Maria Armistead
Julia wrote that a woman named Maria worked in the dairy at Sherwood in 1846: “...and Maria, the dairy woman, has got me a fine supply of butter for the winter - the nicest you ever saw in taste and appearance...” [1]
Maria was likely an enslaved cook at Sherwood Forest. David Gardiner Tyler, Julia and John Tyler’s oldest son, mentioned Maria in a letter from 1864. He wrote that he enjoyed his “own cooking more than I did that of old Maria at Sherwood.” [2]
It is probable that Maria was married to Burwell Armistead, Sr. since Burwell and Maria appear together in Freedmen’s Bureau records in Princess Anne County after the Civil War. Their last name appears as “Armstead” and “Ormstead” depending on the record. One record identifies their former enslaver as John Tyler and their former residence as Charles City County. [3] However, it is possible that there may have been multiple women named Maria who worked at Sherwood Forest.
In addition, Burwell Armistead, Jr. lists his parents as Burwell and Maria in his marriage record from 1876. [4] Burwell, Jr. resided in Charles City by 1870, but Maria and Burwell likely remained in the Princess Anne area and probably did not return to live in the place where they had been enslaved.
Maria likely would have labored at the dairy at Sherwood Forest, pictured here.
Photograph by Frances Tyler
[1] Julia Gardiner Tyler to Margaret Gardiner, 29 Oct. 1846, Tyler Family Papers, Group A. Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William & Mary, copy.
[2] David Gardiner Tyler to Julia Gardiner Tyler, 16 Sep. 1864, Box 15, Folder 1, Tyler Family Papers, Group A, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William & Mary.
[3] Virginia Freedmen’s Bureau Field Office Records, 1865-1872, “Census Returns for Colored Population of Princess Anne County,” retrieved from FamilySearch.org, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DZR9-ZQ6?from=lynx1UIV7&i=25.
[4] Entry for Burwell Armistead and Louisa Ann Bowman, Genealogical Databases: Charles City County Marriage Database, Richard M. Bowman Center for Local History, Charles City County, Virginia.