Documents in the 1822 estate files of Ann Williamson of Nash (now Wilson) County include several references to the sale or “hier” of enslaved people. Williamson was the widow of Joseph Williamson, and Bartley Deans was her executor.

Williamson executed a will in 1807, fifteen years before her death. The will included three enslaved people — women named Pat and Rachel and a boy named Arch.

A partial inventory in Williamson’s estate records also lists Arch, Rachel and Pat. Rachel and Pat are listed together at one place in the documents and may have been mother and daughter. (Note that, as she was only ten years old in 1822, the Pat in Williamson’s estate could not have been the Pat in her 1807 will.)

Here, the record of the sale of “Negro gal Pat” to Eatman Flowers for $353.88; the hire of Arch, first to Jesse Sillivant, then to Thomas Williamson; and the hire of Rachel to Ford Taylor. Arch and Rachel were hired out repeatedly.

Williamson’s estate also included a man named Jack. Below, a receipt for partial proceeds from the sale of Jack to John Watson, executor of Luke Collins:

In addition, Ann Williamson’s inventory showed that she possessed an elderly enslaved man named Sesor [Caesar] that she had inherited from her husband Thomas Williamson.

Estate of Ann Williamson (1822), North Carolina Wills and Estates, 1665-1998 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com.