Who Was Juliet Wilson, Student and Free Person of Color?

At about 14, Juliet Wilson was a free person of color who attended Eleutherian College, an educational institution established in Lancaster, Jefferson County, Indiana, in 1848 by local anti-slavery advocates. Enrollment to the school was open to anyone who wanted to learn, regardless of race or gender.

But it was not free. Tuition was required, but in some instances—such as the case of Moses Broyles—students could work in exchange for payment. In Juliet’s case, her tuition likely was paid through a trust set up by her father, Jackson, Mississippi, physician Miller Willson. Wilson died in May 1849 at age 49. Not much more is known about him, except his FindAGrave.com memorial indicates he was born in 1800 in Kentucky.

In 1854, Julia traveled to Madison, Indiana, the seat of Jefferson County, from Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi, by way of what was known as a “Black Pass,” according to Eleutherian historian Meagan Brown Bahlke, who compiled a book in 2006 on the history of the college and its anti-slavery founders.

Her entry for Julia Wilson includes the transcription of the following document:

State of MississippiHinds CountyCity of Jackson

To All Who May See These Presents:

Know ye that we, John I Guion and Joshua Green, executors of the last will and testament of Dr. Miller Wilson, deceased, and testamentary guardians of his daughter, Juliet S. Wilson, the bearer hereof, hereby give leave to travel to Madison, Indiana, and to school near there. We hope that she will be permitted to pass without interruption and be cared for and properly protected by all persons who may desire to know where she is traveling.

Given under our hands and seals this 31 May, 1854.

John I. Guion (seal) 1 Joshua Green (seal) 2

Before me, Richard Fletcher, Mayor of the city of Jackson and ex-officio justice of the peace and notary public, in aforesaid county, personally appeared said John I. Guion and Joshua Green, who severally acknowledged that they signed and executed the foregoing instrument of writing on the day of the date thereof for the purpose therein expressed.

Witness my hand and seal of office this 31st of May, 1854.

Richard Fletcher, Mayor (seal) ex-officio justice of the peace and notary public

Bahlke included a handwritten note stating that she found a Juliet Wilson, mulatto, age 10, living with her mother Charlotte Wilson, 40, and brother Charles Wilson, 9, in Jackson. None of them appear in the 1860 census in Mississippi, and I haven’t found any indication that they may all have come to Indiana with Juliet.

Additionally, I have found only court documents that mention Miller Wilson, but nothing in any census, particularly for Hinds County. Based on the fact that he is a doctor—licensed in Jackson in May 1834—and a prominent figure in Jackson society, he was probably white. 3

In his will filed on 16 February 1849 and proven in May that year, Wilson directs his executors to sell all of his real estate and personal property. The proceeds, he writes, are to be used “for the joint support, maintenance and comfort of Charlott Cubb and her two children Juliet and Charles (being also my children), free persons of color during the life of said Charlott and after her death for the use and benefit of said children Juliet and Charly, or the survivor of them.” 4

He also ensures that Charlotte’s other son, James, also described by Wilson as a free person of color. Further, clearly concerned that the laws in Mississippi may not ensure that Charlott and her children remain free, he directs his executors to move them to another state where their freedom would be legally recognized, if any of them chose to move. Guion and Green also are appointed to be guardians of Juliet and Charles, which is why they were the ones to sign Juliet’s travel pass five years later.

There is little else to find, online at least, about Miller, Charlotte, Juliet, Charles, or James. The article about Miller Wilson receiving his medical license and a memorial for him on FindAGrave.com are the only two documents, aside from the probate and court records, I have found.

I checked the 1850 census of Hinds County, Mississippi, for more people by the name of Wilson and found only a handful. It lists a man named James O. Wilson (I found out his middle name is Owen), about 45 and born in Kentucky, with three sons, Green P. Wilson, 17; Joseph Wilson, 13; and Walton Wilson, 11. He is an overseer and may also be a slaveowner, himself. There is a James Wilson in that year’s Slave Schedule, but it’s not clear if they are the same person. However, it is possible he could be a brother of Miller Wilson, based on place of birth and that they are around the same age.

What happened to Charlotte’s family after Juliet left for Madison is a mystery. I have found no leads indicating that Charlotte and Charles stayed in Jackson, or indicating that they went north with Juliet or after she arrived. Bahlke’s research shows only that Juliet may have been responsible for a fire in the home of the John Cravens family, with whom she had been living, and that she later may have become a school teacher.

Being the same age and from Jackson, which is only a few miles from Canton, Mississippi, where Robert had lived, it’s highly likely Juliet was friends with Lucy and Georgianna Jefferson. It is also possible that the two families were somehow related; Robert moved to Mississippi with his slave owner, John T. Dearing, and Charlotte said she was born in that state. Could she have been a sister or cousin? DNA may tell us, but there is nothing documented that sheds any light on this.

The Big Question

For me, the big question is what the nature of the relationship was between Miller Wilson and Charlotte? It is clear that at the time of his death, at least, Charlotte was a free woman. Was it, in fact, a love affair? Or had she been enslaved previously, either by Miller or someone he knew? Was that how they met? And if she was born enslaved, was it Miller who freed her?

That she was freely living in Jackson seems to have been an anomaly. By my count, including Charlotte and her children, only 21 other free people of color were listed in the 1850 census. That’s a very tiny number, considering that the total population of the county was above 25,000. By my own observation, there were about 9,000 names listed as “free inhabitants,” which means more than 14,000 were probably counted as enslaved in the Slave Schedule that year.

My takeaway from this is that Charlotte and her family probably took Guion and Green up on Miller Wilson’s offer for them to be moved to a state that is more open to allowing free people of color. Indiana was, to a degree, one of those states; although, in 1852, that state instituted a Negro Registry that required people of color to register when they moved there.

If Miller and Charlotte were truly romantically involved, it seems they were risking a lot. I have no idea if they ever had lived in the same home, because I have not located him in earlier census.

To me, it seems quite astonishing that he not only made sure that she was provided for in his will, but also made it clear in that document that he was the father of her children, Juliet and Charles. Subsequent court documents showed that his executors paid rent for the home Charlotte lived in until at least 1853.

In 1840s Mississippi, the societal implications of miscegenation were rooted in the protection of the institution of slavery, the maintenance of a strict racial hierarchy, and the preservation of white patriarchal power. Miscegenation (defined at the time as interracial sexual relations or marriage) was viewed as a direct threat to the social order, resulting in harsh legal, social, and economic consequences. 

Of course, it would seem that Miller Wilson may have had enough social standing among the wealthy residents of Jackson that “polite society” may have turned a blind eye to the relationship, whatever it may have been.

NOTES:

1. John Isaac Guion was a prominent Mississippi lawyer, legislator, and briefly governor in the mid‑19th century. He was born in Adams County, Mississippi, on November 18, 1802, studied law in Lebanon, Tennessee, and first practiced in Vicksburg before later moving to Jackson. A Democrat and strong supporter of states’ rights and slavery, he served in the Mississippi State Senate from 1842, representing Warren County and later the city of Jackson, and played a leading role in the Jackson Convention of 1849 on Southern responses to the admission of California as a free state. In 1850 he became president pro tempore of the state senate, and when Governor John A. Quitman resigned in February 1851 amid federal charges related to filibustering in Cuba, Guion, as senate president pro tem, became acting governor, serving until his senate term expired on November 4, 1851. He then took a position as a circuit judge (Jackson District) and served on the bench until his death in Jackson on June 6, 1855, after which he was buried in Greenwood Cemetery
   

2. Joshua Green appears in historical narratives tied to antebellum Jackson, Mississippi (Hinds County), as a pioneer entrepreneur from Maryland who established a bank, drug house, and large cotton factory there around the 1830s–1840s. He was described as instrumental in early civic development, including the founding of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church and the first graded public schools in Jackson, where he served as school board president from 1893–1896 (likely a later family member carrying forward the name). A Joshua Green born around 1811–1887 is noted in genealogical sources as residing in Mississippi (including Jackson, Hinds County) during the 1870 and 1880 censuses, suggesting continuity in the family’s local prominence beyond Hinds County records alone.
   

3. The Weekly Mississippian, May 9, 1834, Page 3. via Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-weekly-mississippian/190870882/ : accessed 15 February 2026)
   

4. Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line] : accessed 15 February 2026; Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Her name is spelled “Charlott Cubb” in the will, but I’m going with the traditional spelling of Charlotte as found in the 1850 U.S. census, in which she lists her surname as Wilson and indicates she was born in Georgia; she is living only with Juliet, 10, and Charles, 9. As for the surname Cubb, I believe it is more likely to have been Cobb.