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The Ponder brothers were four siblings who worked as interstate slave traders in the United States prior to the American Civil War, trafficking people between Virginia, Georgia, and the Florida Territory. William G. Ponder was a Georgia state senator and delegate to the 1861 Georgia secession convention. Ephraim G. Ponder's old house in Atlanta, Georgia, was heavily shelled during the Atlanta campaign of the American Civil War and a photograph of the damaged building was widely published as "the Potter House." John G. Ponder was ax murdered by highwaymen in 1849 while escorting a coffle of 60 slaves from Virginia to Florida.

In 1835 two men in Dallas County, Alabama placed a runaway slave ad seeking the return of 24-year-old Sophy, "dark complexion, near six feet high, small in the waist for her size, full face and small eyes—had a small set of ear-rings in her ears, and wore a brass comb in her hair—took several suits of clothing with her, and may change her dress frequently. She is a very good seamstress, and was purchased from a trader by the name of Ponder, residing in Florida. Ponder brought her from Virginia not long since." A family reunification advertisement placed in 1882 sought information about Mansfield Crutchfield who had been sold when he was about 13 years old by "Oscar Crutchfield to a slave-trader named Ponder about 1845 at Richmond, Va.; was supposed to have been seen during the war on a Mississippi steamboat. Any information as to his whereabouts will be thankfully received by his aged mother. Address LOUISE CAW, Knoxville, Tenn." In Henrico County, Virginia in 1846, there was a lawsuit over the ownership of 28 slaves that named Mr. Hagan (possibly John Hagan), Mr. Omohundro (possibly Silas Omohundro), Mr. Christian, Mr. Barksdale, Mr. Stanard, and Mr. Ponder as parties to the conflict.

William G. Ponder

William G. Ponder
U.S. government grant of land in Florida to William G. Ponder, 1828
Born	(1803-10-23)October 23, 1803
Died	December 26, 1867(1867-12-26) (aged 64)

William Graham Ponder (October 23, 1803 – December 26, 1867) was a local officeholder in Florida Territory, serving as an election inspector for Leon County in 1829 and 1831, and justice of the peace in 1832 and 1840. In 1829 he signed a petition requesting a further subdivision of Leon County. In 1837 Ponder petitioned the Leon County Superior Court that "William Ponder states that Robert S. Miller died before repaying $1,350 that he borrowed from Ponder. As part of the loan agreement, Miller delivered the slaves Phillis and Sarah to Ponder as collateral. Now Ponder asks the court to foreclose on the mortgaged property and to bar Robert H. Berry and William Brodie, administrators of the Miller estate, as well as any other persons, from seeking 'their rights or equity of redemption in the said mortgaged property.'" The petition was granted."

In 1845 Ponder was present in the sale of the Parkhill estate slaves, Tom Gandy, Harriet, Mary Ann and Wm. Washington, Sam Cormick, Primus, Sarah, George Edmondson, George Lewis, Daniel, William Eppes, Matilda Ann, Sarah and Maria, Julia, Anthony, Molly, Patsey, Hannah, Israel, Sarah and Harriet Ann, Kealan, Jacob, York, Melinda, Squire, Queen and Eliza Ann, Rhoda, Jack, Billy, Moses, Martha, Lucinda and William, Fenton and Helina, Frank, Francis, Isaac, Richard, Juba, Toney, Becky, Jinny, Cuffy, Phillis, Chloe, Dolly, Sam, Elizabeth, Rachael, Adeline, Jane, Polly, John Robinson, Monachy, Elizabeth, Eddy, Bob, George, Maria Miles, Mary, Frederick, William Pryer, Louisa, William, Christina, Horace, Judy Linsey, Susan, Charley Johnny, Mary Long, Joe, Ephraim, Ellen, Cornelia, Rachael, Jack Morgan, Mary, Toney, Sibby, William, Toney, Scipio, Peggy, Isaac, Lucy, York, Grace, Rose, Abram, James, Jones, George, York Jr., Caroline, Morgianna, Fanny, Phoebe, James, Juba, James, Mary Page, Margaret, Frank, Margaret, Albert, Anderson, Pleasant, Edmund, David, William, Cæsar, Amy, Dick, Phillis, Richard, Israel, Ellick, Esther, Amy, Albert, Old Jack, Margaret, Homady, Pittman, Cary, James, Old Tom, Frederick Clark, Nancy Burney, John, Anna, Susan, Maria, Giles, Fanny, Martha, Ned, Francis, Barbary, Kitty Ann, Wilson, Nancy, Ben, Hercules, Hanly, Eliza, Jacob, Winney, Emily, Tom Hackley, Diana, Ellen, Amelia, Betsy Ann, Dick, Lisbon, Katy, Cyrus, Henry, Taylor, Mary Thomas, Louisa, Clarissa, Elizabeth, Anthony, Ben, Sam, Nancy Pool, Walker, Maria, Amy, Maria, Penny Davidson, George, Phil, Betty, Nelson, Selva, Matilda, Sarah Ann, Amelia, Wakala, Virginia, and Charity, at a sale near Tallahassee, Florida Territory. Ponder bought Caroline for $535, and in a separate transaction bought Juba, Jane, Frank, Margaret, Albert, Anderson, and Pleasant, for $1500. Additionally, ""It was agreed and considered as admitted that one of the slaves purchased by Ponder applied to the plaintifi Moseley before the sale to purchase her, because she had a husband owned by Ponder, who resided in the neighborhood; Moseley said he was unable to purchase, and recommended the slave to apply to Ponder to purchase her. Accordingly the slave went over to Ponder's place, and afterwards Ponder came to the Court House, and after the conversation alluded to by Ponder in his testimony in Camp's case, the negro was bid off by Ponder." According to the case summary, a witness testified, "Knows Juba and Caroline, two of the slaves named in Ponder's bill of sale but not their present value. Cannot state the value of the hire of the slaves. Juba, for an old woman, was a good hand, and was worth from forty to seventy dollars per year; Caroline about eighty dollars, the price fluctuating and generally low. A female slave of thirteen years would hire for about thirty dollars; a girl of eleven and a boy of ten would be worth about their victuals and clothes...Thinks the slaves altogether, and those bought by defendant, sold high, and for as much as they would have brought since." A witness named John G. Gamble testified under cross examination, "In the year 1834 the witness borrowed money from Ponder to unable [sic] him to go to Europe to negotiate the bonds of the Territory of Florida. This was before the Bank went into operation. Did not then or since explain the nature of the charter of the Union Bank to the defendant." The decision of the court in was that "We are therefore of opinion that the circuit court erred in the instructions under consideration. That the judgments and executions under which the slaves were sold were not void. That they gave a sufficient authority for the sale, and that the right of property in these slaves passed by the sale to the defendant or appellant, William G. Ponder."

Ponder was one of the organizers and board members of the Fletcher Institute school established in Thomas County in 1848, which had two brick buildings and served both male and female students. In 1849, he sold twenty-seven bales of cotton for US$1,700 (equivalent to $62,261 in 2023) to Tallahassee shopkeeper James Martin Williams. He was on a committee to plan a new county courthouse building. William G. Ponder was elected to the Georgia State Senate for the 1855–56 session as a member of the Democratic Party.

Ponder is the namesake of the W. G. Ponder Plantation and owned a large number of slaves in Leon County, Florida in 1860.

In 1861 Ponder was one of three delegates selected in a January 2, 1861, election to send from Thomas County to the state secession convention. One paper describes him as a "cooperationist" but a 1963 history of Thomas County places Ponder in the "immediate secession...but only as a last resort" camp, who was not an "unreasoning extremist" but voted for secession because "there was no turning back" and because "we are indisputably bound up with the cotton states which lie on all sides of us." Ponder ultimately voted in support of the secession ordinance and signed the declaration. Later that year he contributed to a fund supporting the Ochlocknee Light Infantry and Thomasville Guards of the Confederate States Army.

Notice of his death appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune in January 1868.

Ephraim G. Ponder

Ephraim Graham Ponder (November 17, 1808 – August 19, 1874) was a 19th-century American slave trader based in Georgia. His house in Atlanta was destroyed by artillery during the American Civil War. His house in Thomasville, Georgia, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

E. G. Ponder served on the Thomas County grand jury in 1855. In 1856 he was elected to serve as an alderman (city councilmember) for Thomasville, Georgia.

In 1859 he was party to the Georgia Supreme Court case, Ponder v. Cox, 28 Ga. 305.

James Ponder

James Ponder (April 3, 1818 – October 19, 1851) was a Georgia-based slave trader. In summer 1851 Ponder advertised in the Florida Sentinel that he would have 2,000 "negro shoes" delivered for sale by October. At the time of his death, Ponder was the legal owner of Festus Flipper Sr., father of U.S. Army officer Henry Ossian Flipper and Methodist bishop Rev. J. S. Flipper. Ponder's estate sold Flipper, described as a "Negro bootmaker," at auction for US$1,810 (equivalent to $59,187 in 2023), while "Ponder's other slaves 'sold reasonably high.'" In 1853, Ponder's widow Ann M. Ponder transferred land in Thomas County and Leon County to Henry M. Copeland. She was Ponder's sole legatee. William G. Ponderand Ephriam G. Ponder were executors of their brother's estate.

John G. Ponder

John G. Ponder
Born	John Graham Ponder (1824-05-18)May 18, 1824
Died	October 21, 1849(1849-10-21) (aged 25)

John G. Ponder (May 18, 1824 – October 21, 1849) was a 19th-century American slave trader based on Thomas County, Georgia, along the far southern border of the state, adjacent to Florida. He was killed under at about 3 a.m. on Sunday, October 21, 1849, in Pulaski County, Georgia, at a campsite near Ten Mile Creek about 10–13 mi (16–21 km) below Hawkinsville "on the road to Cedar Hill (Slade's)." Ten Mile, now called Tenmile Creek, is a tributary of the Ocmulgee River. Ponder was killed while trafficking about 60 enslaved people from the Richmond, Virginia slave market to Florida where they were to be resold to cotton plantation owners. According to primary surviving account, the only witness was one of the women in the drove of slaves being sold south. Her account was elsewhere characterized as "no evidence but circumstantial and negro tales."

During Sunday night two men were seen by a negro girl; she supposing they were some of their own people, as the fire had burnt down and could not distinctly see them, she paid no attention to them. They killed him by a blow with an axe, which the girl heard. His head was completely split open, and he never spoke or made the least noise after the blow. They carried his trunk off half a mile and broke it open and got 50 dollars, we believe, and a cloth coat—his paper money was under his head and they did not find it. It is not thought that his negroes committed the murder, as they show no signs of guilt. The Coroner has taken charge of the body, and every effort will be made to ferret out and bring to justice the guilty perpetrators of the deed.

The Georgia Masonic Journal published an obituary for Ponder. Brothers of the St. Thomas Lodge No. 49 of Thomasville, Georgia, were to wear a mourning badge in his honor for 30 days.

References

1. "Collection: William G. Ponder papers". Finding Aids @ Georgia Archives georgiaarchives.as.atlas-sys.com. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
2. "USG Potter House".
3. ^ "Communicated for the Augusta Constitutionalist". The North-Carolinian. November 3, 1849. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
4. "Ranaway from the subscribers". The Daily Selma Reporter. February 6, 1836. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-12-24.
5. "Louise Caw searching for her son Mansfield Crutchfield · Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery". informationwanted.org. Retrieved 2024-12-24.
6. Chancery Court (January 13, 1846). "Petition #21684523 Henrico County, Virginia circa 1845". Race and Slavery Petitions, Digital Library on American Slavery. Retrieved 2024-12-24.  This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 2.0 license.
7. "The Territorial papers of the United States v.24". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2024-12-23.
8. "The Territorial papers of the United States v.26". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2024-12-23.
9. Petition of Citizens Requesting a Division of Leon County to Create a New County, circa 1829. 1829 (circa). State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/347222
10. "Petition #20583701 Leon County, Florida". Race and Slavery Petitions, Digital Library on American Slavery. Retrieved 2024-12-24.  This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 2.0 license.
11. ^ "Cases adjudicated v.2 1848-1849". HathiTrust. Retrieved 2024-12-23.
12. MacIntyre (1923), p. 14.
13. Paisley (1971), p. 126.
14. ^ MacIntyre (1923), p. 24.
15. "Members of the Legislature". Georgia Journal and Messenger. October 17, 1855. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-12-24.
16. Rogers (1963), p. 129.
17. Smith (2017), p. 220.
18. Johnson (1972), p. 261.
19. Rogers (1963), p. 119.
20. "Georgia. Convention of the People. "Journal of the Public and Secret Proceedings of the Convention of the People of Georgia: Held in Milledgeville and Savannah in 1861, Together with the Ordinances Adopted"". docsouth.unc.edu. Retrieved 2024-12-23.
21. MacIntyre (1923), p. 38.
22. "Georgia". The Times-Picayune. January 31, 1868. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-12-23.
23. Brown, Brian (October 10, 2019). "Ephraim Ponder House, 1856, Thomasville". Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown. Retrieved 2024-12-24.
24. Rogers (1963), p. 15.
25. Lumpkin, Ponder v. Cox, vol. 28, p. 305, retrieved 2024-12-24
26. Smith (2017), pp. 85–86.
27. ^ "Notes on Enslaved People by Elizabeth Hopkins - 1954". Thomasville History Center thomascounty.pastperfectonline.com. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
28. Rogers (1963), p. 63.
29. "Ann M. Ponder to Henry P. Copeland - 02/21/1853 | Thomasville History Center". thomascounty.pastperfectonline.com. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
30. ^ MacIntyre (1923), p. 11.
31. ^ "Dreadful Murder". The Weekly Telegraph. October 30, 1849. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
32. "$500 Reward". The Weekly Telegraph. February 5, 1850. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-12-22.
33. GNIS 323995
34. "The Masonic journal V.1 no. 12 December 1849". HathiTrust. p. 294. Retrieved 2024-12-24.

Sources

• Johnson, Michael P. (1972). "A New Look at the Popular Vote For Delegates to the Georgia Secession Convention". The Georgia Historical Quarterly. 56 (2): 259–275. ISSN 0016-8297.
• MacIntyre, W. Irwin (1923). History of Thomas County, Georgia: from the time of De Soto to the civil war. Thomasville, Georgia.
• Paisley, Clifton (October 1971). "Tallahassee through the Storebooks, 1843–1863: Antebellum Cotton Prosperity". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 50 (2): 111–127. ISSN 0015-4113.
• Rogers, W. Warren (1963). Ante-bellum Thomas County, 1825–1861. Tallahassee: Florida State University.
• Smith, Julia Floyd (2017) . Slavery and Plantation Growth in Antebellum Florida, 1821–1860 (PDF). Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series (Digital reissue, cc-by-nc-sa ed.). Gainesville, Florida: LibraryPress@UF, an imprint of the University of Florida Press. ISBN 978-1-947372-63-4. LCCN 70150656. OCLC 488144. OL 5704889M.

• People from Georgia (U.S. state)
• 19th-century American slave traders