near Cedar Branch, the site of the future Battle of Saltville.  To this day they are called ‘the Broady Bottoms’.  The following is Preston’s deed of emancipation:

“WHEREAS my negro man John (alias) John Broady, claims a promise of freedom from his former master General William Campbell, for his faithful attendance on him at all times, and more particularly while he was in the last war, and I who claim the said negro in right of my wife, daughter of the said General William Campbell, feeling a desire to emancipate the said negro man, John, as well as for the fulfillment of the above-mentioned promise, as the gratification to a fellow creature, who by nature is entitled thereto, do by these presents for myself, my heirs, executors, and administrators fully emancipate and make free to all intent and purposed the said negro man John (alias) John Broady from me forever. As witness my hand and seal the 20th day of September, One thousand seven hundred and ninety-three. -Francis Preston (L. S.) “

            One would reasonably wonder what happened to those 2,000 freed slaves after the war.  Precise numbers are unknown, but there remained a large settlement of Negroes at Saltville after the war.  This appears to have been particularly true of the nannies and cooks, who frequently remained in those relationships after the war.  There are no records of the common labors among the Blacks having assumed an employee status at the post war Salt Works.

 

            As for the days of Mathieson, most the available group photographs of the work force show it to have been 100% White.  There is one group photograph from 1922 showing a group of all Black workers.  The photographic evidence suggests that there were a small number of segregated Black workers at Mathieson.  Traditionally, Palmertown was largely a Black community.

 

            It is known that the New Jersey Zinc works and National Carbide at Ivanhoe, near the Lead Mines, employed large numbers of Blacks.  Perhaps this explains what happened to many of the laboring Saltville Blacks.

  

   ... Continue to AFTER THE WAR

  

46
 

 

CAMPBELL'S CHOICE	Page
INTRODUCTION	1
SALTVILLE GEOLOGY	1
SALTVILLE INDIANS	4
LEGAL MECHANISMS OF LAND TITLE OWNERSHIP IN VA.	6
THE SETTLEMENT OF SALTVILLE	13
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AROUND SALTVILLE BETWEEN THE PIONEER PERIOD AND THE CIVIL WAR	27
SALTVILLE IN THE CIVIL WAR	31
AFTER THE WAR	47
A MODERN CHEMICAL FACTORY	52
EPILOGUE	57
BIBLIOGRAPHY	61
INDEX	66

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