Mason Harwell

Mason Harwell (February 14, 1806 – May 7, 1879) was an auctioneer, insurance broker, and a leading, if not the leading, slave trader in antebellum Montgomery, Alabama. Sales in 1850s Montgomery often took place outdoors at a central landmark called the Artesian Basin. Around the turn of the century, an older resident of Montgomery told historian Frederic Bancroft, author of Slave-Trading in the Old South, that Harwell was "a man of respectable standing." He had a second location at Coosa St. and Monroe.

Biography

Harwell was said to have been born in Washington County, Alabama, when Alabama was still part of the Mississippi Territory. In 1830, Harwell was resident in the pioneer settlement of Washington, Alabama, living in a household of five free whites. In 1839, Harwell obtained a land patent from the government of 80 acres at 1 E½SE ST STEPHENS No 17N 29E 11. He supposedly moved to Montgomery County, Alabama, about 40 years before his death, thus around 1839. The Alabama state census of 1850 listed Harwell as the head of a household of nine free whites and five enslaved people.

According to Charles S. Davis' The Cotton Kingdom in Alabama, Harwell was "one of the most active dealers" in enslaved people of 1850s Alabama, although "from his advertisements in the newspapers one might infer that he was a general auctioneer for on his own account; he bought and sold almost everything, including railroad stock. He also carried on various kinds of slave trading, including a hiring agency, and as a representative of the Knickerbocker Life Insurance Company of New York, he was always ready to insure slaves at 'reasonable rates.' " In 1916, upon the occasion of the demolition of an old building on Dexter, the Montgomery Times described what had been the city's antebellum slave depot:

In 1860, Harwell built an "impressive brick house on Lawrence street." His occupation at the time of the 1860 federal census was "auction & commis." He was listed on the 1860 slave schedules as the legal enslaver of 34 people, ranging in age from 55 years to seven months old. On June 28, 1863, at age 57, he enlisted in the Edmund Harrison's Company, Alabama Rebels, part of the Alabama Home Guard. On August 27, the Confederate Army paid or promised Harwell 500 Confederate dollars for a horse. On October 25 of the same year he was paid or promised 50.50 Confederate dollars for a stove and "drayage of same." In 1867, Harwell registered to vote in Precinct 5 of Montgomery, Alabama. At the time of the 1870 census, he owned real estate worth and his personal estate was valued at .

Harwell died of apoplexy in 1879 at his desk in his office at 23 Market Street. The first was a sale of personal property at the family home "about one mile south of Montgomery, Alabama." A biography of his son C. H. Harwell, Confederate veteran and businessman, described Mason Harwell as, simply, a "commission merchant" of Montgomery.