These “research snippets” are correlations found while documenting references to named African Americans in Liberty County, Georgia, probate, court, and church records. This is analysis and not confirmed. Please refer to the original documents referenced below to compare these speculations with your own research.
On December 5, 1843, Richard S. Baker of Liberty County used as collateral on a promissory note of $1000 to George W. Walthour (for whom Walthourville is named) “the following thirteen slaves (viz) Peter, Cloe, Crawford, Maria, Stephen, Ned, Nanny, Louisa, Matilda, Lawrence, Cato, Bob & Mary, the three last being mortgaged to the said Walthour for a previous debt…” Baker paid off the debt in 1854, so the thirteen souls did not have to move.
Can we know what happened these people? In 1851, an inventory and division was conducted of Richard S. Baker’s estate by the estate administrator, James S. Bradwell. Matilda, valued at $450, was given to Richard S. Baker [Richard’s son]. Ned, $300, and Bob, $250, went to T.W. Baker [identified through other research as Thomas W. Baker, Richard’s son]. Stephen, $350, and Mary, $150, went to Mrs. Ann Baker [Richard’s wife]. Louisa, $400, to Evelina Baker.
In 1848, an inventory for Richard S. Baker, with Ann S. Baker as the administrator, did not divide the property but named and valued the enslaved people as follows: Peter ($450), Mary ($150), Cloe ($450) Lawrence ($400), Matilda ($300), Louisa ($300), Stephen ($200), Nanny ($200), and Ned ($175).
According to other research, Thomas W. Baker died of a steamboat explosion in 1860. No estate inventory was found for him, probably because he lived in McIntosh County then and the courthouse records were burned during the Civil War. Sarah Evalina Baker married John H. Thorpe of McIntosh County and both of them survived the Civil War so there would be no records of Louisa in probate records. Richard S. Baker Jr lived until at least 1907, when he applied for a Confederate pension saying he was ill and poverty-stricken, so there would also be no probate records naming Matilda.
HOWEVER, note that Sarah Baker married John H. Thorpe of McIntosh County. Well, Thomas W. Baker had married Jane Elizabeth Thorpe. John and Elizabeth Thorpe were the children of Charles J.W. Thorpe, who owned the Rice Hope [alt: Ricehope] Plantation in McIntosh County and was a trustee of the South Newport Baptist Church. Both Thomas Baker and Sarah Baker had moved to McIntosh County. Note that there is a Baker Cemetery in McIntosh County. Thus it seems very possible that the enslaved people who were left to Thomas and Sarah at their father’s death — Ned, Bob, and Louisa — may have wound up at or near Rice Hope. Richard S. Baker, who inherited Matilda, also stated in his Confederate pension application that he was living in McIntosh County during the Civil War. Certainly a great possibility to explore if any of them were your ancestors!
In other snippets: In 1831, Richard S. Baker had gifted to his wife Ann, via her trustee William Spencer, ““two certain negro slaves, Nanny and her child Stephen Crafford, together with Nanny’s future issue or increase. To have and to hold the said negro woman Slave Nanny, her child Stephen or Crafford [alt: Crawford].”
An enslaved woman named Chloe was gifted to Richard S. Baker’s wife Ann by Daniel Stewart, via her trustee William N. Way, in 1828 out of the “love and affection” he held toward her. It is not certain that this is the same Chloe (Cloe) listed in the 1843 and 1848 documents, but it is possible.
Richard S. Baker’s father, Thomas Baker Sr, died in 1810, and his estate inventory listed 41 named enslaved persons. Given that it was 33 years before the promissory note we started this research snippet with, there may not have been any of the same people, but it is certainly possible that people named in the estate inventory were parents of the people in the promissory note.