Enslaved Individuals: Daniel
Daniel, b. abt. 1831 or 1832
Documented History
Daniel was an adult resident of Page County, Virginia, in 1857; he is listed as one of ten enslaved individuals in an inventory of the estate of Benjamin Sedwick taken on 1 July of that year.
While no record of Daniel’s role on Sedwick’s farm has been located, it is virtually certain he was a skilled agricultural worker on a farm that comprised 160 acres of improved land and thirty-three acres of unimproved land near the south fork of the Shenandoah River. He was allocated to Sedwick’s son-in-law Harrison Strickler when Sedwick’s estate was settled, and almost certainly continued to be involved in agriculture there; Strickler’s farm, slightly south of Sedwick’s, was also on the banks of the Shenandoah.
Daniel escaped from the Strickler farm to the North during the Civil War; the list documenting this event indicates he liberated himself in April 1862 at the age of thirty. He was thus born about 1831 or 1832.
No further records have yet been located.
Speculations
Charles Daniel’s name may reflect a family relationship with Daniel or Charles, or both.
Connections
Alexander, Charles, Charles Daniel, Emily Jane, Isaac, Jacob, Jane, Martha, and Suey Frances were enslaved along with Daniel in Benjamin Sedwick’s household at his death in 1857. Martha and Daniel were allocated to Harrison Strickler in the settlement of Sedwick’s estate.
Sources
Page County, Virginia, Will Book G, Last Will and Testament of Benjamin Sedwick, page 54; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Virginia, Wills and Probate Records, 1652-1983.”
Page County, Virginia, Will Book G, “Inventory and appraisement of the personal property of Benjamin Sedwick decd., of Page County, Virginia July 1st. 1857,” page 94; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Virginia, Wills and Probate Records, 1652-1983.”
1850 U.S. census, Page County, Virginia, agricultural schedule, District 49, pages 341-342 (stamped), Benjamin Sedwick, owner; digital image, Ancestry.com, “U.S., Selected Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850-1880”; citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication T1132.
Papers of the Strickler Family, 1791-1898, Accession No. 7489, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va., “Estate Account of Benj. Sedwick dec’d with Harrison Strickler Exor.”
Page County, Virginia, Record of Slaves that have escaped to the enemy during the war, from the district of Charles B. Modesitt Commissioner of the Revenue for Page county, c. 1863, page 2; digital image, Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative Digital Collection, Richmond, Va: Library of Virginia. Accessed via https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=lva/vi04683.xml.