When I started working at LHHS almost three years ago, I was charged by our former director with finding the histories of our site that had been either forgotten or laid aside for too long. One of those histories was that of Sen.
In 1840, U. S. Census records reflect that 23% of Kentucky’s population was enslaved. A decade later it decreased to 21.4%. In 1850 Franklin County had 634 enslavers with 3360 people enslaved.
While Dolly spent her life of over 80 years enslaved to the Callaway family, her son Frederick Hart experienced a labyrinthine journey of enslavement to several interrelated families of prominent early Kentucky settlers.
In 1860, Mason Brown enslaved about 31 people, and one was a little girl around five years old. Recently, we’ve discovered that her name was likely Amanda Preston née Nichols.