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Lot 433
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Chief Justice John Marshall Mentions Slave “Dick”. Fabulous
Chief Justice John Marshall Mentions Slave “Dick”. Fabulous
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Description:

Chief Justice John Marshall Orders Clover Seed

In this interesting letter to Virginia merchant and coal dealer Harry Heth, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall concerns himself with the details of his farm, specifically the purchase of clover seed, probably for his Chickahominy Farm near Richmond. "Dick," mentioned in the letter, may have been one of Marshall's slaves or an enslaved individual belonging to Heth.

Marshall had to leave to travel to Washington, D.C., for the February term of the United States Supreme Court. The Court heard its first arguments on February 6, 1810, and issued opinions in thirty-nine cases by mid-March, including the landmark decision in Fletcher v. Peck, in which the Court first ruled a state law unconstitutional.

Rockett's Landing, or simply Rocketts, was an area on the north bank of the James River, where in 1730, Robert Rocketts began operating a ferry service. In April 1865, President Abraham Lincoln came ashore at Rockets Landing to tour the City of Richmond, greeted by crowds of liberated African Americans.

JOHN MARSHALL, Autograph Letter Signed, to Harry Heth, January 1810, [Richmond, Virginia]. 1 p., 6.5" x 8". General toning; expected folds; very good.

Complete Transcript
Dear sir
I am sorry that our clover seed did not arrive before my departure as I shall now be obliged to give you some trouble. I will thank you when it comes to direct Dick to bring it up from Rockets & I must ask you to attend to its division. My wife will pay you the sum which I shall owe. I wish this to be done as soon as the clover seed arrives because I am anxious that the arrangements may all be made in time.
I am dear sir your
J Marshall

[Address on verso:] Harry Heth esquire
[File Note:] J. Marshall / Januy 1810

Historical Background
During his thirty-four-year tenure as Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall maintained a city residence in Richmond, Virginia, and a country residence at Chickahominy Farm in Henrico County, four miles northeast of Richmond. He also inherited the thousand-acre Oak Hill Farm in Fauquier County, Virginia, farmed by enslaved labor, from his father in 1802 and entrusted its operation to his son in 1819. Throughout his life, Marshall acquired slaves through purchase, inheritance, and birth. By the time of his death, he likely owned some 200 enslaved African Americans at his various properties.

Marshall's continued interest in farming led to his role in the founding of the Virginia Society for Promoting Agriculture in 1811, and when the society was reorganized in 1816, Marshall was a member of the Corresponding Committee.

Clover became an important pasture crop in the early nineteenth century. Native to Europe, red clover was introduced to Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century and became an important export of Lancaster County by the 1780s. Previously, most clover seeds had been imported from England. By 1810, Lancaster County had twelve water-powered clover mills to hull the clover seed from the dried flower pods that produced 4,900 bushels of clover seed per year. A legume, it is one of a class of plants that fixes atmospheric nitrogen into a form that all crops can use and produces high-protein hay that could be grown in upland fields. A quart or two of the tiny seeds could sow an acre. At the end of the nineteenth century, alfalfa quickly replaced clover as the primary hay crop because it is an equally rich legume and produces more per acre.

John Marshall (1755-1835) was born in Fauquier County on the Virginia frontier and studied law on his own as a young man. He served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and rose to the position of captain in a Virginia regiment. After the war, he studied law with George Wythe at the College of William and Mary and was admitted to the bar in 1780. He married Mary "Polly" Willis Ambler (1766-1831) in 1783, and they had ten children, six of whom survived to adulthood. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1782 to 1789 and again from 1795 to 1796. He built a home in Richmond, Virginia, in 1790, where he often returned for relaxation. He was a member of the Virginia convention to ratify the U.S. Constitution, which he strongly supported. He served as one of three commissioners appointed by President John Adams to negotiate with France in 1797, which devolved into the XYZ Affair when Marshall and the other commissioners refused to pay bribes to the French. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1799, and in 1800, Adams appointed him as Secretary of State. In 1801, Adams nominated him as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, a position he held until his death 34 years later. During his tenure, he participated in more than 1,000 decisions and wrote 519 opinions himself. His powerful opinions in pivotal cases established the U.S. Supreme Court as the final authority on the meaning of the Constitution.

Henry "Harry" Heth (d. 1821) was probably born in Virginia ca. 1764 (though he may have been born in England and immigrated to Virginia, as accounts vary). He (or his father of the same name; accounts vary) served as a captain and later major in the 1st Virginia Regiment in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. In the 1780s, Heth settled in the Richmond, Virginia, area. He married Nancy Haire in 1787, and they had at least eight children. From 1789 to 1792, he acted as an agent for the sale of publicly owned tobacco. In 1795, he purchased land with John Stuart on which the Black Heath coal pits, known for the high quality of coal they produced, were located. He began mining coal using slave labor and maintained offices in Norfolk and Manchester (across the James River from Richmond). He also developed other coal mines in the Midlothian area of Chesterfield County, Virginia, west of Richmond. He died of consumption in Savannah, Georgia, on his return from Europe, where he had gone for his health.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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