Enslaved People Named: Billy, Davy
On April 6, 1841, John G. Maxwell and Edward G. Harden sold “a certain negro man slave named Billy” to Silas Fulton of Chatham County for $500. They were acting as trustees for Eliza Mary Maxwell, wife of John Pray Maxwell, who had transferred Billy and other enslaved people to a trust for her on February 8, 1837.
The trust had given the trustees the authority to sell any of the property in it at her request and with her approval. They had agreed with her on the sale and that the proceeds would be “applied to the purchase of other negro property equal in value to the said negro man slave named Billy…and whereas the said Eliza Mary Maxwell hath consented to the purchase by her said trustees of a certain negro man slave named Davy from the said John Pray Maxwell to be substituted in the place of the said negro man slave named Billy.” This transaction was made on February 10, 1842, with the payment of $500 to John Pray Maxwell. Davy was placed in the trust on the same conditions as previously, which was for Eliza Mary Maxwell’s life and to her children by John Pray Maxwell at her death.
Recorded in Bryan County Superior Court on March 8, 1842.
Bryan County, Georgia, Deeds & Mortgages, v. E-G 1830-1853, Book F (1840-46), page 89-90; digitized microfilm accessed through catalog, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS4K-VSLN-K : 1 Sep 2024), image 294-5 of 682; microfilm #007899047, citing original records of Bryan County Superior Court.