Wickham House: Sally Brown

Sally Brown was a member of the First Baptist Church and later the First African Baptist Church. Sally was a mother and a grandmother who was enslaved at the Wickham House, where she worked as a nurse. We have no records written by Sally or her family. The information we have  is mainly from records kept by white church members or the Wickham Family who enslaved her. 

We know Sally lived in the Wickham House by 1827, because of a record from First Baptist Church. The record details her departure from First Baptist Church for, “Withdrawing from her husband and refusing to live with him again.”  Sally was likely married to Charles Brown based on letters between Bettina and Littleton Wickham. Other church records and letters list Mary Brown Johnson as Sally’s daughter and John Johnson as her grandson. Sally and her family remained property of the John Wickham estate following her enslaver’s death in 1839. 

Sally’s mysterious removal is one example of the severe punishments and double standards towards women and Black members of the First Baptist Church. It also shows Sally’s willpower to overcome marital struggles on her own terms.

In spite of higher rates of expulsion and scrutiny towards Black members and deacons, First Baptist Church remained the most popular church for Black Richmonders until the formation of the First African Baptist Church in 1841.4  For instance, as early as 1824, most of the church’s 2,000 members were Black Richmonders.  The Baptist faith  was more open to Black participation and allowed them to represent themselves in the Christianity.

White members and church officials focused on a racial hierarchy. Such as through segregated services, preaching obedience to their masters, and using strict moral codes to control Black members. Furthermore, Black deacons needed the white congregation’s approval for their roles in the church and were forced to reapply, regardless of their popularity among Black members.

Turning back to Sally Brown, it is also possible that she is the same “Sally, daughter of Phillis” listed as one of the enslaved people sold to John Wickham in the Welch v. Randolph 1800 court case. Records before Sally’s 1853 death depicted her as an older woman, suggesting it is likely that she was born prior to 1800.  Another possibility is that Charles and Robin Brown were relatives because they share the same last name and were also depicted as older men of a similar age in most records. Robin Brown was a trusted manservant who served as a right-hand man to John Wickham.

In a January 26,1853, a letter from Elizabeth “Bettina” Wickham to her brother, Littleton Waller Tazewell Wickham, provides more context into Sally’s life and her final days. Bettina details Sally’s occupation as a nurse, and that Sally was a doting grandmother who risked her life to save her grandson John Johnson while he suffered from pneumonia that almost killed him.

John miraculously recovered from pneumonia that January in 1853, but it was noted as a probable cause of death for Sally after she caught the illness. Bettina described Sally as “…dreadfully distressed at seeing John in an almost hopeless condition (fatigued too by nursing) and being attacked by the same disease sank under it.”

Her death absolutely devastated both her grandson John and Bettina.

Bettina wrote that John heavily grieved his grandmother after she was buried “last evening,” placing her death in January 1853. Similarly, Bettina lamented Sally’s death in the same letter as: “The loss of one whom I’ve been accustomed to seeing from my earliest recollection makes me sad; She didn’t survive Uncle Charles long.” This indicates that Sally possibly served as a nurse to Bettina and the other Wickham children while they were babies or possibly helped raise them. Church records confirm that Sally died in 1853.  From these records, we not only see her as an enslaved woman, but as a vital member of her community and church.

Consider This…

• Why don’t we know more about Sally Brown’s story?

Sources

• Elizabeth Selden Maclurg Wickham, Letter to Littleton Waller Tazewell Wickham (Virginia Museum of History and Culture Mss1W6326cFA2, January 26, 1853) 
• Library of Virginia, “First Baptist Church Minutes (1825-1830)”, Pg 3 
• John Wickham, “Last Will and Testament” (Virginia Museum of History and Culture Mss1W6326cFA2, Richmond, 1839) 
• Midori Takagi, “Rearing Wolves to Our Own Destruction”: Slavery in Richmond, Virginia 1782-1865 (Carter G. Woodson Institute in Black Studies: University of Virginia Press, 1999), Pages 52-61 
• “The First Century of the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia”, 1780-1880 (Richmond: Carlton McCarthy, 1880), Pg 86
• Virginia High Court of Chancery: Proceedings, etc., in Welch v. Randolph et al, (Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Mss1W6326cFA2, 1800) 
• Library of Virginia, “First African Baptist Church Meeting Minutes, Reel 494”, Pg 21