PBA Galleries

9 documents and letters relating to Benjamin Franklin Tibbs, including:

• John and Harriet Smith. Printed and handwritten document signed. Deed for a house sold to Tibbs, “free man of color”, Boyle County, Kentucky, October 21, 1859. 2pp.
• Aetna Insurance Company, Hartford.. Printed and handwritten Document, home insurance for Tibbs for a one-story brick dwelling in Lexington. October 24, 1859. 2pp. Separated at folds.
• Mrs. Mary E. Harris. Autograph Letter Signed on patriotic Civil War stationery. Detroit, Michigan, Sept. 29, 1861. To Tibbs. “Ever anxious to corris pond  with those I respect…I have never heard from you but once since you were here…Riley…is now in Toledo…working in a hotel there and he wishes to know when you expect to come out…hope the day is not far distant when you will return to this country, where every man is a man. You seem to like this country so well when you was here that I thought you would have returned ere this time. The widow Tracie is still on hand awaiting your return…she was to have been married some time ago, but as yet she remains single…your old friend, Mary E. Harris…”
• Printed and handwritten document signed. Ordering the Sheriff of Boyle County, Kentucky, to summon Ben Tibbs and Martha of Hunter to Court to answer a misdemeanor indictment against them, July 1, 1862. 1pg.
• Joseph Means. Printed and handwritten IOU to Tibbs, Danville, Ky., Oct.  18, 1867. 1 pg.
• Aetna Insurance Co., Hartford. Printed and handwritten receipt  to executors of D.Doram. Danville, February 8, 1871. 1 pg.
• E.B.Linney. Groceries, Hardware, Confections. Printed and handwritten receipt to Tibbs. Danville, 1 pg. Aug.-Sept. 1881
• Wellington Harlan, D.L. Moore Whisky Manufacturer. Burgin, Kentucky, June 20, 1884. Autograph Note Signed to Tibbs about making a payment. 1 pg.
• S.H.Estes. Autograph Letter Signed, Lancaster, Ky., undated. 2pp. in pencil, to George: “…Plowed about one acre for garden and tobacco…planted some peas and beets…I have builted 2 Roomes…joining Ollie’s shack…I will help you all that I can in the Minnow business to catch and sell. You want a car that can run over the road and not give trouble on the Road and loose all your minnows…”  

Tibbs, a barber, was born in Kentucky in 1827, being listed n the 1840 Census as a teenaged free person of color. (Curiously, in the 1830 Census, a Benjamin Tibbs – possibly his father – was also listed as one of the very few Black men in America who was himself a slave-owner). In 1864, during the War, he married a young “mulatto” woman; he died in 1898. Those bare bones facts in official records are greatly enhanced by these documents, which are rarely found for free African-Americans of this time period.