Duke University. All rights reserved.
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1997 Duke University. All rights reserved.
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[Identification of item], Thomas Carroll Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
The papers of Thomas Carroll, planter and merchant of Ridgeway, Warren County, North Carolina, were acquired by purchase in 1938 and donations in 1975 and 1985. The status of copyright interests in these papers is unknown. For further information, see the section on copyright in the Regulations and Procedures of the Manuscript Department.
Encoded by Alvin Pollock, Electronic Text Unit, UC Berkeley Library
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.
The papers of Thomas Carroll span the years 1844 to 1914 with the majority of the papers dating from 1844 to 1887. They consist primarily of correspondence and accounts relating to his plantation, general store, and guardianship of orphans.
Carroll was a planter during the antebellum, Civil War, and postwar periods. After the mid-1870's he lived in Virginia and elsewhere in North Carolina, renting his farm to tenants. The correspondence documents his plantation business, especially trade with commission merchants between Norfolk, Virginia, and New York City and in Liverpool, England. There are also references to slaves, freedmen, tenant farmers, the cotton trade, and the agricultural economy and Reconstruction in North Carolina and other Southern states where family members lived. The Account Book, 1844-1867, contains lists of slaves and transactions involving slave hiring, overseers, workers, wages, midwives, a Petersburg merchant, educational expenses, and goods and services for numerous persons including architect Jacob W. Holt. The financial papers also document slaves, slave hiring, overseers, and educational expenses.
Carroll was the guardian of several orphans who included children of Congressman Joel Holleman. Financial papers and the Account Book, 1844-1867, contain guardianship accounts.
Two volumes from Carroll's general store document his mercantile business before the Civil War. The ledger accounts include free blacks, a shoe shop, Jacob W. Holt, and many slaves. The other volume contains inventories of goods and debts.
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