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Z 2002.000
HESTER (WILLIAM) AND FAMILY PAPERS

1756; 1837; 1844; 1852-1864 (scattered); 1896; 1908; 1917; 1923
Original land patents are restricted; photocopies must be used instead. Original newspaper is restricted; microfilm copy of The Southron (Jackson, Miss.) must be used instead.

Biography/History:

Charles Augustus Hester and his son, William W. Hester, were cotton planters and businessmen in the territory and state of Mississippi, with property in Hinds, Madison, and Wilkinson counties. Charles Hester was born around 1784 in North Carolina, and in his youth he moved to Wilkinson County. Mary Elizabeth Dickson was born in Georgia in 1788, and she married Hester in Wilkinson County on December 8, 1810. The Hesters had at least thirteen children, including William W., Elizabeth R. (b. 1819), Martha A. (b. ca. 1823; declared insane by 1850), Charles (b. 1839), Virginia E. (b. 1845), and possibly Augustus D. Hester.

Mustering on September 30, 1814, Charles Hester served as a private in Captain John G. Richardson’s Cavalry Troop, Mississippi Territorial Militia, during the War of 1812. This troop later merged with Thomas Hinds’s Cavalry Battalion of the militia. An older William Hester from Madison County, perhaps an uncle of William W. Hester, also fought in the War of 1812. He was a private in the Sixteenth Regiment, Burrus’s Mississippi Militia, mustering in Captain Atkins’s Company, Madison County Militia, on December 22, 1813.

After the War of 1812, Charles Hester returned to Wilkinson County to raise cotton, and by 1816 he owned four slaves. On April 11, 1829, Hester claimed land that was about four miles east of Woodville in Wilkinson County. The Hesters acquired more property when Charles and William Hester received separate patents for additional Wilkinson County land on April 6, 1837. Charles Hester owned thirty-three slaves, twenty-four of whom were employed in agriculture in 1840. Still farming in Wilkinson County in 1860, Charles Hester owned thirty slaves, eight slave cabins, and a small herd of cattle, and his real estate was valued at $30,000, while his personal property was valued at $50,000. Mary Dickson Hester died on February 6, 1852, and Charles Hester died in 1863.

Augustus D. Hester, who may have been one of Charles Hester’s sons, was born on November 12, 1811, and he traded several slaves with William Hester in January of 1837, not long before he died on December 11 of that year.

Charles A. Hester, most likely the son of Charles Augustus Hester, fought in the Eighteenth Regiment, Mississippi Infantry, during the Civil War. He enlisted on April 29, 1861, in Terry, Hinds County, Mississippi, with Captain A. G. Brown’s Rebels. The company reenlisted at Lee’s Mills, Virginia, on April 26, 1862, under Colonel T. M. Griffin, and Hester was later elected first lieutenant of Company H, Eighteenth Regiment, Mississippi Cavalry. Hester was taken as a prisoner of war at Chancellorsville, Virginia, on May 3, 1863, but he returned to duty in 1864. On April 25, 1864, at the age of twenty-five, Hester was elected captain of Company A of Lay’s Cavalry Regiment.

William W. Hester was born in the Mississippi Territory on February 24, 1813. He married Margaret Theresa Montgomery on February 19, 1836. Born in 1819, Montgomery was the daughter of Hugh Montgomery of Jefferson County, Mississippi. She died at the Hester residence in New Town (Terry), Mississippi, on May 12, 1844. William Hester was still living in Hinds County in December of 1853, and he owned forty-one slaves, 1,411 acres of land valued at $8,466, and two pleasure carriages. He married his second wife, Caroline Steed of Norfolk, Virginia, in Hinds County on October 30, 1845. Steed was born on July 3, 1820, and she died on March 22, 1881. Her parents were Robert Edey Steed (1773-1833) and Francis Ramsay Steed (1775-1828), and her mother was related to George Ramsay of Norfolk County, Virginia. William W. Hester’s children by both wives were S. A. (b. 1839), Charles H. (b. 1844), Margaret Theresa R. (b. 1847), Virginia C. (b. 1851), M. T. (b. 1852), Augustus Dixon (b. 1853), and W. B. (b. 1856) Hester.

After the Civil War, William W. Hester lived in the newly established town of Terry in Hinds County. He was a farmer with real estate valued at $38,000 and personal property valued at $66,700 in 1860. Hester owned sixty-nine slaves and fourteen slave cabins in the same year, and he bought several slaves from William D. Terry, the man for whom the town was named. He was also a business partner with his neighbor, A. J. Rembert, in 1863 and 1864, if not in other years. Rembert was born around 1816 in Louisiana, and he owned $30,000 in real estate and $50,000 in personal property in 1860. Hester also owned land in Madison County. He signed an agreement with thirty-six freedmen for the Hester plantation near Canton in Madison County in July of 1865. Hester paid taxes in Hinds and Madison counties in 1867. William W. Hester died on April 17, 1884.

William W. Hester’s eldest son, Charles H. Hester, was a private in Company H, Eighteenth Regiment, Mississippi Infantry, during the Civil War. Barely one year after he enlisted, Hester was killed in action at Malvern Hill, Virginia, on July 1, 1862, while under the command of Colonel T. M. Griffin.

Another one of William W. Hester’s sons, Augustus Dixon Hester, married Georgia Elizabeth Mosby, from Kosciusko, Mississippi, on February 5, 1877. She lived from 1852 to 1944. Augustus Dixon Hester and his family lived in Terry, and he died on February 2, 1903. Their daughter, Carrie Augusta Hester, who was born on February 14, 1878, married Carl Fredrick Slyhart.

Carl Fredrick Schleichhardt was born on August 3, 1876, the son of Charles Schleichhardt, Jr. (1846-1924) and Charlotte Amanda Groneman Schleichhardt (1857-1941). Carl F. Schleichhardt was from Fort Dodge, Iowa, and his father was originally from Germany, while his mother was from New York. Schleichhardt changed the spelling of his last name to Slyhart around 1909, and by 1910 he was living in Terry, where he rented a home and worked as a civil engineer. Although Slyhart had bought Hinds County property in 1908, he still rented a home in 1920. He was elected surveyor of Hinds County in 1923, and he was a Mason and Shriner who was active in the Jackson area. The Slyharts had at least two children, Hester (b. 1904) and Mittie (b. ca. 1907). Carl F. Slyhart died on March 20, 1944, and Carrie Hester Slyhart died on April 20, 1961.

Scope and Content:

The papers of William Hester include Hester and Ramsay family legal documents dating from 1756 to 1857, Hester family financial records dating from 1837 to 1896, Slyhart family certificates dating from 1908 to 1923, and one newspaper dated 1844.

Among the Hester and Ramsay legal documents is the June 22, 1756, last will and testament of George Ramsay who lived in Norfolk County, Virginia. In his will, he bequeaths portions of his estate to his wife, Sarah Ramsay, and to his two sons, John and James Ramsay. There are also two land patents dated April 6, 1837, that were issued separately to Charles and William Hester, and there is one June 16, 1857, business letter.

The Hester financial records include several slave conveyances and bills of sale, a number of Mississippi state tax receipts, and a few miscellaneous bills and bonds. There is one January 22, 1837, slave conveyance between William Hester and A. D. [Augustus Dixon] Hester. In slave bills of sale dated November 8, 1852 [?], and December 5, 1859, William Hester buys two slaves from B. L. Rutherford and W. D. Terry, and in a slave bill of sale dated April 27, 1855, William Hester sells one slave to Charles Hester. There are also eleven receipts, most of which are Mississippi state tax receipts dating from 1855 to 1896. The receipts are variously signed by Charles Hester, William Hester, A. D. Hester, A. J. Rembert, and Spencer. William Hester’s one-thousand-dollar Confederate war bond dated April 1, 1864, is also included.

The Slyhart certificates include an August 8, 1908, patent for land forfeited for non-payment of Hinds County taxes, a November 22, 1917, thirty-second-degree Masonic Order certificate, a November 23, 1917, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine certificate, and a December 31, 1923, certification of Slyhart’s election to the office of surveyor of Hinds County. The land patent is the only certificate spelled Schleichhardt instead of Slyhart.

The newspaper is a May 15, 1844, issue of the Southron, published in Jackson, Mississippi, and it contains the obituary of Theresa Montgomery Hester.

Series Identification:

  1. Legal Records (Hester and Ramsay Families). 1756; 1837; 1857. 1 folder.
  2. Financial Records (Hester Family). 1837; 1852-1864 (scattered); 1896. 1 folder.
  3. Certificates (Slyhart Family). 1908; 1917; 1923. 1 folder.
  4. Newspaper. 1844. 1 folder.