A man named Wesley Norris was born in February 1830 to Sally[1] (1792-1872) and Leonard (Len) Norris (1788 – 1872). He was born at Arlington House—the plantation built by enslaved workers for owner George Washington Parke Custis, whose daughter married Robert E. Lee, and who was the grandson of Martha Washington. Wesley’s sisters, Selina (1823-1927), Mary (b. 1826), and Sara[2] (1838-1922), were born there, too. In 1858, an inventory of the people Custis claimed ownership of listed all four Norris siblings among 198 people he enslaved at various plantations in Virginia, 62 at Arlington House.
Arlington House’s vast property of more than 1,000 acres included pastures, cultivated fields, and a fishery, all worked by enslaved men, women, and children, who had been providing free, forced labor on the estate since its construction began in 1802. Wesley Norris and his family lived in housing for the enslaved staff, which included five small log cabins, a pump house for enslaved field hands, and two “dependencies” that served as dormitories for enslaved house servants, all built by enslaved people.
Wesley Norris was among the hundreds of thousands of enslaved people who attempted to emancipate themselves throughout the nation (by 1860, 400,000 of them did so successfully). In 1859, at age 29, Wesley, his sister Mary, and their cousin George Parks ran away from Arlington House to the free state of Pennsylvania. Norris’s story was published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard in April 1866:
“… I was born a slave on the plantation of George Parke Custis; after the death of Mr. Custis, Gen. Lee, who had been made executor of the estate, assumed control of the slaves, in number about seventy; it was the general impression among the slaves of Mr. Custis that on his death they should be forever free; in fact this statement had been made to them by Mr. C. years before; at this death we were informed by Gen. Lee that by the conditions of the will we must remain slaves for five years; I remained with Gen. Lee about seventeen months, when my sister Mary, a cousin of ours, and I determined to run away, which we did in the year 1859; we had already reached Westminster, in Maryland, on our way to the North, when we were apprehended and thrown into prison, and Gen. Lee notified of our arrest . . .”
The three remained in prison for 15 days, after which they were returned to Arlington. When Lee asked them why they ran away, Norris said:
“…we frankly told him we considered ourselves free.”
Norris explained what happened next:
“He then told us he would teach us a lesson we would never forget: he then ordered us to the bard, where, in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by Gen. Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty; we were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us; accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered; Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to lay it on well, an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash out backs with brine, which was done.”
After the whipping, Lee sent Mary Norris to Richmond, Virginia, where she was less likely to try to escape, to be hired out by someone in need of her labor (that is, her enslaver got paid for her to do work for someone else). Lee sent Wesley Norris and George Parks to jail in the Hanover County, Virginia, courthouse, after which they were moved to Nelson County, Virginia, to be hired out to work on the Orange & Alexandria railroad in Virginia and the Northeastern railroad in Alabama. Lee then moved them to Richmond, from which Norris escaped to freedom in the North in 1863.
After the Civil War, Wesley Norris’s parents, Sally and Len Norris, continued to live at Arlington House, and at least by 1866 when Norris’s account was published, Norris was working there, too. He worked for the U.S. government, which took over the Custis estate, at “the National Cemetery at Arlington Heights.” The area is now called Arlington National Cemetery, operated by the U.S. Army, and the house is known as “Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial” (as of October 2023), run by the National Park Service.
By 1870, Norris was about 40 years old[1] and working as a “farm laborer” in “Arlington Township, Alexandria,” as the census called the location. It was likely Freedman’s Village (which operated from 1863 to 1900), a refugee camp and community for previously enslaved people established on the grounds of Arlington House. He lived with his mother Sally, who was blind and whose job was “keeping house,” as well as Leonard, whose job was listed as “at home.” Also living with them was his sister Sara[2], about age 32, and two children, Edward, 4; and Arcelia, less than a year old.
Norris’s parents both died at Arlington House sometime before 1872. As of 1872, Wesley and his sister Sara were reported to be “still at Arlington in [their] mothers old house.”
In 1880, Norris was still there, about 50 years old and working as a gravedigger at Arlington National Cemetery. He helped dig graves in the main portion of the cemetery as well as in Section 27, an area that was racially integrated during the first year of the cemetery, 1864, but became known as the African American section. That section contains 1,500 people who were part of the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War and 3,800 freedpeople. He was residing with Sara, about 42 years old; along with children Edward, 13; Arcelia, 10; and Rensallar, 2.
In 1900, he was 70, considered single, head of household, and a “day laborer,” living with Sara, 62, in a house he owned in “Jefferson Township, Alexandria,” which is in the vicinity of modern-day Crystal City.
[1] Slightly different birth years and ages are given in various documents. For the purpose of this paper, only one birth year is used, and ages might not exactly match what was reported in various census documents.
[2] In the census documents, Wesley Norris’s sister Sara is referred to by her married name, Hoffman, sometimes written Hoofman. The children’s last name is Hoffman/Hoofman as well.
Sources:
1870, 1880, 1900 Census information from Ancestry.com.
1858 Slave Inventory, Arlington House Vertical File.
Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development. (2016). A Guide to the African American Heritage of Arlington County, Virginia. Arlington County. https://discovery.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2019/02/A-Guide-to-the-African-American-Heritage-of-Arlington-County-Virginia.pdf
“Jefferson Township School District Map, 1870.” (n.d.). Document Bank of Virginia, Library of Virginia. https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/dbva/items/show/34.
Library of Congress. (n.d.). Resistance and Abolition, https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/african/resistance-and-abolition/#:~:text=By%201860%2C%20an%20estimated%20400%2C000,fought%20back%20against%20their%20captors
Murphy, R. and Stephens, T. (2020). Section 27 and Freedman’s Village in Arlington National Cemetery: The African American History of America’s Most Hallowed Ground. McFarland. P. 176.
National Park Service. (2021, July 26). An Unpleasant Legacy. Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, https://www.nps.gov/arho/learn/historyculture/an-unpleasant-legacy.htm#:~:text=Wesley%20Norris%27%20account%20as%20it,the%20free%20state%20of%20Pennsylvania
WSO USA Inc. (2022, June). African American Experience Before Emancipation – Historic Context Narrative. National Park Service – National Capital Area.
—Sue Eisenfeld
