One reason I’d like to read a non hagiography of Adelicia Hayes Franklin Acklen Cheatham is that there’s a lot in the stuff we do know that suggests her dad sold her to Franklin. I’d like to know the truth of that.

Franklin got a wife just as how he carried on at Fairvue was starting to be really scandalous and her dad got to run Fairvue.

One way to tell how rich Isaac Franklin was is that he had none of the usual out buildings up near the house. Most enslavers put their smokehouses right up near the main house so that they could monitor it and keep their prisoners from “stealing” meat.

Franklin had so much meat that some “theft” from the smokehouse didn’t concern him.

The other way to tell how rich Isaac Franklin was is that, once, two men enslaved at Fairvue murdered the overseer. Franklin was out of town at the time. Sumner County officials wrote him and asked if they could execute the enslaved men for the murder. (Indication 1.)

He wrote back and said yes. The authorities STILL DIDN’T DARE KILL THEM. Instead they were shipped down to Franklin’s Louisiana plantations.