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Mlb21 at May 31, 2022 06:55 PM
Mlb21
The Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation

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SUNDAY, MARCH 3,
BISHOP'S 1862 WILL
FOUND IN TENNESEE

MEMPHIS (UP) - A stroke of fate has uncovered a yellowed, almost tattered document written almost a century ago by the first Bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Tennessee.
The five-page document was found in a dilapidated building on the Mississippi riverfront here. There is no certain explanation how Bishop James Henry Otey's "last will and testament" got to the place where it was found.
Bishop Otey, on March 22, 1862, had taken pen in hand to write "my last will and testament." Almost 100 years later the will was discovered by a demolition crew in a wooden box hidden between ceiling and roof.
The will showed that Bishop Otey had little cash, but there was some property in Memphis and Chattanooga, Tenn.; Arkansas and North Carolina, and many church books that he left to his six children with the words:
"I exhort and earnestly beseech my children to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest what is contained in these books, and to give good heed to their teachings as able to make them them wise unto salvation, useful in life and happy in death."
In his will he disposed of six slaves to remain in the family.
"I especially enjoin that these servants shall not be sold out of the family and that they all be allowed the blessings of Christian worship and instruction."

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