Assorted manuscript documents from the William Massie family, arranged chronologically. Includes business correspondence and news; agricultural dispatches regarding weather, crops, and prices; correspondence to Massie about buying and selling crops and seeds, including rye; financial accounts for equipment, supplies, and crops; a 1841 report by Joseph Cabell on the a turnpike company; an invoice to Massie for postage fees due in 1842; an 1841 report card for Helen Massie and a 1845 October 10 letter about her schooling from Ellen Massie; a letter dated 1847 March 18 denouncing President Polk from James Heath; and some family and personal correspondence from William Effinger. Includes a note to William Massie from Alexander Brown conveying disappointment that Massie was not running for state legislature in 1840. Includes receipt for the 1840 December 29 purchase of "a Negro Man Warner" (also referred to as "Boy Warner") by William Massie for eight hundred three dollars. Includes a letter dated 1841 January 3 from an agent, Bowling Clark, to Massie, containing details of typical hiring prices he witnessed for different enslaved laborers, including "middle aged men with their wives and from one to three small children with them hired from one hundred and twenty to $140 and with an express understanding that they were neither to ditch nor work on any public work." Includes a letter from John Jenkins to William Massie offering the sale of an unnamed enslaved girl, writing: "I would like to sell them to you as you have her mother," and "as she wishes to come to you I would like to accommodate her" (1847 June 8).
