Medora Dubbs Scott Butler, a well-connected and educated woman from Natchez, born in 1836 and died at home, on Poplar Hill Plantation in April of 1868. She married in Natchez, on the morning of the 15th of February 1860 to Mr. Samuel Scott of Jefferson County, he was 31 years her senior. Mr. Scott died two years after they married. From her first marriage she received a dowry, the dowry was requested by her father. Land, slaves, a home all at Poplar Hill Plantation, the slave families of Riley, Jackson, Bone, and several other families became her property. Medora, about five years after Mr. Scott’s death remarried. She married George L. Butler in 1867, one year and three months after the marriage Medora died. Most of the estate was bequeathed to her minor son, Charles, George became his guardian. However, what was unexpected in her last hours was that she remembered those former slaves who assisted her immediately after the death of her first husband, during the war of the rebellion, and thereafter.
Significant to the history of the Jackson/Riley Family Medora’s death changed the possibilities for this former slave, with the stroke of a pen, he became a landowner. Medora’s last will and testament found in the Jefferson County Chancery Clerk’s office gave…show more content… Medora wrote in her last will: “I give and bequeath to my faithful servant Jackson Delaney 50 acres in the Norris field”. In addition, Eviline receives an equal amount of land in the Norris Field adjacent to the home of Delaney. Her gifting was not only to those faithful servants Delaney and Eviline, but to the church established by the residents of Poplar Hill. Medora wrote: “It is my wish that the five acres of land given to the African Church by me shall belong to them as long as the same is used for the purpose of a church
