The Prospect

[Name] None given & Clarks  
[Size] 187  

By a deed of 01/06/1774 John Mills merchant of Great St Helens raised £15,000 through the sale of annuities to a long list annuitants in Britain (23 annuities to 22 annuitants, two buying a single annuity between them and two buying two each, each paying either 9, 10 or 11 times the annual annuity amount), secured on two estates, one unnamed of 187 acres and one identified as Clarks of 45 acres, both in St John Figtree, Nevis, and on the enslaved people attached to them. LBS has inferred these two estates to be reflected in the Slave Registers as Prospect, then owned by John Mills' son John Colhoun Mills: this is supported to a degree by the (re)appearance of several of the names of enslaved people from the 1774 in the 1817 Slave Register entry for Prospect for people of an appropriate age (e.g. Claret aged 60; Ned aged 70). [The annuity appear to have been current when two of the annuitants, Samuel Denison and Mary Weatherly, made their wills in 1792 and 1796 respectively, but in arrears when another annuitant, John Halliday, added a codicil to his will in 1804; in the will of Matthias Rutton made in 1811 he said his annuity had nine years arrears as of 02/09/1811].

Common Records 1775-1776, British Library, EAP794/1/1/15, https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP794-1-1-15 pp. 65-94.

[Number of enslaved people] 120(Tot) 52(F) 68(M)  
[Name] Prospect  

Return of the trustees of the estate of the late John Mills, deceased, owner, and now under the direction of John Colhoun Mills Esq; returned by Joseph Webbe Stanley

T71/364 174-176

[Number of enslaved people] 113(Tot) 48(F) 65(M)  
[Name] Prospect  

Return of John Calhoun Mills, owner

T71/365 200-201

[Number of enslaved people] 113(Tot)  
[Name] Prospect  

Return of John Calhoun Mills, owner

T71/366 131

[Number of enslaved people] 106(Tot)  
[Name] Prospect  

Return of John Colhoun Mills, owner

T71/367 141-143

[Number of enslaved people] 102(Tot)  
[Name] Prospect  

Return of Ann Mills, owner; returned by Walter M Mills

T71/368 150-151

[Number of enslaved people] 120(Tot)  
[Name] Prospect  

There are three separate returns connected with this estate, all of which are returned by Walter M Mills: Anne Mills (17), owner; Ann Mills and others (97), owners; and Patfield Mills (6), owner

T71/369 110-111; 184 and 185

[Name] None give & Clarks  
[Size] 187  

In 1843, as a result of the chancery suits of Lowdell v Joy and Lowdell v Wrey, two estates on Nevis, formerly the property of John Mills and in the occupation of Mrs Ann Mills as manager, were advertised to be sold. [Stephen Lowdell and George Lowdell, both surgeons, had been among the purchasers of annuities secured on John Mills's estates and enslaved people in 1774.].

London Gazette 20198 21 February 1843 p. 603.