Talk:Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer

Name
How did Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer get his name? How can it be broken down (first/middle/last)? These questions might be worth answering in the article. -Arcking 12:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Seems it's a mystery. See note after name in lead for some info. —   AjaxSmack   07:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm just as interested in how he has "of St Thomas" in the middle of his name, as do random descendants. --96.95.227.49 (talk) 05:07, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Slavery
I cleaned up this article, but even after taking trips to my local library's as well as the largest local history room in Northern Virginia, couldn't track down a bio of Jenifer, much less assuage my curiosity about whether Jenifer's slaves were actually freed. For what it's worth, according to the late fall date of Jenifer's death, he likely died of the yellow fever epidemics that hit the trading ports from Philadelphia southward in the 1790s (perhaps brought by refugees from the Haitian revolution).

Unfortunately, I don't know when I'll be able to go to the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, which has the Maryland archives of this era (which at least for George Mason and various Brents who also owned land in Charles County and died in 1792 those those records are apparently more complete than comparable Fairfax County records, likewise still extant). In Virginia, when large landowners freed many slaves, or were Catholics like the Brents, records tended to disappear. Plus, increasingly strict legislation required the freed blacks leave the area. In the Virginia cases I've encountered, only about a quarter of slaves freed in wills actually received their freedom.

I'm especially curious because a converted Catholic priest now nominated for sainthood,Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, briefly worked in Port Tobacco in the years when Jenifer's slaves should have received their freedom.Jweaver28 (talk) 20:34, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Redundancy
I removed several redundant statements about Jenifer: where his slaves worked, where he owned slaves. It is already cited in the article that Jenifer was a slave owner because his will specified his slaves be freed. Also, the statement that Jenifer owned slaves while pretending to be a great man is obvious POV so I removed it. Foreignshore (talk) 01:17, 28 December 2016 (UTC)