Documented History

The only mention of Dick located to date is as one of three enslaved people named in the settlement of Henry Brumback’s estate in 1846 in Page County, Virginia. He was sold to Brumback’s son-in-law Emanuel Grove, also a Page County resident, as part of the settlement of the estate. He was almost certainly a skilled agricultural worker, but no other details of his life are yet known.

Speculations

Two male enslaved people, one aged under ten and the other between ten and twenty-three, were listed in Henry Brumback’s household in 1840. One of these people could be Dick. In 1850, one Black man, thirty years old, is listed in Emanuel Grove’s household in Page County, Virginia, along with a woman of twenty and a girl of thirteen. If the man is Dick, he would have been born about 1820.

By 1860, Emanuel Grove had become resident in the town of Luray, and his name does not appear on the slave schedule. It is not yet known what happened to the people he had formerly enslaved.

Connections

Dennis and Ann were enslaved along with Dick in Henry Brumback’s household at the time of Brumback’s death in 1846.

Sources

Page County, Virginia, Wills, Inventories and Accounts, Vol. C, pp. 88-90, Last Will and Testament, Henry Brumback, 21 February 1846; digital image, Ancestry.com, “Virginia, Wills and Probate Records, 1652-1983.”

Page County, Virginia, Wills, Inventories and Accounts, Vol. C, pp. 114-116, "Inventory and Appraisement of the personal estate and Slaves of Henry Brumback Sen. Decd. Taken 31st March 1846"; digital image, Ancestry.com, Virginia, Wills and Probate Records, 1652-1983; citing FHL film JR 2436.

Page County, Virginia, Wills, Inventories and Accounts, Vol. C, pp. 116-120, ” Inventory and Sale of the personal property belonging to the Estate of Henry Brumback Sold by his Executor April 7th, 1846, at public sale”; digital image, Ancestry.com, Virginia, Wills and Probate Records, 1652-1983; citing FHL film JR 2436.

1850 U.S. census, Page County, Virginia, slave schedule, District 49, unpaginated, Emanl. Grove, slaveowner; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), “1850 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules”; citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication M432.