Z 1956.000 Ross (Isaac) Estate Records

Biography/History:

Captain Issac Ross, the son of Issac Ross and Jean Brown Ross, was born in Orangeburg County, South Carolina, on January 5, 1760. He served as a captain under Thomas Sumter during the Revolutionary War. Ross was also a member of the Continental Association and a supporter of the Whig party.

In 1808, Ross moved to the plantation, Prospect Hill, in Jefferson County, Mississippi, with his wife, Jane Allison, and their five children, Martha B., Margaret Allison, Jane Brown, Isaac, and Arthur Allison. He also brought his slaves and personal property to Prospect Hill.

While living at Prospect Hill, Ross acquired considerable personal wealth by selling cotton through the Natchez market. The Jefferson County tax rolls of 1818, the earliest available, list Ross as owning 3,881 acres of land and 133 slaves. He owned 4,240 acres of land and 113 slaves by 1830. According to Jefferson County probate records, Ross owned 162 slaves and an estate worth $103,000 at the time of his death on January 19, 1836. Ross is buried in the Prospect Hill cemetery.

In his last will and testament, Ross bequeathed the proceeds from his estate, aside from $10,000 for his granddaughter, Adelade Richardson, to repatriate his slaves to Africa. With the help of the American Colonization Society, the slaves were to be transported to Liberia where they could be educated with the remaining funds from the estate.

Members of the Ross family, including the captain's grandson and executor, Isaac Ross Wade, contested the will. Upset with the long legal battle which followed, the slaves burned the house at Prospect Hill in 1845, hoping to gain their freedom through the death of Isaac Ross Wade. In 1848, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the will, and that same year the former slaves were transported to Liberia.

Financial and legal documents of the Ross and Wade families form this collection, some of which concern the estate of Isaac Ross. Included are an 1835 receipt for eyeglasses, an 1840 receipt for cotton, an 1840 statement of sums owed by the Ross estate regarding Prospect Hill, and an 1844 petition made by Isaac Ross Wade to Robert Duncan, judge of the probate court of Jefferson County, Mississippi, concerning the settlement of the estate.

1. Estate Records. ca. 1831-1844. 0.10 c.f.