William Johnson and Fanny Kemble, Diarists
Freed Black Man and Actress/Writer Created Revealing Journals
Feb 22, 2009
William T. Johnson was a black businessman who kept not only financial records but a diary too. Born in Natchez, Mississippi to a slave mother, he was freed in 1820. William Johnson, who was his mother's owner, was probably his father. His sister Adelia was freed in 1818. She married a free black barber from Philadelphia named James Miller in 1820. He had a barbershop in Natchez and Johnson became his apprentice.
Johnson struck out on his own in 1828 and opened a shop in Port Gibson, Mississippi. In 1830 he moved back to Natchez to become the operator of the barbershop once run by his brother-in-law. Most of his clients were white. His black staff gave customers shaves, haircuts and fitted some for wigs. The establishment also sold fine oils and soaps.
Johnson's Other Enterprises; His Death; His Diary Published
In 1834 Johnson opened a bathhouse in a building he had purchased a year earlier. Over the years he acquired more property, loaned money, operated a toy shop, rented carts for transporting items and sold wallpaper.. He owned 15 slaves. At his death in 1851 he owned more than 2,000 acres in Adams County.
On June 16 he died after being shot by a neighbor over a long-standing dispute over a property line. He had fathered 10 children with his wife Ann Battles Johnson (d. 1866), whom he married in 1835..
From 1835 to 1851 he kept a diary about the people and events around him. His family donated his papers to LSU (Louisiana State University) in 1938, and in 1951 William Johnson's Natchez: The Ante-Bellum Diary of a Free Negro, a book edited by William Ransom Hogan and Edwin Adams Davis, was published.
Fanny Kemble"s Acting Success
Fanny (sometimes spelled Fannie) Kemble was an actress and author of at least seven books and at least one play. Her 1863 book about her husband's inherited Georgia plantations stoked antislavery sentiment during the Civil War. Born Frances Anne Kemble in London on November 27, she came from a theatrical family. At 20 she played the lead in Romeo and Juliet at her father's financially struggling Covent Garden Theatre. She earned rave reviews.
In 1832 the Kembles toured America. While performing in Philadelphia, Fanny met Pierce Butler. They married there in June 1834. From 1835 to 1840 they lived on a farm far from the center of the city. The Journal of Frances Anne Butler, Kemble's reminiscences about her first years in America, was published in 1835. It was not complimentary to Americans.
Kemble's Married Life; She Observes Slavery in Black and White
In December 1838 the Butlers and their two daughters Sarah (b. 1835) and Frances Ann (b. 1838) went to visit Butler's inherited plantations.Kemble penned her observations. Her conclusion about slavery was that it was a harsh institution that robbed human beings of their freedom.
The marriage was stormy. Though she had not been born an aristocrat, she was said by some to be haughty and difficult. She was opinionated. Butler favored slavery. She expressed antislavery views. Butler had affairs with other women.
While visiting England in the early 1840s, a publisher wanted to publish her Georgia jottings. Butler objected. The couple endured more than one split and reconciliation before they divorced in 1849. Butler got custody of their children. By this time Kemble was working as an actress again.
Later Life; Georgia Journal Published; Returns to England
As adults, daughter Frances Ann was pro slavery and daughter Sarah was antislavery. After her daughters married, she lived for a time with each of them. When grandson Owen Wister was born in 1860, she came to see him and daughter Sarah. She returned to Philadelphia in 1867 when Butler died and lived on his property for awhile.
She built a home in Lenox, Massachusetts using the money she earned from her dramatic readings following the divorce. Finally in 1863, Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 was published. In1877 she returned to England, where she lived until her death in London on January 15, 1893.
Sources:
Special Colections, LSU Libraries. Johnson (William T. and Family) Papers. 13 February 2009.
Lissek, Devorah, "William Johnson." In African American National Biography. Vol. 4. eds.- in- chief. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Bracks, Lean'tin."William Johnson." In Notable Black American Men. Book 2. Detroit: Thomson Gale. 2007.
Karelis, Natalie. Belfield & Wakefield: A Link to La Salle's Past. 14 February 2009.
Allitt, Patrick. "Fanny Kemble." In Women In World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. ed. Anne Cormmire. Detroit: Yorkin Publications. 2000.
