A cash book for Robert F.W. Allston for the years 1823-1843. The book includes account transactions conducted by Allston including payment of overseer wages, the hiring out of enslaved people, transportation, taxes, governesses, nurses, crops, sundries, and cloth distributed to slaves. This book also includes accounts between Allston and other individuals including the Estate of Charlotte A. Allston (primarily for the purchases of blankets, shoes, and cloth for enslaved people) and an account with Mary P. Jones. The last several pages of the book contain cash ledgers. Allston explicitly notes accounting related to Matanza Plantation, later known as Chicora Wood. Other account records do not explicitly state plantation sites.
A handwritten, four-page letter from Emma Alston to her husband, Charles, in which she discusses the possibility for illness, specifically typhus fever, spreading in crowded South Carolina cities. In addition, she expresses her wartime fears and advises him on the management of enslaved people. Attached to this letter is a note requesting that he bring books on farming to Greenville. On the front of the envelope, a list of items is written; on the back, a list of names of enslaved people is written.
