Personal Account Book, Carroll County, Tennessee.
Manuscript Account of
Daily Life in the Ante-Bellum South
[Finance]. Garwood, Mary and Sophronia. Manuscript Account Notebook. Carroll County, Tennessee, 1852-74.
Narrow folio; 75 pp.; early pages loose; occasional chipping; contemporary calf-backed marbled boards; some loss to extremities. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
Manuscript note book of the financial records of the Garwood sisters, Mary and Sophronia, in Carroll County, Tennessee, from 1852 to 1874, kept by their guardian, A.E. Cooper. After the first two pages, which bear recipes for cures for flux, headaches, rheumatism, and sore eyes, approximately 30 pages tell the story of women’s life in ante-Bellum South through the gifts, purchases, sales, and other financial transactions of two women.
Records related to the Jackson Mission, detailing payments to the Mission from the Hopewell Presbytery Missionary Society, Bethel Church, Trenton Church, and various individuals, between 1853 and 1860, suggest that the Garwoods were active members of the Mission.
In 1854 it appears that the Garwood estate was settled, and that $7334.26 was due to Sophronia. From that amount, the guardian, who kept this ledger for them, deducted “credits in my favor” or $861.42, then added “amount due from settlement,” and various interest reports. Three pages are then devoted to the records of the hiring out of Sophronia’s slaves to various individuals from 1859 to 1864: a young man named Nace was hired out for $130.; “Ben,” for $65.; “George,” for $35.; and a woman, “Mary,” and her child for $80. At the foot of one page the guardian writes, “The above is all returned and charged to me in check book at Trenton for April [ ] 1859 / AEC Guardian.”
The Garwoods’ personal expenses, which take up the balance of the account book, appear chronologically, and are suggestive of her lifestyle: they include the purchase of handkerchiefs, ribbons, fabric, combs, dressing boxes, and skirts, as well as cash handed the girls directly for various expenses and cash paid out for their schooling.
The final ledger pages date to 1874 and record payments made to A.E. Cooper in his capacity as Treasurer of the Board of Public School Directors. The remaining pages are filed with pencil scribbles and arithmetic problems in a juvenile hand, we suspect that of Cooper’s daughter Eliza.
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