"...I suppose they will be hung."

Group of two (2) autograph letters signed by Martha Jane Irwin (1825-before 1856). Midway, Kentucky, [14 May 1847?]. 3 pages, 4to, 7 3/4 x 9 7/8 in., on blue paper. With address panel on integral leaf. AND Locust Grove Plantation, [near Lexington, Kentucky], 1 August 1847. 3 pages, folio, 7 7/8 x 12 1/2 in. With address panel on integral leaf, with original red wax seal, with Lexington and "10" postal stamps.

Martha writes to her brother-in-law George Maxwell Chambers (1800-1891), letting him know that her father was traveling to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in order to meet his fourth wife, which she relays in a humorous metaphor: "Pa has left for Pittsburg where he will remain for a week or two (Providence permitting), taking unto himself in the meantime another rib, as our friend, Dr. English, so affectionately designates his companion." Notably, Martha also includes the account of a local crime: "Well another day has fled and I have not yet finished this letter and the worst of it is I have no additional news to communicate except that Old Frederic Cable of Woodford County was shot night before last by two negro men. One of them was named Hawkins - a brother of our Maria's former husband. I suppose they will be hung."

In the second letter written by Martha, this time to her sister, she gives an update on their new stepmother: "Well she has been with us nearly three months and she and I have not had the first hard word between us, and you know it takes a right clever person to get along amicably with me." She also informs her sister on her own marriage prospects, "I gave two flats week before last - one of them was written and the other a verbal heartbreak." Interestingly, she also includes an event for a monument honoring Mexican War heroes Col. William Robertson McKee and Lt. Col. Henry Clay, Jr. of the 2nd Kentucky Volunteers who were both killed at the Battle of Buena Vista on 23 February 1847: "George was at a great barbecue today that was given to our Volunteers that have returned from the [Mexican] War...George went down to the great doings on that occasion and Pa gave all the negroes holiday."

Martha's father enslaved several individuals, when he died in 1856 his will (not included here) left several instructions for his slaves to be hired out "at good and suitable places" with half their earnings going toward their support and the other half to them. He states in the will he hoped they would voluntarily "elect to go to Liberia".

Condition: Creasing, some separations and toning along old folds.

[African Americana, African American History, Slavery, Abolition, Enslavement, Emancipation, Manuscripts, Letters, Documents, Ephemera, Mexican War, Battle of Buena Vista]