Content Description This collection consists of two letters from Richard Parker of Harper's Ferry to John W. Luke of Snickersville, Virginia. In the first letter, dated April 17, 1845, Richard Parker writes that he was sorry that Betsy, the woman he enslaved, was a trouble to Luke. Parker wrote that he did not have a place to board Betsy during her confinement. In the second letter, written December 29, 1846, Parker wrote to Luke requesting that he hire out a number of enslaved persons he owned including a man...

Scope and Contents Diary, 1860, of an unidentified person from what was then Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and is now Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Includes a handwritten timeline of the life of Stephen A. Douglas, newsclippings dealing with slavery, the Kansas Territory, and the separation of Virginia and West Virginia, articles with handwritten comments about Charleston, South Carolina, and clippings with handwritten comments about the election of Abraham Lincoln and how his election will affect the United...