucy | January 13, 1832 | free | exposure | Wandered into the woods, probably from a state of mental derangement, and there perished from the cold. | |
Hesekiah Jackson | February 26, 1832 | free | accidental injuries | Death by a loaded wagon running accidently over his body and head. | person of color |
Marinda | February 27, 1832 | slave | suicide | Hung herself with a silk handkerchief from a bough of a pine tree. | |
Tom | February 29, 1832 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
London Custis | March 1, 1832 | free | natural causes | died by the visitation of God | black |
Peg | March 13, 1832 | slave | homicide, injuries | Was assaulted with cowhides in the hands of Edwin Gray and John O'Donnelly (alias O'Dunally). | |
Tom | March 13, 1832 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Isaac | March 16, 1832 | unknown | natural causes | died by the visitation of God in a natural way | black |
Unidentified | May 4, 1832 | slave | infanticide | Struck and pierced with an iron object in and upon the body causing instant death. | person of color |
Unidentified | June 9, 1832 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | person of color |
Henry | June 10, 1832 | slave | drowning | Drowned in attempting to swim across Johns Creek. | |
Jim | June 15, 1832 | slave | accidental injuries | Died by accidentally falling from Thomas Hobson's mill dam onto the rocks below. | |
Dick | June 18, 1832 | slave | alcohol, exposure | The said Dick through intoxication did lie out and froze to death. | |
Nanna | June 23, 1832 | slave | unknown | Death by convulsively to the part of personal violence. We are unable to tell or in whatever manner she did come by her death. | |
John | June 25, 1832 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Bailem Reed | June 30, 1832 | homicide | Came to his death by kicks and blows to abdomen inflicted by Godfrey, a slave belonging to Patrick Foley | ||
Aberdeen | August 3, 1832 | free | natural causes | Died from a sudden visitation of Providence. | person of color |
Joe Bailey | August 7, 1832 | free | alcoholism | Died of intemperance. | |
Ambrose | September 17, 1832 | slave | homicide | Was struck several times in the face by his master Jacob McCoy and fell. The examination of the body showed no signs of violence except for a small cut on his upper lip and a contusion on the left eye. Death determined to be a case of chance occurring without any design or intention | |
Abraham Copeland | October 29, 1832 | free | homicide | Death caused by an injury by which his skull bone was broken, inflicted by or with the knowledge of Allen Creekmore and William Jordan. | person of color |
John | November 2, 1832 | free | alcoholism | Died from intemperate drinking | person of color |
Unidentified | November 21, 1832 | drowning | Died by drowning when he accidentally fell into a small pond of water at Poplar Spring | person of color | |
Cumber Tynes | December 3, 1832 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | person of color |
John Martin | January 7, 1833 | unknown | drowning | came to his death by drowning from the accidental upsetting of the schooner John | black |
Godwyn Artes | January 22, 1833 | free | homicide | Assaulted and beaten about his body, arms, face and head with large and heavy sticks, and broke his skull. Assaulted by John T Bains, Benjamin E Bains, James Jackson, Richard Robertson and William Joyner. | person of color |
Jordan | January, 1833 | slave | exposure | Froze to death. | |
Griffin Scott | March 25, 1833 | free | drowning | Accidental drowning | person of color |
Davy | April 6, 1833 | unknown | natural causes | Found dead--no marks of violence appearing on his body, and died by the visitation of God in a natural way and not otherwise. | |
William | April 23, 1833 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning in the James River | |
Harry | May 25, 1833 | slave | accidental injuries, drowning | Accidentally drowned while engaged at a capstern (capstan) and was struck by a bar flying around and knocked overboard. | |
George | June 7, 1833 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Phoebe | July 20, 1833 | slave | suicide | While committed to the jail as a runaway slave, suspended herself by the neck to a bar of the window with a handkerchief until her life was extinct. | |
Isaac | September 16, 1833 | slave | drowning | Drowned himself in Kellor's Mill Pond. | |
Lucy | September 19, 1833 | slave | accidental injuries | Immediate death caused by falling and striking head on the stones of the hearth. Earlier that day Lucy had been whipped by her master as punishment for stealing some trifling article from a neighbor | |
Mark | September 19, 1833 | slave | accidental injury | came to his death by accidentally falling from a saw pit | black |
Robert Jones | September 25, 1833 | free | natural causes | Visitation by God | |
Henrietta | October 5, 1833 | free | accidental injury | came to her death by accidentally falling in the fire | black |
Jim | October 14, 1833 | slave | exposure | came to his death by lying out all night | black |
Howell | October 17, 1833 | slave | homicide | death caused by axe blow into the head by slave Ned | |
Robin | October 31, 1833 | slave | drowning, alcohol | Drowning - intoxicated | |
Samuel Richardson | November 19, 1833 | free | natural causes | After a full examination finding no marks of violence we are of the opinion that he died by the visitation of God in a natural way and not otherwise. | person of color |
William Fox | November 21, 1833 | free | alcoholism | Died from intoxication | person of color |
John Thomas | November 28, 1833 | free | accidental injury | came to his death by accidentally getting on fire and burning to death | black |
Tom | December 9, 1833 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died from intoxication and exposing himself to the inclemency of the weather. | |
Jim | December 16, 1833 | slave | exposure | came to his death by wandering from home--and lying out all night in the rain and cold | black |
Abram | December 25, 1833 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God | black |
Richard | December 30, 1833 | slave | homicide | Death caused by a blow to the head with a heavy weapon. | |
Jerry | December, 1833 | slave | accidental injuries, exposure | Died when he accidently fell into a snow filled gully and froze. | |
Dick | January 6, 1834 | slave | drowning | Drowned. | |
Jim | January 13, 1834 | slave | homicide | Was assaulted at the mill of Jonah Cole by aforesaid Cole with a stick of wook. -- Cole did feloniously kill and murder the said slave. | |
Unidentified | January 20, 1834 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | person of color |
Dinah | March 3, 1834 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Came to her death by intoxication and exposure to the cold. Found dead in the road. | |
Joe | April 3, 1834 | slave | homicide | Death by a blow given to him on the head by a stone thrown at him by a certain yellow man slave called George Quickly said to be the property of the estate of Col. N. Burwell | |
Unidentified | April 15, 1834 | slave | infanticide | Was killed and murdered by its mother, Kesiah, by smothering or by stopping its breath by putting her hand on its face and keeping it there until it was dead. Kesiah did not have God before her eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil | |
Unidentified | April 25, 1834 | unknown | drowning | Drowned, whether accidentally or otherwise could not be determined. | person of color |
Squire Jackson | May 5, 1834 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | free person of color |
Taylor | May, 1834 | slave | homicide | Died by the violence of some kicks or blows which he received from Frank. | |
Will Charity | June 2, 1834 | free | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
John Valentine | July 24, 1834 | free | inconclusive | Came to his death from some unknown cause | person of color |
Edmund Mallory | August 20, 1834 | free | homicide | Killed and murdered by a knife stab wound to the lower part of his belly by Frank Moss, a free man of color | person of color |
Mary Scott | September 2, 1834 | free | homicide | Was killed and murdered by Judy Harris, by using some sharp pointed instrument to stab Scott in her breast | |
Anderson | September 8, 1834 | slave | homicide | Died after being struck over the head by Ned, the property of Harden Hairston, with a piece of fence rail. | |
Nelson | September 23, 1834 | slave | accidental injuries, alcohol | Being alone on the North Landing Road himself voluntarily or accidentally, being drunk, in a steer cart, caught his head between the spokes of said cart and caused his death. | |
George Hatiney | November 7, 1834 | free | natural causes | came to his death by the visitation of God | black |
Tom | November 17, 1834 | unknown | alcohol; exposure | came to his death--occasioned by intemperence and cold | black |
Edward Jones | November 18, 1834 | homicide | Was murdered by the slave Nelson by inflicting sundry wounds on the head, neck, back and arms with an ax | ||
George | December 13, 1834 | slave | natural causes | came to his death by the visitation of God in a natural way | black |
Caleb | December 14, 1834 | slave | accidental injury | came to his death by an accidental fall off a tree | black |
Joe Smith | December 15, 1834 | free | drowning, alcohol | Drowned when he fell out of his boat while crossing the Nottoway River while intoxicated. | person of color |
Pleasant | January 5, 1835 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in the natural way | |
Abby | January 21, 1835 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
John Dugard | February 27, 1835 | drowning | Died by accidental drowning in the James River | person of color | |
Unidentified | March 13, 1835 | unknown | suicide | cut his own throat with a knife | black |
Lewis Gray | March 27, 1835 | free | alcoholism | Death by intemperence | |
Moses | March 30, 1835 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned by falling into the Dismal Swamp Canal. | |
Unidentified | March, 1835 | unknown | infanticide, accidental injuries | Died by being smothered by accident. | |
Unidentified | April 21, 1835 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Ephraim Seymour | April 28, 1835 | free | exposure | came to his death by exposure to the inclemancy of the weather | black |
William | June 9, 1835 | slave | homicide | Death was produced by wounds and bruises inflicted by some unknown person. | |
Delilah Taburn | July 10, 1835 | homicide | Murdered with knives or other sharp instruments by Henry Mabry, Fanny Jones and Eliza Jones | person of color | |
Unidentified | July 23, 1835 | slave | natural causes | Natural Causes | |
Marshall Meekins | July, 1835 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | person of color |
Winston White | August 10, 1835 | apprentice | accidental injuries | Fell into the well of Atwood Wash and from said fall White received sundry wounds which occasioned his death, including a broken neck. | person of color |
Toby | September 14, 1835 | slave | natural causes, homicide | Died a natural death; however, two of jurors stated Toby was killed or murdered by wounds inflicted on the head and chin, and these wounds were inflicted by an unknown person. | |
Emma | October 19, 1835 | slave | drowning | Drowned by falling into the Nottoway River. | |
Lewis Barnett | November 2, 1835 | free | alcoholism | Died in a fit occasioned by intemperence | |
Lewis Butler | November 2, 1835 | slave | drowning | Died by accidentally drowning while aiding and assisting in over-turning a boat at the Old Locks on the James River Canal | |
Jack Evans | November 2, 1835 | slave | accidental injuries | Died in an accident when a limb fell from a tree where he was cutting wood, which fractured his skull | |
Polly Tigner | November 12, 1835 | unknown | drowning | accidentally drowned | black |
Betsy Tigner | November 13, 1835 | unknown | drowning | accidentally drowned | black |
Gabriel | November 16, 1835 | slave | homicide | Died from wounds inflicted upon him in his rebellion and violent resistance against his master. A justifiable homicide. | |
Leven Blake | November 21, 1835 | free | drowning | accidentally drowned | black |
John | December 19, 1835 | slave | homicide | Died from being assaulted, dragged by a rope to a tree, together with excessive choking--and otherwise being mal treated and abused at the hands of Thomas H Vaughan, Pleasanat Ussery, William White, and Collin Wallace. | |
Ciller | December 21, 1835 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Simon | January 1, 1836 | slave | exposure | Died from the cold while in a fit of insensibility | |
Isaac | January 18, 1836 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Rolins | February 15, 1836 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died from intoxication and lying out on a Saturday night | |
Jack | February 15, 1836 | slave | homicide, exposure | Died from strikes and bruises inflicted upon his body, head and face by an unknown person, and also from being exposed to the cold. | |
Sarah | February 25, 1836 | slave | accidental injury | camer to her death by accidental burning | black |
Donon | March 21, 1836 | slave | accidental injuries | Died by being severely burned when his body caught fire from sitting too close to a heap of burning logs. | |
Caleb | March 28, 1836 | slave | alcohol; exposure | came to his death--supposed to be in a state of intoxication and from cold | black |
Bob | April 4, 1836 | slave | suicide | Suicide by drowning | |
Eli | May 2, 1836 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Margaret | May 10, 1836 | slave | natural causes | came to her death in a natural way--during a violent paroxysm of passion | black |
Judith Cary | May 16, 1836 | free | unknown illness | Died by strangulation or suffocation from the blood | person of color |
Unidentified | May 25, 1836 | free | natural causes | came to his death in a natural way | black |
James Sample | June 20, 1836 | free | drowning | came to his death by accidental drowning | black |
Cassey Mitchell | June 20, 1836 | free | drowning | came to her death by accidental drowning | black |
Levin | June 20, 1836 | slave | drowning | came to his death by accidental drowning | black |
Fanny Myers | July 11, 1836 | free | drowning | Came to her death by being drowned. | |
Bob | July 19, 1836 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Unidentified | August 15, 1836 | infanticide | Inhumanity of Parents or other persons unknown | ||
Edmund Thompson | August 15, 1836 | homicide | Blow to the head by a rock by Jerry Valentine | ||
Peter | August 16, 1836 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning when he jumped overboard from a steam boat while he was being pursued | |
Patrick | August 17, 1836 | slave | natural causes | Death by a visitation of God in a natural way | |
Isaac | September 4, 1836 | slave | drowning | accidentally drowned | black |
Sam Tyne | October 3, 1836 | free | accidental injuries | Accidentally shot by Dick Hill a free negro | person of color |
Harriet | October 26, 1836 | free | accidental injury | standing before the fire--her clothes set on fire and that she ran to the bed and got in bed and set the bed on fire | black |
Lewis | October, 1836 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Hercules | November 7, 1836 | slave | inconclusive | Jury is unable to say with certainty the cause of death | |
John Burgess | November 15, 1836 | free | homicide | Feloniously killed and murdered by being struck and beaten with a gun barrel by Thomas B Parsons. | |
John McCrosky | November 30, 1836 | slave | exposure | came to his death by lying out in the cold | black |
Frances | December 3, 1836 | slave | unknown illness | Died of some natural disease or infirmity not precisely ascertained | |
Patty Morton | December 5, 1836 | free | exposure | Died from her body lying outside and from exposure to the weather. | |
Ben | December 13, 1836 | slave | drowning | came to his death by drowning | black |
Bill Purnal | December 13, 1836 | Free | natural causes | died by the visitation of God | black |
Robert | December 24, 1836 | unknown | alcohol | Came to his death by intoxication. | |
Daniel | December 28, 1836 | slave | alcohol; exposure | came to his death by lying out--in a supposed state of intoxication | black |
Joe Mitchell | January 2, 1837 | free | alcoholism, exposure | Died from intemperence and freezing cold | |
Charles | January 10, 1837 | slave | accidental injuries | Death was caused instantaniously while he was at work near the foot of a hill of dirt which gave way and slid against him | |
William Webb | January 10, 1837 | homicide | From marks of violence upon the body and head, and the evidence of witnesses had in the premises, strong suspicion rest on Alice Ball, a free woman of color, having been instrumental in bringing Webb to his death. | ||
Jack | January 16, 1837 | slave | exposure | Died from the excessive cold of the night when he neglected to return to the house from the field where he was working. | |
Jacob | January 16, 1837 | slave | injuries, exposure | Died from receiving a severe whipping and by being exposed to the cold weather immediately after. | |
Nancy Thomas | January 18, 1837 | free | exposure, alcohol | Exposure to the elements due to intoxication | person of color |
Lewis | January 29, 1837 | slave | homicide | Murdered by the slave Martin by beating him with sticks and fence rails and by the infliction of six stabs to the body | |
Easter | February 21, 1837 | slave | drowning | accidentally drowned | black |
Unidentified | February 27, 1837 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Guy | February , 1837 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Bill Jordan | March 6, 1837 | free | natural causes | Visitation of God in a natural way | |
Matthew Howard | April 17, 1837 | unknown | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | black |
Lenah | May 1, 1837 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Anthony | May 1, 1837 | slave | drowning | Died in a fit of insanity by drowning, either through his own design or by accident | |
Billy Jenkins | May 1, 1837 | homicide | Killed by his wife Easter Jenkins by assaulting Billy with a piece of wood against his heaed | ||
Unidentified | May 6, 1837 | person of color | drowning | Died by accidentally drowning in the James River | |
Ceser | May 23, 1837 | slave | drowning | Drowned. | |
Lucy Slaughter | June 4, 1837 | free | natural causes | Died by visitation of God in a natural way. | person of color |
Primos Wiatt | June 4, 1837 | free | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | person of color |
Isiah Johnson | June 8, 1837 | homicide | murdered by slaves; Parker; Harry; George; Meriah; Jacob | ||
Barnaby | June 19, 1837 | slave | homicide | Murdered and thrown into the river. | |
Robertson | June 19, 1837 | slave | accidental injuries | Died when he and the horse he was riding fell into the mill pond when the planks over the peerhead gave way. | |
Frank Gainey | June 20, 1837 | person of color | natural causes, exposure | Died by the visitation of God due to his great age and exposure at night | |
John | June 21, 1837 | slave | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Richard | July 21, 1837 | slave | drowning | Fell from horse into the water of the Appomattox River and accidentally suffocated and drowned | person of color |
Dick Pill | August 13, 1837 | slave | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Peyton | August 14, 1837 | slave | unknown | unknown | |
Berry | August 21, 1837 | slave | suicide | Hanged himself from a dogwood tree. | |
George | October 21, 1837 | slave | drowning | Fell into a pond of water and drowned | |
Jessy Dyes | November 20, 1837 | unknown | accidental injuries | Came to his death accidentally. | black |
Mary Hart | November 22, 1837 | unknown | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God. | mulatto |
Samuel Gay | December 2, 1837 | unknown | accidental injuries, drowning | "Came to his death by being drowned by the improper management of Captain Rawling of the steamboat ""Georgia,"" who ran the boat over the launch where the deceased was. " | black |
Clem | December 8, 1837 | slave | inconclusive | Died of unknown causes | |
George | December 20, 1837 | slave | accidental injuries | Came to his death accidentally by the falling of a tree. | black |
Joe | December 20, 1837 | slave | exposure | came to his death from exposure to cold and want of food; lost on his return from Newmarket | |
George | January 15, 1838 | slave | exposure | Died from freezing to death. | |
John Chappel | January 26, 1838 | free | homicide | Attacked and killed by George F. Hall, Peter Turner, Albert Busby and Thomas Cauell | |
Milly | February 27, 1838 | slave | natural causes | died with fits | black |
Jordan | March 23, 1838 | slave | drowning | Died by accidentally drowning when the boat overturned while crossing the James River | |
Robert | March 24, 1838 | slave | drowning | Died by accidentally drowning when the boat overturned while crossing the James River | |
Chastain Moss | May 10, 1838 | free | drowning | Died by accidental drowning. | person of color |
Phill Gramtham | June 18, 1838 | free | exposure | Died by lying outside and freezing to death. | person of color |
Henry | June 18, 1838 | slave | exposure | Died by lying outside and freezing to death. | |
Littleton | August 7, 1838 | slave | drowning | accidentally drowned | black |
Cody | August 20, 1838 | slave | homicide | murdered by Noah Bundic | black |
Joshua | November 3, 1838 | slave | homicide | Stabbed by Willis, a slave owned by Jesse Hawley. | |
Peter Blake | November 27, 1838 | free | homicide | Died from blow inflicted upon the head, which penetrated the skull and entered the brain--most likely inflicted with an iron hook. | |
Robert | November 27, 1838 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died from exposure from the cold, wetness of the ground and from the liquor drink | |
Militia | November 29, 1838 | free | exposure | Died from exposure from the cold, wetness of the ground and from the liquor drink | person of color |
Tabitha | December 15, 1838 | slave | homicide | death from being struck on the left side of her head with a stick by Peterson Tutor | |
Jesse | February 4, 1839 | slave | natural causes | Visitation of God in a natural way | |
Sharley | March 4, 1839 | accidental injuries | Burned in his room when the stables burned | mulatto | |
Jacob Ball | March 7, 1839 | natural causes | Visitation of God | black | |
Unidentified | March 26, 1839 | slave | homicide | Was choked and suffocated by the hands of Charity, a slave, and grandmother of said infant. | |
Charles Lively | March 30, 1839 | exposure, alcohol | Exposure to weather, intoxicated | ||
Enoch Owen | April 2, 1839 | free | exposure, natural causes | Died either by cold or the visitation of the Almighty in a natural way. | person of color |
Unidentified | April 5, 1839 | inconclusive | Causes unknown to the jury | person of color | |
Owen | April 6, 1839 | slave | homicide | Death by a blow inflicted on his head by Jack, another slave owned by Mrs E Stone. | |
Frank | April 26, 1839 | slave | homicide | Death by a blow given by Robin, who was believed to be acting in his own defense. | |
Washington | June 3, 1839 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning in a mill pond after entering the pond to bathe. | |
Isham | July 8, 1839 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | person of color |
Daniel | August 2, 1839 | slave | accidental injury | came to his death accidentally falling from a horse | black |
Moses | August 12, 1839 | slave | drowning | After having examined the body and discovered no marks of violence, we come to the conclusion that Moses came to his death by drowning in an accidental manner. | |
Sally | August 27, 1839 | slave | accidental injuries | died by accidental drowning | |
Isham | August 30, 1839 | slave | homicide | Gunshot to the head | |
Lewis | September 1, 1839 | slave | drowning | accidentally drowned | black |
James Cosen | December 6, 1839 | free | accidental injuries | Accidentally falling and breaking his neck | person of color |
Lewis | December 27, 1839 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died from freezing while in a state of intoxication. | |
Adolphus Whitehead | January 14, 1840 | free | disease | Sickness, cough and shortness of breath, without medical treatment | person of color |
Henry | January 29, 1840 | slave | natural causes | Found dead, had no marks of violence appearing on his body, and died by the visitation of God, in a natural way and not otherwise. | |
Jack Butt | February 15, 1840 | slave | unknown | Came to his death at a time unknown and by the dispensation of Providence. | |
John | February 28, 1840 | slave | unknown | Came to his death from some cause unknown. From the appearance of the body and the marks to be seen upon the legs, produced by whippings spoken of by the witnesses, we do not believe the whippings to have been the cause of the death. | |
Unidentified | March 17, 1840 | slave | infanticide | death caused either by suffocation during birth or strangulation after birth by its mother, Martha | |
John Davis | March 29, 1840 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by the upsetting of a boat, and accidentally drowned. | |
George | April 13, 1840 | slave | accidental injuries | Struck by lightning | black |
Corbin Webster | April 13, 1840 | natural causes | Visitation of God | black | |
Moses Hodges | April 13, 1840 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by the capsizing of a boat and drowning. | |
Ned | April 24, 1840 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
George | May 17, 1840 | slave | unknown | came to his death by some cause unknown | black |
Mitchell Walden | May 21, 1840 | free | alcohol, inconclusive | Intoxication and unknown causes | |
Peter | June 2, 1840 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning. | |
Newman | July 10, 1840 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God, in a natural way | |
Washington | July 22, 1840 | slave | disease, natural causes | Disease or sickness and visitation by God | |
Jane Gray | September 5, 1840 | free | inconclusive | Died by some unknown cause and not by violence | person of color |
Dolly | October 12, 1840 | free | homicide | Died from being stabbed in the groin by Elijah Salnes Jr and James Salnes. | person of color |
Dick | October 12, 1840 | slave | unknown | Did not die of a natural death, but cause is unknown. | person of color |
Unidentified | November, 1840 | unknown | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | mulatto |
Thomas Malory | December 11, 1840 | slave | drowning | Died by accidentally drowning when he fell from a wharf at Rockets into the James River | |
Ben Carter | December 20, 1840 | free | natural causes | died by the visitation of God | black |
Allen | December 21, 1840 | slave | homicide | Was killed by a knife stab wound to his left breast, by the hands of Malinda, also a slave of Thomas Newsom. | |
Arthur | December 21, 1840 | slave | homicide | Was shot in the back and right arm with a shot gun in the hands of Peterson Ivy. | |
Burwell Bird | December 21, 1840 | free | homicide | Was killed by Tom, a slave, by a gun shot to the left breast and side. | |
Peter Chapple | December 21, 1840 | free | drowning | Drowned when he fell into Vick's Mill Pond. | person of color |
Frank | December 21, 1840 | slave | drowning | Drowned when he lost his way and fell into the swamp. | |
Lydia Mingo | December 21, 1840 | free | homicide | Killed by Matthew Drake by two mortal wounds made upon the right side of her head and throat. | person of color |
Seth Mingo | December 21, 1840 | free | homicide | Was killed and murdered by Matthew Drake by inflicting violence with a maul on its head and body. | person of color |
Ann Pretlow | December 21, 1840 | homicide | Killed by Matthew Drake by assaulting her with a maul to the back part of the head. | ||
Sarah C Pretlow | December 21, 1840 | homicide | Killed by Matthew Drake by assaulting her with a maul to her head. | ||
James Scott | December 21, 1840 | homicide | Killed by Matthew Drake by assaulting him with a maul to the forehead. | ||
Sharper | December 21, 1840 | slave | exposure, alcohol | Died from exposure to the cold; he was so intoxicated he could not find his way home. | |
Tom | January 1, 1841 | unknown | natural causes | Death by a Providential visitation. | |
Edmond | February 10, 1841 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by falling off a lighter in Elizabeth River and accidentally drowned. | |
Littleton | March 10, 1841 | unknown | unknown | came to his death by some sudden way not known to the jury | black |
Willis Gary | March 21, 1841 | slave | drowning | Came to his death in a manner unknown, but since he was found in the creek it is supposed that he accidentally drowned. | |
Clary | March 22, 1841 | unknown | drowning | Died by drowning in the Great Guinea Creek, either voluntarily or by accident. | |
Sam Bartlett | March 31, 1841 | free | suicide, drowning | Drowned himself in the Appomattox River, according to the intelligent and respectable men of the jury. | person of color |
Dick | April 5, 1841 | slave | inconclusive | Cause of death unknown | |
Agnes Brown | April 5, 1841 | slave | drowning | Came to her death by drowning. | |
Unidentified | April 6, 1841 | unknown | drowning | Accidental drowning at an unknown time. | black |
Unidentified Smith | April 7, 1841 | unknown | drowning | Came to his death by accidentally drowning in attempting to swim ashore from one of the U.S. vessels at Gosport. | |
Susan | April 23, 1841 | slave | natural causes | Died after complaining of being unwell. She received the usual attendance and medicine and appeared to be better but was found dead several days later. She had a falling of the womb which appears to be highly inflamed and some slight mortification actually taken place. | |
Bill | May 23, 1841 | free born | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
William Griffin | May 27, 1841 | free | accidental injury | thrown off of a horse owned by J Johnson--the said Griffin complained of being sick and could not eat anything--went of home from J Johnson's where he was employed at work and then and there instantly died | mulatto |
Jacob | June 4, 1841 | slave | drowning | "Accidental drowning in the river by ""Money Point."" " | |
Unidentified | June 5, 1841 | infanticide | Died by strangulation after being delivered, believed to have been at the hands of one negro woman slave named Amanda | ||
America | June 11, 1841 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by attempting to swim across the North West Canal and accidentally drowned (swam with the negro boy Edward). | |
Unidentified | June 18, 1841 | unknown, homicide, drowning | Found in the bed of Appomattox River in the rear of Randolph's Warehouse. Child came to its death by being murdered or otherwise destroyed or drowned by some person unknown. | unknown | |
Unidentified | June 30, 1841 | natural causes | Sudden visitation of God | person of color | |
Unidentified | August 7, 1841 | unknown | unknown | Cause of death is unknown. | black |
Charles | August 20, 1841 | slave | homicide | Died from the wound given him on his head by Dudley Gilman in self defense and the blow received on his forehead in his fall from the wagon | |
Henry | August 22, 1841 | slave | drowning | Drowned either by accident or otherwise. | |
Jenny | September 1, 1841 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Anna Watkins | September 6, 1841 | free | drowning | Came to her death by accidentally falling off the wood wharf and drowning. | |
John | September 28, 1841 | slave | homicide | Murdered by Alphus Gualtney who cut his head from his body with an axe | |
Thomas Veney | September 29, 1841 | free | homicide | Was assaulted by William Hammonds with a cedar rail upon the side of Veney's head which fractured Veney's skull. | person of color |
Matt | November 6, 1841 | slave | natural causes | Death by natural causes and visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Jonas | December 7, 1841 | slave | unknown, natural causes | Came to his death in a way unknown, but supposed it was natural, from the fact that he had been laboring for some time past under a derangement of the mind. | |
King Pleasant | December 17, 1841 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
Spencer | December 22, 1841 | slave | homicide | Died from a fractured skull caused by an assault with a boat pole in the hands of C. Porter's slave Reuben | |
Esley | December 23, 1841 | slave | natural causes | Visitation of God | person of color |
Daniel | December, 1841 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Rolley | January 2, 1842 | unknown | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Polly Harris | January, 1842 | free | alcohol, accidental injuries | Accident and misfortune due to intoxication | |
John Wyatt Smith | January, 1842 | free | disease, accidental injuries | Burning due to sickness and distemper | |
Mary Eley | February 7, 1842 | free | homicide | Died after being struck with an unknown object by Will, a slave belonging to the estate of Zachariah Holland | |
John Wesley Bell | February 25, 1842 | homicide | Bell, a slave owner, killed by a blow from a heavy instrument, inflicted behind the right ear, producing extensive fracture of the bones in the neighborhood and violent contusion of the soft parts; feloniously killed and murdered by Martin and Captain (slaves-property of John W. Bell), they threw him in the Shenandoah River a short distance above where he was found | ||
Dilcy | February 26, 1842 | slave | exposure | Death by exposure to the inclemency of the weather, having strolled from home and being of unsound mind. | |
Pool | April 6, 1842 | slave | natural causes | Came to his death by a fit or by extreme old age as he was at least eighty years old. | |
Nase | April 7, 1842 | drowning | Accidental drowning | ||
Unidentified | April 23, 1842 | unknown | drowning | Died by drowning from off some fishng boat or vessel on the Potomac River. | |
Carter | May 4, 1842 | slave | homicide | Died from blows on the face and neck; killed and murdered by a person unknown | |
Unidentified | May 9, 1842 | unknown | infanticide | Death was occasioned by violence or mismanagement in the birth of said Infant. | |
Edward | May 10, 1842 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by falling from the U.S. Steamer Poinsett and accidentally drowning. | |
James | May 23, 1842 | slave | homicide | death by blows to the back by John Meades | |
Henry | June 9, 1842 | slave | drowning | Died by accidentally drowning in James River and Kanawha Canal by falling from his boat whilst unloading the boat | |
Owen | June 18, 1842 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidentally falling from the steamer Poinsett and drowning. | |
Nanny | June 20, 1842 | slave | drowning | Drowned in James River | |
Erasemus Chappel | August 1, 1842 | homicide | Chappel, along with Denis Uel, Jordan Showard and Agustice Brinson went to the home of Jasper Hunt, a man of color, to use violence on said Hunt and family or property. Hunt with a gun loaded with lead shot gave Chappel 27 mortal wounds with large shot scattered from his breast to his knees...and wounded two others of the mob. | ||
George | August 2, 1842 | free | drowning | Accidental drowning. | |
William Jones | August 7, 1842 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
Ned | August 13, 1842 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning. | black |
Jesse Spence | August 23, 1842 | free | homicide | Death by wounds inflicted by the hands and feet of a certain negro man slave W. Singleton | |
Unidentified | August 30, 1842 | drowning | Accidental drowning | person of color | |
Oscar | September 5, 1842 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning in a pond in the canal | person of color |
John | September 26, 1842 | slave | drowning | Drowned | |
Merrit | November 8, 1842 | slave | inconclusive | Death by suffocation from unknown causes | |
Isiah | November 29, 1842 | slave | exposure; natural causes | died by the visitation of God and by the cold | black |
Beverly Brown | December 22, 1842 | free | homicide | Did from being struck in chest with an axe by Sam Lyons, a slave owned by Marshall Hairston. | |
Margaret | February 20, 1843 | slave | suicide | Hanged and suffocated herself by tying a cotton cord around the crossbar of a loom and around her neck. | |
Richard Folk | March 6, 1843 | drowning | Accidentally drowned while crossing a mill pond | ||
Sam Lyon | March 8, 1843 | slave | homicide | "Died some weeks after being shot by Robert Hubbard. Lyon was ""a slave under sentence of death"" in the county jail. " | |
Charles | March 18, 1843 | slave | accidental injuries | Death came by dislocation or breaking of the neck. | |
Pharo Nelson | April 10, 1843 | natural causes | Visitation of God | person of color | |
Unidentified | April 19, 1843 | unknown | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | black |
John Thornton | May 8, 1843 | free | exposure | Died by freezing to death on the main Louisa road. | person of color |
Warren Holland | May 31, 1843 | free | drowning | Came to his death by swimming and accidentally drowning. | |
Reuben | June 21, 1843 | slave | inconclusive | Whipped severely but jury said he came to his death from an undue quantity of cold water in his stomach and excessive heat and exhaustion | |
Charles | July 20, 1843 | unknown | drowning | Came to his death by falling off a wharf in Gosport and accidentally drowned. | black |
Unidentified | July 31, 1843 | unknown | drowning | Came to his death by accidentally drowning. | black |
Unidentified | August 7, 1843 | drowning | Died by drowning in the James River | ||
Coffe | August 7, 1843 | slave | homicide | Shot in the neck by John Sykes Jr | |
Unidentified Hale | August 10, 1843 | free | unknown | Came to its death by means unknown, body being in such a state of putrification that jury could not determine certainly any marks of violence. | person of color |
Tom | September 2, 1843 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by swimming and accidentally drowning. | |
Unidentified | September 22, 1843 | slave | infanticide | Violent and malicious act of it's mother | |
Unidentified | September 23, 1843 | free | inconclusive | Causes unknown | |
Reynolds | November 1, 1843 | slave | accidental injuries | Died when a large Gum tree was felling hit him | |
Samuel Valentine | November 15, 1843 | free | drowning | Suffocation and drowning | |
Peters | November 27, 1843 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Levin Roberts | December 10, 1843 | free | exposure | died by the cool weather--frozed to death and by the visitation of God | black |
Easter Bee | January 2, 1844 | suicide | Died by willful drowning in the canal, being at the time in a state of insanity | person of color | |
Shadrack | January 28, 1844 | slave | exposure | Came to his death by freezing to death. | |
Coates | February 15, 1844 | alcoholism, exposure | Intemperance and exposure | ||
Royal | February 19, 1844 | slave | natural causes | He had no marks of violence appearing on his body and died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Betsy | February 28, 1844 | slave | accidental injury | accidental burning | black |
Ruben | March 14, 1844 | slave | drowning | Ruben ran off from the possession of Henry Callcote with his hands tied with a rope, body was found floating in the waters of a mill pond with hands still tied. Believed to have gone into the water of his own accord | |
David | March 22, 1844 | free | accidental injuries | Accident, locomotive boiler explosion | |
Edmond | March 24, 1844 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by the upsetting of a boat, and accidentally drowning. | |
John Merritt | March 25, 1844 | free | accidental injuries | death by a blow or blows given with the hand by Isaac, a slave, without any intention to produce a serious injury | |
Dawson Teamer | April 2, 1844 | free | homicide | "Teamer assaulted and beat a free negro woman, Mary Rix, living on the land of Henry H. Womble. Upon hearing of the attack, Womble attacked Teamer and ""threatened to correct him."" Womble tied the said Teamer with a rope who then escaped into a swamp. Womble pursued and Teamer stabbed Womble several times. Womble with the aid of Josiah Beal gave Teamer 35 lashes and released him. Believed that Teamer died from beating. Beating ruled as self defense" | |
Trotter | April 6, 1844 | free | drowning | Came to his death by accidentally falling into the Canal and drowning. | |
Unidentified | April 9, 1844 | drowning | "Died by drowning, probably while attempting to make his escape from the burning schooner ""Jane of Baltimore"" of which he was likely a crewman" | ||
William | April 25, 1844 | free | drowning | Came to his death by accidentally drowning from the upsetting of a boat. | black |
Lee Crany | May 21, 1844 | natural causes | Visitation of God | person of color | |
Unidentified | May 22, 1844 | slave | homicide | Came to his death by the hand of Charley, owned by James S Sequine, in defense of himself and the property of his master. | |
Anthony | June 1, 1844 | slave | drowning | Died while attempting to swim from Rocketts to the coal yard (opposite) in the James River | |
Thomas James | June 1, 1844 | free | drowning | Died while drowning when he fell out of a fishing boat into the James River | person of color |
Unidentified | June 3, 1844 | slave | infanticide | Feloniously killed and murdered by her own mother, Fanny, with blows to the face and head made with a brick | mulatto |
Frederick | June 15, 1844 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning when he fell out of a boat in the James River | |
Sam McCoy | June 15, 1844 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by falling off a raft in the North West River and accidentally drowning. | |
Henry Jackson | June 17, 1844 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died by drowning in a state of intoxication | |
Robert | June 19, 1844 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
Charles Turner | June 24, 1844 | homicide | Struck upon the back part of the head and neck with a broomstick by Anderson Henry a colored boy, murder | ||
Unidentified | June 30, 1844 | homicide | feloniously killed and murdered by unknown person or persons mortally wounded by being struck on the forehead and right part of the head above the ear | very bright mulatto | |
Billy Williams | July 18, 1844 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Indulgence of drinking and ardent spirits and inclemency of the night | |
Ned | August 8, 1844 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning by falling into the James River | |
Milly Bryce | September, 1844 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Willis | October 28, 1844 | slave | natural caues | death by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Isaac | November 1, 1844 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of his god | black |
Barney | January 12, 1845 | slave | homicide | Feloniously killed and murdered by Gustavus, a slave | |
Armistead | January, 1845 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Peter Harriss | January, 1845 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way | |
Ann Robertson | March 13, 1845 | free | accidental injuries | Burned by fire, fell in fireplace | person of color |
Unidentified | March 15, 1845 | homicide | murdered by an unknown hand | ||
John | April 17, 1845 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning in James River Canal | |
Unidentified | May 26, 1845 | slave | natural causes | child was born dead to a negro girl named Mary, while Mary was working in the field | |
Anderson | June 4, 1845 | slave | drowning | Died by falling from the tow path at French's Lock into the James River Canal | |
Joshua | June 5, 1845 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning in the James River Canal | |
Mary | June 18, 1845 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of god, in jail | black |
Richard | June 30, 1845 | slave | suicide | Died by bleeding to death from when he cut his throat | |
Ben | July 14, 1845 | slave | drowning | accidentally drowned | black |
Babel Matthews | July 18, 1845 | free | drowning | was accidentally drowned | black |
George Dick | August 1, 1845 | free | drowning | Died from accidentally falling down a well and drowning | person of color |
Rosebury | August 9, 1845 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
David | August 10, 1845 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
Moses Mayo | September 5, 1845 | free | inconclusive | Death might have been accidental drowning in navigating J.R. and K. Canal, but jury entertains a suspicion that he was murdered | person of color |
Ellick Ligon | September 13, 1845 | free | drowning | Died by accidental drowning when he drove a team of three horses into the James River to water them | person of color |
Tallion | October 6, 1845 | slave | homicide | Died by being shot twice in the face while attempting to break into a store house | |
Jane Reed | October 8, 1845 | free | drowning | Died by accidentally drowning in the race of the mill of Richard L T Beale. | person of color |
Levi | October 13, 1845 | slave | alcohol; drowning | Levi not having God before his eyes, but being seduced and moved by the instigation of intoxication--was drowned | black |
Parker | November 28, 1845 | slave | alcohol | Died by the instigation of intoxication | black |
Castilla | December 1, 1845 | slave | natural causes | Died by visitation of Providence | |
Unidentified | December 15, 1845 | unknown | unknown | person of color | |
Peter | December 15, 1845 | slave | natural causes | Died a natural death. | |
Unidentified | December 16, 1845 | slave | unknown | unknown | person of color |
Isaac Ker | December 25, 1845 | unknown | natural causes | by old age | black |
Stram | December 27, 1845 | slave | drowning | accidental drowning | black |
Anarchy | January 5, 1846 | slave | drowning | Death by accidental drowning. | |
Ned | January 21, 1846 | slave | exposure | Came to his death by exposure and extreme cold. | |
Ruben | January 25, 1846 | slave | unknown | Came to his death from a cause unknown. | |
Esther | January 26, 1846 | slave | accidental injury | came to her death by severe burns caused by her dress accidentally taking fire | black |
Martha | February 2, 1846 | slave | suicide | Died by voluntary exposure to the inclemancy of the weather | |
Sam Johnson | February 24, 1846 | free | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | person of color |
Margaret Johnson | March 16, 1846 | free | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | person of color |
Effy Smith | March 21, 1846 | free | drowning | Died from falling in a well | person of color |
Malachi Banks | April 6, 1846 | free | alcoholism | Died from intemperance and visitation of God | person of color |
Unidentified | April 28, 1846 | inconclusive | Cause of death is unknown due to the mutilated condition of his head and face | person of color | |
Franky | May 9, 1846 | slave | inconclusive | Died from some cause not absolutely known to the jury because the court refused to pay surgeons' fees. The jury's strong suspicion rests upon Oliver, the slave of Aldon McDaniel | |
Simon Ruffin | June 4, 1846 | free | natural causes | Visitation by God | |
Isaac | June 4, 1846 | slave | natural causes | Visitation by God | |
Joe | June 4, 1846 | slave | natural causes | Visitation by God | |
Peter | June 4, 1846 | slave | suicide | Suicide by oak stake to front of neck | |
John | June 15, 1846 | free | drowning | accidentally fell into the pearhead of the mill and was drowned | black |
Jack | June 15, 1846 | slave | exposure | Died by freezing to death. | |
Lewis | July 20, 1846 | slave | drowning | Died by accidently falling out of canoe while fishing and drowned, in William Atkinson's mill pond. | |
Daniel Noble | July 26, 1846 | slave | drowning | Drowned | |
Jim | July 27, 1846 | slave | suicide | Died by willful drowning in the James River | |
William Henry Scott | September 9, 1846 | free | accidental injuries | Died from an accidental discharge of a gun loaded with powder and shot | person of color |
Isaac Johnson | September 21, 1846 | free | drowning, accidental injuries | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Alvin | September 23, 1846 | slave | homicide | Was feloniously killed and murdered by Thomas Talf. | |
John | October 5, 1846 | slave | homicide | Killed by the discharge of a gun pointed at him by a negro named Jupiter, a slave of John D Taylor. | |
Jim | October 19, 1846 | slave | homicide | Died from blows to his head inflicted by Dick, a negro man slave. | |
Sarah Ann | October 24, 1846 | free | drowning | came to her death by accidental drowning in a well of water | black |
Harry | October 27, 1846 | slave | homicide | Came to his death by a blow inflicted upon his head by Tom, a negro slave. | |
Dennes | October 31, 1846 | slave | homicide, injuries | Died from a wound inflicted on him by some unknown person. | |
Reuben | November 9, 1846 | slave | natural causes | Recently whipped, ran a long distance, voluntarily and afterwards drank a heavy draft of water; the evidence does not appear death caused by violence. | |
Joe | November 16, 1846 | slave | homicide | Was strangled with a rope around his neck and hanging from a tree. | |
Nehemiah | December 6, 1846 | free | alcohol; exposure | went into the swamp to cut wood and drank ardent spirits so that he became senseless and helpless--believe the drink and cold and the carrying of said Nehemiah on the shoulders of Isaac Parramore and John, a slave of Thomas Wessell's was the cause of his death | black |
Unidentified | December 12, 1846 | unknown | drowning | Came to its death by drowning in a water hole, put there by some person unknown. | mulatto |
Randoll | December 23, 1846 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning in the Canal. | |
Jim | January 4, 1847 | slave | drowning | Drowned in Parker's Mill Pond. | |
Unidentified | January 10, 1847 | accidental injuries | Burned to death in fire | mulatto | |
Elias | February 9, 1847 | slave | natural causes | came to his death by the sudden visitation of God | black |
Ephraim | March 1, 1847 | slave | accidental injuries | Came to his death by inhaling carbonic acid gas produced by the burning of charcoal in a den near Elk Creek on the property of Robert Stoptoe. ('Runaways'--and the den was supposed to have been excavated as a hiding place.) | |
Sawney | March 1, 1847 | slave | accidental injuries | Came to his death by inhaling carbonic acid gas produced by the burning of charcoal in a den near Elk Creek on the property of Robert Stoptoe. ('Runaways'--and the den was supposed to have been excavated as a hiding place.) | |
Davy | March 16, 1847 | slave | injuries | Died from three slight wounds inflicted just above the eyes, by an unknown person or persons, while in the process of apprehending Davy, a runaway slave. | |
Jim | March 19, 1847 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Nancy Walden | March 28, 1847 | free | accidental injuries, alcohol | Accidental burning while intoxicated | |
Becca | March 30, 1847 | slave | accidental injuries | Died when she was accidentally burned to death | |
Unidentified | March 30, 1847 | inconclusive, drowning | Died by unknown cause due to the state of his body, but jury is of the opinion he died by drowning | ||
Unidentified | April 5, 1847 | slave | infanticide | Kitty, the mother of said child, did cause the death of said new born child in a manner unknown | |
Thomas Jefferson | April 27, 1847 | free | drowning, suicide | Drowned himself in the Appomattox River near Randolph's Warehouse. | person of color |
John Cropper | May 30, 1847 | free | homicide | George, a slave belonging to William Nock Sr--not having God before his eyes--did kick and beat the said John Cropper | black |
Tom | June 7, 1847 | slave | unknown | Died by some unknown cause. | |
Morris Freeman | June 9, 1847 | free | drowning | Died by drowning when he fell into the James River at lock number 6, while in a state of intoxication | person of color |
Nelson | June 17, 1847 | slave | accidental injuries | Died by the accidental upsetting of the cart and the horse falling on him | |
Dandridge | June, 1847 | slave | drowning | Drowned himself at Whitley's Mill Dam. | |
Ned Trotter | July 9, 1847 | free | drowning | Came to his death by accidentally drowning. | |
Moses Wyatt | July 9, 1847 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Isaac | July 30, 1847 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Mary Jane | August 4, 1847 | slave | natural causes | came to her death by the visitation of Providence | black |
Mat | September 19, 1847 | slave | accidental injuries | Died by falling from a door some eight feet high which perhaps fractured his skull and caused his death | |
Anthony | October 27, 1847 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God, in a natural way. | |
Henry Cripping | November 5, 1847 | free | accidental injury | he went hunting and his dog tree'd and he cut and fell the tree and in the tree's falling a limb broke off the tree and fell on the aforesaid Henry | black |
Joshua | November 13, 1847 | slave | accidental injuries | Died from accidentally falling before a loaded wagon and both wheels of the wagon passed over him | |
William Thomas | November 25, 1847 | free | drowning | Accidental drowning | person of color |
Jordon | December 1, 1847 | slave | homicide | Came to his death by the hands of Lemuel (Samuel) Gregory of Norfolk County. | |
Isaac | December 22, 1847 | slave | exposure, alcohol | Died from cold in a state of intoxication | |
Bill Agga | December 31, 1847 | free | homicide | one Henry Dix--not having God before his eyes but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil--in the public road near the poor house--feloniously, voluntarily and of his malice made an assault--with a certain fence stake hit the said Agga--mortal wounds of which...Bill Agga died | black |
Lewis | December 31, 1847 | slave | homicide | Died from inflamation of the cellular membrane | |
Samuel | January 3, 1848 | slave | homicide | Died from a blow above the right eye, or by the blow and exposure in his being dragged through the snow some forty yards | |
Reuben Boyd | January 10, 1848 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation from God in a natural way, during religious worship | |
Albert | February 14, 1848 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Drank too much ardent spirits and froze to death. | |
William C White | March 14, 1848 | homicide | Died from several blows made by an axe or other sharp instrument to his chin and throat, mouth and cheek, and on the left shoulder and above the left eye, inflicted by an unknown negro man who then did fly away | ||
Abram | March 24, 1848 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Unidentified | March 25, 1848 | slave | unknown | unknown | person of color |
Nazareth | March 28, 1848 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Israel | April 9, 1848 | slave | drowning | Accidentally drowned by falling overboard from the schooner Independance. | |
Bill | April 22, 1848 | slave | drowning | fell in a millrace on the Hawksbill. He had been afflicted with epilepsy or falling sickness since his infancy in a fit of which he fell in the Mill Race and was drowned | |
Benjamin | April 27, 1848 | free | drowning | Came to his death by an accidental drowning caused by the sinking of a boat. | |
George | April 27, 1848 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning caused by the sinking of a boat. | |
London | April 27, 1848 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by the accidental drowning of the sinking of a boat. | |
Henry Holcomb | May 16, 1848 | free | drowning | Died by drowning in the James River | |
William Sanders | June 19, 1848 | free | drowning | Died by accidental drowning while bathing in the James River | person of color |
Humphry | June 25, 1848 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowningin the James River | |
Harriet | July 3, 1848 | slave | natural causes | died of hemorrhage | black |
Charles A Scott | July 17, 1848 | homicide | Assaulted and killed by one or more of his slaves, namely Simon, who told another slave, Rosetta, that he had killed the old devil. | ||
Bob | August 8, 1848 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Jacob | August 22, 1848 | slave | natural causes | was sitting in a chair by the door and he was then taken with a fainty fit and then and there died | black |
Tom Chappell | September 18, 1848 | homicide | Struck on left side of the head with a fence rail by Shadrak, a slave owned by Allen Stephenson. | ||
Edmund | November 6, 1848 | slave | accidental injuries | Died by bleeding to death when he accidentally fell against a window having glass, by which a wound was inflicted on his left arm severing the arteries | |
Elisha Willoughby | December 15, 1848 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Unidentified | December 18, 1848 | free | infanticide | Came to its death by the unnatural negligence of its mother, Jane Goff, a free woman of color. | person of color |
Betsy Cotilla | December 29, 1848 | free | homicide | Died from burns received from head to foot when John Francis, a free man of color, did willfully and of malice aforethought violently set fire to the clothes of Betsy Cotilla | person of color |
Parrish | January 15, 1849 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Unidentified | March 7, 1849 | unknown | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Unidentified | March 20, 1849 | unknown | unknown | Came to his death by a cause unknown. | |
Sarah | April, 1849 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Betsy Thomas | May 17, 1849 | free | natural causes | Visitation of God | person of color |
Esther White | May 17, 1849 | free | drowning, disease | Drowning due to mental derangement | person of color |
George | June 18, 1849 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
Easter | July 1, 1849 | slave | exposure | Came to her death by indisposition, brought on or produced by exposure. | |
Jim | July 19, 1849 | slave | disease | Has been cruelly treated by William Davenport Jr, but that the disease of which he died was of long-standing, and, that, while his death might possibly have been hastened by the cruel treatment he received, it could not have given rise to the disease by which he died. | |
Willoughly Thomson | July 23, 1849 | free | drowning | Died by accidental drowning by falling overboard from a canoe in Namony Creek. | |
Jerry | August 1, 1849 | slave | homicide | Died from a mortal gun shot wound with a pistol in the hands of Reisant Cook, who did carelessly, negligently and unlawfully discharge said pistol | |
Jim Herbert | December 19, 1849 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | |
James Gaines | December 28, 1849 | free | alcoholism, exposure | Death from intemperance and exposure | person of color |
Toney | January 1, 1850 | slave | suicide | came to his death by hanging himself with a rope and was choked to death | black |
Thomas H Artis | January 21, 1850 | free | homicide | Killed by knife wounds made by Henry, a slave, property of Drewry Waller. | person of color |
Elisha | January 22, 1850 | slave | inconclusive | Died from some unknown cause | |
Harry | February 25, 1850 | slave | accidental injuries | death by blow on the head, which caused him to fall | |
Heartwell | February 25, 1850 | slave | drowning | death by accidental drowning in Nottoway River | |
Moses Boon | March 18, 1850 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God in a natural way. | person of color |
Ned | March 24, 1850 | slave | homicide | Came to his death by a stab with a sharp instrument in the left side, and penetrating the heart, perpetrated by negro Dennis belonging to James G Hodges. | |
Richard Whichello | May 6, 1850 | homicide | Died by a blow inflicted with a stick just below the right ear | ||
infant child | May 19, 1850 | infanticide | Illegitimate child of Doshey(Doshia) Tankersley, and that unfair and foul means were used in the delivery or afterwards, there being appearances of violence on the throat. | ||
John | June 21, 1850 | slave | drowning | Died of accidental drowning in the Mill Pond | |
Isaac | July 27, 1850 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by drowning by swamping a boat, and that the act was voluntary, perpetrated by James Barnes, seaman. | |
Unidentified | October 21, 1850 | unknown | drowning | Presumed to have died from drowning in the river. | mulatto |
John Harmon | December 18, 1850 | free | alcohol; exposure | came to his death by intemperence and exposure | black |
Dick Cooper | December 18, 1850 | free | exposure | Came to his death from intemperance and exposure. | |
Martha | February 3, 1851 | slave | suicide | Died by hanging herself. | |
William | February 20, 1851 | slave | natural causes | Came to his death by the visitation of God. | |
Unidentified | May 2, 1851 | drowning | Died by drowning in the James River Canal | ||
Mary | May 9, 1851 | slave | animal predation | Came to her death by the violence of rats upon her body while asleep. | |
Robert | May 19, 1851 | slave | natural causes, alcohol | Died of a fit or the effects of intoxication. | |
William Bowers | May, 1851 | free | drowning | Died by drowning. | person of color |
William Reid | July 4, 1851 | free | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Peter | July 4, 1851 | slave | drowning | Accidentally drowned. | |
Hilliard | August 5, 1851 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning in the James River Canal | |
Charles | August 26, 1851 | slave | accidental injuries | Struck in the head by a stone thrown by Edwin Camper, a white lad. | |
Robin | October 7, 1851 | slave | homicide | Died from shot gun shot in the hands of Oswell Bridgewater | |
Willis Tines | December 5, 1851 | free | exposure | Came to his death by intemperance and exposure. | |
Unidentified | March 10, 1852 | inconclusive | Child was born dead or destroyed immediately upon its birth | ||
Peter | April 5, 1852 | slave | accidental injuries | Death was accidental, being caused by the team running away and the wagon running over his body | |
Ned | May 18, 1852 | slave | Drowning | Came to his death by drowning on the 16th day of May 1852 | |
Sophia Langhorn | June 26, 1852 | free | natural causes | Came to her death naturally by a fit or otherwise unknown. | person of color |
Tamzin U Beasley | July 9, 1852 | homicide | Was murdered by Jane, a negro girl slave, by suffocation, choking, and smothering with bed clothes | ||
Lurancy Anderson | July 18, 1852 | free | alcoholism | Died in a fit of appoplexy brought on by habits of intemperance. | |
Bob Massie | July 29, 1852 | homicide | Death by a blow with a stone thrown at him by John Bracus, a free man of color | ||
Joe | September 20, 1852 | slave | homicide | Died by a stab wound from a pocket knife in the hands of A L J Haskins. | |
Unidentified | September, 1852 | slave | unknown | came to his death accidentally | black |
Elijah Henry | November 8, 1852 | slave | natural causes | Died by an Act of God. | |
Solomon Eppes | November 12, 1852 | slave | drowning | Died by accidentally drowning when he fell into the James River | |
Siah | November 17, 1852 | free | drowning | Died by accidental drowning in the James River | |
George | November 19, 1852 | slave | homicide | Came to his death by being shot in the heart with a pistol ball, and pistol was held in the hand and discharged by Henry White of Norfolk County. | |
Polly Johnson | November 19, 1852 | free | homicide, injuries | Died by concussion of the brain produced by blows inflicted upon the head by some person unknown. | |
Patsy | December 30, 1852 | slave | exposure | Died from exposure for the last five weeks to the cold and wet, and probably other causes. | |
William Bryant | January 24, 1853 | homicide | Died by blows inflicted upon his head by the hand of John Smith, slave of Jeremiah C Thrifty. | ||
Dick | January 29, 1853 | slave | accidental injuries | Died from head injuries when he drove the cart off the road and upset it, while in a state of intoxication | |
Nancy Jones | February 7, 1853 | free | drowning | Accidental drowning | person of color |
Unidentified | February 18, 1853 | slave | unknown | Died by unknown causes. | |
Jenny | March 14, 1853 | slave | natural causes | Died by Visitation of God in an appoplectic fit. | |
Unidentified | April 1, 1853 | unknown | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Clements Roberts | April 4, 1853 | drowning | Died by drowning | ||
Unidentified | May 5, 1853 | unknown | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Unidentified | May 26, 1853 | unknown | unknown | Died by some cause unknown. | person of color |
Lewis Cromwell | June 6, 1853 | free | drowning | Died by accidental drowning while bathing in the canal | person of color |
Unidentified | June 17, 1853 | inconclusive | Died from some unknown cause | ||
Elias | June 20, 1853 | slave | suicide | Died by hanging himself on a tree with a rope by the neck. | |
Toby George | August, 1853 | free | unknown | died from causes unknown | black |
Lewis | September 9, 1853 | slave | natural causes | Came to his death sometime during the past night by the hands of God, he having no appearance of violence having been committed on his person that could in anywise produce death. | |
Jasper | September 15, 1853 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
William | October 3, 1853 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning | |
Lilburn Pleasants | October 11, 1853 | free | drowning | Died by accidental drowning when he fell into the river from the wood lighter belonging to the steamer Belriclue | |
John | November 7, 1853 | slave | unknown | Came to his death by a cause unknown. | |
John Whitehead | November, 1853 | free | homicide | Died by a mortal wound inflicted on him by Calib Artis, on the breast with a knife that penetrated the heart. | person of color |
Unidentified | December 7, 1853 | drowning | Died by accidentally drowning when he fell in a pond on Church hill | ||
Sam | December 8, 1853 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning when he accidentally fell from the steamer Curles Peel | |
Eliza Walden | December 9, 1853 | free | accidental injuries | Burned to death in the dwelling house of Mike Walden. The origin of the fire being unknown. | person of color |
Margaret Walden | December 9, 1853 | free | accidental injuries | Burned to death in the dwelling house of Mike Walden. The origin of the fire being unknown. | person of color |
John | January 16, 1854 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidentally falling from the bargue Meltides and accidentally drowned. | |
Albert Thomas | January 17, 1854 | slave | homicide | Died by pistol or gunshot wounds inflicted by Daniel Thacker, a slave | |
Gabriel | January 31, 1854 | slave | alcoholism, exposure | Died by intemperance and exposure | |
Lindsay | February 6, 1854 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning in the James River by falling from a flat rock boat upon which he was at work | |
Julius | February 11, 1854 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning. | |
Moses | February 14, 1854 | slave | homicide | Died by a ball fired from a pistol in the hands of his overseer, Watson Pattermon, who was attempting to correct him. The overseer shot Moses in self defense | |
Ellick | March 20, 1854 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning in the Little Bird Creek. | |
John Freeman | March, 1854 | free | drowning | Died by drowning. | person of color |
William Thomson | April 24, 1854 | free | alcohol, exposure | Died by the intemperate use of ardent spirits and exposure to the weather. | |
Morriss | May 1, 1854 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Death by intoxication and cold. | |
Unidentified | May 8, 1854 | drowning | Died by accidental drowning in the James River | ||
Unidentified | June 5, 1854 | inconclusive | Cannot determine if death was by violence or natural causes | ||
Archer Steward | June 12, 1854 | free | drowning | He went into Branders Pond and swam into a stump or a stake in the pond and there he sank and rose no more. | |
Tom | June 12, 1854 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died from the consequence of getting drunk and lying out in the mud and water. | |
John D Barrow | June 14, 1854 | homicide | Died after being struck on the head with something like a hilling hoe, fracturing the skull, by Jack, property of Austin Jones of Patrick County. | white | |
Spriggins | June 20, 1854 | slave | accidental injuries | Death caused either by becoming overheated in the harvest field or by drinking too much cold water. | |
Roger | June 20, 1854 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died from the intemperate use of ardent spirits and exposure to the rain and cold. | |
John McRae | July 15, 1854 | slave | drowning | Died from being taken with cramp while bathing in the James River canal | |
Unidentified | August 22, 1854 | unknown | drowning | Came to his death by accidentally drowning. | person of color |
Tom | October 4, 1854 | slave | accidental injuries | Run over by a railroad car. | |
Baker Parham | October 12, 1854 | free | disease | Cause of death was cholera morbus. | person of color |
Tom | November 14, 1854 | slave | accidental injuries | Killed by the train of cars passing on the Central Railroad. | |
Elijah | January 9, 1855 | slave | unknown | Died from causes unknown | |
John Boon | January 15, 1855 | free | homicide | Died by being stabbed with a knife in the abdomen by William Boon. | person of color |
Gilbert | January 22, 1855 | slave | exposure | Died from exposure from being left out to the inclemency of the weather | |
Plumus | January 26, 1855 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Woodson | February 15, 1855 | slave | exposure | Death was produced by freezing. | |
Violet | March 2, 1855 | free | homicide | Came to her death by two blows on the head with an axe and that said blows were inflicted by her husband Frank, a slave and also the property of said Dr T J Owen. | |
Betsey | March 7, 1855 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning | |
Unidentified | March 10, 1855 | unknown | infanticide, drowning | Came to its death by the neglect of the mother, Lucy, in being exposed to the cold, or by drowning in a barrel of water. | |
Randolph | April 5, 1855 | slave | accidental injuries | Died from the falling of a tub in a well which he was cleaning out; said tub struck him on the top of his head thereby breaking his neck | |
Caroline | May 7, 1855 | slave | unknown | came to her death by violence but concur that she died from some cause unknown | black |
Daniel Meredith | May 9, 1855 | free | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God | person of color |
George | September 1, 1855 | slave | homicide | Came to his death by gunshot wounds in the head, back and shoulders. Inflicted upon him from a gun in the hands of William Savage. | |
Elijah | October 27, 1855 | slave | disease | Death caused by inflamation of the lung. | |
William | November 20, 1855 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning, when he fell overboard from canal boat number 9 on which he was working. | |
Cary Harris | December 3, 1855 | slave | natural causes | Died a natural death | |
Dick | December 24, 1855 | slave | homicide | death by knife wound to left side of body, inflicted by Henry D Blalock | |
Silvia Cousins | January 7, 1856 | free | drowning | Died by accidentally stepping in an old coal pit filled with water and was drowned | person of color |
Marshall Tyler | January 7, 1856 | free | drowning | Died by accidentally stepping in an old coal pit filled with water and was drowned | |
Rieves | January 10, 1856 | slave | homicide | Died of numerous wounds inflicted upon his body by James P Wilson with a butcher knife. | |
Bob Obannon | January 13, 1856 | slave | exposure | died by freezing through the excessive use of intoxicating drinks | |
Harry | February 4, 1856 | slave | homicide | Killed by gunshot by one William Robinson the load taking effect in the left side near the heart | |
Joe | February 18, 1856 | unknown | exposure | Froze to death overnight. | |
James Jones | March 30, 1856 | free | natural causes | Came to his death by the Providence of God. | |
Daniel | March 31, 1856 | slave | disease | Came to his death from disease. | |
Caleb Jones | April 21, 1856 | slave | accidental injuries | Died by being burned to death when the jail in which he was confined burned down. | |
Lamb | May 10, 1856 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Noah | May 26, 1856 | slave | illness, disease | Death probably caused by some physical defect | |
Unidentified | May 26, 1856 | slave | homicide | Was destroyed by the cruel and brutal conduct of Mary Lee, a slave and the mother of this infant. | mulatto |
Herbert Furguson | June, 1856 | free | accidental injuries | Struck by lightning. | person of color |
China | July, 1856 | slave | accidental injuries | Died from congectures of the stomach produced from drinking an overdraft of cold water. | |
Gilbert | August 29, 1856 | slave | suicide | Died by willful and deliberate exposure of himself while labouring under a severe attack of cirrhosis | |
Horace | September 8, 1856 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning. | |
John | October 2, 1856 | slave | homicide | Died from blows inflicted with a stick by Noah, a slave owned by Mrs. Towel. John was drinking prior to the conflict | person of color |
Matilda Turner | November 24, 1856 | free | homicide | death from blow or blows to her right temple from an axe, by person or persons unknown | |
Jacob Cross | December 1, 1856 | free | drowning | Died by accidental drowning by falling into the James River and Kanawha Canal | person of color |
Unidentified | December 1, 1856 | free | homicide | Came to its death by violence from the hands of its mother Ann Mcdonald | |
Harry | January 4, 1857 | slave | homicide | Died from wound to skull caused by a rock thrown by Mat Turner. | |
Albert | January 9, 1857 | slave | accidental injuries | Came to his death accidentally by the falling of a tree on his person. | |
Rhoda | January, 1857 | slave | homicide | Murdered by many violent blows inflicted on her head by a white person, unknown to the jurors. | |
John P Johnson | February 3, 1857 | free | accidental injuries | Died by falling into a kettle of boiling water | person of color |
Sarah | February 21, 1857 | slave | drowning | Came to her death by accidental drowning. | |
Alex | April 6, 1857 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning having fallen from the gangway plank of the steamer Shultz into the waters of the James River | |
William Becket | April 13, 1857 | free | natural causes | Died of a natural death | |
Carter | April 15, 1857 | slave | exposure, alcohol | Died by helplessness occasioned by the use of intoxicating liquors and exposure to the storm of last evening | |
Betsy Wallace | April 17, 1857 | slave | drowning | Accidental drowning | |
Jessee | May 11, 1857 | slave | exposure | Froze to death. | |
Jim | May 13, 1857 | slave | drowned | Accidentally drowned. | |
Toney | June 15, 1857 | slave | drowning, alcohol | Accidentally drowned while under the influence of intoxicating liquors. | |
William | June, 1857 | slave | drowning | Died by an unknown cause, supposed to have been accidently drowned. | |
Unidentified | August 12, 1857 | drowning | came to his death from accidental drowning | ||
Henry Hill | August 28, 1857 | free | drowning | Came to his death by accidental drowning. | |
Washington | November 30, 1857 | slave | drowning | Drowned while trying to cross creek. | |
Robert | December 15, 1857 | slave | exposure | died of intemperance and exposure, no marks of violence upon his body | |
Bill | December 19, 1857 | slave | drowning | Came to his death by accidentally falling from a boat and drowning. | |
Billy Collins | February 15, 1858 | unknown | exposure | Died from cold and hunger. | person of color |
Harry Tunnell | February, 1858 | free | accidental injury | his death was caused by the falling of a pine tree across his body | black |
Elizabeth Columbus | March 6, 1858 | free | accidental injuries | Died by accidental burning | |
James Love | March, 1858 | free | homicide | Died from the effects of blows inflicted by a whip in the hands of John Forrest. | person of color |
Morganna | April 24, 1858 | free | homicide | Came to her death by the accidental discharge of a gun loaded with a bullet in the hands of Ida Blanchard. | |
Henry | May 17, 1858 | slave | drowning | Drowned either accidentally or by being knocked overboard by some person or persons unknown. | |
Metilda White | May 17, 1858 | free | drowning | Came to her death by accidentally falling into Buffalo River, where she was found dead. | person of color |
Abram Medad | May, 1858 | free | natural causes | came to his death by natural disease | black |
John Swarm | June 7, 1858 | slave | disease | Died from some disease and not from any foul means | |
George | June 29, 1858 | slave | homicide | The body is in such a state that it is impossible to make an examination, but believe--death may have been caused by a blow inflicted by Nathaniel Richards. | |
Jacob | June, 1858 | slave | homicide | William Bird not having God before his eyes but being moved and seduced by the devil on the second day of October 1857 with force and arms at Sylvester Marshalls store made an assault with a certain gun shot the aforesaid Jacob in the left part of the belly | black |
Samuel Brock | June, 1858 | free | homicide | Died from knife wound inflicted by James Catlett, alias James Wells | |
Cola | July 8, 1858 | slave | homicide | Died of congestion of the brain while fastened to a tree with a chain around her neck by Richard H. Barnes and John W. Baker | |
James Cabell | July 19, 1858 | free | unknown | Died from cause unknown to the jury by the visitation of God. | person of color |
Gore | July 22, 1858 | slave | drowning | Died by accidentally falling in the well and drowning | |
Unidentified | August 6, 1858 | unknown | drowned | Impossible to say how he came to his death due to the state of decay of the body, but suppose he drowned. | |
Edmund | November 5, 1858 | slave | homicide | one gentleman not having God before his eyes but being moved and seduced by the devil with force and arms feloniously and voluntarily with a certain gun killed the aforesaid Edmund, Dennis Hicks | black |
Dodson Baily | November 23, 1858 | free | drowning | Died by accidental drowning. | person of color |
John Coakley | December 20, 1858 | accidental injury, alcohol | |||
Spencer Lovey | December 30, 1858 | slave | inconclusive | Died from some cause unknown | |
Susana Boon | December, 1858 | homicide | Died from blows on the head with a stick from the hands of Eli Grainger and Mary, a slave of William Drake. | ||
Allice | January 3, 1859 | slave | accidental injuries | Died by accidental burning | |
Edmund Briggs | January 3, 1859 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning | |
Unidentified | January 4, 1859 | inconclusive | Died by means unknown | ||
Unidentified | January 22, 1859 | inconclusive | jury could not agree that the child came to its death by violence or any foul means; no marks of violence upon its body | mulatto | |
Unidentified | February 5, 1859 | inconclusive | Came to his death by some unknown cause | ||
Andrew Sparrow | February 24, 1859 | unknown | homicide | Came to his death by ill treatment and blows inflicted by his daughter Peggy Fuller | person of color |
Edmond | March 10, 1859 | slave | exposure | Died by exposure to cold | |
Judy | March 16, 1859 | free | homicide | Died by violent means from the hands of some person or persons unknown. We believe from the appearance of the head that she received one or more severe and dangerous blows on the side of her head before she was committed to the water, and then therein thrown after weights were attached to her body | person of color |
Judy | May 16, 1859 | slave | natural causes | Came to her death in a natural way but suddenly, no marks of violence found upon her body whatsoever. | |
Ben | June 20, 1859 | slave | natural causes | He had a fit, fell on his face, and strangled or suffocated. | |
Unidentified | July 4, 1859 | slave | drowning | Died by drowning in the James River Canal | |
Robin | July 18, 1859 | slave | unknown | Unable to determine the cause of death. Marks from recent whipping were present on body and there ws a wound on his forehead, but coroner concluded none of these caused his death. | |
Judy | July 20, 1859 | slave | accidental injuries | Death caused by a fall from some steep stairs. | |
John Scott | July 29, 1859 | free | drowning | Died by falling into the James River Canal and drowning | |
Minerva | August 12, 1859 | slave | suicide | Died by willful drowning in the James River | |
Granderson | August 19, 1859 | slave | accidental injuries | Died by the effect of poisonous drugs inadvertently taken by himself, said effects probably acting in conjunction with a diseased condition of the heart | |
Hannah | September 5, 1859 | slave | homicide | death by abuse inflicted on her person at sundry times during the present year, by choking and blows on her head, body, and limbs with switches and other heavier objects, in the hands of James Clary. | |
Henry West | November 28, 1859 | free | accidental injuries | death from the rupture of some internal blood vessel caused by accident on 2859 Oct 2 | person of color |
James T Birch | December 23, 1859 | homicide | Came to his death by a blow or blows on the back of his head with a stick or some other like instrument, inflicted by Jim and Green and other slaves belonging to William McKevron and John Ford. | white | |
Isham | January 3, 1860 | slave | alcohol, exposure | Died from intoxication and exposure | |
Hampton | January 9, 1860 | slave | exposure | Died in Beaver Hospital caused by exposure to inclemency of the weather. | |
Jim Brodwater | January, 1860 | free | suicide | came to his death by the means of cutting his own throat with a sharp instrument or knife | black |
Stephen Carr | February 6, 1860 | free | inconclusive | Death from unknown causes but thought to be from spiritous liquors and cold weather | |
George | February 22, 1860 | slave | inconclusive | Died of some unknown causes | |
Stephen | March 15, 1860 | free | drowned | Died by accidental drowning. | |
Rosanna | April 2, 1860 | slave | natural causes | Died of natural causes | |
Archer | April 3, 1860 | slave | drowning | Died by accidentally falling from one of the lighters of the towing company and drowning | |
Addison | May 3, 1860 | slave | alcoholism | Died by a fit produced from excessive intemperance in drinking bad whiskey | |
Henry | May 11, 1860 | slave | unknown | Cause of death unknown after the most careful examination, no marks of violence could be discovered. | |
Green | June 11, 1860 | slave | suicide | Died by hanging himself | |
Lewis | July 29, 1860 | slave | drowning | Accidentally drowned | |
Milner | August 20, 1860 | slave | drowning | Died by accidental drowning. | |
Egbert | September 3, 1860 | slave | accidental injuries | Died from being run over by a train on the tracks on the R&D Railroad | |
Jonas | September 30, 1860 | slave | homicide | Came to his death by the discharge of a pistol held in the hands of Benjamin F McCloud. | |
Wirt | November 1, 1860 | slave | accidental injuries | Died by the caving in of a sand bank | |
Sam Sampson | December 10, 1860 | free | accidental injuries | Died by being run over by the cars on the Virginia and Tennessee Rail Road | |
George | January 7, 1861 | slave | natural causes | Died by the visitation of God | |
Sarah | February 11, 1861 | slave | injuries | Death caused by wounds that had been inflicted on her head and a burn to her arm, without testimony by whom it was done. | |
Unidentified | February 20, 1861 | infanticide | Died by being choked with a cotton rag found around its neck and done by some person unknown | mulatto | |
Nelly | March 1, 1861 | slave | homicide | Died by unlawful beating with some instrument or weapon in the hands of Joseph L Watkins. | |
Unidentified | March 8, 1861 | inconclusive | Died of some cause uknown | mixed blood | |
William | March 12, 1861 | slave | homicide | Died from a wound inflicted upon his person by a three cornered instrument in the hands of some unknown person | |
Patsy | March 18, 1861 | slave | unknown | Came to her death about five or six weeks ago from some cause unknown to us. | |
Edmond | April 10, 1861 | slave | homicide | Came to his death by a piece of pine scantling timber three inches by four inches and about five feet long in the hands of Jim, also owned by Willoughby Wilson. Jim did strike--Edmond on the right side of the head and cracked the skull bone. | |
Benjamin | April 11, 1861 | unknown | homicide | Came to his death by blows inflicted on his head by Dick, the slave of W Benjamin of Richmond, or was knocked overboard and was drowned. | |
Jacob Simkins | April 11, 1861 | slave | unknown | Died of unknown causes | |
Unidentified | April 26, 1861 | unknown | drowned | The body being in such a situation--he must have drowned. | |
Unidentified | April 29, 1861 | inconclusive | Child was found in a well and cause of death is unknown | ||
Levi Bloxom | April, 1861 | slave | unknown | came to his death by some unknown cause | black |
Alexander Taylor | May 6, 1861 | free | alcoholism | Died of excessive drinking of spirits | |
Biddy | June 17, 1861 | slave | unknown | Died of some unknown cause. | |
Tempy | June 22, 1861 | slave | homicide | Died from the effects of a blow or blows on the head supposed to have been inflicted with a club in the hands of some unknown person. | |
Jeff | June, 1861 | slave | homicide | Shot with a pistol in the hands of Albin L Goodman, who acted in self defense and was justifiable. | |
James Gwynn | June, 1861 | free | drowning | Died by accidental drowning | |
John J Hodges | August 5, 1861 | free | drowning | Came to his death by drowning, having accidentally or ignorantly gone into deep water in Hofflens Creek where it was beyond his depth, and he could not swim. | |
Betsy | August 12, 1861 | slave | unknown | Death from unknown causes. | |
Edward Brown | October 16, 1861 | free | homicide | Died from a gunshot wound in the left side, from a gun in the hands of John W Shell, --unlawfully but without malice. | |
Tom | November 5, 1861 | slave | homicide | Died by the discharge of a pistol in the hand of Louisa Engelking. The jury finds that the said Louisa Engleking had no knowledge that said pistol was loaded and therefore we are of the opinion that the said Louisa Engelking ought to be discharged from any further prosecution | |
Mack | December 13, 1861 | slave | injuries | Died from the effects of being beaten with a shingle, inflicted by his owner. | |
Frances Valintine | March 10, 1862 | free | accidental injuries | Death from accidental burning. | |
Frank Cromwell | April 7, 1862 | free | natural causes | Death by natural means. | |
William Adams | April 9, 1862 | inconclusive | Causes unknown | ||
Levin Webb | May 12, 1862 | free | unknown | Came to his death through some cause unknown | |
Ely | August 1, 1862 | slave | suicide | Committed suicide by hanging herself. | |
Unidentified | September 20, 1862 | infanticide | came to its death by having its head mashed with a stone (or being mashed against a rock) by its mother | colored | |
Andrew Butler | October 8, 1862 | free | homicide | Gunshot from the hands of some person unknown | |
Unidentified | November 19, 1862 | infanticide | Came to its death through the criminal neglect of its mother, Maria, slave of Joseph Gibbs of Botetout County | ||
Jim George | January 20, 1863 | free | unknown | came to his death by some cause unknown | black |
Peyton Malory | February 2, 1863 | homicide | Gunshot in the hands of Orlando Evans, a colored man, accidental | person of color | |
Andrew | June 3, 1863 | slave | accidental injuries | Death caused by swallowing clipped hair resulting in inflammation of stomach and lungs. | |
William | June 4, 1863 | slave | homicide | Gun shot wound inflicted by some person unknown. | |
Robert R Williams | August 3, 1863 | homicide | Came to his death by a musket or large pistol ball which entered his left breast | ||
Unidentified | September 8, 1863 | inconclusive | Died by some disease unknown | ||
Nelson | September 12, 1863 | slave | homicide | Died from a shot received from a pistol fired by William Lawson; it was justifiable homicide | |
Jim | September 25, 1863 | slave | homicide | came to his death by a wound inflicted by Jake, a slave of James P Groton with a dirk knife and unlawful weapon for negroes to carry or have | black |
Alexander | November 16, 1863 | slave | homicide | Came to his death by a gunshot wound in the right eye, penetrating the brain, the gun being in the hands of Lewis Campbell. Body was found in the upper room of the house of Mrs Judith F Campbell. | |
Nicholas | January 21, 1864 | slave | natural causes | died by the visitation of God | |
Jane | February 12, 1864 | slave | unknown | Died of unknown cause. | |
Joe Carr | March 7, 1864 | slave | homicide | Came to his death by a severe blow inflicted with a sharp pointed rock | |
Toney | June 6, 1864 | slave | unknown | Death by causes unknown. | |
Unidentified | June 7, 1864 | unknown | homicide | Death caused by a gunshot by some unknown person riding in a train car. | |
Tom Charles | June 18, 1864 | slave | homicide | Died from a gun shot fired by James Antersun and it was justifiable homicide | |
Matilda | September 18, 1864 | slave | homicide | Death by blows to her head and choked. | |
Ann Valentine | September 23, 1864 | inconclusive | Unknown causes | person of color | |
William | October 29, 1864 | slave | homicide | Died by a musket shot then in the hands of Wilson King and he was justified in so doing | |
Benjamin Hilliard | December 12, 1864 | drowning | Accidental drowning | person of color | |
William Clark | January 9, 1865 | homicide | Died from wounds inflicted by the shooting of a pistol in the hands of Loyd S White | ||
Woodley | January 16, 1865 | slave | homicide | Died by being shot by John Johnson and Mills H Johnson, with pistols. | |
Thomas | April 1, 1865 | slave | homicide | Died from a wound in the lower abdomin severing the internal vitals; said wound being given by a bullet from a gun, musket or carbine in the hands of some person or persons unknown | |
Jim | April 21, 1865 | slave | homicide | Came to his death by the hands of Lafayette Thomas by a pistol ball. | |
Willis Walker | June 7, 1865 | homicide | Gunshot wound fired from a gun in the hands of some person(s) unknown | person of color | |
John Smallwood | September 5, 1865 | drowning | Drowning | person of color | |
Mosses Peters | September 14, 1865 | free | homicide | Came to his death by a weapon in the hands of William W McKenny (McKerny). | person of color |
William Beverly | October 10, 1865 | free | disease | Typhoid fever | |
Richard Hollins | October 10, 1865 | homicide | Weapon used by the hand of some person unknown | person of color | |
John F Geralds | October 16, 1865 | homicide | Came to his death by violence, caused by wounds inflicted on his head by a club or some other rough instrument sufficient to cause death--inflicted by a freedman of colour named Isaac Chany. | ||
Dick Edwards | November 27, 1865 | free | homicide | death from a blow by a heavy and deadly weapon on the head, by a person or persons unknown | |
James Jefferson | December 12, 1865 | homicide | Died from the effects of a pistol ball entering his head, the said pistol being fired by some person | ||
Albert Cole | December 18, 1865 | alcohol, disease | Died from a fit of apoplexy caused by drinking. | mulatto | |
Adolphus Smith | December 19, 1865 | homicide | Musket shot in the hands of Cynthy Brooks | person of color | |
Unidentified | January 17, 1866 | homicide | Came to his death by violence, as shown by bruises about the head and throat and the general appearance of the body, by some person or persons unknown. | mulatto | |
Unidentified | January 26, 1866 | natural causes | Died at birth | person of color | |
Henry Leslie | January 28, 1866 | disease, exposure | Disease and exposure | person of color | |
Unidentified | February 2, 1866 | exposure, alcohol | Exposure | person of color | |
Burwell Gree | February 5, 1866 | free | homicide | Shot by persons unknown | |
Unidentified | March 13, 1866 | homicide | Came to its death by violence at the hands of some person or persons unknown. | mulatto | |
Maria Morison | March 19, 1866 | free | disease | Died from disease of the heart of long standing. | |
Hannah Kello | March, 1866 | free | natural causes, injuries | Died by a visitation of God, possibly aggravated by an assault commited by Edmund Kello, a free man of color. | person of color |
Sarah | April 2, 1866 | free | natural causes | Died of natural causes following multiple spasms; also was pregnant at the time of death. | |
Unidentified | April 22, 1866 | homicide | Cause of death: broke and entered into the house of Alexander Olvis and shot wounds produced by said Olvis. | ||
John Holden | April, 1866 | free | homicide | came to his death by hanging by the neck by some persons or persons unknown | black |
Mrs. John Drummond | April, 1866 | homicide | came to her death by wounds inflicted by John Holden with an axe | white | |
Unidentified Madison | May 12, 1866 | free | homicide, infanticide | Came to her death by being thrown from the upper porch to the curbing of the walk by her mother, Hannah Madison a freedwoman, and there being abandoned by her for several hours. | |
Gabril | June 6, 1866 | natural causes | Died through the natural visitation of God | person of color | |
Lucy Jones | June 25, 1866 | disease | Died from disease and not by violence. | ||
William Fountain | July 3, 1866 | drowning | Died by accidental drowning | person of color | |
Patrick Thompson | October 9, 1866 | free | homicide | Came to his death from the effects of a pistol shot at the hands of J C Johnston and that it was a case of felonious homicide. | |
Unidentified | October 29, 1866 | infanticide | Came to her death by the violence of her mother, Alma. | ||
Wilbur Bowles | November 5, 1866 | homicide | Gunshot wound by the hands of John Lee | person of color | |
William Medley | November 16, 1866 | free | homicide | Died from shock and hemorage from gunshot wound inflicted by Dr Watson who was angry with Medley for breaking the wheel on his carriage. | |
George Booker | November, 1866 | free | homicide | Died by shot gun wounds in the hands of Jessee Watkins, a freedman. | |
Unidentified | December 21, 1866 | unknown | Came to her death in some manner unknown. | ||
Jean G Potts | February, 1868 | homicide | Death was caused by a shot from a gun in the hands of Alfred King | ||
Unidentified | March 29, 1873 | infanticide | Died by being placed in a blanket and left out doors in neglect by some unknown person. | person of color | |
Thomas Elliott | November 18, 1878 | homicide | Death by a shot fired by an unknown person. | ||
Barnita | undated | slave | natural causes | Visitation of providence | person of color |
Anarchy | undated | slave | drowning | Came accidentally to her death, probably by drowning. | |
Caroline | undated | unknown | natural causes | Death brought on by fit. |
Credit: Library of Virginia, Virginia Untold Project