The Chancellor Slaves

Their names were unrecorded, their labors were rarely noted, and no images of them survived. In 1861, when Frances Chancellor moved into this house, slaves outnumbered Chancellor family members. Likely only a few of the twenty slaves owned by the Chancellors occupied the house itself, while most probably lived in cabins scattered across the Chancellors' three hundred acres of farmland. Their overseer, James Moxley, lived at Fairview, a quarter mile to the southwest. When the Union army arrived at Fredericksburg in spring 1862, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Spotsylvania's six thousand slaves escaped into Union lines, and the Chancellor slaves were among those who fled. By May 1863 only one slave remained with the family, a young girl whose mother had left months earlier. When the house caught fire and the Chancellors fled, they left the girl behind, and her fate is unknown, though she most likely passed into Union lines to freedom.

Lake Wilderness, Virginia · United States