Browse Items (3 total)
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Mourning bracelet, circa 1806-1816
Mourning bracelet made of twisted gold wire, copper pearl, and the hair of Priscilla Christian Bullitt. Inscribed with the initials of Bullitt (P.C.B.), who was the daughter of William Christian and Annie Henry Christian, major landowners, enslavers, and operators of salt works in Kentucky. In 1785, Priscilla married Alexander Scott Bullitt at the age of fifteen. Her father William gave the couple 1,000 acres of land as a wedding present. Part of this land was sold and additional land purchased, which became Oxmoor Plantation. She gave birth to four children between 1786 and 1793, and the family lived in a four-room wooden house. -
Mourning Bracelet
Mourning bracelet made of twisted gold wire, copper pearl, and the hair of Alexander Scott Bullitt. Inscribed with Bullitt's initials (A.S.B). Alexander Scott Bullitt was born in Virginia in 1761. He migrated to Kentucky around 1783, first living in Shelby County. He married Priscilla Christian Bullitt in 1785, the daughter of William and Annie Henry Christian, major landowners, enslavers, and operators of salt works in Kentucky. Her father William gave the couple 1,000 acres of land as a wedding present. Part of this land was sold and additional land purchased, which became Oxmoor Plantation. The first dwelling was built on the land in 1791. The 1810 census shows that Bullitt enslaved eighty-three individuals, and that his household consisted of seven free white persons. -
Jet Cross Necklace, circa 1825-1862
Mourning necklace belonging to Ann Booth Gwathmey. Women experienced death and loss regularly on the frontier. They often expressed their grief by wearing mourning jewelry. Ann Gwathmey experienced death many times throughout her life. She married Jonathan Clark Gwathmey in 1800 when she was eighteen years old, and he was twenty-six. She was nineteen years old when she gave birth to their first daughter, who died less than six weeks later. During the next twenty-five years, Ann lost both of her parents, two more pre-school aged children, and her husband. In her senior years, two of her adult children preceded her in death.