The Incredible Mystery of the Most Beautiful Male Slave Ever Auctioned in Richmond – 1855 | HO

Among the holdings of the Virginia State Archives lies a daguerreotype labeled simply:

“Lot 77 — Richmond, 1855.”

For decades, historians walked past it without comment.
It showed one man—barefoot, shirtless, wrists bound—standing on an auction block.
But the image was unsettlingly wrong.

His posture was regal.
His face was serene.
And even in grainy monochrome, his beauty was unmistakable—so striking that it seemed to defy the brutality surrounding him.

In 1972, when the image was finally enlarged during a statewide archival project, researchers noticed something else:

a faint, vertical seam running along the man’s ribs.

Not an injury.
Not a scar.
Not a trick of light.

Something… anatomical.

Something that should not have existed.

This discovery reopened a case that had been quietly buried for over a century.

A case involving:

the highest slave price ever recorded in Richmond

the sudden death of the buyer

the disappearance of key witnesses

a panic that swept the city in the fall of 1855

and whispers of a slave whose origins were not entirely human

This is that investigation—reconstructed through:

19th-century court transcripts

plantation ledgers

coroner’s reports

private correspondence

preserved testimonies

and the last surviving statements of the people who saw him

It begins on a humid morning in Richmond, Virginia, in the summer of 1855.

I. THE ARRIVAL OF LOT 77
The Witness Account of Auction Clerk Benjamin Grant

Recorded 1884, Richmond Historical Society

“He arrived with the last caravan from Georgia.
But he didn’t walk like the others.
He glided. That was the word everyone whispered—glided.
No chains on his ankles. No whip marks. No slouch to his shoulders.
We’d never seen anything like him.”

Caravan logs confirm the arrival of Thirty-Eight Enslaved Persons, August 2, 1855, but only one entry has no age, no parentage, and no origin listed.

Instead, in the margin:

“JO. — exceptional specimen. Handle carefully.”

Slave traders rarely used the word specimen except in cases involving:

unusual height

unusual musculature

unusual deformities

or unusually high expected value

In this case, it referred to beauty.

Multiple witness accounts describe Lot 77 (later known as Josiah) as:

approx. 6’7

extraordinarily symmetrical in face and body

“impossibly proportioned”

“unscarred, which is impossible for a man his age”

“skin unmarred, like wet bronze”

But the most unnerving observation came from a physician hired to examine the slaves before sale.

Dr. Tobias Cray’s notes:

“Pulse slow.
Eyes amber—unusual.
No signs of previous illness, injury, or labor.
Torso musculature beyond typical.
No navel observed.”

No navel.

He underlined it twice.

That page of the examination ledger was torn out sometime between 1856 and 1871.

II. THE AUCTION: THE HIGHEST BID IN VIRGINIA’S HISTORY
Location: Lumpkin’s Jail Yard
Date: August 9, 1855
Temperature: 96°
Attendance: 312 men, 2 women, dozens of enslaved onlookers

Auctioneer Horace Middleton recorded the event in his journal:

“Crowd restless. Word had spread.
The tallest, comeliest Negro ever brought to market.”

Lot 77 stepped onto the block.

Silence.

Then chaos.

A planter from Alabama fainted.
A tobacco merchant crossed himself.
One woman reportedly whispered:

“He looks more like a statue than a man.”

Bids began at $800.
Within seconds it jumped to $1,200, then $1,600, then $2,400.

The final bid:

$4,300 — the highest recorded slave sale in Richmond up to that year.

The buyer: Colonel Nathaniel Barrow of Henrico County, owner of Barrow Hill Plantation.

In a letter to his brother, Barrow wrote:

“I have purchased the most remarkable man I have ever seen.
Should he breed true, I will become the richest planter in the state.”

This sentence would later be used in a murder inquiry.

III. THE FIRST DEATH
Colonel Barrow Died Eleven Days After Purchasing Lot 77

According to the coroner’s report filed August 20, 1855:

Cause of Death: “Massive thoracic compression.
As if crushed by machinery.”

But Barrow Hill had no machinery capable of producing such crushing force.

Witness testimony from the only enslaved man present:

“I heard the colonel screaming.
When I ran in, the big man—Josiah—was standing in the room.
Or… floating, I think.
His feet weren’t touching the floor.”

The witness was whipped, then jailed, and ultimately sold south.
His testimony was ruled “hallucination under distress.”

But two details in the crime scene do not match that explanation:

Barrow’s ribcage was crushed inward, not outward.
This is consistent with pressure applied from inside the body.

Barrow’s pocket watch was fused to his skin.
The metal had partially melted.

There was no fire.

No heat source.

And no explanation.

After Barrow’s death, Lot 77 was seized by the city and sent back to Lumpkin’s Jail “pending legal dispute.”

He would never return to the plantation.

IV. THE NIGHT OF THE LUMPKIN’S JAIL FIRE
August 23, 1855

Records indicate a fire started in the northern wing of Lumpkin’s Jail.
Multiple enslaved prisoners perished.

Lot 77 survived without injury—despite being in the center of the blaze.

Sheriff Matthias Cray wrote:

“The others burned.
He did not.
Not a hair singed.”

Three survivors corroborated the same detail:

“He walked through the fire.”

After the fire, rumors swept the city:

that he could not be killed

that bullets would not pierce his skin

that iron melted in his hands

that he did not sleep

that he did not bleed

The city sheriff, fearing riot or mass panic, ordered him discreetly transported to a private holding cell in the basement of the courthouse.

He remained there four days.

Then the panic began.

V. THE RICHMOND SEPTEMBER PANIC

From September 1–4, 1855, Richmond experienced:

6 unexplained deaths

11 missing livestock

2 house fires

1 collapse of an entire tobacco warehouse

hundreds fleeing the city

Officials blamed:

swamp fever

rebellious slaves

faulty lanterns

“unusual heat”

But private letters—never meant to be seen by the public—tell a different story.

Letter from Judge Horatio Bell to his wife (Sept 3, 1855):

“It is the Negro from the auction.
I swear to God he is not like the others.
He moves in shadows.
He is seen in two places at once.
He stands outside my window at night.”

Letter from Mayor Alcott to the Governor (Sept 4):

“We must remove Lot 77 from this city.
People whisper of demons.
I fear we are nearing riot.”

Diary of Annabelle Price, age 14:

“Mama says don’t look at the tall man.
He’ll take away your name.”

The governor ordered the immediate sale of the man to an out-of-state buyer.

But there were no takers.

Word had spread.

Planters feared him.
Traders refused to touch him.
Some believed he was diseased.
Others believed he was cursed.

Only one man stepped forward:

Colonel Richard Whitmore of Albemarle County.

Why?

To this day, historians cannot answer with certainty.

But his private diary gives one clue:

“If what they say is true, then he is the most valuable man in the South.
Not for labor.
For protection.”

Protection from what?

Whitmore never explained.

VI. THE TRANSFER TO WHITMORE ESTATE
September 10, 1855

Josiah arrived under heavy guard.

Whitmore wrote:

“He does not eat.
He does not sleep.
He does not speak unless spoken to.”

And yet, something changed once he reached the estate.

Multiple enslaved workers later testified:

“He was gentle.
He helped the sick.
He lifted fallen beams with one hand.
He stopped a runaway cart with his body.”

But he avoided men.

He avoided crowds.

And he avoided mirrors.

VII. THE ELELLANAR CONNECTION
Colonel Whitmore’s Daughter

Elellanar, age 22.
Wheelchair-bound since childhood.
Educated.
Sharp-minded.
Socially isolated.

The first written record linking them is in a letter from a housemaid:

“Miss Ellanar says the big man does not frighten her.
She says he looks sad.”

Another:

“He carries her as if she weighs nothing.”

Whitmore’s account:

“She does not fear him.
I do not understand why.”

Something else emerged during their time together:

The man could read.

He told her he had read:

Shakespeare

Milton

Scripture (multiple versions)

A Latin primer

A Greek lexicon

No enslaved blacksmith in Virginia in 1855 would have encountered these texts.

Not in that quantity.
Not with that fluency.

Not legally.

Elellanar wrote:

“He knows things he should not know.”

VIII. THE FIRST INCIDENT ON THE WHITMORE ESTATE
October 2, 1855

A barn collapsed during a storm.

Two enslaved workers were trapped beneath the debris.

Witnesses claimed Josiah:

lifted a 600-lb beam

moved it alone

showed no strain

and left no footprints in the mud beneath him

Whitmore confronted him.

He reportedly replied:

“I do not know why I am strong.
I only know I must protect.”

Protect what?

No one ever discovered the answer.

IX. THE MYSTERIOUS MEDICAL EXAMINATION

In November 1855, Whitmore secretly summoned Dr. Elias Hart.

Hart’s surviving notes contain only three lines:

“Ribcage flexible.
Heartbeat irregular—appears to stop for up to 18 seconds.
Abdomen anatomical anomalies inconsistent with human development.”

When asked whether the man was healthy, Hart replied:

“Healthy is not the correct word.
He is something else.”

Hart attempted to examine the seam along the ribcage—the same one visible in the daguerreotype—but the moment he touched it, he recoiled violently.

His hand blistered.

Within a day, the blister grew to the size of a plum.

Hart left the estate the next morning without asking for payment.

X. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELELLANAR AND THE 72 HOURS OF SILENCE
December 1855

Elellanar disappeared from the estate for three days.

Whitmore’s diary:

“The big man vanished as well.
The entire estate is paralyzed with fear.”

On the fourth day, both returned.

Whitmore’s notation:

“She is unharmed.
He is calm.
She refuses to explain where they went.”

One enslaved woman claimed she saw them:

“They walked into the forest.
Then light burst behind the trees.
Like lightning but gold.”

No further explanation survived.

XI. THE FINAL INCIDENT
January 4, 1856

Richmond received an urgent letter from Colonel Whitmore:

“I must petition the court to classify the man known as Josiah as a ward of the Whitmore estate.
For reasons of state safety.”

Before the petition could be reviewed, something happened that ended all legal discussion.

Whitmore Estate experienced what multiple witnesses described as:

a concussion wave

a blinding flash

windows shattering simultaneously

No lives were lost.
But the central hallway of the manor was destroyed.

At the center of the blast radius:

nothing.
No fire.
No debris pattern.
Just scorched flooring.

Josiah was found unconscious nearby.

When he woke, he allegedly said:

“It has begun.”

He refused to elaborate.

Three days later, Colonel Whitmore quietly sent a sealed letter to the governor and withdrew all legal petitions.

That letter has never been found.

XII. THE DISAPPEARANCE
February 1856

Josiah vanished.

No witnesses.
No tracks.
No sightings.

One enslaved worker claimed:

“He walked into fog and never came out.”

Elellanar was bedridden for weeks afterward, reportedly speaking only his name.

Whitmore sealed all records.

Richmond moved on.

The panic faded.

And the man became a myth.

XIII. REOPENING THE CASE — 1894

Nearly forty years later, a Richmond historian discovered the original daguerreotype.

Upon magnification, the seam along the ribcage became unmistakable.

Not a scar.
Not stitching.
Not deformation.

Something else.

The archive log entry added in 1894 reads:

“Unexplained anatomical feature.
Possibly preternatural.”

This note was crossed out in 1901.

XIV. MODERN ANALYSIS OF THE CASE

Historians and forensic specialists have attempted to categorize the anomalies:

Physical Evidence

Seam along torso

No navel

No visible aging

Resistance to fire

Unusual strength

Long periods without heartbeat

Ability to survive extreme heat

Behavioral Evidence

Hyper-literacy

Intense protective instinct

Aversion to crowds

Aversion to mirrors

Avoidance of sleep

Historical Impact

The “Richmond Panic of 1855” remains the only documented instance where:

slave auctions were suspended

city markets closed

planters refused to buy slaves

militia forces patrolled

churches held emergency prayer sessions

All over one man.

XV. THEORIES
1. The Polydominant Physiology Theory

Some argue he was born with extraordinary mutations—though no known medical condition could explain the combination of anomalies.

2. The Quilombist Theory

An Afro-Brazilian folkloric interpretation suggests he may have been raised in maroon communities rumored to practice advanced body conditioning or unknown biological rituals.

No evidence.

3. The Preternatural Origin Theory

Based on:

resistance to heat

impossible strength

lack of navel

seam-like thoracic formation

This theory proposes he was not fully human.

Historians reject it.
Folklorists do not.

4. The “Government Experiment” Proto-Theory

Some modern conspiracists suggest Lot 77 was part of a secret antebellum medical experiment.

But there is no record of such a program in 1855.

5. The “Guardian Phenomenon” Theory

Derived from private Whitmore notes:

“He protects.
That is his purpose.”

Protect who?

Protect from what?

No answer exists.

XVI. THE FINAL WITNESS

In 1920, an elderly woman named Elizabeth Freeman—a writer—published a book documenting her mother’s secret history.

Her mother’s name:

Elellanar Whitmore.

Elizabeth claimed her mother vanished for three days in 1855 with the man later known as Josiah.

She claimed her mother kept a single object wrapped in cloth her entire life:

A fragment of metal—smooth, curved, impossibly light.

Elizabeth wrote:

“My mother said it came from his body.”

The fragment disappeared after Elizabeth’s death.

Her book was quietly dismissed as dramatized family lore.

But the details match too closely with surviving records to ignore.

XVII. CONCLUSION: THE MAN HISTORY COULD NOT CLASSIFY

No official cause has ever been assigned to the Richmond Panic of 1855.
No scientific explanation exists for the anatomical anomalies documented in surviving medical notes.
No record explains the deaths, the fires, or the strange wave that struck the Whitmore estate.

And no trace of Lot 77 — Josiah has ever been found past February 1856.

What remains is a chain of facts:

He existed.

He was sold.

He caused panic.

He displayed impossible traits.

He was connected to a woman who loved him.

He vanished without a trace.

A final note discovered in the Whitmore papers, undated, unsigned, likely written by Elellanar:

“He was not a brute.
He was not a man.
He was something else.
And he chose to leave so that we could remain.”

Who—or what—Lot 77 truly was may never be known.

But the case stands as the single most perplexing anomaly in the archival history of the American slave trade.