In my search on the Internet, my search for the name of your great-great grandfather Gustavus Anderson, I have unearthed a document that seems extremely interesting. The document Slavery and the Underground Railroad at the Eppes Plantations, Petersburg National Battlefield is a Special History Study by Marie Tyler-McGraw. It is A Study Prepared under the Cooperative Agreement between the National Park Service and the Organization of American Historians, and presented by the Northeast Region of the National Park Service, U.S Department of the Interior in 2005.
The part that I discovered on my search, from Page 51 of the document:
William Still’s accounts sometimes tantalize more than they inform. He does not give us — and perhaps did not have — the identity of C.A. or G. A. who wrote the following letter, apparently about James Hill, a young Petersburg man hidden in Richmond for more than three years. This young man may be James Anderson Hill. There is a connection between the Anderson and Hill families, not yet explained. 151 “Dear Brother Still – I received a message from brother Julius Anderson asking me to send the bundle on but I has no way to send it. I have been waiting and truly hoping that you would make some arrangement . . . the bundle has been on my hands now going on two years, and I have suffered a great deal of danger...” 152 Shortly after this, James Anderson [Hill] left Richmond for Boston.
The footnotes at Pages 62 and 63 are:
The link to the Slavery and the Underground Railroad at the Eppes Plantation should bring up a PDF file. It can be downloaded. If the PDF document is not brought up via your Internet connection, a Google search can be done for Eppes Plantation Virginia Gustavus Anderson.
Extremely interesting reading.
And I'm off to look for some more.
Jim
151 The 1850 and 1860 Indexes to the Richmond Free Black Census, Valentine Museum, Richmond, show free black Anderson and Hill families living very near each other in the city. One is Gustavus Anderson, who may have been G.A., the author of the above letter. The names Gustavus and Julius Anderson suggest German paternity.
152 Still, Underground Railroad, 205.
The link to the Slavery and the Underground Railroad at the Eppes Plantation should bring up a PDF file. It can be downloaded. If the PDF document is not brought up via your Internet connection, a Google search can be done for Eppes Plantation Virginia Gustavus Anderson.
Extremely interesting reading.
And I'm off to look for some more.
Jim
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