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Collection Details:
Creator/Collector: Frederick Whitfield Wheless and others.
Date(s): 1857-1865.
Size: .30 cubic feet.
Language(s): English.
Processed by: MDAH staff, 1995; Laura Heller, 2023.
Provenance: Gift of Foster E. Collins, Jr., of Lincoln, Nebraska, on November 7, 1994; Z/U/1995.015.
Repository: Archives & Records Services Division, Mississippi Department of Archives & History.
Rights and Access:
Access restrictions: Collection is open for research.
Publication rights: Copyright assigned to the MDAH. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to Reference Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the MDAH as the owner of the physical items and as the owner of the copyright in items created by the donor. Although the copyright was transferred by the donor, the respective creator may still hold copyright in some items in the collection. For further information, contact Reference Services.
Copyright Notice: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).
Preferred citation: Frederick Whitfield Wheless Plantation (Yazoo County, Miss.) Journal, Z/1986.000/S, Mississippi Department of Archives & History.
Biography/History:
Frederick Whitfield Wheless, son of Morning Whitfield (1766-1838) and William Benjamin Wheless (1762-1829), was born in Nash County, North Carolina on February 27, 1812. His father had died when Frederick was 16, and his mother died when he was 26.
By April 11, 1844, Wheless had moved to Yazoo County, Mississippi, when he married seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Ann Dorsey (January 20, 1827 - December 29, 1912), formerly of Perry County, Missouri. The couple had fourteen children: Quesney Gibbs Wheless (1845-1851), Ada Elizabeth Wheless (1846-1931), Falba Love Wheless (1848-1897), Kossuth Wheless (1849-1850), Frederick Whitfield Wheless, Jr. (1849-1922), Lucy Wheless (1852-1869), Robert Stevens Wheless (1854-1930), Fern Frances Wheless (1854-1902), Arthur M. Wheless (1856-1888), Sallie Gibbs Wheless (1858-1918), Dorsey Wheless (1860-1862), Edward Bowman Wheless (1861-1866), William Dorsey Wheless (1866-1931), and Lunsford Loving Wheless (1868-1941).
During this time, Wheless also oversaw the estates of his wife’s father Dr. Richard Stephens Dorsey and her uncle Dr. Washington D. Dorsey. Between the year 1857 and 1865, Wheless owned a plantation near Yazoo City. At the age of 55, Frederick Whitfield Wheless died on July 28, 1867 in Yazoo County and was buried in Glenwood Cemetery. After her husband’s death, Elizabeth Ann Dorsey Wheless lived with her children in Louisiana and Texas until her death in Rayville, Richland Parish, Louisiana, on December 29, 1912. She was buried next to her husband.
Dr. Richard Stephens Dorsey was born around 1803 in Kentucky to Nancy Stephens (1780-1824) and Charles Dorsey (1775-1843), possibly the eldest of their six children. He lived in Perryville, Missouri, and married Loucey (or Luvicy) Burns, the mother of his five children: Elizabeth Ann Dorsey (1827-1912), Lydia Terres Dorsey (1828-1881), Sarah Ellen Dorsey, Charles Dorsey (d. 1852), and Washington Dorsey. He married his second wife, Mary Ann Doyle, on October 10, 1837, in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri. By 1840, Dorsey had moved to Yazoo County, Mississippi, and married Margaret Thompson on November 11, 1845.
Richard’s brother, Dr. Washington D. Dorsey, was born in September 1811 in Kentucky. He also moved to Yazoo County around 1840. He married Nancy Bass Stone and had four children: Mary Elizabeth Dorsey (1840-1843), Nancy Elenor Dorsey (1841), Sallie Stephens Dorsey (1843-1930), and Nancy Washington Dorsey (1845-1885). He is buried in Eli H. Brown Farm Cemetery, in Bloomfield, Nelson County, Kentucky.
The brothers both practiced medicine in Yazoo County. Washington D. Dorsey died on October 2, 1845, and Richard S. Dorsey died in December 1845, however, the cause of death is unknown. The brothers named Frederick Wheless as executor of their estates.
Related Materials:
Subject File: Robert Stevens Wheless.
Genealogical File: Wheless Family.
Books of poetry by Jennie Noonan Wheless.
Scope and Content:
This collection consists of a plantation journal and loose pages removed from it. In the journal, Wheless lists the names of enslaved persons, how much cotton they picked on a given day, and their illnesses. Weather and plantation-related events are mentioned, such as when the cotton was planted and taken to the gin. The six pages of ledger entries regarding the estate of Dr. Washington D. Dorsey cover the years 1845 to 1848. The creditors, debtors, and value of the estate are listed.
Series Identification:
This collection consists of a plantation journal and loose pages removed from it. In the journal, Wheless lists the names of enslaved persons, how much cotton they picked on a given day, and their illnesses. Weather and plantation-related events are also mentioned, such as when the cotton was planted and taken to the gin. Although the journal does not provide the name of the plantation, the Wheless family owned land about 16 miles south of Yazoo City along the Yazoo River. Holly Bend Plantation seems fit this description and a researcher may assume it is the one represented by this ledger until further information informs otherwise.
Also of interest are the six pages of ledger entries regarding the estate of Dr. Washington D. Dorsey that cover the years 1845 to 1848. The creditors, debtors, and value of the estate are listed. On one page in the bottom left corner, it is noted that these entries are “copied” into this ledger for the recording-keeping of the family.
Names of the enslaved mentioned in the journal include: Osborn also known as Os, Pole, Fremon or Freeman, Sam, Simon, Tim, Hardy, Willis, Fanny, and S. Franny, Ellen, Betsy, Rachel, Crecy or Creecy, Francis, Lit or Sit, Dick, Roda, Charley, Gince, and Ed.
Box 1, Folders 1-2
Box List:
Folder 1: Plantation journal, 1845-1848; 1857-1865.
Folder 2: Two loose pages from the plantation journal, 1862.