Memphis, Tenn., 5¢ red vertical pair #56X2 with gum stains, tied bold Dec 11 [1861] town cancel on lightly stained cover to John H. Randolph, Esq, Bayou Goula, La, from John Shelby & Co. Ex Matz & Katz. $900.

John Hampden Randolph (1813-1883), Louisiana planter, was born March 24, 1813, in Lunenburg County, Virginia. He began his career as a cotton planter in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. In 1837, he married Emily Jane Liddell, the daughter of Moses Liddell, a judge, planter, and representative in the Mississippi State Legislature. In 1841 Randolph moved to Iberville Parish, Louisiana, where he had purchased Forest Home Plantation and first planted cotton, but soon switched to sugar cane. When he began sugar production in 1844, he formed a partnership with Charles A. Thornton, who provided money, slaves, mules, and oxen in exchange for part of the crop. The partnership ended in 1848. During the 1850s Randolph started purchasing a great deal of land, including property in Iowa and Wisconsin. Mostly he purchased land near Forest Home, notably a section on the Mississippi River that he named Nottoway. At the death of Moses Liddell in 1856, Emily Randolph received a large inheritance. In the same year, construction began on an elaborate Nottoway mansion, completed in 1859. In 1858 Randolph went into partnership with his neighbor Franklin Hudson and purchased half of Hudson's Blythewood Plantation. During the Civil War the partners took their slaves and valuables to Washington County, Texas, where they farmed for the duration of the war on land rented from J. K. and Robert Metcalfe. Algernon Sidney Randolph (John's oldest son) was killed fighting for the Confederate Army during the siege of Vicksburg in 1863.