NOTE: I found these documents before my trip to Aberdeen. They, in fact, spurred me to go.
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I’ve been hunting for digitized evidence of the trade of Wilson County slavers like Wyatt Moye, Robert S. Adams, Stephenton Page Jr., and Joshua Barnes in Aberdeen, Mississippi. I finally found some in a deed book dated 1847-1850. (Wilson County, of course, had not yet formed, but these and other traders lived or had lived in parts of Edgecombe, Nash, Wayne, or Johnston Counties that are now Wilson County.) These registered affidavits attest to the affiants’ personal acquaintance with an enslaved person who had been sent from North Carolina to Mississippi for further sale.
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Deed Record 13, page 643. Chancery Clerk’s Office, Monroe County, Mississippi.
Know all men by these presents that we Zadock Peacock and Washington M. Stanton, Citizens and free holders of the State of North Carolina & County of Edgecombe hereby certify we are acquainted a negro woman by the name of Beady that Wyatt Moye sent to Mississippi by Stephenton Page, Junior, that said Slave is about nineteen years of age, very tall black slave, furthermore certify said Slave has never been guilty of convicted of arson Burglary or felony in Said State within our knowledge or belief. Given under our hands & Seals Feby 28th 1849. /s/ Zadoc Peacock, W.M. Stanton
Deed Record 13, page 644. Chancery Clerk’s Office, Monroe County, Mississippi.
Know all men by these presents that we Josh Barnes and L.D. Farmer, citizens and free holders of the County of Edgecombe & State of North Carolina do hereby certify we are acquainted with negro boy about Seventeen or Eighteen years of age, a very black Slave weighs about one hundred & twenty or thirty pounds said Slave Joshua was sold by Delpha Wiggins to Moye & Adams furthermore that said Slave has not been guilty or convicted of murder arson Burglary or other felony within our knowledge or belief in said State. Signed this 27th day of Feby 1849. /s/Joshua Barnes, L.D. Farmer
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- Zadock Peacock — Zadock Peacock (1790-1852) lived in the Saratoga area. He was a slaveowner, but does not appear to have been a trader.
- Washington M. Stanton — Washington May Stanton (1808-1854) lived in the Stantonsburg area. He was a committed slaveowner, but does not appear to have been a trader.
- Wyatt Moye — Moye was a former sheriff of Greene County, N.C.; the North Carolina state legislator who introduced the bill to incorporate the Town of Wilson; and, notoriously, a slave trader and money lender. He seems to have settled in Monroe County, Mississippi, full time shortly around 1850, but spent his last decade between his Aberdeen home and his business concerns in Saint Mary Parish, Louisiana.
- Stephenton Page Jr. — Page probably lived in the Saratoga area. He is listed in the 1850 census of Edgecombe County as a constable. Page worked as an agent or factor with Moye & Adams, but in 1850 went to court in a dispute with them over their share of proceeds from a slave sale he handled in Mississippi.
- Joshua Barnes — “Father of Wilson County.” Farmer and state legislator, Barnes was a large-scale slaveowner and was involved in the numerous sales of enslaved people south via the United States’ internal slave trade.
- L.D. Farmer — Larry Dew Farmer (1818-1887). Farmer appears in the 1850 census of Edgecombe County. By 1860, Farmer lived in the Town of Wilson and reported to the censustaker that he owned $32,350 in personal property, most in the form of enslaved people.
- Delpha Wiggins — Delphia Wiggins appears as a 22 year-old in the household of her kinsman Larry D. Farmer in the 1850 census of Edgecombe County. The timing of her sale of Joshua, shortly after her 21st birthday, suggests he represented her share of inheritance from her father Blake H. Wiggins, who died in 1828. She had no use for a teenaged farmhand, and the best prices were down south.
- Moye & Adams — Wyatt Moye and Robert S. Adams were partners in this slave-selling firm, which was based in Aberdeen, Mississippi.
Documents reproduced at www.familysearch.org.