The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 9 (1998)

Josiah Collins III, A Successful Corn Planter:
A Look at His Plantation Management
Techniques
Tsutomu NUMAOKA
Niigata Sangyo University

Along the Roanoke River and Albemarle Sound in antebellum
northeastern North Carolina, there were planters whose corn production far exceeded their own needs. They could therefore ship signiﬁcantly large amounts of corn to other states, North and South. Josiah
Collins III (1808–1863), the proprietor of Somerset Place Plantation
located to the north of Lake Phelps in Washington County, was one of
the leading commercial corn planters in the region. He left written
records of ledgers, daybooks, business letters, a plantation record, anda memorandum book, through which close examination of his plantation management techniques and the motivation behind them can beelucidated.
There are few published studies to focus on management techniquesof planters in northeastern North Carolina, and this essay will ﬁll thisgap by investigating Collins’ records throughout his corn cultivation
programs. A case study will be presented of sustainable commercial
corn plantations in a peripheral region—the northern fringe—of thecotton South. The subject will be broadened by including other commercial corn plantations in the region.
The extant literature reveals few previous studies dealing with
development of antebellum commercial corn production in North
Copyright © 1998 Tsutomu Numaoka. All rights reserved. This work may be
used, with this notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of thiswork may be distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author.
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Carolina. Of the few available are works by Cornelius Cathey, Diane
Lindstrom, and Wayne Durrill. The basic features of the commercial
corn plantations in the state could be extrapolated from their studies.
Cathey contributed with “improvements made in agriculture” in antebellum North Carolina in the 1950s. His emphasized inﬂuence of
scientiﬁc farming on planters’ grain cultivation led to better understanding of commercial corn planters. Lindstrom investigated routes ofgrains from the Upper South to other parts of the South from the pointof view of interregional grain ﬂows from 1840 to 1860. She foundNorth Carolina “forwarded two-thirds of the total receipts” of corn atCharleston, South Carolina. This certainly marked one of the important routes which a lot of corn planters in northeastern North Carolina
used to ship their corn. Durrill examined slave labor at Somerset Placethrough primary sources. His study presented an analysis of slavelabor under commercial corn production in the region. He described itas the “actual work” of slaves who engaged in their independent economic activities in the Negro Patch Collins allotted to them.1
Despite their insights, however, some areas of inquiry remain
untouched or require reexamination. One of them is how such planters
made the best use of improvements for farming within their own system of slave labor management. This question should cause us to
explore the planters’ efﬁcient, rational and ﬂexible means of corn production which was combined with the raising of other crops and stock.
It should also lead us to reexamine the role of the Negro Patch not forslaves but for Collins. Scholars interested in the “internal economy” ofslaves have recently tended to overemphasize their autonomous economic activities.2 Moreover, marketing corn was ostensibly a very
crucial issue for every commercial corn planter in the region. We
should, therefore, also explore the way in which planters marketed
their corn and also their attitudes toward the process.
Considering the above, this paper will expand our perspective
through investigating the following points:(1) Commercial corn production was far more efﬁcient—throughusing machines, streamlined water transportation system, and experimentation in scientiﬁc farming—than historians had generally assumed.
(2) As shown in the Negro Patch management, Collins showed
keen psychological and administrative intuition in getting optimal,
efﬁcient and maximum output from slave labor.

JOSIAH COLLINS III, A SUCCESSFUL CORN PLANTER

99(3) A large amount of corn (around 9,000 bushels per year from1839 to 1861, equivalent to about $6,300) was shipped by water to theeastern coastal markets.
(4) The successful shipment of corn for more than twenty years
resulted from Collins’ careful observations of ﬂuctuations in market
prices for grain and from constant observation of corn crop growth in
the competing Old Northwest.
(5) Collins developed a more ﬂexible and collaborative style ofcrop cultivation than a typical large-scale cotton planter.
This paper will address some of the issues being debated among
economic historians. First, concerning the question of food self-sufﬁciency, Robert Gallman computed that large plantations with 1,000
acres or more in improved land in the cotton South produced 51
bushels of grains per capita, compared to the national per capita output
of 38 bushels. He suggested that the South was rather independent of
the food production in the Old Northwest. He argued that large plantations in the cotton South proved to be “self-sufﬁcient in basic foods.”3
Demonstrably then, in the northeastern corn region in North Carolina
the value of 100 or more bushels of grains per capita, irrespective ofthe land scale, pointed to the clear self-sufﬁciency of the region.4
Second, concerning the choice of crops, planters in the northeasternregion selected corn (not cotton) as their primary cash crop, and a staple crop such as cotton was planted in their spare time with surplus
labor.5 Commercial corn planters tried to use slaves as efﬁciently as
possible since labor-hours per acre of corn were only half of those forcotton.6 Additionally, contrary to previous scholars, brief commentary
will indicate Collins’ concurrent capitalistic and paternalistic attitudes.7 Care is due not to simplify the master-slave or employer andemployee relations.
I
After completing his education at Harvard and a law school at
Litchﬁeld in Connecticut, Josiah Collins III, then twenty one, arrived
at Somerset with his bride from New Jersey in 1830. He was alreadythe owner of 3,000 acres of land and the master of 229 slaves.8
Succeeding his father and also his grandfather, he launched a career ofplantation owner.
Josiah Collins I (1735–1819) immigrated from England in 1773

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amid the American Revolution and worked in the port town ofEdenton in North Carolina as a merchant, land speculator, and politician. He established the Lake Company in 1785 with two otherinvestors. They quickly started purchasing a cypress and gum swamp
adjoining Lake Phelps.
There spread a burst of enthusiasm for improving river channels in
the eastern lowlands of North Carolina in those days. As a matter offact, George Washington envisioned a canal that would connect the“landlocked Albemarle district to the port of Norfolk” running throughthe Great Dismal Swamp.9 The immense swamp lands in the easternpart of North Carolina, consisting of black loam, muck or peat, had agreat potential for abundant crops, and entrepreneur Collins and his
partners attempted to acquire new land in the 1780s.
At about the same time, Collins ﬁtted two brigs (sailboats with two
mastheads) to bring slave labor from Africa. Collins’ brigs Jennett andCamden arrived at Edenton on June 1 and 10, 1786, carrying eighty
African slaves each. These 160 slaves would become the ﬁrst labor
force to devote their lives to develop the swamp land around Lake
Phelps, the future Somerset Place Plantation.10
Their ﬁrst task was to dig a canal from the lake to the Scuppernong
River. The work of digging a canal through the swamp—some thirty
feet wide, several feet deep, and more than six miles long—was animmense task. The newly arrived African men and women aged twenty to twenty ﬁve looked healthy and strong, but they soon sufferedfrom overworking. They were “conﬁned in huge cages” while they
worked. When seriously injured or disabled, they had been “left by thebank of the canal” to be found dead the next morning. The workers
also had to struggle against swarms of malaria-bearing mosquitoes.
Even more than half a century later, Harriet Jacobs who ran away andhid in Snaky Swamp, not far from Lake Phelps, was horriﬁed by the“hundreds of mosquitoes” which “had so poisoned [her] ﬂesh” within
an hour.11
The canal was ﬁnally completed in 1788 costing many African
lives. Collins and his partners had erected two “Sawmills” by 1794 on
the canal to produce cypress plank and scantling, and they built “aRice machine and a Grist Mill” for thrashing rice and wheat.12 Thoughrice and wheat were later replaced by corn as the primary crop atSomerset, both the large canal and the mechanization of production
systems, which optimized the use of water power, would be the soul of

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101

Collins’ plantation for the next three quarters of a century, spanning
three generations.
After taking over the estates of his partners Josiah I named the plantation “Somerset Place” after Somersetshire, England, his birthplace in
1817. Two years later he died and his son, Josiah II, succeeded.
Josiah Collins II (1763–1839), active as a merchant and manufacturer, also worked as a planter. He developed a close relationship with hisneighbor, the Pettigrews, and traded closely with them.13 He also tried
to purchase slaves to supplement the decreasing labor force. In the late
1820s, he purchased many slaves so that his son could start out life asa planter without any difﬁculty.
Thus, when Josiah Collins III (later to be cited as Collins) arrived atSomerset Place in 1830, the preliminary arrangements had alreadybeen made for the commercial production of grain crops on the plantation. The only task left to him was to enlarge his operations throughefﬁcient management.
II
Edmund Rufﬁn, a preeminent agricultural reformer in the antebellum South and publisher of an agricultural journal, the Farmers’Register (1833–1842), visited Somerset Place in 1839 to observe theconditions of reclamation and drainage and the cultivation of the land.
His observations opened a window for understanding Collins’ management policy.
In 1839, the 1400 acre farm was ready for cultivation by the completion of its drainage system—a complicated network of a canal,drains, ditches, and tap ditches. According to Rufﬁn’s observations,the “water-furrows” in the ﬁelds collected all surface or rain water,
discharging it into the “shallow tap ditches,” then into the “deep 3 feetditches,” “6 feet leading ditches,” then next into the “8 feet main
drains,” and ﬁnally into the “canal.”14 Collins’ “Plantation Record,
1850–1853” is replete with anecdotes of such slave labor as cleaning,
clearing, raking, digging, and cutting the furrows and/or ditches,
including on the Negro Patch; for example:
4 men cleaning out tap ditches . . . Rest of women clearing out 3 ft[.]ditches;
Men with spades[,] women with hoes digging tap ditches from Western
Canal to Mockardon in ﬁelds G & H;

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Men cutting 3 ft[.] ditches in Negro Patch;
Harrowing & planting corn—digging 3 ft[.] ditches in Negro Patch.15

Although the labor was arduous and wearying, his slaves successfully
accomplished it and the whole drainage operation seemed “very perfect” in Rufﬁn’s eyes.16
The soil carefully preserved by the drainage system was very fertile.
The normal yield of corn for Collins was between thirty-ﬁve and ﬁfty
bushels per acre, in comparison with the average yield of ﬁfteen andtwenty in North Carolina. He sometimes produced “around sixty
bushels” to the acre when good planters in the Lower South counted
on “25 to 30 bushels” per acre.17
Rufﬁn was also impressed with Collins’ highly mechanized production system with its effective use of water power. Rufﬁn, in the
Farmers’ Register, described it as follows:
The extensive use made of water to save labor on this estate, [sic] is oneof the most interesting subjects for observation. It has been already stated that the descent of the canal gives a head of 6 feet of water at themills, at the distance of a quarter of a mile from the lake. Part of thispower works a saw mill, and a corn and wheat mill of two pair ofstones, with the bolting, and other machinery, &c. [sic], proper for the
making of ﬂour. Also the corn is shelled and fanned, and, though notnow, formerly the wheat was thrashed, and cleaned by the water-power
conducted to the barn and one of the great corn houses. Besides thesemore important operations, and for some of which there is daily use
made of the water-power, it is also directed to crushing and grinding
corn in the ear or horses and other stock, the working a circular saw,
turning grindstones, and may be substituted for hand labor in various
other ways. When it is desired to prepare a cargo of corn for theCharleston market, there is no need of commencing until notice has
been received of the vessel having arrived in the river below. The
shelling of the corn is then commenced, by a shelling machine ofimmense power, then fanned, next lifted up by elevating machinery,from the ﬁrst to the fourth story of the house, there measured, and thenemptied through a spout into a large ﬂat boat lying in the canal, which,as soon as loaded in bulk, is conveyed along the canal to the vessel.
Thus the risk of keeping a large quantity of shelled corn in bulk isavoided, and, by the aid of water, all the operations necessary to load a
vessel may be completed in a very short time.18

As Rufﬁn’s observations above suggest, the water-powered machines

JOSIAH COLLINS III, A SUCCESSFUL CORN PLANTER103

and the streamlined water transportation system to take corn to markets were absolutely essential to the success of Collins’ enterprise. Thevery heavy corn gathered in the ﬁelds was brought in ﬂatboats througha ﬂoodgate system, operating adjacent to each ﬁeld, and carried into
the large multistory granaries with minimal labor cost. Uriah Bennett,
a ﬁeld hand at Somerset, later recalled that the barges lying in thecanal with a ﬁxed amount of corn for markets were dragged down thecanal by a team of horses to market bound vessels waiting at themouth of the Scuppernong River.19
In the Albemarle Sound region, there were about twenty rivers running north and south into the sound. Almost every planter in the region
was anxious to locate his plantation nearest possible place to navigable
water. Corn planters, Stephen A. Norﬂeet in Bertie County, Thomas P.
and Henry K. Burgwyn in Northampton County, David Clark andThomas Deveraux in Halifax County, and Ebenezer and Charles L.
Pettigrew in Tyrrell County, as well as Collins each had an excellent
system of waterways to transport crops to markets along the east coast.
The Burgwyns, for example, settled on the Roanoke River in 1840,
and though in close proximity to the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, the Roanoke River provided access to “the cheapest and bestwater routes” to Charleston, Norfolk, and New York.20
Collins’ management techniques improved after Rufﬁn’s visit.
There was a revival of the agricultural reform movement in North
Carolina from the 1840s. Collins welcomed this trend, focusing on thetechnological improvement and soil fertility.
First, Collins’ entries from his ledgers and daybooks show that hebegan to purchase new or improved agricultural machines, implements
and machine parts around the mid 1840s. Examples are: “LimeSpreader & Leather Band $47.50” in 1844, “Plow Shares” and “Plow
Points” in 1846, “Reaping Machine $100.00” in 1847, “Reaper$159.25” in 1848, “India Rubber band for Thrasher $18.70” in 1848,and “Castings f[o]r Reaper $31.55” in 1851.21
But the technological improvements for corn cultivation at Somerset
Place lagged behind those for wheat. No entries were found in his
records for machines for corn cultivation, and there were some for purchases of machines and machine parts for the wheat crop, examples
are: “Wheat Thrasher & Horse Power $262” in 1854, “Castings fr
Wheat Cutter $77.98” in 1855, “Wheat Cutters $320.45” in 1856, and“Wheat Harvesters $462.92” in 1857.22 The reason for this technologi-

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cal lag can be ascribed to the botanical growth of corn itself, not to
Collins’ lack of concern for the inventions or improvements inmachines for corn production.
Corn in general could be adapted to almost every kind of soil, andmoderate harvests could be expected even with careless practices.
Compared with cotton, corn needed less continuous care. Intensive
labor was needed only at planting and the short harvesting. Only 69
slave labor-hours were required to grow and harvest an acre of corn, in
contrast with 135 for cotton.23 Slave women and children worked manually in almost every phase of corn production just the same as slavemen. Collins’ Plantation Record demonstrates this as follows:Children with some women pulling up corn stalks in Gallow ﬁeld;
Balance of women . . . carrying corn in Machine House loft & haulingcorn from Upper Rice ﬁeld[.] 4 women gathering corn in same ﬁeld. 4
women gathering corn in the same ﬁeld.24

Under these circumstances, planters presumably did not consider it
necessary to use labor-saving, large machines and implements likecutters, reapers and planting machines for their corn crops.
In the case of Collins, he found in corn production labor-saving
mechanisms. In Billet ﬁeld, one of his corn ﬁelds in 1850, for example, the work of spreading lime with machines was followed by harrowing the ground, dropping the corn seeds, and covering the soil: “2men hauling lime[,] 2 men & 6 women tending & feeding [Lime]
Machine,” and “Lime Machine . . . 4 men harrowing in the lime—1
double furrow plough, 3 droppers & 1 coverer going.”25 Additionally,
the work of carrying heavy manure to corn ﬁelds was fulﬁlled by usingcarts and ﬂatboats: “6 carts hauling manure to ﬂats & from ﬂats toﬁeld[s].”26 Thus, the use of better machines and implements undoubtedly formed an integral part of Collins’ management policy.
Collins found yet another way to take advantage of the labor-saving
machines by allowing slaves to use them in the 55 acre common ﬁeld
called the “Negro Patch.” Therefore, the ﬁeld hands could, for example, use mechanical reapers and wagons to cut and haul wheat (thescheduled crop in 1850; see the Table for this essay) even in the Negro
Patch during the harvest. According to his records, two slaves, probably women, worked “Machines [for] Cutting Wheat in Negro Patch”
until 12 o’clock on June 19 in 1850. A week later, “6 Waggons” wereused for “hauling wheat from Negro Patch.”27 It should also be pointed

JOSIAH COLLINS III, A SUCCESSFUL CORN PLANTER105

out that the slaves were permitted to work in their patch in the daytime. Even Collins, an advanced and scientiﬁc planter, became awarethat the Negro Patch had the poorest soil in his estate, and recordedwith admiration, “55 Acres Negro Patch Sound Corn 160 bls. Rotten
53 bls.[—]Yield pr. acre nearly 4 Bbls.!!!!” in his memorandum notebook in 1838.28 He was surprised with this high productivity. The factthat the Negro Patch continued to exist until Collins took refuge ininland Franklin County just prior to the invasion of Federal Forces into
the Albemarle region in 1862, shows that the Patch also had a fairly
good effect on labor yields in the plantation ﬁelds. There were few
planters in northeastern North Carolina who secured a steady yield ofaround 30,000 or more bushels of corn both in 1850 and 1860.29 Suchan unobtrusive policy on the part of Collins was an important part ofhis strategy for controlling the slave labor force, since it could ultimately facilitate smooth operation of the mechanized production system as a whole.
It is clear that Collins prudently dealt with the Negro Patch withpsychological attitude and a sharp entrepreneurial and proﬁt-oriented
mind. By using machines and wagons, slaves could harvest their own
wheat efﬁciently without hard labor.30 The majority of them must haveaccepted this policy with no difﬁculty. From Collins’ viewpoint, it was
an offshoot of his wide-ranging system of positive reinforcements,
incentives and rewards for working hard.31 Collins tried to get his
slaves accustomed to working the machines, using the wagons andother improved implements in the Negro Patch, just like in other plantation ﬁelds, thereby instilling the motivation and initiative to work
hard. There is no doubt that slaves recognized a sense of impartiality—
Collins’ fair treatment of them—behind his permission to use themachines. Doing the same kinds of work simultaneously in both theplantation ﬁelds and the Negro Patch fostered slaves’ motivation forwork in both. Impartial treatment of the slaves solved the old problem
of slaves’ tendency to cultivate their own land better than their master’s ﬁelds.32
Second, Collins’ other efforts to improve his management techniques concerned the soil fertility. A generous use of manure and otherfertilizers in planting was a basic characteristic of Collins’ farming.
No change in this fertilization method occurred after he took the decisive step to replace rice and wheat with corn.
Some of Collins’ papers abound with references to purchasing or

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TABLE
Crop Rotation Schedule for Somerset Place Plantationfrom January 1849 to July 1853
Field ＼ Year

1849

Negro Patch
Upper Old New Ground
Lower Old New Ground
Upper Rice Field
Lower Rice Field
Billet Field
Gallows Field
Brier Hall
83 Acre74 AcreLake Side Field
Western Field
Canal Side
Indian Town Field
Tuscarora
Adam Cut
Barn Cut
North Boundary
Saw Mill Cut
Potato Patch
Cotton Patch
Turnip PatchHay Field
Field B
Field C
Field D
Field E
Field F
Field G
Field H
C: Corn

W: Wheat

1

(W)

(W)
(W)
(W)

(W)
(W)
(W)

1850

1851

W
C
C, (W)W
C, (W)W
C×
C, Pot×
C
C, Ct
C, (W), Ct,
Pot, Hay W
W
CW
C, (W)W
C, (W)
(W)
W, Cl
×
W
(W)
W

C
×
C
W
C

C
×
Pea
×
R

C
W
W
C, W
C, Pea
R
Pea
C

×

×
×
×

C, (W)
C, (W)
C, (W)
C, (W)
C
C
C, F

W
W
W
W
C, PeaC
C

Pot

R: Rice

1852

C
C
C
C
C

C, PeaC, PeaCCCCC

Ct: Cotton

Pot: Sweet Potatoes

Cl: Clover

1853
×2
×
×
×
×
R
C
R
×
C
R
C
×
C, R
×
×
C
×
×
×
×

×
×
×
×

F: Flax

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107

Notes: 1. In the case of wheat, requiring two years to reach maturity, we find ‘(W)’ in the year ofplanting and a ‘W’ in the crop's second year, when it was harvested. In cases where
Collins noted that wheat was harvested in one year without noting it was planted theprevious year, the implied planting has been noted with a ‘(W).’
2. The symbol × denotes no reference in the Plantation Record. Blanks denote somereference to the field, which is not related to crops.
Source: Organized from Plantation Record from January 1850 to July 1853, Josiah Collins
Papers, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh.

using different kinds of manure and fertilizers, such as lime, peas,
guano, clover, and other “green” manures. Outstanding among thesewas lime. A relatively huge amount of money was appropriated for thepurchase of lime from 1845 to 1850: $717 in 1845, $1,116.84 in 1846,$1,376 in 1847, $1,458.74 in 1848, $620 in 1849, and $942 in 1850.
They showed, however, a clear trend to reduce the amount spent onpurchasing lime after 1850: $400 in 1853, $460 in 1854, $80 in 1857,$60 in 1858, $224.51 in 1859, and $100.87 in 1860 (there were no
entries for 1851, 1852, 1855, and 1856).33 Even agronomist Edmund
Rufﬁn was surprised in 1857, when revisiting Somerset Place andknowing that Collins spread as much as “three hundred bushels [oflime] to the acre.”34 Rufﬁn considered Collins’ liberal use of lime to be
excessive.
The “green” manures, especially peas, were also used often to
restore soil fertility. Not knowing the optimum use of peas as manure
until 1839, Collins gradually gave more attention to peas for soil
improvement. In 1846, he bought “234 Bush[e]ls Peas for Manure to
Wheat” for $129.58.35 Collins had planted peas to restore soil fertility
in rotation schemes (see Table) by 1850.36
Collins also used guano as a fertilizer whose use was not prevalent
in North Carolina until 1850. Collins began purchasing guano experimentally from 1844, but his purchase concentrated in the 1850s, mainly for turnips.37
Besides these fertilizers, farm-made manure as well as animal
manure was also applied. Even weeds were turned into putrescentmanure. When making manure from weeds, he very carefully covered“all the rank growth of weeds” with soil to make compost for corn
production the following year.38
Collins’ interest in soil fertility led him to try the scientiﬁc approachof crop rotation. Crop rotation in North Carolina, unlike in Virginia,

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was not so common in the antebellum period. Collins found that planting corn in the same ﬁeld for many years was bad for the crop, and hestarted cultivating corn “for three years in succession” in 1839, andthen he let the land “lie out of tillage three years, and be grazed in the
middle one of these three years.”39 The Table shows that, with the
exception of ﬁeld F, he continued to grow corn in three year intervals
into the early 1850s. Only in ﬁeld F was corn planted four years insuccession. Even in this case Collins planted peas as fertilizer in the
fourth year together with corn.
Collins also discovered the most efﬁcacious use of fallow groundafter three years’ cultivation of corn. For example, as the Table shows,Collins planted wheat in some ﬁelds such as B, C, D and E which wereplanned to be fallow the following year. This is a clear indicator of his
contemplation as to whether or not he needed as long a break between
crops.
Collins’ rotation method was a little different from what was practiced among other planters. Ebenezer Pettigrew, for example, practiced
the three-shift rotation method of “1st year, corn, 2nd, wheat, and 3rd,
. . . natural weeds.”40 The difference does not mean that Collins had
only a smattering of knowledge of or information on crop rotation atthat time, but, on the contrary, it shows his ingenuity in creating a new
method to maximize the corn output.
Through this creative practice, Collins became one of the largest
corn planters in antebellum North Carolina. He was the owner of 299,
288, and 328 slaves in 1840, 1850, and 1860, respectively. Collins
ranked among the top ﬁve planters in North Carolina according to thenumber of slaves in 1860.41 He produced 20,000 bushels of corn in
1839, in which year he decided to grow corn as his major crop.42
During the ensuing decade, especially after 1845, his advanced management techniques brought forth almost unparalleled results.
According to census data, he produced 30,000 bushels of Indian cornin both 1850 and 1860.43 Only a few planters in North Carolina yielded more than 60,000 bushels of corn in 1850 and 1860 combined.44 He
produced as much as “30 to 50 thousand” bushels in a good harvest.45
It should be noted, at the same time, that not only a small proportionof large-scale planters like Collins, but also many smaller-scale slaveowners produced much more corn than was needed for domestic consumption. Benjamin Spruill in Tyrrell County who owned 58 slaves
produced 11,500 bushels of corn in 1860, and consumed only 1,324

JOSIAH COLLINS III, A SUCCESSFUL CORN PLANTER109

bushels per year, including animal intake. William A. Spruill in
Washington County, who owned 32 slaves, produced 5,000 bushels ofcorn in 1860 but used about 810 bushels a year for domestic consumption.46 The per capita grain output for these plantations exceeded 120
bushels.47 In the northeastern corn region, large quantities of surplus
corn were ready to be marketed for sale at any time.
III
The Charleston Courier (1803–1873) reported on February 6, 1839
that two schooners sailing from the port of Ocracoke, North Carolina
arrived at Charleston the previous day with a cargo of corn. One ofthese schooners was named “Chloe Ann.”48 This schooner can be identiﬁed from an entry in Collins’ memorandum book which reads:
Jany. 22 nd—[Schooner] Chloe Ann for Charleston
2199 Bushels of Corn Stringﬁeld Capt n.
Arrived in Charleston 5 th Feby. Corn sold at 110 cts[.]
60 days–cash–gross sales $2398. charges $378.55
Net Amt. $2069.45 cargo overrun 61 Bushels.

On the next page Collins noted a shipment and sale to New York ofapproximately the same amount of corn in May of the same year:
May 14 th Sch r. Edwin & William. Thos. A. Denny Capt n.
2000 Bushels of Corn for New York
arrived in New York 28 th May. Corn sold at 92 cts. [in] cash
Gross Sales $1867.72. Charges $244.66. Net Amt.
$1623.06. add $1.50 for 6 Bus. damaged. $1624.56
Cargo overrun by measure 56 Bushels.
〃
by weight 30 Bushels.
Advanced Freight $100.49

These notes can be taken as a reﬂection of the future pattern ofCollins’ corn marketing. He paid equal attention in shipping to bothmarkets. Collins’ accounts with his commission merchants, Charles
and L. A. Edmondston in Charleston, and Adam Tredwell & Son and
Brown and De Rosset in New York, demonstrate this.
Charles Edmondston and his son, L. A. Edmondston, commissioned
from around 1840 to 1855 and 1856 to 1860 respectively, dealt inCollins’ corn exports to the Deep South. Most of it was sold at
Charleston. In the years 1840 through 1855, Collins gained a large

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amount of net proceeds with the help of C. Edmondston. Collins,
according to his ledgers, received net proceeds of $1,209.37 in 1840,$5,937.20 in 1841, $8,461.63 in 1842, $4,599.27 in 1844, $4,388.19 in
1845, $6,133.58 in 1846, $1,560.07 in 1851, $2,071.34 in 1852,$1,881.95 in 1853, and $4,408.05 in 1854 (there were no entries for1843 and 1847–1850 ).50 L. A. Edmondston, succeeding his father,likewise sold a huge amount of corn for Collins. The net proﬁts
amounted to $4,894.56 in 1856, $4,345.41 in 1857, $4,106.70 in 1858,$5,576.65 in 1859, and $8,407.39 in 1860.51 It can therefore be said
that from 1840 to 1860 Collins shipped his corn to Charleston, ranging
roughly from 6,000 to 8,000 bushels per year, and earned an average
proﬁt of $4,532.09 for the ﬁfteen years.
Slaves in South Carolina did not eat enough corn at that time.
George Miller, a former slave in South Carolina, recalled that slaves“would steal corn and wheat from [n]eighbor plantations. You know
corn and wheat in S.C. was scarce.”52 Charleston and other port cities
along coastal South Carolina and Georgia were especially in need ofcorn importation from other states to meet their needs. The weekly
summaries of the imports of farm products at Charleston port in theCharleston Courier clearly indicate that North Carolina continued toprovide more than half of Charleston’s total corn receipts in the 1840s
and 1850s.53 Relatively easy access to Charleston by water and thedelay in construction of the major railroad lines connecting seaboard
cities with the West and the Upper South enabled corn planters in the
Albemarle region to ship corn to Charleston on a large scale. To thegreat advantage of such planters, the freight charges were much lower
by water due to the increase in volume than by rail.
Through the ﬁrms of Adam Tredwell & Son and of Brown and De
Rosset, Collins also shipped a huge amount of his corn to New York.
Adam Tredwell & Son, commissioned from 1839 to 1853, wasengaged in the factorage in New York. Excluding 1841 and 1842, due
to no entry of his corn in their ledgers, Collins had a large amount of
net proceeds in eleven of these years: he had clear proﬁts of $3,264.71
in 1839, $3,690.17 in 1840, $890.68 in 1843, $2,455.54 in 1845,$6,002.76 in 1846, $5,745.73 in 1847, $4,638.67 in 1848, $3,759.47 in
1849, $8,099.45 in 1850, $7,796.60 in 1852, and $6,758.26 in 1853.54
Compared to this, Brown and De Rosset, commissioned from 1853 to
1861, did not deal in corn as much. Yet Collins still earned net proﬁts
of $6,927.17 in 1854, $2,168.22 in 1855, $4,900.48 in 1856, $1,901.34

JOSIAH COLLINS III, A SUCCESSFUL CORN PLANTER111

in 1858, $1,918.18 in 1859, $743.99 in 1860, and $2,038.04 in 1861.55
For 1857, there is no entry of his corn in their ledgers. It can be estimated from Collins’ marketing of corn to New York that he obtained a
proﬁt averaging $4,094.42 for the eighteen years.
This ﬁgure—almost equal to the $4,532.09 mentioned above forcorn sent to Charleston—shows that New York was no less important
than Charleston as a corn market. New York had the largest urban
population in the country throughout the antebellum period, and its
demand for corn continued to grow. The city gradually became thebase from which Collins could prove his worth as a successful commercial corn planter. This was especially true after the late 1840s
because Western corn farmers sent large amounts of high quality corn
to markets in east coast cities. He was naturally interested in shipping
his corn to New York.
Collins shipped some corn to Norfolk. Through the ﬁrm of Hardy
and Brothers, his commission merchants in Norfolk, Collins earned
net proceeds of $506.02 in 1840, $269.26 in 1841, and $699.37 in
1850. Sometimes he shipped his corn “to Norfolk & reshipped to N
york.”56 Though only one entry was veriﬁed, Collins shipped his corn
to Providence, earning a net proﬁt of $1,413.27 in 1846.57
Thus, Charleston and New York maintained their leading positions
among his corn markets until the very end of the antebellum period.
Net proceeds of $144,818.74 were gained from the sale of his cornalong the east coast from 1839 to 1861, averaging $6,296.47 a year.
Supposing the average price of corn around 70 cents per bushel, it isestimated that about 8,995 bushels of corn were shipped per year. It isestimated that an average $7,779.31, equivalent to about 11,113
bushels of corn, was gained as a net proceed per year during the1850s.58 These ﬁgures show us the magnitude of Collins’ corn shipment.
IV
Behind the extraordinary scenes of large-scale shipments of corn,
however, Collins would often be required to make entrepreneurial
decisions based on ﬂuctuations in the market price of grain and thechances for selling his crops. He devoted himself to the acquisition of
information on the state of the grain market by sending frequent business letters to his commission merchants.

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In a period of less than three months in June to September 1859, forexample, Collins corresponded with Brown and De Rosset at least
eight times chieﬂy on grain market trends in Europe. On August 2,
Collins expressed his view on the inﬂuence of international politics on
the markets:
The cessation of the war in Italy, must, of necessity, have a further
depressing effect upon the market. We may, I suppose, for some time atleast, look fr. [for] peace, but in my opinion the enigma of European
Politics is by no means solved and we may look forward at no distantperiod to a terriﬁc explosion.

Contrary to his expectation, however, the grain market improved,
which clearly pleased him as he wrote on August 10:
It gratiﬁes me to perceive an improvement in the Grain Market, which,tho’ [though] slight now, may, fr. [from] indications abroad, be continued. Should there be much rain in England during the harvest, and the
Potatoe disease which has already made its appearance, proceed a little
further, we may seasonally expect an improvement in both wheat &Corn.59

Thus, whether he liked it or not, Collins was involved in the capitalist world market economy by the late antebellum period. It is not certain whether Collins designed a plan to export his corn to England as
Ebenezer Pettigrew did, but for some of the antebellum large commercial corn planters in northeastern North Carolina, European countries,
especially England, seemed potential markets for their crops.60
In addition to carefully observing the overseas grain market ﬂuctuations, Collins observed the growth of the corn crop in the Westernstates from the mid 1840s until 1861. Whether farmers in the Old
Northwest would have a good crop or not proved to become a serious
concern for him. A letter sent to L. A. Edmondston in 1859 demonstrates this. It reads “I suspect for [sic] the failure of the Crops in the
N. Western States,” which is “destined to rule for the remainder of theyear. This will certainly be the case, if it be true, as asserted, that
Illinois will be required to send as much corn westward as she ships
eastward.”61
Collins occasionally made changes in his schedule of crop shipments to improve his chances for marketing the crops based on his
own judgement. He never left those decisions solely to commission
merchants. For example, on April 9, 1859, two days after making

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113

arrangements with L. A. Edmondston for the date of his corn shipment, Collins postponed his shipment by saying that market “circumstances have led me to postpone the loading of the vessel a few days.”
In another case, although the schooner Rest was already prepared toload her cargo, Collins wrote to Brown and De Rosset on August 10,
1859: “I shall not put it on board until the ﬁrst of next week, as I preferto give the wheat a little more manipulating that it may be better protected during a long voyage.”62V
A striking aspect of his commercial corn production tends to conceal the fact that Collins was a highly ﬂexible plantation manager.
Besides corn, he raised crops like wheat, rice, cotton, hay, ﬂax, oats,rye, peas, beans, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes and wool. Tobacco andsilk had also been produced on an experimental basis. Among thesealternate crops, wheat was his principal cash crop next to corn. As
corn needed intensive labor only at planting and harvesting and thework load was minimal between these times, most corn planters in the
Albemarle region also produced wheat—entailing no more than 35
labor-hours per acre—to try to keep slaves working at all times. Despite the uncertainty of harvesting a crop due to weather and diseases,
wheat had the advantage of selling for twice as much a price per bushel
as corn.63
Collins grew wheat fairly well in combination with corn using arotation method of his own device (see Table). He shipped wheat from1844 to 1860 almost exclusively to New York with the help of Adam
Tredwell & Son and Brown & De Rosset. Excluding 1845 and 1848
because no entry of his wheat trading was recorded in his ledgers for
those years, his net proﬁts were $3,123 in 1846, $2,283.17 in 1847,$1,118.56 in 1849, $4,755.35 in 1850, $1,767.28 in 1851, $4,736.71 in
1852, $8,418.75 in 1853, $3,597.17 in 1854, $11,669.66 in 1855,$4,434.90 in 1856, $4,990.74 in 1857, $3,401.97 in 1859, and$3,347.10 in 1860. These net proﬁts total $57,644.36 and average$4,434.18 per year for the thirteen years speciﬁed.64 The sum$57,644.36 corresponds to about 55 percent of the total net proﬁt of$104,746.02 for corn during the same years, 1846 to 1860. It showsthat wheat played a more or less secondary role to corn.
Somerset Place also engaged in the cultivation of rice until the late

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1850s, though not on a signiﬁcantly large scale. Rice had been produced on a large scale by the Lake Company in the days of Josiah I,
but later, according to Rufﬁn, it was “abandoned” because it caused“so much sickness among the slaves,” including intermitting andinﬂammatory fevers and typhus caused by putrefaction around thestagnant waters of the swampy rice ﬁelds. Collins, nonetheless, cultivated rice and to some extent shipped it even in the 1850s. He earned
net proﬁts of $1,877.53 in 1853, $997.43 in 1854, $2,221.90 in 1855,$2,077.99 in 1856, and $200.64 in 1857 for a total of $7,375.49. Thissum corresponds to around 20 percent of the $36,284.10 total net profit for his corn during the same years.65 Comparatively, the total net
proﬁt of $33,111.22 for his wheat from 1853 to 1857 corresponds to91.3 percent of the total net proﬁt for his corn during this period. Thisshows that, as far as these three crops were concerned, the proportionsof corn, wheat, and rice total net proﬁts were 47.3, 43.1, and 9.6 percent respectively. Collins also shipped cotton on a scale of around 45
bales on average to New York in 1839, 1840 and 1841. In 1850, he
harvested 2,000 pounds of cotton in his “Cotton Patch.”66
The increase of production of peas from 200 bushels in 1850 to as
much as 1,500 bushels in 1860 shows not only Collins’ growing interest in peas to restore soil fertility, but also his effectiveness in utilizing
his slaves’ labor. Many schooners arriving at Charleston from North
Carolina were loaded with peas along with corn. The column “ShipNews” in the Charleston Courier reported: “Schr. Conquest, Hays,
Plymouth, (N.C.) 3 days. Corn and Peas” on September 23, 1839 and“Schr. Melvina, Mayo, Ocracok, (N.C.) 6 days. Corn and Peas” on
January 3, 1850.67 This indicates that peas were used to restore fertility
to the depleted soil, and that they were plentiful enough to be exported.
Along with cultivating crops, Collins raised stock: horses, mules,
cows, oxen, hogs, and sheep. Hogs, totaling as many as 496 head in
1860, were fattened by his corn and “100 to 200 hogs” were slaughtered each year to feed slaves as well as his own family. Some of theirmeat was smoked into high-quality hams that Collins prided himself
on and were consumed as “every planter [in the region] put(s) up alarge quantity for his private use.” Milk and butter were also homemade. Fifty-two heads of milk cows, for example, produced 2,500
pounds of butter in 1860. The same year, 225 sheep were raised andJOSIAH COLLINS III, A SUCCESSFUL CORN PLANTER

115

provided 500 pounds of wool. Mules, oxen, and horses were used asdraft animals, with the mules and oxen being an especially invaluable
labor force.68 Livestock raising formed an integral part of his management to establish a self-sufﬁcient economy.
VI
Thus far, this examination showed how Josiah Collins III produced
corn commercially with considerable success. With a sophisticatedproduction system characterized by mechanization, a streamlined
water transportation system, and scientiﬁc farming, Collins continued
to produce large amounts of corn throughout the antebellum period.
As surplus labor was much more available than in the cotton South, it
was ingeniously applied to the cultivation of cotton, rice, wheat, andpeas as well as stock raising. As was not the case for cotton planters in
the Deep South, the choice of corn increased the opportunity for efﬁcient use of slave labor and opened the way for him to raise various
crops and stocks in a surprisingly ﬂexible and collaborative way. The
means of producing such plantation crops kept Somerset self-sufﬁcient. The output of grains per capita for Somerset Place in 1860 was
calculated at 113.8 bushels—exceeding by far the 51 bushels producedon large plantations in the cotton South.69
His success was also a product of his skillful management of slavelabor, which was clearly revealed in his management of the Negro
Patch. Like in his own plantation ﬁelds, he allowed slaves to work intheir Negro Patch in the daytime. Impartial treatment of his slaves, inother words having them work in both the Negro Patch and the plantation ﬁelds without differentiation of labor, instilled the slaves the motivation to work hard. This was an effective way of gaining the most outof their labor. The Negro Patch on Somerset was devised in order tomake slaves as efﬁcient as possible, and it worked very well.
Thanks to the aforementioned plantation management techniques,
Collins could send his huge shipments of corn to markets throughcanals, rivers, and sounds. Throughout the antebellum period, Collins
and other commercial corn planters in northeastern North Carolina
played an important role as corn suppliers to Charleston and New
York. It is worth noting that this region at the time continued to contribute to the food supply of the North as well as of the South. How-

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ever, it should not be forgotten that Collins’ success in shipping corn
was the result of careful observations of ﬂuctuations in overseas anddomestic market prices for grain, and of the corn crop situation in thecompeting Old Northwest.
As far as Collins’ approach to plantation agriculture is concerned, it
can be inferred that he behaved like a rational, entrepreneurial capitalist. But such an attitude was not at odds with his consideration for his
slaves. During the Christmas season, for example, Collins gave someof his privileged slaves permission to visit their relatives in Edenton.
Work in the ﬁelds by his hands was customarily stopped when it began
to rain. In the winter time, they were permitted to warm themselves inthe ﬁelds by “burning coal” or “frying fat” even during working
hours.70 These suggest that capitalist and paternalist attitudes, rather
than being contradictory, were complementary among slaveholding
plantation owners.
Overall, it would seem, according to the evidence presented in thisessay, that Somerset Place Plantation in the antebellum northeastern
North Carolina is a good illustration of how well a planter in the
peripheral parts of the South could manage a plantation.

NOTES
Cornelius O. Cathey, Agricultural Developments in North Carolina 1783–1860(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956), v; Diane Lindstrom,“Southern Dependence upon Interregional Grain Supplies: A Review of the Trade
Flows, 1840–1860,” Agricultural History 44 (January 1970): 107; and Wayne K.
Durrill, “Routine of Seasons: Labour Regimes and Social Ritual in an Antebellum
Plantation Community,” Slavery & Abolition 16 (August 1995): 163.
2
See, for example, Betty Wood, Women’s Work, Men’s Work: The Informal Slave
Economies of Lowcountry Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995); andRoderick McDonald, The Economy and Material Culture of Slaves: Goods andChattels on the Sugar Plantations of Jamaica and Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press, 1993).
3
Robert E. Gallman, “Self-Sufﬁciency in the Cotton Economy of the Antebellum
South,” Agricultural History 44 (January 1970): 5–23. Gallman’s computation
showed that only the smallest classes of farms under nineteen acres produced below
the 38 bushel national norm.
4
The computation of the value of bushels of grains per capita on many estates,
large or small, shows mostly 100 to 150 bushels of grains. For the method of calculation see Gallman, “Self-Sufﬁciency,” 7. See also Eighth Census of the United States,
1860 (hereinafter cited as U.S. Census, 1860): Alamance-Yancy Co., North Carolina,
Agriculture and Population Schedules, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (micro1

JOSIAH COLLINS III, A SUCCESSFUL CORN PLANTER

117

ﬁlm, State Archives, Division of Archives and History, Raleigh).
5
Gavin Wright, The Political Economy of the Cotton South: Households, Markets,
and Wealth in the Nineteenth Century (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978),55–56, 74–87.
6
U.S. Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States:
Colonial Times to 1970, part 1, 500.
7See, for example, Christine Daniels, “Gresham’s Laws: Labor Management on an
Early-Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Plantation,” Journal of Southern History 62(May 1996): 205–206; and Drew G. Faust, James Henry Hammond and the Old
South: A Design for Mastery (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982),
72–73.
8“Scuppernong Farms Project (RF-NC 25), Washington and Tyrrell Counties,” inthe Farm Security Administration Papers, North Carolina Archives and History,
Raleigh (hereinafter cited as SFP in FSA Papers, NCAH).
9
W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig, eds., The Papers of George Washington,
Confederate Series 1 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992), 244–248,
281–283; and John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington from theOriginal Manuscript Sources 1745–1799, vol. 28 (U.S. Government Printing Ofﬁce),
67–81, 258–260, 278–281, 310–314, 333–338.
10June 10, 1786, Account of Importations, 1784–1787, Port Roanoke, Ports,
Treasurer’s and Comptroller’s Papers, vol. 33, NCAH.
11
Peter Wood, “Digging Black History,” Southern Exposure 11 (March/April
1983): 63; and Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Boston: Published
for the Author, 1861), 171.
12
William S. Tarlton, Somerset Place and Its Restoration (Raleigh: Division ofState Parks, North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development, 1954), 7.
13
Ebenezer Pettigrew Account with Josiah Collins, 1828, Folder 484 in the
Pettigrew Papers #592, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University ofNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Sarah Lemmon, ed., The Pettigrew Papers, vol. 2(Raleigh: Division of Archives and History, North Carolina Department of Cultural
Resources, 1988), 74–75, 96–97.
14
Farmers’ Register (Petersburg, Va.) 7, no. 12 (1839): 727.
15
Plantation Record from January 1850 to July 1853 (A.B. 265.6) (hereinafter citedas Plantation Record), January 9, April 22, 1850, March 31, April 5, 1852, andpassim, Josiah Collins Papers (hereinafter JCP), NCAH.
16
Farmers’ Register 7, no. 12 (1839): 727.
17
Lewis C. Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860, vol.
2 (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1933), 815–816; and Cathey, Agricultural
Developments, 133–134.
18
Farmers’ Register 7, no. 12 (1839): 729.
19
Uriah Bennett interview, SFP in FSA Papers, NCAH. Uriah Bennett was bornaround 1845 at Somerset Place.
20
Archie K. Davis, Boy Colonel of the Confederacy: The Life and Times of HenryKing Burgwyn, Jr. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 24.
21
Daybook of Josiah Collins from January 1842 to January 1846 (A.B. 265.1)(hereinafter cited as Daybook, 1842–1846), March 28, 1844 JCP, NCAH; Ledger A:
Account Book of Josiah Collins from January 1, 1839–March 1, 1853 (A.B. 265.4),
130–136, 142, 148, JCP, NCAH; and Daybook of Josiah Collins from January 1848 toJuly 1856 (A.B. 265.2) (hereinafter cited as Daybook, 1848–1856), September 12,
1848, August 21, 1851, JCP, NCAH.

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22
Daybook, 1848–1856, June 29, 1854, JCP, NCAH; and Ledger B: Account Bookof Josiah Collins from March 1, 1853 to February, 1867 (A.B. 265.5), 202, 206, 208,
JCP, NCAH.
23
U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Historical Statistics, part 1, 500.
24
Plantation Record, April 17, October 22, 1850, JCP, NCAH.
25
Plantation Record, April 23, 24, 1850, JCP, NCAH.
26
Plantation Record, May 1, 1850, JCP, NCAH.
27
Plantation Record, June 19, 26, 1850, JCP, NCAH.
28
Memorandum Book (P.C. 417.12), 7, JCP, NCAH (Underlined in the original).
29
See notes 43 and 44 below.
30
Large-scale production of crops required the purchase of the best agricultural
machinery. Not only skilled slaves but also ﬁeld hands and even female slaves attimes became masters of plantation technology. Plantation Record, April 23–24, June
17, August 21, October 30, 1850, June 12–19, 1851, June 15–17, 21, 1852, JCP,
NCAH; and Gray, History of Agriculture, vol. 1, 470.
31
It is well known among historians that land for slaves’ own use could be an offshoot of a system of rewards and incentives. Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L.
Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, vol. 1(Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1974), 148–149; James O. Breeden, ed., Advice Among
Masters: The Ideal in Slave Management in the Old South (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1980), 267, 270–272, 274.
32
Janet Schaw, Journal of a Lady of Quality: Being the Narrative of a Journey from
Scotland to the West Indies, North Carolina, and Portugal, in the years 1774 to 1776,
edited by Evangeline Andrews and Charles Andrews (3d ed., New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1939), 176–177.
33
Ledger A, 130–177, JCP, NCAH; and Ledger B, 194–221, JCP, NCAH.
34
Edmund Rufﬁn, Agricultural, Geological, and Descriptive Sketches of Lower
North Carolina, and the Similar Adjacent Lands (Raleigh: The Institution for the Deaf
& Dumb & the Blind, 1861), 238 (microﬁlm).
35
Ledger A, 138, JCP, NCAH; and Ledger B, 196–218, JCP, NCAH.
36
Plantation Record, May–June, 1850, June, December, 1851, January, June–
August, November, 1852, June, 1853, JCP, NCAH.
37
Letterbook, 1858–1861 (P.C. 417.2), 423, 428, JCP, NCAH; Daybook, 1842–
1846, September 3, 1844, JCP, NCAH; Ledger A, March 23, 1853, May 5, 1854, JCP,
NCAH; and Ledger B, 194–204, JCP, NCAH.
38
Rufﬁn, Agricultural and Descriptive Sketches, 238.
39
Farmers’ Register 7, no. 12 (1839): 729.
40
Farmers’ Register 7, no. 12 (1839): 730.
41
U.S. Census, 1840: Washington County, North Carolina (hereinafter WCNC),
Population Schedule, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (microﬁlm, State
Archives, Division of Archives and History, Raleigh); U.S. Census, 1850: WCNC,
Population, 110–115; U.S. Census, 1860: WCNC, Population, 120–124; U.S. Census,
1850: vol. 4, Compendium (Washington: A.O.P. Nicholson, Public Printer, 1854), 95;
and U.S. Census, 1860: vol. 2, Agriculture (Government Printing Ofﬁce, 1864), 236.
42
Memorandum Book, 7–9, 22, JCP, NCAH.
43
U.S. Census, 1850: WCNC, Agriculture, 165; and U.S. Census, 1860: WCNC,
Agriculture, 149.
44
The counties surveyed covered the basin of the Roanoke River and the area of
Albemarle Sound. They were Currituck, Camden, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Chowan,
Washington, Tyrrell, Gates, Hertford, Northampton, Bertie, Halifax, Edgecombe,

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119

Martin, Pitt, Beaufort and Hyde. U.S. Census, 1850: Alamance-Yancy Co., N.C.,
Agriculture (microﬁlm); and U.S. Census, 1860: Alamance-Yancy Co., N.C.,
Agriculture (microﬁlm).
45“History of Somerset Place,” Department of Conservation and Development,
Division of State Parks, Raleigh, North Carolina, 2.
46
For the method of computing corn consumption see Sam B. Hilliard, Hog Meatand Hoecake: Food Supply in the Old South, 1840–1860 (Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1972), 157–158.
47
The output of grains per capita at Benjamin Spruill and William Spruill’s plantations was computed at about 165 and 124 bushels respectively. For the method andsource see note 4.
48“Ship News: Port of Charleston, February 6, 1839,” Charleston Courier, 6
February 1839.
49
Memorandum Book, 19–21, JCP, NCAH (Underlined in the original).
50
In 1855, Collins earned a net proﬁt of $2,362.73 for a mixed cargo of “Rice andCorn,” so the net proﬁt for corn in 1855 cannot be calculated. Ledger A, 67–183, JCP,
NCAH; and Ledger B, 116, 197, JCP, NCAH.
51
Ledger B, 118–121, 205–219, JCP, NCAH.
52
George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, supplement series 1, vol. 9 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Co., 1977), 1487.
53“Charleston Market,” Charleston Courier, 1840–1859; and Lindstrom, “Southern
Dependence,” 107.
54
The mixed cargoes of “Wheat & Corn” for 1844 and 1851, with net proﬁts of$1,368.48 and $1,747.07 respectively, were excluded from the calculation. In 1847
and 1852, there were two types of cargoes, corn only and “Wheat & Corn.” The“Wheat & Corn” cargoes for these years were excluded. Ledger A, 32–47, 270–317;
and Ledger B, 284–285, JCP, NCAH.
55
The mixed cargo of “Wheat & Corn” for 1853, with a net proﬁt of $1,789.44, was
excluded. In 1854 and 1858, there were two types of cargoes, corn only and “Wheat& Corn.” The “Wheat & Corn” cargoes for these years, with net proﬁts of $3,235.70
and $2,775.19, were excluded. Ledger B, 286–329, JCP, NCAH.
56
Ledger A, 67, 125, 169, JCP, NCAH; and Ledger B, 197, JCP, NCAH. See also
Ledger B, 288, 298, JCP, NCAH.
57
Ledger A, 133, JCP, NCAH.
58
For the price of corn per bushel see Douglass C. North, The Economic Growth of
the United States, 1790–1860 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1961), 263; and“Charleston Prices Current,” Charleston Courier, 1839–1860.
59
Letterbook, 276, 282, JCP, NCAH.
60
Lemmon, ed., Pettigrew Papers, vol. 2, 109–110.
61
Letterbook, 196, JCP, NCAH.
62
Letterbook, 196, 282, JCP, NCAH.
63
U.S. Census, 1850: WCNC, Agriculture, 165; U.S. Census, 1860: WCNC,
Agriculture, 149; U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Historical Statistics, 500; and North,
Economic Growth, 263.
64
The mixed cargoes of “Wheat & Corn” for 1844 and 1858, with net proﬁts of$1,368.48 and $2,775.19 respectively, were excluded. In 1847 and 1851–1854, there
were two types of cargoes, wheat only and “Wheat & Corn.” The “Wheat & Corn”
cargoes for these years, with a proﬁt averaging $2,269.67, were excluded. Ledger A,
276–314, JCP, NCAH; and Ledger B, 286–328, JCP, NCAH.
65
Farmers’ Register 7 no. 12 (1839): 729; Hugh Williamson, The History of North

120

TSUTOMU NUMAOKA

Carolina, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson, 1812; repr., Spartanburg, S.C.:
Reprint Co., 1973), 183–205; Ledger B, 116–118, JCP, NCAH; and Plantation
Record, April 12–14, July 28, 30, October 25, 27, 1852, March 8, April 25, 29, May
24, 1853, JCP, NCAH.
66
Ledger A, 32–40, JCP, NCAH; and U.S. Census, 1850: WCNC, Agriculture, 165.
67
“Ship News,” Charleston Courier, September 23, 1839, January 3, 1850.
68
U.S. Census, 1850: WCNC, Agriculture, 165; U.S. Census, 1860: WCNC,
Agriculture, 149; Uriah Bennett interview, SFP in FSA Papers, NCAH; and Letterbook, 168, JCP, NCAH.
69
For the method and source of computing the value of grains per capita forSomerset see note 4.
70
Plantation Record, January 17–19, December 18–20, 1850, JCP, NCAH.