Contributing Institution: South Carolina Historical Society / Subject (Topic): Rice - Lowcountry Digital Library Catalog Search Search Results

Date:: 1872
Description:: The Stoney Family Plantation Day Book, 1872 is a bound book kept by a member of the Stoney family recording payrolls, cash accounts and general accounts for laborers, formerly slaves and now freed persons, at Medway Plantation. The second half of the book is comprised of journal entries recording weather, work completed by laborers, conditions of the plantation crops, specifically rice, and visits from family and friends.

Date:: 1792
Description:: This is a Sandy Island plantation journal written inside of The South Carolina and Georgia Almanac for the year 1792. The plantation journal documents the planting of crops (rice, corns, and potatoes), the maintenance of ditches and drains, slave records, complications with the hiring of an overseer, livestock, and business relations with Laurel Hill Plantation.

Date:: 1850-1859, 1870-1879, 1860-1869, 1840-1849, 1830-1839, and 1820-1829
Description:: This is the plantation register by Mathurin Guerin Gibbs (1788-1849) for Rice Hope Plantation (January 1, 1824 to December 1844) and Jericho Plantation (December 1844 to 1875). Gibbs, a lawyer before becoming a planter, used the first several pages of the manuscript dating January 1824 to May 1829 for summarizing legal cases. The plantation register primarily documents daily labor activities on the plantation including cultivation and harvesting of staple crops such as corn, cotton (Sea Island Cotton and Santee black seed cotton), rice and potatoes, livestock, and building fences. Gibbes also writes about the use and management of slave labor, the movement of enslaved people between the plantation and Charleston, and selling and purchasing of enslaved people. Slave names are included in portions of the register. Gibbs notes throughout the register the struggles he encounters as a planter including being unable to pay the mortgage of Rice Hope Plantation and the property going into foreclosure. Most of the entries at the end of the register are regarding slave births, slave deaths and distribution of blankets. Gibbs died in 1849 and the management of the plantation was carried out by his son.

Date:: 1920-1929, 1850-1859, 1900-1909, and 1860-1869
Description:: The Direleton Plantation Memorandum Book was kept by James Ritchie Sparkman beginning in the 1850s; changes in handwriting indicate additional authors and additional uses into the 1900s. The book contains slave records. Records includes slave births, slave deaths, purchases of slaves, sales of slaves, family seperation, measurements for clothing, distribution of blankets, and labor tasks. The book also contains lists of first and last names of agricultural workers after the American Civil War and figures, likely wages paid. There are account records kept for purposes of the Internal Revenue Services, Confederate taxes and bonds, personal and agricultural work purchases, and financial transactions with B.M. Grier, Eliza S. Heriot, Dr. R.S. Heriot, A.G. Heriot (with signed receipts), M.E. Heriot (with signed receipts), and G.A. Thorne. There are transactions with other plantations recorded including Cornhill Plantation, Northampton Plantation, and Birdfield Plantation. There is information on livestock, wines removed from the plantation, and rice sales.

Date:: 1870
Description:: Volume Three in the Cote Bas and Mepkin Plantations Collection is a Southern Almanac for the Year of our Lord 1870 repurposed as a journal by Peter Gourdin. Entries include planting, farming and irrigation information from Cote Bas and Mepkin Plantations. Other entries concern rice, cotton, payments made for goods and services, social activities and clippings on various topics such as the Union Reform Party and voting for freedmen.

Date:: 1777, 1774, 1776, and 1775
Description:: The Account Journal, 1774-1777, was written by an unknown author recording financial accounts, tasks performed by enslaved persons, the planting of indigo, cotton, rice and corn and numerous memorandums between Paul Villepontoux and Peter Marion. A few journal entries reference enslaved persons who ran away from the plantations as well as verses pertaining to freedom and General George Washington. Journal contains entries from a second use, which are written upside down and interspersed with the first use.

Date:: 1860
Description:: The Robert F.W. Allston 1860 Almanac is a Miller's Planters' and Merchants Almanac for the year 1860 repurposed as a journal. Personal entries include account pages for bushels of rice, a list of enslaved men, women and children who were born and died at Chicora Wood Plantation, the purchase of enslaved people, a presentation of a billiard table to the Lunatic Asylum, a meeting with Laymen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and work on the Georgetown Railroad.

Date:: 1866
Description:: Volume Two in the Cote Bas and Mepkin Plantations Collection is a Miller's Interleaved Almanac for 1886 repurposed as a journal by Peter Gourdin. Entries pertain to rice planting, livestock and social activities. Other information includes newspaper clippings on various topics such as General Order No. 1, January 1, 1866, issued by Federal authorities to govern the employment of freedmen as plantation laborers as well as other rights and liberties given to freedmen.

Date:: 1900
Description:: Bound papers written by Anne Simons Deas in 1900 describing the harvesting and planting of rice by freed men and woman. The pages also discuss the atmosphere of the rice fields, describing how the workers sing hymns and converse with one another.

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