He died at thirty-six, intestate; leaving his second-wife (a sister to his father's second wife) with several orphan children, a widow with a small estate deeply embarrassed.

The second son was once sent to West Point to fit for an officer.

After being there a short time, however, he became unsteady, and commenced the study of medicine, but he soon gave that up and preferred to live at home and flog the slaves; and by them was cordially dreaded and disliked, and among themselves he was vulgarly nicknamed on account of his cruel and filthy habits.
These two families will afford a fair illustration of the gloomy history of many others that I could name.

This decline of slaveholding families is a subject of observation and daily remark among slaves; they are led to observe every change in the pecuniary, moral, and social state of the families they belong to, from the fact, that as the old master declines, or as his children are married off, they are expecting to fall into their hands, or in case of insolvency on the part of the old master, they expect to be sold; in either case, it involves a change of master--a subject to which they cannot be indifferent.

And it is very rarely the case that a slave's condition is benefited by passing from the old master into the hands of one of his children.