Managing a plantation: Expenses - North Carolina Digital History

This page has comments. Move your mouse over the highlighted text or marked image.

Please enable javascript to view comments in this manner. If your browser will not permit you to enable javascript, you can click the highlighted text to view the comment.

Unfortunately, some of the content of this page, such as “mouseover” comments, is not printable. But a PDF version is available with everything included, at http:www.learnnc.org/lp/pdf/managing-a-plantation-expenses-p5387.pdf.

Page of a plantation owner's account book.

A page from Duncan Cameron’s account books. About the photograph

Duncan Cameron Esq
In Account with Andrew Kevan & Brothers
Interest to 31st July 1842

Month	Day		Mo:	D^s	Interest
1841
Sept.	29	Leather, Bagging, Sugar & C per bill	6	2	$4.94	$162.79
October	6	Cash paid R.R. fot goods	9	25	.34	6.82
	26	Butter & Mackerel per bill	5	5	.75	29.00
	30	acceptance your draft 30 [word] favor Denvey, due 24. 30 Nov?	8	1	20.08	500
November	1	Bagging & rope per bill	5	—	1.42	57.35
	2	Cash paid R.R. for Butter & Mackerel	8	29	04	1.20
	10	di — di — di Sundries	8	21	.35	8.23
	11	recg & fong 3 packages from Philadelphia	8	20	.04	1.20
	13	Bagging, ropes, Glass & Putty	4	18	1.98	86.00
	15	Cash Paid Reed & Parsons For 1 Wardrobe, Boxing & c	8	16	3.20	75.00
	16	di — di— R R fot 3 boxes …	8	15	.14	4.08
	24	di — di — di — Sundries & for 5 pds Negro blankets	8	7	4.61	112.32
	26	Apples, Hats, Caps, nails, coppers, tea, & oysters	4	5	2.38	114.18
	27	Cash paid freight. 2 Boxes from Philadelphia	8	4	.04	1.00
	29	Expensses on 1 box clothing from N. York Fot C Manly collected by you	8	2	.08	2.00
December	7	Bagging, rope, leather & C per bill	3	24	3.15	165.63
	"	Cash paid for 3 pds blankets	7	24	1.60	40.62
	8	di — di — A A. for oysters, nails, Hats, & C	7	23	.19	5.28
	10	di — di — freight 5 boxes plants & 1 bumble bees from Philadelphia	7	21	.18	4.69
	13	3 Doz Cards per bill	3	18	.30	14.34
	15	Cash for plants, bees, Bagging Rope & C	7	16	.53	14.32
	16	di — di & fot. from Phila on 1 box	7	15	.04	1.20
		receiving and fong 7 packages a 1/6	7	15	.07	1.75
1842
January	5	E Crowder S inst. on bonds, collected by you .….. $255.00
	"	this amt ordered by you to be transfered to Cr J O Bonneham 1260.00	6	25	51.76	1515.00
	7	Cash paid your draft favor Mrs. Sean W Lyme	6	24	1.70	50.00
	13	di — di — R Rd fot 1 box from Mrs Lyme	6	18	.03	.70
	18	di — di — Mrs Poland for 2 Bonnetts	6	13	.48	15.00
	"	Nails, Leather, Cutting knives, $ waggon boxes per bill	2	13	.80	66.44
	20	Cash paid for 1 hard ware from Richd 50c	6	11	.03	1.00
	24	Candles, Sugar & mould boards per bill	2	7	.64	57.28
	26	Cash paid R Rd fot nails, leather, hrd ware & 1 Box	6	5	.31	9.66
February	3	di — di — di — mould board & C	5	28	.08	3.07
	8	Plaster, Clover Seed & orchard grass seed	1	21	.57	65.21
	15	Cash paid fot 1 Box from Balt. 50c , recg & fong same 50	5	16	.03	1.00
		Carried forward …			102. 91	3195.81

Comments

Andrew Kevan & Brothers

Kevan & Brothers were merchants in Petersburg, Virginia. They not only sold products and supplies to Duncan Cameron, but they also distributed products produced on his plantation.

return to text

Mo:

This column is labeled Mo: for “month,” and the next column is D^s for “day,” so together they make a date. It isn’t clear what the date refers to, since it isn’t the same as the date in the left-hand column.

return to text

Interest

This column is interest owed to the merchant. Duncan Cameron, like most planters, bought items on credit.

The last column would seem to be the amount of the purchase.

return to text

& C

&C or &c stands for et cetera, “and other things” or “and so on.” Today we usually abbreviate this as etc.. (The ampersand, &, was originally designed as a combination of the letters e and t from the Latin word et, meaning and.)

return to text

fot

F.O.T. stands for free of tax.

return to text

Mackerel per bill

Mackerel is a type of fish.

return to text

di

Abbreviation for “ditto,” which means same as above. Typically one “ditto” is used for each word repeated. “Ditto” is also sometimes abbreviated do.

return to text

recg

Abbreviation for receiving.

return to text

fong

Fong is the past tense of fang, an old word that meant to collect or to gather.

return to text

1 bumble bees

This is probably a bee hive, or one swarm of bees, or perhaps a queen bee. It would have been unlikely for anyone to ship one single bee!

return to text

inst.

Abbreviation for “interest earned.”

return to text

Richd

Richmond.

return to text

mould boards

A mould-board may refer to molds used to make candles, or to a metal plate attached to the front of a plow and used to turn over soil.

return to text

Balt.

Baltimore

return to text

Next: Managing a plantation: Property

Contents: Antebellum North Carolina

Chapter 2: Farms and plantations

Next: Managing a plantation: Property
Previous: Naval stores in antebellum North Carolina

As you read

Duncan Cameron

The Cameron family of Orange County was one of antebellum North Carolina’s wealthiest families.

Duncan Cameron was born in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, in 1788. As a young man, Duncan studied law and set up a practice in Martinsville, Virginia. Duncan chose to invest the money he made from practicing law in land and slaves, and he was a moderately wealthy man when he married. In 1803, Duncan Cameron married Rebecca Bennehan, whose father owned the Stagville plantation, located near Durham, North Carolina. Upon his marriage to Rebecca, Duncan’s property was merged with the Benneham’s estate.

In 1807, Duncan’s father-in-law gave him land next to the Stagville plantation, which Duncan called Farintosh, and the Camerons moved to their new home in 1810. Throughout his lifetime, Duncan continued to accumulate land and slaves, and he also served as a judge on the Superior Court circuit.

Plantation accounts

The is is one page of an account book kept by Duncan Cameron. It is a list of money he owed to one company, and he would have done business with several merchants.

You might not be able to tell what all of the numbers mean or to identify all of the different products, but you can get a sense of the amount of money it took to run a plantation. You’ll also see that Cameron purchased items not only for running the plantation but for his family and home. Much of a planter’s business with other men depended on his reputation, and so it was important to him not only to make money but to display his wealth and show his success — just as it is for many people today. Because a plantation was both home and business, a plantation owner had to think not only about agriculture, but also about what clothes he and his family wore and the types of dishes that were used in their home. Running a plantation was more than a business — it was a way of life.