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Date: Thu, 09 Jul 1998 08:44:55 -0500
From: Al Muchka <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: Milwaukee Public Museum
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To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Seeking information, Virginia
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Good Day.
 
I am researching a Black family from Virginia who migrated to Ohio and
later, Milwaukee Wisconsin. This family was one of Milwaukee's first,
pioneer black families and has a great significance for the area. I have
slave documents, free papers, registration papers, receipts, ambrotypes
and daguerreotypes of family members in the collection. Anyway, while in
Virginia, the family was divided. The patriarch being a slave while the
matriarch and children were free. The patriarch was a semi-skilled man
who seems to have been used to work  in the warehouses of Richmond
(though his master's actual home/farm was in northern Virginia near
Stafford. The master's son seems to have been a merchant in Richmond).
 
I am trying to find out what typical living conditions might have been
for both sides of the family...during the period 1817-1834
 
a) male slave with part time residence on the master's farm in Stafford
Co. and part time in the City of Richmond. The master's farm is
described in the WPA survey of Virginia plantations but it talks of the
main house, not the slave quarters or outbuildings. The farmsite is now
located somewhere on the Quantico Marine base.
 
b) a free black woman in Richmond who made a living as a washer woman
and seamstress while caring for her aged mother and 3 children.
 
Are there any references I should search, specific questions to ask, or
people I ought to contact that could help? This information will
eventually be part of a museum exhibit.
 
I would appreciate any guidance, public or private (my Email address is
listed below).
 
Thanking you all, in advance, I am
 
 
Sincerely yours,
 
 
 
Albert Muchka
Assistant Curator, History
Milwaukee Public Museum, History Section
800 w. Wells St. Rm 521
Milwaukee, WI  53233
 
(414) 278-2785
 
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