About the Collection
The Lucas-Porcher Family Papers, 1827-1972, collection contains loose papers written by or belonging to the Lucas-Porcher family. Thomas Porcher (1796-1843) of White Hall Plantation (Berkeley County, S.C.) was the father of Thomas Francis Porcher (b. 1827), and Elizabeth Lydia Porcher (1825-1872), who married Charles Baring Lucas (1829-1874), a physician and owner of Wappaoola (or Wappahoola, variously spelled) Plantation in Berkeley County, S.C. Children of Charles B. Lucas and Elizabeth L. Porcher included Lewis Simons Lucas (1858-1915), who married Florence Hartley Ravenel (1860-1945), and Thomas Porcher Lucas (b. 1854).
Loose papers include an agreement from the Freedmen’s Bureau for laborers, a letter from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands outlining the removal of freed persons from any plantation, records of the Commissioners of the Roads of St. John’s Parish which includes lists and returns of enslaved persons and others, “white and colored,” who are “liable to road duty.” Also within the collection are work contracts between the Lucas-Porcher family and freed persons on Wappahoola Plantation (1865). In lieu of a signature, the freed persons signed with an “x.”
