although Little Daniel, perhaps their son, remained a slave. Henceforth, Daniel and Nicey would seek their own food, clothing, and shelter and other requirements as they met them, though with their productive years behind them, one struggles to imagine how Daniel and Nicey survived long, if indeed they did [128]. In his will, Nathaniel also granted freedom to other slaves after his death, including Edom, David, and Wyatt, though Wyatt would have to purchase his freedom for fifty dollars payable in three installments.

Finally, on October 26, 1826, Nathaniel died at age eighty-five, his obituary being published four days later in the Lexington Reporter in which he was simply remembered as a "soldier in the Revolution" [129]. Nathaniel left behind sixty-seven-year-old Sally Pattie Sanders, his wife of exactly fifty years. Nathaniel’s estate was administered on Sally’s behalf, providing for her amply for the years ahead. The task of estate inventory and appraisement fell to son Robert, who also arranged two sales of Nathaniel’s …show more content…
The first items listed were a coffee pot and cups [136]. The whole estate was valued at more than $5,000, nearly 80 percent of which lay in slaves [137]. Other value was found in livestock, including a fine grey horse worth eighty dollars—undoubtedly Nathaniel’s own. Overall, the inventory counted three horses, sixteen head of cattle, four pairs of oxen, thirty-five sheep, twenty hogs, and four pigs. Surprisingly, at the time of his death, Nathaniel held forty barrels of corn and seven thousand pounds of pork [138], evidently acting as a collector of local produce for marketing elsewhere. A wide array of farm implements and basic household furniture, appliances, cutlery, and glassware conveys a sense of a busy and comfortable, if not elegant, life on the banks of Eagle