Too refined to be a slave.
Anabel Box was born in 1790. She was a slave to Mr. and Mrs. Henry Box. The Box's never whipped their slaves, although did threaten them ever so often. Mr. Box was a shoemaker and owned a shoe shop. He trained his male slaves in the art of shoemaking. He also entrusted them with the job of delivery men when orders of shoes would come in from neighboring towns and cities. Mr. Henry Box owned about 70 slaves, 10 of which worked continuously at his shoe shop, the rest on his plantation. Mr. Box did not rule with an iron fist, and believed in treating his slaves kindly. Mr. Box died in 1796. Mrs. Box died 6 months later. It was believed she died from sadness, for there were no known causes of death.
Anabel Box was sold at auction when she was 7 years old by Mr. Box's only son, Jeffrey. Anabel was sold to Mr. Dayton Clemensfield, who promptly assigned her as a servant to his 12 year old daughter Patricia. Patricia took a liking to Anabel and often treated her as a playmate. Dayton Clemensfield had an overseer named Peter Grandy that was very cruel, as told by his slaves. He would flog slaves every day for no reason, or for the slightest infraction. Grandy woke Anabel up one morning shortly after her 9th birthday took her to the barn and raped her. He told her if she told anyone he would cut her head off. He left her in the barn. Anabel tried to get up to go back to the slave quarters but could not walk. In the morning, a young slave boy named Aaron found Anabel and ran told Dayton Clemensfield Anabel was naked and bleeding in the barn. Dayton believed that Anabel had started her menstruation cycle but upon examining her determined that she had been raped. Clemensfield was not a man to tolerate the rape of a child on his on grounds and demanded that Grandy bring him the man that did this. After a day of terrorizing the slaves on the plantation, Grandy brought Aaron to Clemensfield. When asked if Aaron was the man that raped her, Anabel commenced to screaming, not because Clemensfield told Grandy to flog Aaron then take him to the law officials office in town. Grandy flogged Aaron to death.
6 months later Grandy came to the slave quarters again, took Anabel to the barn and raped her. He was not as violent as he had been the first time, in fact he was very careful not to force himself into her. Anabel did not bleed this time. Grandy told Anabel to meet him in the barn once a week in the barn. If she did not Grandy would kill her. He often varied the ways that he would kill her, first kidnapping her and making believe that she had run away from her master, then telling her he would torture her in various ways, pull her insides out from her vagina or cutting her arms and legs off and letting her bleed to death. For her obedience to him, Grandy did not flog Anabel. Grandy raped Anabel once a week for three years. One night a slave saw leaving the slave quarters and asked where she was going. Anabel told her she was going to see Grady and begged the slave not to tell. The slave, Virginia, did keep Anabel's secret.
Clemensfield wanted Anabel to begin breeding but discovered Anabel was already pregnant. When asked whose baby she was going to have, Anabel commenced to screaming again. After several days Virginia came to Clemensfields wife, Florence and told her that Grandy was raping the girl for some time. Florence told Dayton and Dayton confronted Grandy, who vehemently denied even touching the nigger child. Anabel did finally confess to Patricia that Grandy had been making her have sex with him since Aaron was killed and that it was Grandy that raped her, not Aaron. Dayton called on the authories immediately, firing Grandy and turning him over to authorities. After 3 days in prison, charges were dropped and Grandy was released from prison.
An old slave woman named Mary was about to die and Master Clemensfield put her out in a shed near the edge of his plantation. Anabel was told to bring her food and water once a day until she died. On the day Mary died she told Anabel the secret on how to abort the baby was to drink a tea made with pennyroyal for 5 days and the baby would come out. Anabel did so and the baby was aborted.
Anabel became pregnant 3 times while under the ownership of Clemensfield. Each pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Anabel decided at the age of 12 that, so long as she was living, she would not bring a child into the world to be a slave. So each time she became pregnant she drank the pennyroyal tea and introduced an abortion. Her breasts still leaked milk and she became the wet nurse to some slave children and to Clemensfield's eldest daughter Catherine. Anabel became pregnant by a young slave named Robert. When she had her second miscarriage Clemensfield began to worry that the girl could not carry children. She was sold to a tailor named Masey after her third miscarriage. Masey had a wife and 2 children. They all helped the family business. Mrs. Masey taught Anabel how to sew and Anabel helped with the hemming of pants and cutting of fabric. Mr. Masey had about 30 slaves but when the tailor business became slow, he sold Anabel to a cotton owner named Allen Montgomery. The sale was made in front of the son of the town grocer, Zachariah Chandler.
Zachariah Chandler was born in 1779 to Nathan and Isabel Chandler. His father was a grocer in the town of Caswell and Zachariah did help with the managing of the store starting at the young age of eleven. His father made him manager at 16 and would leave him in charge when going to various neighboring counties looking for property to start a new grocery store or other type of business. In 1804, when Nathan was 24, he married a woman named Julia, daughter of a blacksmith. Julia became pregnant almost immediately and gave birth to twin girls, Claire and Diana. During the winter of 1809, Julia took her daughters to New York to spend christmas with Julia's parents. The city was overtaken by a blizzard and Julia, Claire, Diana and Julia's parents froze to death, along with 400 other people in New York.
Zachariah was devestated at the loss of his wife and children. He did not leave his house for a year after learning of their deaths, not even to attend their funerals. His father had to make all the arrangements to have their bodies brought back from New York and funeralized. Zachariah lost considerable weight, and did go about his house and yard, talking to himself. After a year, he seemed to regain some of his senses, as he did show up on his father's porch one morning and ask to work in the grocery store once again. His father granted him that but always accompanied him to the store and stayed at his side for a full year, for fear that Zachariah might digress back to his previous mental state. Zachariah would not talk much anymore, only to answer questions from store patrons, or the occasional exchange with his parents when he would have dinner with them. He continued to live in the house that his family had lived in. He would only occassionally attend town functions. He would only stay for an hour or so, usually watching the other party goers from the periphery. He did not attend church service after the death of his family, even at the behest of his parents. Gradually, Zachariah became more personable, and did even come to resemble a bit of his old self. On occasions far and few between, he attempted to date again but never courted a young lady for more than a few months. One young lady remarked that he was very polite and gentlemanly, never wanting more than to go strolling and talk for a while. Towns folk who knew him well always claimed he was "never quite the same again."
While Nathan was away from Caswell one month, Zachariah brokered a deal between the hardware store owner and his father for the sale of the hardware store. The Montgomery's heard of the deal and were glad to see that Zachariah had a business sense about him. They began to try arrange a courtship between he and their youngest daughter Melissa, who was about 23 years old.
Mr. Montgomery acquired Anabel Box in April of 1814. Anabel was assigned to servant of Mrs. Sharon Montgomery. The Montgomery's were cruel to their slaves. After noting that Anabel had never received a flogging, he promptly stripped her clothes off, hung her up by the hands and gave her 100 lashes upon her back. The blood did run down her body and dripped freely upon the ground. Anabel could not walk for several days and was weak from all of the blood loss.
One day, while traveling through town with Mrs. Montgomery, Anabel was instructed to go into the grocery and get 10 cans of Big Sea canned oysters and apply the purchase to the Montgomery account. When Anabel first entered the store she asked where the canned oysters were. Zachariah told her the Big Sea brand. Anabel went to the shelf and started to pick up the cans but stopped and again asked Zachariah which can was it. Zachariah came and pointed the can out. Anabel bought the cans and started to leave the store. It was then that Zachariah came out after her and stopped her in the street. He asked her if she knew how to read. Anabel did not respond. Zachariah, taking a can of oysters out of the basket Anabel was carrying, asked her how she knew to reach for the Big Sea brand of canned oysters. Anabel told Zachariah she did not know how to read. Zachariah asked if she was protecting Mr. Montgomery since it was illegal for slaves to be educated and without thinking Anabel blurted she would never protect Mr. Montgomery. Zachariah told Anabel to be careful of what she said about her master. At that point a customer came to the grocery store and Zachariah left Anabel and Anabel returned to her mistress Mrs. Montgomery. When Mrs. Montgomery found nine cans of oysters in Anabel's basket instead of 10, she found a flog at a near by store and gave Anabel 50 lashes. She did not even have Anabel take off her dress. The dress was torn to shreds.
When Zachariah discovered he did not place the can of oysters back in Anabel's basket he promptly ran out after Anabel and found her receiving her 50th lash. He explained to Mrs. Montgomery that it was his mistake, that he had forgotten to put the 10th can in the basket, but Mrs. Montgomery gave Anabel an extra lash for not making sure there were 10 cans. Anabel was carted back to the Montgomery plantation and left in the shed on the edge of the plantation until she healed from her wounds.
After the acquiring of the hardware store, Nathan expanded the grocery store to include general supplies. Business flourished, the Chandler's began making home deliveries to wealthier clients, the Montgomery's were one of them. One day, Mr. Montgomery came to the store and asked if there were any cushions in supply. Nathan was expecting a delivery that evening and promised to deliver them to the Montgomery's plantation. However, the wagon was held up several hours in a neighboring town because of a wheel repair. Zachariah stayed and waited for the wagon which did arrive at around 9pm that evening. He took the cushions to Montgomery and on his way off the plantation he saw a small circle of slaves around a campfire. He saw Anabel singing and dancing and did stay to watch until the slaves dispersed to their quarters.
Six months after the acquisition Nathan had a heart attack and died.
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