Auction Name: 2026 February 26 Historical Manuscripts & Texana Signature® Auction

Lot Number: 47315

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/6328*47315

Printed Promissory Note for Hire of an Enslaved Person. One partially printed page, 6 1/2 x 8 inches, [Palestine, Texas]; January 1, 1861. Promises "W. W. Quarles, as guardian of Caro M. Quarles, one hundred & fifty one Dollars for the hire of a Negro [unengrossed] named [unengrossed]...And, we are to pay the Taxes, and to employ a Physician, when necessary, and pay the Physicians bill..." Signed, "John Billings," "G. W. Beauchamp," "T M Henderson," and "J J Davis." Docketed on the verso.

William Washington Quarles immigrated to Texas from Alabama with his family and their slaves in the early 1840s, where they settled on 1100 acres of land near Palestine, in present-day Elkhart. The 1860 Slave Census lists five slaves' quarters and between twenty-two and twenty-eight slaves on the Quarles plantation, all of whom were freed at the end of the Civil War in 1865.

Condition: Lightly toned with smoothed folds. Scattered staining and ink smudging; ink blotting at Davis's signature. Rough left edge where integral page was removed.

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