Letter from Sam Giles,
Olympia, Bath County, Kentucky

Sam Giles was once the enslaved valet for William Preston, a member of the Ky. House of Representatives from Louisville. Giles accompanied Preston during his tour of duty in the Mexican War. Later Preston was appointed ambassador to Spain by President Buchanan, and Giles was left as overseer of the Preston household and farms in Kentucky. Soon after Preston's return to the U.S., he joined the Confederate Army, and Giles accompanied him as his personal valet. When Preston was appointed ambassador for the C.S.A. to Mexico, he and Giles traveled extensively from Europe to Cuba to Canada. After the war, Giles remained with the Preston family and lived as a tenant farmer on the Ellerslie Farm (across the road from the Ashland Estate in Lexington). Preston soon gave Giles some farming land in Bath County in the 1870s after another former slave, Peter Thompson, had been killed by the Ku Klux Klan while a tenant at Ellerslie. Giles was obviously not able to make it as a farmer: the land was probably over-cultivated and he was poorly equipped for intensive farming. He had to become a wage laborer at the Preston mines near Olympia.

June the 8 85
Olympia Ky

Mr W.P. Preston
my oner who once wer

I realy stand in nead I am not well nor my family is not well I hav bin warking on the Oar bank* I have a rising on my hand now my wife has bin sick for about three months as last year was a bad seson I did not rais enoug to do me more than half the wintter if I had a cow I could do some better. their is no work on this side of the creek to do closer than the Oar bank so tha my children cannot assist me any and I would thank yo verry kindly for a little of yor assistence if you please sir your servent

Sam Giles

I would not bother yo if I did not realy stand in nead.

Respectfully yours
Sam Giles


* Preston had leased from his sister-in-law, Mary Howard Wickliffe Preston, 300 acres of her Bath County farm called "Maryland" for 30 years. He was organizer of the Wickliffe Mining Co. and was building a mining village called West Olympia. Any information on this village would be greatly appreciated. Please email me.
Wickliffe-Preston Family Papers, Box 69, University of Kentucky Special Collections and Archives
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Posted March 13, 2000
email: dolph@pop.uky.edu
http://www.uky.edu/~dolph/HIS316/sources/sam.html