The Theodore Louis Gourdin Estate Record consists of accounts and inventories for Murray's Ferry, Red Clay, and other Williamsburg County Plantations written by estate executor Theodore Gourdin. The volume includes appraisements, inventories, and financial accounts for these plantations as well as records the names of the enslaved people on the properties.
The Estate Book of Hannah Tait, 1836-1860, records the financial accounts for the estate of Hannah Tait with Robert F.W. Allston as executor. The beginning of the book contains the last will and testament of Hannah Tait in which she outlines her wishes for the division of her estate and paying off of debts. Tait leaves her daughter Elizabeth Shackleford her enslaved persons but if Shackleford dies, the enslaved persons are to be "sold at a private sale to humane masters." The book also includes a copy of the inventory and appraisement of the enslaved persons.
The Peter Gaillard Jr. Plantation Journal (1825-1851) is a bound volume written by Peter Gaillard Jr. and other members of the Gaillard family for Rocks Plantation. The volume consists of names of the enslaved people on the property as well as registers of births and deaths, statements and financial accounts related to the farming and selling of cotton as well as tax returns for the estate of S. Gaillard.
“Stories Collected from Slaves” by Leonarda J. Aimar is a bound volume of formerly enslaved people's stories. In her transcription, she attempted to capture the storytellers’ colloquial speech, now recognized as the Gullah language. The volume includes a list of addresses, occupations, and diseases of African Americans during their enslavement; an eye-witness account of the Battle of Secessionville on James Island during the Civil War in 1862; how enslaved people were returned to their slaveholders following the Revolutionary War; and an account of Sherman's march from Savannah, Georgia to Charleston, South Carolina during the Civil War. A formerly enslaved man, Sam, provides a detailed account of being a butler, coachman, and horse jockey. He also recounts how Union Army Major Robert Anderson took control of Fort Sumter and the events that transpired there on April 12, 1861. Other accounts include an enslaved man’s recollections of his time as a servant to a plantation overseer who sympathized with the Union during the Civil War and formerly enslaved man Jim Alston’s detailed eye-witness account of the 1876 Cainhoy Riot.
