Dr. George Richard Bibb was the grandson of Major Richard Bibb, the Revolutionary War solider who sent 29 of his enslaved Africans to Liberia in
1829 and freed 56 more enslaved Africans upon his death in 1839. Dr. Bibb was born in Logan County on Nov. 1, 1830, to Richard Bibb, Jr. and Elizabeth
Roberts. In 1850 Dr. Bibb attended Dickerson College in Pennsylvania and in 1854 graduated from the University of Pennsylvania medical school.
He married Mary Caldwell, the daughter of Daniel Caldwell, who was also a doctor in Logan County. Mary’s mother was Elizabeth King. Dr. Bibb’s home
for many years was what is now known as the O’Bannon house at the corner of Ninth and Main Streets in Russellville.
After Dr. Bibb left medical school, he acquired a slave man named Grayson and a slave woman named Charlotte and their children. Although there is
no conclusive evidence, I believe that Dr. Bibb inherited Grayson and Charlotte from his father’s estate. I came to this conclusion because Dr. Bibb
did not have any enslaved Africans listed in the 1850 slave schedule, but according to the 1860 slave schedule, Dr. Bibb had several slaves, and Dr.
Bibb’s mother Elizabeth (who was by then widowed) was living in his household.
According to the 1870 Federal Census, Grayson was born about 1790 and Charlotte, about 1805. Like many enslaved Africans, Grayson and Charlotte
cohabitated. According to an affidavit in Henry Bibb’s pension file, Charlotte testified that she had never cohabitated with anyone but Grayson Bibb
and that he was the father of all her children. Between 1822 and 1848 11 children were born to Charlotte and Grayson.
In the years before the Civil War, Grayson was the slave foreman on Dr. Bibb’s farm about six miles from Russellville on the road to Clarksville,
and Charlotte was a cook and house slave. Some of their children worked as slaves at the Bibb farm while others worked at the Bibb house on Ninth and
Main. Dr. Bibb’s other slaves were hired out to people around Logan County.
On the eve of the Civil War, Charlotte fell ill and was forced to stop working as the cook, and she moved back to the farm into a cabin with her
husband Grayson. Their daughter Mary Elizabeth (“Betty”), then about 15 years of age, moved to town and became the maid and cook for Dr. Bibb and his
family. When the war started in 1861, Grayson was still the slave foreman on the farm. He was getting older and was nearly blind. All his sons were
still working on the farm. In the spring of 1863 their youngest son, Lewis -- then 18 years of age -- ran away from the farm and, along with his
brother George, aged 21, enlisted in the United States Colored Units in the Civil War.
When Lewis enlisted as a private of Company F, 15th Regiment United States Colored Troops on May 10, 1864 at Clarksville, Tenn., he was
described as 5 feet 6 inches tall with a copper complexion and black eyes and black hair. By August 1864, Lewis had been assigned to the Springfield
(Tennessee) Post when he was shot while on scouting duty at Springfield on Sept. 29, 1864. Lewis was taken to the Army Hospital at Springfield where he
was nursed in his final hours by Isaac Bibb, who was also an African American solider from Logan County serving in this unit. Isaac was the one who
closed Lewis’s eyes at his death.
George also served in the Union army during the war. He joined as a private in Company A of the 13th United States Colored Heavy
Artillery. His units were organized at Camp Nelson, Ky. on June 23, 1864, and were assigned garrison duties at Camp Nelson, Smithland, Lexington and
other points in Kentucky until November 1865, when he was mustered out. We do not know if George was wounded in the war, but we do know that when
Charlotte applied for a Civil War pension on the death of her son Lewis, her brother-in-law, James R. Bristow, testified that George’s hand was
disabled and drawn up so that, “it is not wider than three fingers”, and in the 1890’s Charlotte also filed for a pension on George as mother and
dependant of the dead solider.
When the Civil War started, George and Charlotte’s daughter Betty was the cook and maid at Dr. Bibb’s house in Russellville and was living there on
Dec. 27, 1864, when she married William Myers, a free black man born January 1838. William Myers had been freed by the will of his master, Phillip
Myers, in 1842. After she was married, Betty was hired out to a man named Wilson in Russellville until July 25, 1865, when her husband came to Dr. Bibb
and hired Betty.
She was working at Dr. Bibb’s house on Christmas Day, 1865, when her father came to town from the farm to bring some eggs and butter and told them that
Dr. Bibb had been out to the farm and told them that all the slaves were free. Dr. Bibb had gone to Charlotte’s cabin and personally told her she was
free. By that time Charlotte was an invalid. That same morning, when Betty’s husband William came to Dr. Bibb’s house to pay him for her hire, Dr. Bibb
told him to “never mind about that, Betty is free”. William was shocked, because there had been no general declaration of freedom. Word quickly spread,
and that Christmas Day all the colored people of the neighborhood flocked to Russellville and celebrated the Day of Jubilee.
Grayson and Charlotte stayed on the Bibb farm for about five years after freedom. They were growing older and less able to take care of themselves
and each other. In 1867 Grayson filed for a pension on his son Lewis, who had been killed in the war. He was denied because of “lack of information.”
Dr. Bibb had told Charlotte and Grayson that they could stay on the farm as long as one of the children was there to take care of them. In 1872
their son Payne decided to leave Dr. Bibb's farm. After Charlotte and Grayson left Dr. Bibb’s, they lived on the Thaddeus Donaldson farm in Keysburg
for two years and later moved to Newton Turner’s place, also in Logan County. After that they lived with W. S. Gill, C. E. Haddox, John S. Small, and a
Mr. Tucker, all in Allensville. In 1876 they moved to the farm of James R. Bristow near Elkton. Grayson eventually went completely blind and died on
the Bristow Farm on Sept. 15, 1878. Charlotte stayed there until 1879 when she moved to the farm of Rowan McCullock near Elkton in Todd County to live
with her son George.
On July 22, 1890, Rowan McCullock gave an affidavit in the Charlotte Bibb pension case. He stated the he had known Charlotte for about 35 years and
that she was being taking care of by her son George, who was a cripple. McCullock stated that Charlotte “never gets enough to live on” and that he had
tried to have her “put on the county.” Charlotte would not leave her sick son to go to the poor farm. He believed that Charlotte suffered from not
getting enough food and warmth; she was often hungry and cold. She could not pay him the $36 a year for the little shanty where they lived.
Charlotte died between 1892 and 1900, having lived close to one hundred years, the first sixty as a slave.
The 1900 Federal Census for Russellville, Logan County, Kentucky, lists William and Betty Myers with three children: William H., born 1873; John R.,
born 1875; and Mary L., born 1877. Three children had died. William was listed as a carpenter, and Betty, a nurse. Their son, William, became a medical
doctor and moved to Earle in Crittenden County, Arkansas.