Records of ante-bellum southern plantations - LexisNexis

letter, dated 12 November 1839, from attorney James Lyon in Richmond to attorney Lewis W.
Minor in Washington City, concerning a case Dr. (William?) Miller was involved in in federal court
in Richmond.
Three items, including an indenture and a Pittsylvania County tax receipt for 1828, appear for
George Y. M. Miller. A final item for Miller is a copy of resolutions passed by a committee of the
citizens of Hanover County on 26 August 1831 in regard to putting down possible slave revolts in
the county. Fears of an insurrection had been sparked by the Nat Turner uprising in nearby
Southampton County. Miller served on the committee in some capacity.
The fourth folder, 1851–1916, consists of papers of the Miller family of Halifax and
Pittsylvania Counties, Virginia, and Calhoun County, Texas, including William Miller; his sons
George and Nathaniel C. Miller; his grandson, Charles Edwin Miller; and other family members,
including Charles E. Miller (d. 1851?), William B. Miller (fl. 1851) of Texas, and Crenshaw Miller
(fl. 1826).
Items include deeds, court opinions, writs of summons, work contracts, and articles of
agreement. Most of the papers are those of Nathaniel C. Miller.
Of interest are a plat for 1859 of Sharswood, Nathaniel C. Miller’s Pittsylvania County estate;
William B. Miller’s will, made in Calhoun County, Texas, and dated 19 March 1856; contracts,
dated 6 Sept 1859 and 12 February 1860, concerning the swapping of slaves; a work contract,
dated 9 August 1865, between Nathaniel C. Miller and several freedmen on his plantation; and
Charles E. Miller’s commission in the Virginia militia, dated 15 August 1866.
One item, a clipping of a letter sent to The Metropolis of Jacksonville, Florida, in 1916 by
William Miller’s great-grandson, Theodore Frederick Davis, concerns Miller’s close friendship with
Patrick Henry and Davis’s inheritance of a table that had belonged to Henry.
The fifth folder consists of undated papers including: an undated plat showing land owned by
Major Nathaniel Crenshaw’s heirs in Pittsylvania County; an undated plat showing land owned by
Charles Crenshaw, Gent, Joseph Roberts, John Hawkins, and John Smith, probably in
Pittsylvania County circa the mid 1700s; and a letter from George Y. M. Miller to his father
concerning a plantation employee, Owin.
Biographical Note
Charles and Sarah Crenshaw, their daughter Agnes, and her husband, William Miller, and
their descendants lived on various plantations in Hanover, Pittsylvania, and Halifax counties,
Virginia. They appear to have been planters, cultivating mostly tobacco.
Charles Crenshaw (fl. 1775–1794) married Sarah Bacon (d. 1818) and lived in Hanover
County. Charles and Sarah had six children: Susanna (fl. 1790–1818), who never married; Agnes
(d. 185?), who married William Miller of Halifax County; Temperance (d. 180?), who married
William Rice; Nathaniel Crenshaw (d. 1818), who served as a major in the Virginia militia and
lived on a plantation left him by his father in Pittsylvania County; John (fl. 1801); and Charles, Jr.
(d. 1825). Charles and Sarah had at least eight grandchildren, including John Rice Miller and
Nathaniel C. Miller (1816–1888), both children of Agnes and William Miller; Sarah B. Rice (m.
Walter Crew), Samuel B. Rice, Mary B. Rice (m. Samuel P. Hargrave), and Izard Bacon Rice, all
children of Temperance and William Rice; and Nathaniel C. Crenshaw (fl. 1812–1831) and
Edmund B. Crenshaw (fl. 1826), brothers who probably were the children of John Crenshaw.
William Miller also had another son, George Y. M. Miller (fl. 1826–1863), by a previous
marriage. Agnes and William’s son, Nathaniel C. Miller, remained a bachelor, as did their
grandson, Charles Edwin Miller (1839–1906). Nathaniel C. Miller left his Pittsylvania County
estate, Sharswood, to Charles Edwin Miller.
There are other family members whose relationship to other family members is unclear. They
include: Charles Edwin Miller (d. 1851?); William B. Miller of Calhoun County, Texas (fl. 185?);
Crenshaw Miller (fl. 1826); and Charles Crenshaw, Gent, possibly an uncle or other relation of
Charles Crenshaw.
Several individuals served as executors of wills for family members. John Crenshaw was the
executor for the estate of his father, Charles Crenshaw; Charles Crenshaw, Jr. was executor for
the estate of his mother, Sarah Bacon Crenshaw, and for the estate of his brother, Major
Nathaniel Crenshaw; and William Miller was executor for the estate of Charles Crenshaw, Jr.
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