John Ward Jr
John Ward Jr. was born in 1743, the first son of Major John Ward Sr. and Ann Chiles. A wealthy Virginia plantation owner and veteran of the Revolution, John Ward Sr. proved a large influence on the life of his eldest son. Following in the footsteps of his father, John Jr. had enlisted in the Patriot cause as early as he could, but by the time he received his ensign commission in the Bedford militia in 1781 the war had been mostly won. Though promoted to lieutenant in 1782, John Jr. would win no great glory in war. However, his was the generation in which the ideal of liberty, fought and bled for by his father’s generation, was beginning to be realized. The nature of this liberty, and its application to the enslaved African American population, would be a source of much contention for slave and slaveowners alike in the years following the war; in Virginia, John Ward Jr. would be one of a growing group of Virginia aristocrats to recognize the fundamental contradictions found in championing freedom while owning slaves. As a result, his will included the provision that his 134 slaves should be freed upon his death.
Much like his father, John Ward Jr. quickly rose in the ranks of the social elites in Pittsylvania County. Though the source of his vast wealth is unknown, by the time John Ward Jr. died in 1826 he had accumulated some 10,000 acres in real estate holdings, as well as a substantial number of slaves to work his substantial holdings. A lifelong bachelor with no apparent heirs, his landholdings he would deed to his two nephews, John Ward Jr. of Edgehill and Dr. Lynch Dillard. However, the most significant provision in his will was that which declared the freedom of the seventy or so slaves who worked those vast holdings; “it is my will that all my slaves now living be free,” Ward wrote. Though he gave no particular reason for his change of heart, such as the appeals to liberty and equality championed by the Lynch brothers, it is clear that John Ward also saw the obvious contradiction in a free society powered by a slave-economy. Ward’s will also stipulated that the newly freed slaves ought to be provided for financially out of his own account. To each freedman over the age of 15, Ward deeded over the sum of $20, and to a select few Ward transferred over $150. Ward’s freed slaves eventually, and potentially with the help of the executors of Ward’s estate, found their way to Lawrence County, Ohio, where they settled and built for themselves a new life of freedom.
