As we continued to trace Lucy Walker’s life through online records, we found her death certificate, which, again, seems to fit with our bound woman. In her death certificate, her mother is listed as Hester Smith, who was born in Clarke County, Virginia, which is one county east of Frederick County, where we know Lucy lived from her time at Belle Grove during the Civil War until her death in 1926.
Given that Lucy called herself a bound woman, we know that her mother was an enslaved woman since her father, Lewis, was free.
There is a Hester Smith who was sold in Richmond, Virginia to a notorious slave trader named Thomas Boudar, who then took her, along with dozens of other enslaved people, to New Orleans, Louisiana on October 25, 1845 on a slave ship called the Parthian.
This is a closer look at the slave ship record. Lucy would have only been aged 2 or 3 at the time her mother was sold down south, Hester being only 18-years-old.
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The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC; Slave Manifests of Coastwise Vessels Filed at New Orleans, Louisiana, 1807-1860; Microfilm Serial: M1895; Microfilm Roll: 10
Virginia Department of Health; Richmond, Virginia; Virginia Deaths, 1912-2014