Hargrove, [Mary] "Mollie". [Texas Plantation Owners' Family Photo Album]

Various Places in Texas; Shreveport and New Orleans, Louisiana; Macon, Georgia, 1880. Good. 6" x 4½". Commercial album of full leather over heavy boards and adorned with brass clasps. Three preliminary leaves followed by 15 thick card windowed leaves, each with two photographs inserted (one each side), and another laid in for a total of 31. 26 are cartes de visite, the rest are tintypes and a total of seven photos are hand colored. Some photos are captioned as explained below. Album about good, with text block fully detached from boards which are still attached to each other at the spine; pages with moderate dust soiling and scattered staining; a few windows torn; photos generally very good.

This is a family photo album compiled by a Mollie Hargrove of Harrison County, Texas. Mollie was born around 1846 in Franklin County, North Carolina and as of the 1850 census she had moved to Texas. Her father, William Richard Hargrove, was born in 1797 in Granville, North Carolina and apparently moved to Texas sometime after Mollie's birth but before the recording of the 1850 census. William Richard is not to be confused with a different William Hargrove, also from Granville County, who was born in 1776 and was a major plantation owner in North Carolina. The two Williams are likely related, but certainly not father and son, and Mollie's larger family history is confusing at best, especially in light of variant spellings such as "Hargrave." Combining William Richard's land ownership in the 1850 census with contemporary and later accounts of the Hargrove family of Harrison County, Texas, it's clear Mollie's father arrived in Texas with money to buy land, and possibly brought slaves with him to cultivate that land.

We know the location of the Hargrove plantation thanks to Mollie's inscription on a preliminary leaf: it's dated February 1867 in "Wood Side." A 1933 article in the Marshall News Messenger about Mollie's nephew, Dr. Charles R. Hargrove, mentions Woodside. Charles was the son of Richard Henry Hargrove, whose CDV is the first photo in the album. That news article stated that the Hargrove family's Woodside Plantation was located not far from Leigh and close to Caddo Lake. The article further stated that Charles was born in 1860 and also owned slaves that were given to him by his parents as a toddler. We know from probate records that Mollie's family owned 43 slaves as of 1856 and property records show that William Richard transferred real estate in Harrison County to Richard Henry in 1858. Also according to that 1933 article, "when the Civil strife had ended many of the slaves owned by the Hargrove family . . . stayed on the old place as long as they lived. Among these was Uncle Guy Shaw, who died a few years ago." More about Shaw below.

The book has an index which includes names for the first 12 photos, though it's clear that at least one of the photos was moved relative to the index. Many mounts also have penciled or inked names but most are nearly impossible to discern. In addition to Richard Henry's portrait, at least three other Hargroves are shown in the album, including two more of Mollie's siblings, Cynthia Hargrove and William Roswell "Billy" Hargrove. Mollie married a W.T. Barry on March 17, 1869 and his photo is in the album as well.

Interestingly, Cynthia's name was written in ink at the top of the page in which her lightly-rose-tinted portrait appears but it's been forcibly scratched out. The very last photo in the album may be Mollie herself as the person pictured bears a resemblance to Cynthia. That photo is also skillfully hand-colored, with a rose-colored flower and baby's breath in the woman's hair, her dress a dark green, and adorned with a gold brooch as well as a gold ring on her hand. Also of note is a photo of two men with an initialed verso reading "G.P.P." The index tells us that stands for G.P. Perry, likely a relative of Mollie's mother, Cynthia Ann Perry. As of 1875, G.P. was the Marshal of Harrison County. Further, there is a postmortem photo of an infant, as well as an advertising card with an original photograph for "W.M. Bruce's Photographic Temple of Art" in Marshall. Bruce's imprint also appears on one of the CDVs here.

Most interesting is the later documentation of Billy Hargrove's relationship with Guy Shaw. In Brian Elliot's "Serving the Grey" (East Texas Historical Journal: Vol. 57: Iss. 2, Article 3) we learn that Billy served in the 28th Texas infantry and took Guy with him to be his servant. After the war, Guy adopted the last name "Shaw." Elliot also shares compelling facts regarding the relationship between Billy and Guy after the war, including:

"What is known about Hargrove and Guy's post-war interactions is that Hargrove helped Guy receive a pension in 1922 from the state of Texas for his service in the Confederate army. Even more shocking is that on his pension application, Guy was not mentioned as being a black man in either of the document's two affidavits, one of which was provided by Hargrove. As the ultimate twist of irony, Guy even had his burial paid for by the state of Texas and received a Confederate Cross on his tombstone, acknowledged as a private in the 14th Texas Infantry."

Worthy of further research and a rare opportunity to join faces to the names of a plantation-owning family in Texas.