Creator: Johnston and McFaddin family.
Collection number: 2489-z
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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)