For Sale or Exchange

I have found a couple of interesting articles/editorials in the April 6, 1861 edition of the Covington Journal and am working on turning those into blog entries for next week, but I found one classified ad unlike any I had seen before.

FOR SALE OR EXCHANGE
I wish to sell or exchange for negroes  SIX HUNDRED ACRES OF LAND, at Richwood Station, Boone county, Ky. This property is in a high state of cultivation, with good-improvements, four hundred acres cleared and the balance in timber; lays 2 1/2 miles from the Lexington Pike and 17 miles from Cincinnati.


Feb 23-lm   A.K. GAINES


Paris Flag, Frankfort Commonwealth, Maysville Eagle and Cincinnati Enquirer copy 4 times weekly and send bill to this office.

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I believe "A.K. Gaines" is the Archibald Kinkead Gaines mentioned in this story that involves the famous escape and capture of a slave named Margaret Garner, who then killed her young daughter instead of letting her being taken back into slavery. An opera was written about this story in the past few years

Here's another link to the Margaret Garner story, with a mention of Richwood Station.  Plenty of other links tell the story of Margaret Garner and her attempted escape. It is a case in which the Fugitive Slave Law did what it was supposed to, but with the unintended consequence of a mother killing her own child.

Additonally, this link shows Archibald's grave and includes some more information about him and his genealogy, while  another link  offers evidence that Mary Garner,  the child that Margaret Garner killed, was fathered by Archibald.

Yet, even after that much trouble with slaves in his recent past, Mr, Gaines apparently was interested in acquiring more human property even as his nation was on the brink of  Civil War, a war many believe came about primarily due to this "peculiar institution."