The Builder of Fort Amanda frees his "slave"

 I put "slave" in quotation marks becasue the Pogues,  while the census refers to them as slaves, many slave owners at the time no longer referred to them as slaves but rather  as "servants."  The blog below is about Pogue's widow freeing one of the family servants named Charles Canterrry

Charles Canterberry

The 1840 census shows that Jane Pogue (widow of Robert Pogue) owned 8 slaves and based on their ages, it appears to have been a family, a husband, wife, 3 sons and 3 daughters.

1 male 36-54 years old (husband)
1 female 36-54 years old (wife)
1 male 16-29 years old (son)
2 males under 10 years old (sons)
2 females 10-23 years old (daughters)
1 female under 10 years old (daughter)

The day before her death (October 25, 1846) she wrote Last Will and Testament and in it she willed that a slave named Charles Canteberry be purchased and freed after all her funeral expenses had been taken care of.

Jane Pogue's will reads:

I Jane Pogue of Mason County Kentucky, being of sound and disposing mind and memory do make and publish this my last will and testament.
First I desire my burial conducted and completed in the manner I have repeatedly desired and not necessary to be repeated and my burial and funeral expenses (including a plain monument for myself and late husband each) to be paid.
Second - I set apart out of the first money arising from my estate a fund sufficient to purchase the freedom of Charles Canterberry and direct that he be purchased and set free so soon after the collection of said fund as the same can be realized after sale on the usual terms and credits.
Third - I desire the real estate I now own to be rented out for four years after my decease and then to be sold to the highest bidders (desiring that some one of my grandchildren will prepare him or herself to purchase) on a credit of instal(l)ments equal to one year and this with all other moneys arising from my estate after specific legacies to be equally divided among my seventeen grandchildren, Eli, Elizabeth, Robert, Franklin, Amanda, and Maria, children of E. P. Pogue, Henry, Amanda Jane, Robert, William and Harriet, children of W. L. Pogue, Andrew W., son of Jane I Mackey. Eliza Jane daughter of John W. Pogue, Robert, Samuel, John and Gideon children of Ann E. Garrison. Should any money be left from my personal estate after the purchase of Charles it is to be lent out at interest until the money arising from my land is collected.
I have given to each of my granddaughters, Elizabeth Jane and Amanda Jane a feather bed and bedding, a carpet the former, the carpet now in the lower South room which beds and carpets are to be excluded from the computation in making the distribution as above provided, and they are now to be considered as forming no part of my estate.
I hereby nominate and appoint William L. Pogue the Executor of this my last will and testement desiring that he should not be required to give security for the performance of his duties as such.
In witness whereof I have hereto set my hand and seal this 15th day of October 1846.
Jane Pogue (seal)
Signed sealed and published by the testatrix in presence of us and w have signed and witness and seal the same in presence of the testatrix.
John H. Shanklin
James H. Shanklin
Mason County 1st December Court 1846

The last will and testament of Jane Pogue deceased , was produced in court and proved by the oaths of John H. Shanklin and James H. Shanklin the publishing witnesses hereto and hesame is ordered to be recorded.
Sworn to by William L. Pogue the Executor therein named who executed bond in the penalty of four thousand dollars conditioned as the law requires. And upon his motion it is ordered that probate be granted him in due form.
Attach John James Key MC
Copy attach Robt. A. Cochran MCM CO. Ct.

In1846, Jane Pogue had 8 slaves/servants. the ages of the family of slaves owned by Jane Pogue’s slaves were :
1 male 42- 60 years old (husband)
1 female 42-60 years old (wife)
1 male 16-29 years old (son)
2 males under 16 years of age (sons)
2 females 16-29 years of age (daughters)
1 female under 16 years of age (daughter

Freeing the husband or the wife would not have been a good choice and the two sons under the age of 16 were too young to strike out on his own. Because we know Charles was a male, the only one left was the male between 16- 29. I believe this was Charles Canterberry.

What About Jane Pogue’s other Slaves?

In the wills I’ve studied, the last surviving head of family included in their will that the slaves/servants be given to their children. As you can see in the chart above, at the time of her death (1846), Jane Pogue had outlived her husband and 8 of her 9 children, the only surviving child was 50 year old William Lindsay Pogue, a successful lawyer who never owned slaves. The question remains, since we know that the only surviving child (William Lindsay) didn’t own any slaves, what happened to the other seven?

Normally in wills, the person writing it specified which child or grandchild received which slave. In Jane Pogue’s she mentions only one (Canterberry). We know her grandchildren owned slaves so either she gave them to the grandchildren between 1840-1846, or she freed them. I’d like to think she had freed them, but because Charles was still considered a slave/servant in 1846, my guess is the others were still considered the same and that she had given them to grandchildren prior to 1846.

Discovering the Graves

In 1991 we discovered the old Pogue graveyard in an overgrown woods east of Mayslick in Mason County, Kentucky. We later learned that some of the family "servants" were buried in the same graveyard. While some of the stones were simply stones, the assumption is David is buried there as well. Where Charles Canterberry went after he was freed is unknown.

We collected names from the stones we found and gave the list to the Mason County Historical Society in Maysville, Ky.