Abstract: The Nash County Historical Association (NCHA), a non-profit group headquartered in Rocky Mount, N.C., was organized in 1970 to promote the study and preservation of local history and genealogy. Since 1975, NCHA has been responsible for the administration, restoration, and
preservation of Stonewall Manor, an antebellum plantation home in Rocky Mount. The collection consists of account books, 1806-1928; physicians’ ledgers, 1835-1874; a mathematical instruction book, 1827; Saint Anne’s Guild meeting minutes, 1919-1921; a log from the Claims Committee of the United States House of Representatives, 1892-1893; and other items. Most of the materials are from Rocky Mount or surrounding Nash and Edgecombe counties. Among the individuals mentioned in the materials are Bennett Bunn (1787-1849), a Nash County planter and builder in 1830 of Stonewall Manor; Redmond Bunn (1806-1883), builder of the Benvenue plantation; Redmond Bunn’s son, Benjamin Hickman Bunn (1844-1907), a Civil War veteran, mayor and postmaster of Rocky Mount, who served three terms in the United States House of Representatives; other Bunn family members; James Jones Philips (1798-1874), a physician and planter of Nash and Edgecombe counties; other Philips family members; and Thorp family members. A few items contain records of schools or church groups, and there are also some references to slaves owned and sold, as well as a few accounts of African American schools, field hands, and house workers.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folder 5 contains a ledger from a grocery store, where the last few pages include the accounts of many African American schools from the Stoney Creek Township District (1873 and 1874)

Folder 20 contains a farm account book (1914-1926) from Rocky Mount, where the work of African American laborers is recorded.

Folder 24  contains the Benvenue account book (1906-1928), where the wages and meals of Benvenue farmhands, many of whom were African American, are also included.

Folder 32 includes the Frederick K. Philips account book (1806-1833), where purchases of enslaved individuals were also recorded.

Folder 34 contains an account book of the Bunn and Thorp (1853 – 1876), which includes a list of slaves owned by Redmun Bunn, as well as the accounts of African American field hands and house workers.

Abstract: In 1815, Bryan Grimes (1793-1860) of Pitt County, N.C., married Nancy Grist. Three of their children reached maturity: Susan, William (1823-1884), and Bryan Grimes Jr. (1828-1880). The elder Grimes gave his two sons plantations along the Tar River. The brothers prospered as slave owners, cotton growers, and real estate investors. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Bryan became a major in the 4th North Carolina Infantry Regiment. He rose to the rank of major general. William remained in North Carolina. After the conflict, Bryan returned to his plantation Grimesland. William resided in Raleigh, where he became an absentee landlord in the tenant farming system, cattle breeder, and hotel owner. In 1880, Bryan became embroiled in a feud with the Paramore brothers and was killed by their hired assassin. William died four years later. The collection includes correspondence, financial and legal items, military papers, estate papers, account books, genealogical material, and other items relating to the Grimes family of North Carolina and the related Hanraham, Kennedy, and Singeltary families, chiefly 1830-1880. Among the topics documented are daily routines, the Civil War both in the military arena and on the home front, education at the University of North Carolina and other institutions, plantation management, slavery, sharecropping, livestock breeding, and cotton growing. Some materials relate to the buying and selling of slaves, and there are a few post-Civil War letters from ex-slaves. Besides members of the principal families, people important in the collection include Asa Biggs, John Gray Blount, William Boyd, William Cherry, Pulaski Cowper, James R. Hoyle, W.W. Meyers, James O’K Williams, and Charles Clements Yellowley. Significant locations include Beaufort County, Hyde County, Pitt County, and Raleigh (including information about the Exchange Hotel and the Yarborough House, both owned by family members), all in North Carolina, and Charleston, S.C.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: This collection contains material that has been digitized and is available online. Click here to link to the finding aid and to access the digital content.

Folder 5 contains mention of Grimes Family businesses, including selling of enslaved individuals in 1865.

Folders 7-14 and 17 include Overseer’s Reports at Avon Plantation mentions of the labor of enslaved individuals as well as free people of color.

Folder 53 contains 1844 receipts from the estate of John Singletary concerning the purchase and hiring out of slaves, as well as medical receipts for treatment.

Folders 72-76 contains bills and receipts from the estate of John Kennedy, concerning the hiring out of slaves as well as lists of enslaved individuals as well as their value, from 1825-1830. Folders 85,  87, and 90 also contain lists of enslaved persons.

Several folders in Subseries 2.3 relating to the estate of Thomas and Walter Hanrahan contains deeds of sale and receipts for enslaved individuals (Folder 91-96, etc.). Folder 105 also contains records related to the financial support and clothing of an African American woman and her children.

Folders in Subseries 2.5 (Estate of William Cherry) and Subseries 2.6 (Estate of James O’K. Williams) also contains lists, bills, and receipts for enslaved individuals.

Subseries 3.1 (Financial and Legal Items) contain several folders with deeds of sale and receipts for enslaved individuals (Folders 145-152, 155-158, etc). Folder 171 also contains a deed of sale for an eight year old boy without his mother. Folder 197 contains a list of slaves “who went to the Yankees” in Washington, N.C., in 1862.

Folder 205 and 210 in Subseries 3.2 contain sharecropping agreements from 1867 and 1868, including agreements with freedman.

The W.W. Myers material in Subseries 4.1 contains materials related to his work as a surgeon for the Freedman’s Bureau. Folder 315-316 contains correspondence between Dr. Myers and Rufus Craig, an African American man who worked with Myers. Also included are reports about Craig’s employment and salary. Folder 317-318 also contain reports about sick freedmen.

Volume 52 in Subseries 5.2 is an account book for laborers at one of the Grimes Family’s plantations with separate notations for African American workers (This volume has been digitized and is available online, click here to access the volume.)

Folder 415 contains correspondence among Grimes Family members about the purchasing and loaning of slaves.

Folder 417 contains a letter from William Grimes, formerly enslaved by the Grimes Family, who was now a Methodist circuit preacher. There is also a letter in Folder 418 from a formerly enslaved woman named Phyllis about visiting and obtaining employment.

Abstract: Theodore Rosengarten (1944- ) graduated from Amherst College in 1966 and received his Ph.D. in American civilization from Harvard University in 1975. In 1969, in the course of his research on the Alabama Sharecroppers Union in Tallapoosa County, Ala., he met African American farmer Ned Cobb (1885-1973), a former member of the Union. Rosengarten recorded a series of oral histories with Cobb and his family. These interviews were edited and re-ordered by Rosengarten for his book All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (1974). The collection consists of 47 audiocassette tapes, most of which contain interviews conducted by Theodore Rosengarten with Ned Cobb and other members of the Cobb family. The interviews describe Cobb’s life as a sharecropper, then independent farmer, in east-central Alabama, his involvement with the Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff’s deputies intent on seizing a neighbor’s livestock, and his life after leaving prison. Included are 18 tapes of interviews with Ned Cobb, 20 tapes of interviews with his family, and five tapes of interviews with unidentified persons. There is also a small number of tapes containing music and other recordings.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection consists of 47 audiocassette tapes most of which contain interviews conducted by Theodore Rosengarten with African American sharecropper Ned Cobb and other members of his family. These interviews were used as the basis of Rosengarten’s book All God’s Dangers, which describes Cobb’s life as a sharecropper in east-central Alabama, his involvement with Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff’s deputies intent on seizing a neighbor’s livestock, and his life after leaving prison.

Abstract: Delta Cooperative Farm, started in 1936 in the community of Hillhouse (later called Rochdale) in Bolivar County, Miss., and Providence Cooperative Farm, started in 1939 near Cruger in Holmes County, Miss., were attempts by Cooperative Farms, Inc., a philanthropically supported corporation, to help southern agricultural laborers out of their economic plight. The cooperatives were organized around four principles: efficiency in production and economy in finance through the cooperative principle, participation in building a socialized economy of abundance, inter-racial justice, and realistic religion as a social dynamic. To these ends, the Delta and Providence cooperatives were to pay African Americans and whites equal wages for work and provided social and other services, most of which were open to neighboring communities. These services included a cooperative store; a medical clinic, eventually run by physician David R. Minter; a credit union; a library; a community building; religious services; educational programs; summer work camps; and community institutes. In addition to growing cotton, agricultural operations eventually included a dairy farm, a beef farm, a pasteurizing plant, and a saw mill. Papers include correspondence of Sherwood Eddy, secretary-treasurer; Sam H. Franklin, director 1936-1943; and A. Eugene Cox, director after 1943. Major topics include agricultural issues and farm operations; fundraising and donations; interracial issues; member morale; poor conditions of southern sharecroppers; cooperative methods; staffing; medical issues; relations and tensions with surrounding communities; criticisms of the farms; and the establishment and impact of the various educational, social, and religious programs on the farms. Other topics include eviction and dire conditions of Arkansas sharecroppers following a strike, many of whom became members at Delta; the Rust cotton picker and plans to fund cooperatives with revenue from its sales; and criticisms of the farms’ management techniques and member morale from trustees William R. Amberson and Blaine Treadway, among others, which ultimately led to an investigation conducted by the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union in May 1940. Also included are scattered financial material and other records; plans; issues of the farm publication, “The Co-op Call”; membership agreements; and letters from prospective members seeking placement on the farms. Prominent correspondents include Arthur Raper of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation; H. L. Mitchell and Howard Kester of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union; Delta trustees Reinhold Niebuhr, John Rust, and William R. Amberson; David R. Minter; and various representatives of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Socialist Party, the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, the Cooperative League, the American Friends Service Committee, the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, and the Young Women’s Christian Association, among others. There is also some correspondence with Margaret Sanger regarding the Delta farm’s interest in contraception. Other papers include incorporation materials, financial materials, organizational papers, meeting minutes, subject files, histories, ledgers, writings, medical reports, and clippings. Clippings

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Subseries 1.1 contains a lot of documentation about Delta Cooperative Farms and its operation for two years prior to Providence Farm’s purchase. Folder 5 contains the founding principles of the Delta Farm and has been digitized. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and access the digitized content.

Much of the correspondence deals with the eviction and subsequent difficult conditions of sharecroppers in Arkansas after a strike. Folder 6-8 particularly contains correspondence with the Y.W.C.A. regarding summer student volunteers, especially the Y.W.C.A.’s objection to the racial segregation of students while on the farm, and a document entitled “Brief digest of trip to Arkansas by James Myers June 2-10 in connection with cotton choppers strike”.

Subseries 1.2 includes materials on such topics as fundraising for a new church and the hiring of a pastor for the African American community at Providence, arrangements to receive medical and dental services and clinics from the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, and educational institutes at the farm for African Americans. Folder 132 contains correspondence from 1941 related to complaints from white members of Providence Farm about tension with other whites in the surrounding community, claiming that they (the white members) were looked down upon because of the cooperative’s involvement with and outreach to the local African American community. Folder 137 includes a brief report entitled “A Brief Report of an Educational Institute for Negroes.”

In Series 2, Folder 198 contains newspaper articles from 1955, about a meeting in Tchula, Miss., during which David Minter and A. Eugene Cox were asked by the community to leave Holmes County because they had been accused of teaching social equality between races on the farm.

 

Abstract: Confederate Army officer, planter, and railroad executive, of North Carolina. Papers, 1859-1891, consist of correspondence and other business papers of A. B. Andrews relating to his career as a railroad executive and capitalist, chiefly correspondence, bills, routine reports and monthly returns, receipts, and bills of lading. Railroads with which Andrews was connected include the Raleigh & Gaston, Chatham, Richmond & Danville, Atlantic & North Carolina, Western North Carolina, and the Southern. The earlier papers relate to railroad construction and specific arrangements for and the volume of business of a ferry on the Roanoke River at Gaston, N.C., including records of individual agents, boatmen, and other employees. In the late 1870s there is correspondence relating to the consolidation of railroads, financing, and the changes of ownership and management. The papers become less numerous after 1875. Also included are a scattering of personal and family letters, personal bills, and accounts, and papers relating to the planting of cotton and the selling of that and other crops through Baltimore commission merchants. The sixteen volumes include records relating to the operation of the ferry, 1866; farm records and accounts, including accounts with tenants and sharecroppers; personal and bank accounts; two volumes relating to Mrs. Andrews’s housekeeping and church work, and a volume of data about births, marriages and deaths in the Andrews, Johnston and Hawkins families.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Abstract: Heyward and Ferguson family members included Nathaniel Heyward (1766-1851) of South Carolina, whose estate included 45,000 acres of Low Country plantations and over 2,000 slaves; his sons, Nathaniel J. and William H. Heyward; his grandson, James Barnwell Heyward (1817-1886); Confederate brigadier general Samuel Wragg Ferguson (1834-1917); and others. Family correspondence, plantation records and other materials of Nathaniel Heyward; of his sons, Nathaniel J. and William H. Heyward; his grandson, James Barnwell Heyward; and other relations. Letters concern many topics including the sons’ education at Princeton and Harvard; lands and slaves; travels in Europe; emigration from South Carolina to the old Southwest; northern interference with slavery; post Civil War conditions; relations with freedmen and tenants; and family and social life. Volumes include J. B. Heyward’s records of four South Carolina plantations, including Copenhagen, Hamburgh, Myrtle Grove, and Rotterdam, 1845-1868. Miscellaneous papers include the recollections (typed transcription, 134 p.) of Samuel Wragg Ferguson as a child in Charleston, S.C., a cadet at West Point, a soldier with the U.S. Army Mormon expedition, 1857- 1858, and a Confederate brigadier general.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Miscellaneous family papers, including recollections of Samuel Wragg Ferguson (1834-1917) and the family correspondence and plantation records of Nathanial Heyward (1766-1851), whose estate included 45,000 acres of low country plantations and over 2,000 slaves. Letters discuss whites and blacks emigrating to the old Southwest, to the detriment of South Carolina (1837); the South Carolina legislature and difficulties caused by the interference of northern abolitionists (1844); the shooting of a slave (1855); moving slaves from Wateree, South Carolina, to Charleston, South Carolina, for safekeeping (1861); a slave who accompanied Nathaniel Heyward to the Civil War (1862); and the hiring of freedmen as sharecroppers and labor conditions (1865). The collection also includes slave lists and bills of sale (1851- 1858); a physicians bill for the care of slaves (1862); and contracts with freedmen (1865). [Note: much of these materials are on microfilm]

Some materials from this collection have been digitized, and are available online. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection, and to access the digitized content.

Abstract: The Boykin family of Camden, S.C., included Alexander Hamilton Boykin (1815-1866), cotton planter, state legislator, and Confederate officer. Family, business, and military papers of Boykin family members, chiefly 1830s through 1862. Much of this material consists of correspondence and accounts with Reeder & DeSaussure, Charleston cotton factors, regarding cotton produced at the Plane Hill, the Boykin family plantation near Camden; bills of sale for land and slaves; legal papers; and correspondence among members of the Boykin and DeSaussure families, including Alexander Hamilton Boykin’s wife, Sarah Jones DeSaussure Boykin (fl. 1835-1866) and his son, Alexander Hamilton Boykin, Jr. (1846-1923).There is also Civil War military material pertaining to Boykin’s Rangers, which became Company A of the Second South Carolina Cavalry and which Boykin commanded in Virginia, 1861-1862. Items relating to Boykin family genealogy are also included.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Mainly business and plantation papers, the collection contains slave bills of sale; a typescript narrative entitled “The Tell-Tale Letter Picked Up by a Slave” (1865); and transcriptions of letters concerning John W. DeSaussure’s emancipation of his slaves (1865). Post-Civil War materials contain the paper “Articles of Agreement between Freedmen and Women and S. Boykin” (1868) and letters concerning labor problems on plantations (1865-1881).

Abstract: Andrew McCollam was a sugar planter, deputy surveyor, and member of the Louisiana Secession Convention of 1861. He married Ellen Elleonori and lived first in Donaldsonville, La., and later on the family plantation, Ellendale, located outside Houma in Terrebonne Parish, La. McCollam also operated the Bayou Black, Red River Landing, Terrebonne, and Assumption plantations, whose locations are unclear, although Bayou Black was in Terrebonne Parish. The McCollams had six sons and a daughter. Sons Edmund and Alexander became prosperous Terrebonne Parish sugar growers, running the Ellendale and Argyle plantations, respectively. Edmund was also part owner of the South Louisiana Canal and Navigation Company. The collection includes business, family, and political correspondence, financial and legal papers, and miscellaneous items, chiefly 1852-1891, belonging to Andrew McCollam, members of his family, members of the related Slattery family, or his descendants in Donaldsonville and Houma, Terrebonne Parish, La. Much material relates to McCollam family plantations, including Ellendale, Bayou Black, Red River Landing, Terrebonne, Assumption, and Argyle. Financial and legal papers include sugar, merchandise, slave, and sharecropper accounts; plantation journals; deeds; and land plats. Scattered items, including canal toll records, appear for the South Louisiana Canal and Navigation Company. Miscellaneous other papers include farm equipment advertisements, political and commercial broadsides, clippings, pamphlets and magazines, school materials, and a diary (1866-1867) kept by Andrew McCollam on a trip to Brazil. Topics of note in the correspondence are an 1839 survey of lands granted to General Lafayette; secession; Civil War battles and troop movements; slave resistance during the war; antebellum and Reconstruction politics; sugar planting, refining, and marketing; land transactions; foreign travel; and school and college life in Louisiana and Virginia.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Includes correspondence describing accounts that describe resistance by enslaved individuals  during the Civil War. Ellen McCollam’s plantation journal (1842-1851) contains extensive slave lists and a draft of a public statement by G. F. Connely and Andrew McCollam concerning Lincoln’s election and the slavery controversy. Of special note is a 26 March 1863 letter in which Ellen McCollam expressed outrage at her slaves abandoning her and the plantation (Folder 14).

Letters Henry McCollam wrote to family members from Louisiana State Seminary discuss the Ku Klux Klan in the area and a near riot in Alexandria upon the election of Ulysses Grant (Subseries 1.2). Other correspondence in this series discusses relations between freedman and white sharecroppers.

Abstract: Archibald Hunter Arrington, son of John Arrington (1764-1844), was a planter of Nash County, N.C., Democratic member of the 27th and 28th U.S. congresses, 1841-1845, and of the first Confederate Congress, 1861. He also served in the North Carolina Secession Convention and as a local official of Nash County. He first married Mary Jones Arrington (1820-1851); his second wife was Kate Wimberly Arrington (1834-1871). Archibald’s son John Peter Arrington (fl. 1851-1895), was a sheriff of Nash County, and his brother was Samuel L. Arrington (fl. 1806-1866), who ran the family plantations in Alabama. The collection is chiefly papers relating to Arrington’s agricultural and business pursuits in Nash County, N.C., and Montgomery County, Ala. They include many receipts for cotton sales; accounts with merchants; slave and freedmen documents, including records of provisions provided to slaves and freedmen, slave bills of sale and hiring agreements, lists of ages and birthdates of slaves, and sharecropping contracts; land records; wills and estate inventories; and items relating to the purchase and sale of other goods and services. There are also business letters relating to the running of the family’s plantations and personal letters that discuss family matters. Items relating to Arrington’s political activity include a few published speeches and some notes on laws regulating the oversight of slaves; a series of letters, 1857-1858, to Arrington from D. K. McRae (1820-1888) on the latter’s gubernatorial campaign and other matters; letters to Arrington reporting on voting and political alignment in Confederate regiments; a number of form letters to Arrington, in his capacity as a local official, from postwar military governments; and other letters that briefly comment on political matters, including letters from Bartholomew Figures Moore (1801-1878) and William Theophilus Dortch (1824-1889). Also included are several 1893 endorsements collected by J. P. Arrington in his quest for an appointment as deputy collector for the Internal Revenue.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Chiefly business and agricultural papers of Arrington, planter of Nash County, North Carolina, and Democratic member of the 27th and 28th U.S. Congresses (1841-1845) as well as of the first Confederate Congress (1861). Plantation records contain slave lists, slave bills of sale, hiring agreements, and birth dates; records of provisions given to, and contracts made with, freedmen (1866-1895); and overseer contracts (1789-1909). Materials relating to Arrington’s political career include notes on laws regulating the oversight of slaves (1841-1845). Microfilm available.

Abstract: Members of the Johnston and McFaddin families lived in Alabama. Most items refer to Thomas M. Johnson, cotton planter of Greensboro, Ala., with land in Greene, Hale, and Marengo counties, Ala., and Noxubee, Winston, and Kemper counties, Miss. In 1860, Johnston became administrator of the Marengo County plantation of his son-in-law, Robert H. McFaddin, and guardian of the children of Robert and Mary A. McFaddin. The collection includes financial papers, slave lists, legal documents, business and personal correspondence, and a few miscellaneous items chiefly relating to the Johnston and McFadden families. Many documents relate to Thomas M. Johnston’s property taxes and those levied against the estates of Robert H. and Mary A. McFaddin. Several slave lists and other items relating to plantation life are included. In 1866 and 1868, there are agricultural contracts between Johnston and freedmen for agricultural work. In 1866-1868 there are several letters from the Stonewall Institute in Dallas County, Ala., about the education of Johnston’s grandsons, and, in May 1869, a letter from St. Mary’s School in Raleigh, N.C., about the education of his granddaughters. There are also several items relating to others with unclear connections to the Johnstons and McFaddins, including a 1839 legal order against members of the Green family in Lincoln County, N.C., and a few letters, 1873-1875, about business investments to Mrs. V. F. Dalton of Uniontown, Ala.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection includes several slave lists, some undated. There is a 9 May 1863 letter from Thomas Johnston to W. C. Oliver of Eutaw, Alabama, advising him on the procedure for selling a slave. The collection also contains contracts between Thomas M. Johnston and freedmen for agricultural labor in 1866 and 1868 on Canebrake (also spelled Canebreak) Plantation, Hale County, Alabama (Folders 1 & 2)