Emanuel Washington Portrait by Howard Weeden
During the late 1890s and early 1900s the Washington family commissioned [Maria] Howard Weeden to paint the portraits of several African Americans who were once enslaved on Wessyngton Plantation. One of them was of my great-great-grandfather Emanuel Washington. During the Civil War Emanuel ran away with Union soldiers. He and his family returned to Wessyngton after the war. Emanuel was famous for telling ghost stories to all the children on the plantation. He was born at Wessyngton April 23, 1824 and died there in 1907. His portrait remains in the Washington family.