Collection Details:

Creator/Collector: James Burroughs Yellowley.
Date(s): October 5-6, 1836.
Size: 0.30 cubic feet.
Language(s): English.
Processed by: Kristina Norman, intern, 2021.
Provenance: Originally a gift of James F. Maddox, date unknown. Transferred from MDAH Official Records in 2005; Z/U/2005.023.
Repository: Archives & Records Services Division, Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

Rights and Access:

Access restrictions: Collection is open for research.

Publication rights: Copyright assigned to the MDAH. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to Reference Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the MDAH as the owner of the physical items and as the owner of the copyright in items created by the donor. Although the copyright was transferred by the donor, the respective creator may still hold copyright in some items in the collection. For further information, contact Reference Services.

Copyright Notice: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).

Preferred citation: James Burroughs Yellowley Slave Receipts (Z/2387), Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

Biography:
James Burroughs Yellowley

James Burroughs Yellowley was born October 9, 1797, in North Carolina to English immigrants Edward Yellowley (1765-1826) and Martha Elizabeth Clements (1772-1816). He was one of six children born to the couple. His siblings include David C. Yellowley (1803-1863), Elizabeth S. Yellowley (1805-1865), Samuel C. Yellowley (1807-1826), and Harriett Ann Yellowley (1810-1890).

James Burroughs Yellowley attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons in the City of New York, where he became a doctor of medicine in 1825. After graduation, he returned to North Carolina. At age 30, Yellowley married Martha Nicholson (1811-1846) on March 30, 1830, in Halifax, Halifax County, North Carolina. The couple did not have any children.

Yellowley did father a child, Patience Yellowley (1840-1905), with an enslaved woman possibly named Sabrina on his plantation in North Carolina. Patience Yellowley sold in 1848 to his brother William Edward Yellowley (1813-1869) who owned a plantation in Madison County, Mississippi. According to Patience's descendants, she married Frank Harris, a well digger, and the couple had ten children. The extended family continued to live in the Ridgeland and Madison County area for generations.

At age 50, James Burroughs Yellowley married Margaret Crittenden Brownlow (ca.1821-1848) on October 5, 1847, in Halifax County, North Carolina. The couple had one son, James Brownlow Yellowley (1848-1914). Following his wife's death in 1848, James Burroughs Yellowley moved to Madison County, Mississippi, where he was instrumental in the founding of the city of Ridgeland in Madison County. He left his son to be raised by his wife's family in Greenville, North Carolina.

James Burroughs Yellowley died on July 19, 1854, at the age of 56, and is buried in the Chapel of the Cross Cemetery in Madison County, Mississippi.

 

Scope and Content Note:

This collection consists of two original slave receipt documents of James B. Yellowley. The two documents dated October 5 and 6, 1836, in Richmond, Virginia, contain the name of a prominent family in the history of Madison County, the Yellowley family.

James Burroughs Yellowley's plantation founded the community of Yellowley's Crossing, also known as Yellowley's Switch after the Illinois Central Railroad came through the area in 1865. The land on which the Yellowley plantation stood on Highway 51 in Madison County is today the location of the Trace Ridge Subdivision. Jessamine Cemetery in Ridgeland holds the remains of James Burroughs Yellowley's son, James Brownlow Yellowley, who served as a state legislator in the Mississippi House of Representatives and elected mayor of Ridgeland in 1908.

Additionally, enslaved persons mentioned on the receipts include Milly, Edy and child, Ann, Juda, Milly, Patsey, and Ann and child. A few, Milly, Edy and child, and Ann, reappear in 1849 newspaper articles in The American Citizen, a Canton newspaper in Madison County. One article dated April 6, 1849 concerns an upcoming Marshal's Sale on April 9, 1849, at the courthouse in Canton, along with dozens of other slaves, among them a slave named Edy and her child.

Notices regarding the Supreme Court of North Carolina in the case of Thomas W. Nicholson vs. Dr. James B. Yellowley, executor of the late Guilford Nicholson estate, a case which Yellowley won, the court's ruling appears in the December 15, 1849, December 22, 1849 and December 29, 1849, issues of The American Citizen.

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Slave Receipts, October 5-6, 1836, James B. Yellowley.

The collection consists of two documents, both slave receipts, for the purchase of six enslaved persons by James Burroughs Yellowley on October 5 and 6, 1836, in Richmond, Virginia. The first document dated October 5, 1836, is for the purchase of Edy, a female, for $725 and the second receipt dated October 6, 1836, is for the purchase of Juda, Milly, Patsey, Ann and child for $2,500.

Box 1, Folders 1-2

 

Transcription:

The first receipt dated October 5, 1836, Richmond, Virginia, reads: "Received of J.B. Yellowley seven hundred and twenty-five dollars, being in full for the purchase of a negro slave named Edy the right and title of said slave I warrant and defend against the claims of all persons whatsoever, and likewise warrant her sound and healthy. As witness my hand and seal. Warner W. Price."

The second receipt dated October 6, 1836, Richmond, Virginia, reads: "Received of Dr. James B. Yellowley thirty-two hundred dollars, being in full for the purchase of five negro slaves names Juda, Milly, Patsey, Ann and child the right and title of said slaves I warrant and defend against the claims of all persons whatsoever, and likewise warrant them sound and healthy. As witness my hand and seal Wm. [William] Royall."