Bacon Tait

[Hank Trent]

Well, it's a long shot, but I'll ask anyway. Does anyone know of a good biography and/or genealogy of Bacon Tait, the well-known Richmond slave dealer, as a person? I mean things like his parents and children, where he grew up, his politics and religion and friends, etc.--all the usual biographical stuff.

I can find plenty of reports about his business in the context of slave trading in antebellum Richmond, or about his buildings in reports about the archaeology and architecture of Richmond, and that kind of thing, but not much on him as a person. Heck, at this point, I'll take just a chapter-long biography, or even a thumbnail one, if it talks about his family.

I think his wife's name was Courtney and his kids were Celine, Constance, Bacon and Josephine (and maybe some others), but I can't find his parents or where he grew up. Among other things, I'm curious if he was related to the Lynchburg, Virginia, Taits/Tates, who also had the first names Bacon and Celine in their lines.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Silas]

Re: Bacon Tait

And here I thought this thread would be about food spoilage...

[celtfiddler]

Re: Bacon Tait

Did a little digging on Ancestry.com. Came across a Confederate application for a presidential pardon in the name of Bacon Tait (without more details, I can not tell for certain if it's the Bacon Tait you're looking for). I did come across his name in a 1844 New Orleans Slave Manifest listing him along with a Luthur Libby and Thomas Boudar as owners of several of the slaves on the manifest.

Also did some digging on Footnote and found him listed in the Confederate Citizen's File as receiving payment for rent.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Bacon Tait

Well, it's a long shot, but I'll ask anyway. Does anyone know of a good biography and/or genealogy of Bacon Tait, the well-known Richmond slave dealer, as a person? I mean things like his parents and children, where he grew up, his politics and religion and friends, etc.--all the usual biographical stuff.

If you want things done right, they say you have to do them yourself. :D Almost five years ago, I was trying to see if he was related to the Lynchburg Tates/Taits, because I was writing about a slave owned by a Lynchburg Tate who moved to Alabama. Well, I finished that, but the research on Bacon's life kinda got out of hand. Look for The Secret Life of Bacon Tait, a White Slave Trader Married to a Free Woman of Color coming from LSU Press in the Spring of 2017.

There were other traders who took black women and treated them as wives and they've been researched (hi, Emanuel Dabney), but this covers Tait's life from cradle to grave, and also talks a bit about his wife's family, who were attending anti-slavery meetings with bigwigs like Garrison and Remond in the same Massachusetts county where Tait and his family were living in the 1850s. Tait had a manager for his slave jail but he still went back to Richmond a few months a year to handle business. To my knowledge, none of the families of the black "wives" of interstate traders have been shown to be this active in the anti-slavery movement before.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Spinster]

Re: Bacon Tait

That's exciting news Hank! I'm glad to hear you have another book.