University of Pennsylvania-trained physician Lewis J. Dortch of Stantonsburg died in October 1854, leaving an estate that included nearly three dozen enslaved people. We examined here the disruption created by movement of these people into short-term hires in Stantonsburg and over the county line in Nahunta district, Wayne County.

In fact, W.T. Dortch, the Goldsboro lawyer appointed to administer his brother’s estate,  placed multiple rounds of advertisements for the “sale of Negroes” as far away as the Wilmington Journal.

Receipt for ads placed in 1855 in Goldsboro newspapers the North Carolina Telegraph and the Tribune.

Receipt for 1859 ad in the Wilmington Journal.

I have not been able to find digital copies of the newspapers in which these notices were published.

Estate of L.J. Dortch, Probate Estate Case Files 1854-1959, Wilson County, N.C., http://www.familysearch.org.