Serena and her children

Serena Chambers was born c.1820 in Augusta County, Virginia. John Howe Peyton sent Serena and three other enslaved African-American Americans (Aaron, Jane, and Ellen) to live with his daughter, Susan Madison Peyton, after her marriage to John Brown Baldwin in September, 1842. Peyton confirmed the transfers in ownership of these enslaved African-Americans in his will, written in 1846, to John Brown Baldwin. Peyton also confirmed the 1844 resale of Aaron by Baldwin to Peyton. Serena, her husband, Charles Jackson, and their surviving children Charles, Benjamin, and James continued to live with the Baldwins after their emancipation at the end of the Civil War, earning wages for domestic service paid by Baldwin and other members of the Peyton family, and later by others. In 1866, Charles Jackson and Serena Chambers registered their marriage and surviving children’s names (Charles, 20, Benjamin, 18, and James W., 15) in the Cohabitation Register of the Augusta County Freedmen’s Bureau.

Serena died September 8, 1871, age 51 and her son, Benjamin, died February 20, 1874, age 26, with his cause of death listed as consumption. They are buried in Thornrose Cemetery in Staunton, Virginia. Serena’s husband, Charles, died in 1878.