Although she was critical of the institution of slavery and opposed her husband's personal investment in slaves, the Morehead family depended on enslaved labor at Blandwood.

She was a granddaughter of the American Revolutionary War veteran Captain Robert Lindsay, who sat in the North Carolina General Assembly of 1777 and owned a 2,000-acre plantation along the Deep River.

[2] They had no overseer at Blandwood in 1840, so Morehead coordinated directly with thirty enslaved people including nine children under the age of ten.

[2] She and her husband enslaved sixteen people on the estate by 1860, including Hannah Jones, a house slave, and Tinnan Morehead, who tended the gardens and animals.

[2] Morehead accompanied her husband to political functions and social outings in New York City, Washington, D.C., and across North Carolina and Virginia.