Recollections of Aunt Maria Houston

Avery Family Papers, Records of the Antebellum Southern Plantations, Series J, Part 5, Reel 11, Frames 947-948

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Recollections by "Aunt Maria Houston" of her coming to the Island with her fellow servants. The "Ajax" was sailing vessel. Crowded with negroes they were two months at sea. Spent Christmas day at sea. When the wind would fail Capt. [Bangs?] would call for the fiddler & make the women dance to start the breeze. "Aunt" Maria belonged to Capt Henry Phillips, Fredricksburg. Kept a grocery on corner of Main St. [Illegible] raised her & her brother Thornton on a farm, nine miles from Fredricksburg. William Young the son hired in the city. First impression of New Orleans was that the masts of vessels in port was a poplar grove. Remembers being chased by a "Parrot" & shot at. Remembers the ball & chain that fell within few feet of the vessle. They came aboard & examined the papers of the ship, & they ran in port alongside of the same vessle which I suppose was a revenue cutter. Aunt M. was 18 years old, born in 1815, now 68 years old 1883.

Maria Houston & I child. Little Maria belonged to the [Chews?]. Arron, her husband, William, Lizzie [Burters?] father, Avelia & Henry, little boys, Grace, Archie's wife, Hilliard & America, Grace's Mother & Father. "New Frank" from Fredricksburg. Spotsylvania Co. Virginia, sailed from Norfolk, with cargo of negroes, for New Orleans. Were brough by Granpa Marsh.

"Ajax" Captain Bangs, 21 months at sea, on Christmas day.

Aunt Sally [Nelt?] has children, Harriet & Roseamy & John Louis, bought from Mr. Benoit, also Mary & her sons, David [Dosonville?] & Edourd [Lye?].