Michael Cassin

'Planter' of Nevis with roots in Bristol, where his brother and executor (identified in the probate as his uncle) James Cassin lived.

1. Will of Michael Cassin planter of Nevis proved 18/07/1782. He left his wife one of the two dwelling houses on his unnamed 'estate', 1/7th of its produce and the 'following slaves' [the will omitted to specify them and in a codicil of August 1781 he left her a 'negro woman slave named Mary' and her five children 'Betty George[,] George Brown[,] Phibba, Sally and Tim' and also a 'mulatto boy' named Tyrrell]. He left his residuary estate to his children Timothy, Michael, Henry, Coleman, Sarah and Mary.

2. Michael Cassin's son, also Michael, his [the son's] wife Ann and Henry Richards Cassin were party to deeds of 22/06/1795 and 23/06/1795 with Thomas Daniel of London, Thomas Daniel junior of Bristol and John Daniel of London under which the history of the elder Cassin's legacies was rehearsed. His surviving children were Michael, Timothy and Henry Richards Cassin; the latter had agreed to sell his 1/3rd share to his brothers for a net £2300 at 7% p.a., to be repaid at £300 p.a. and secured by a [second] mortgage. Subsequently Timothy Cassin sold his moiety to his brother Michael. The two brothers (Timothy Cassin and Michael Cassin) had borrowed £4000 from the Daniels, and the indenture of 1795 secured the debt on an unnamed estate on Nevis with 84 named enslaved people. The names (or close variants thereof) of a number of these enslaved people appear in the 1817 Slave Register for Cane Garden in the lawful possession of Richard Neave Parris, and LBS has tentatively concluded that the Cassin estate was or became Cane Garden.

3. Henry Richards Cassin has an expressive entry in Alumni Cantabrigienses: Adm. Fell.-Com. (age 22) at CAIUS, 1792. S. of Michael. B. in the Island of Nevis, West Indies. School, Bristol (Mr Lewis). Matric. Michs. 1792. Returned to the West Indies, and practised physic. Of St Nevis, M.D. Married Catherine Watts, widow of Thomas Watts, E.I.C.S., at St John's, Antigua, July 29 (? May 30), 1819. Poisoned, together with his wife and eight children, by a black servant, when on a voyage to England. (Venn, II. 125, where date of death is not given.)

1. PROB 11/1093/236.

2. Common Records 1794-1797, British Library, EAP794/1/1/25, https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP794-1-1-25 pp. 297-299 and 300-312.

3. Ancestry.com, Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900 [database online].