Sampson Hinnant was near 60 when sold to his last enslaver in 1861. A year after freedom, he and Mary Boykin formalized their marriage. They apparently did not have children, and Hinnant died in 1878, leaving a small estate. His was one of a relative handful of estates of formerly enslaved people that entered probate in Wilson County in the decades after freedom.

Hinnant’s estate file contains only the record of the widow’s allotment paid to Mary Hinnant for one year’s support. In addition to the harvested crops on hand — potatoes, peas, wheat, “greens” — she received all their furniture, working tools, fodder, four head of cattle, five hogs, and eight barrels (of what?).

The census taker apparently missed the Hinnant household when making his rounds in 1870. Their cohabitation registration and this estate file are the only known documentation of their lives in freedom.

Estate File of Sampson Hinnant, Wilson County; North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.