by Travis (a devout Methodist) were now living in near starvation. Keeping quiet ensured that Coles would inherit slaves, thus providing him with the opportunity to give freedom. When his father died in 1808, Coles received 12 slaves and a 782-acre plantation on the Rockfish River in Nelson County, Virginia, subject to a mortgage. After John Coles' estate was settled on Christmas Eve, 1808, Edward Coles revealed his emancipation plans to his family, to great consternation. As he sorted through the challenges posed by family resistance and Virginia law (which since 1806 required freed slaves to leave the state within a year, and had also increased restrictions on already free blacks), Coles abandoned his earliest plan to free his slaves in Virginia. He went to Kentucky in the summer of 1809 to investigate a land claim of his uncle Travis Tucker, but came home without plans to move to that new state (which allowed slavery). Coles placed his plantation for sale in December, 1809, despite the collapsed real estate market during the depression of 1807, and began to plan for a move to the Northwest Territory (where slavery had been at least technically abolished in 1787). However, for years he received no reasonable offers, and so continued to operate it through an overseer. Coles turned down offers to exchange his slaves for other property, but honored the requests of his family and neighbors to keep his plans secret from his slaves. Family The Coles family was one of the First Families of Virginia. His great-grandfather, Walter Coles, had been a customs officer in Ireland who moved to what became Richmond, Virginia, and made his fortune as a merchant. His grandfather John had been one of the petitioners requesting for Richmond to be recognized as a new town, and he continued to develop the family's business and social ties through marriage to the youngest daughter of Quaker merchant Isaac Winston. Edward Coles's father, John, or John II, developed Enniscorthy from a hunting camp into a profitable farm, and continued the family's business and social success. Edward Coles's maternal grandfather was born in Bermuda, and related to Virginia jurist St. George Tucker. His mother's maternal ancestors were among the "first & most respectable settlers at old Jamestown." Edward's elder brother, Isaac A. Coles, served as private secretary to both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison during their administrations. Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation was