Category: Marshall

Clara is not a DNA ancestor but she and husband Amos were purchased as a couple by John Palfrey on March 9, 1811 from Relf and Chew in New Orleans along with my Gibson, Morgan and Riggs family. She was twenty and he twenty-five. I don’t know if Clara and Amos left children behind before they were sold to Palfrey. Clara repeatedly caught my attention while reading letters from John Palfrey to his sons. I sensed that perhaps Palfrey did not quite know what to make of Clara.

She was first mentioned Palfrey’s Nov. 4, 1812 letter to son Henry. He wrote that a slave named Mimy “had a child three weeks since” and that “Clara will probably have another in about two months.” The implication is that Clara had previously given birth. She had only been purchased in March of 1811, so she was most likely pregnant when purchased. The likelihood of this touched me and caused me to reflect on Clara’s life and hardships she probably encountered.

I found the next mention of Clara in John’s May 16, 1832 letter to his son William. After writing about his isolation on the plantation and the weather, Palfrey recounted the birth of a slave child, Nannette, born to Harriet. He wrote, “Nannette has been too sick & Clara has been nearly in constant attendance upon it until yesterday. She now sees to its food & keeping it clean & works in the garden so as to be at hand.” Palfrey did not write if Nannette or Clara were related. In any case, Clara had been in constant attendance and had made sure she would be close by to help.

Clara was again mentioned in John’s September 7, 1833 letter. He wrote about recent strong winds that had decimated his cane crop and about the number of currently sick slaves, “I have now no less than nine on the sick list but they appear to be better, better this morning. Clara is most severely attacked and is with the exception of Robert the worst patient to gratify & to encourage I have had this year. She is evidently getting better but cannot be persuaded to think so.” He wrote that she could not be pursuaded, implying that he’d tried a number of times to convince and /or to gratify her but was unsuccessful. Clara seemingly relied on her own thoughts.

Clare was next mentioned in Palfrey’s Sep 11, 1833 letter. He wrote, “The number of sick is diminished & those still on the list are getting better, Clara, Henry & Elsey are still confined. The former has the hysterics.” Hysterics is defined as a wildly emotional and exaggerated reaction. Palfrey wrote in an earlier letter dated Aug 11, “? Isle has lost two more of his family, whether black or white, young or old, I could not learn, the report comes from Rosine through Robert… The negroes here are constantly coming with various complaints vis: fever, sore throat, cough, headache, earache, pains in back & limbs of which none are continuance except the headache & sore throat, the children are also very much troubled with worms. There are none at present seriously sick on the plan but there are several invalids.” Perhaps Clara’s fears were justified or perhaps her concern was appropriate in light of the environment in which she lived.

Palfrey wrote again of Clara on November 30, 1833. Clara intervened in the beating of a slaved named Anderson. Palfrey wrote, “On Monday evening just as I was about going to bed, Clara came to the house & told me there was terrible work going on in the sugar house & wished me to go over.” He went to the sugar house and found things as Clara described. He also wrote that “Mr. Vinson left here the same day before dinner, no longer in my employ.”

Clara, Amos and their 9 children were listed on Palfrey’s 1843 probate. The oldest was born in 1814 and the youngest in 1834. Clara, Amos and their youngest son, Amos Jr. were emancipated by John’s son John Gorham Palfrey who lived in Boston. Clara was reported to have expressed her gratitude to him and said, “that it would be hard to…ever forget that we owe you so much…for the care and education and support of our little boy…We are living here and managing to make ourselves comfortable, and trying to be respectable in the eyes of the old friends of our Master…”

Clara and Amos were recorded on the 1850 St Martin Parish census, living in St Martinville. Their ages were listed as fifty and sixty respectively. Both were most likely older as Clara was reported to have been twenty and Amos twenty five at the time of their purchase in 1811. Clara’s death was recorded as January 6. 1853 in William T Palfrey’s plantation diary. If there is a record of Amos’ death, I have not yet found it.