Manuscripts Department
Library of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
SOUTHERN HISTORICAL COLLECTION

#1504
WILLIAM SAMPLE ALEXANDER DIARY
Inventory

Abstract:          William Sample Alexander (d. 1826) was the son
           of Hezekiah Alexander (1728-1801), a prominent early
           settler of Mecklenburg County, N.C.
                   Diary, 1770-1778, kept by William Sample
           Alexander of Mecklenburg County, N.C.  The diary
           provides a partial description of wagon train trips
           Alexander made between Mecklenburg County and Chester
           County, Pa., selling furs and other back country
           products and buying coffee and other items, a record
           of accounts he maintained with friends and family
           members, descriptions of a few “home remedies,” and
           instructions for trapping beavers.

Online Catalog Terms:
       Alexander, William Sample, d. 1826.
       Chester County (Pa.)—Commerce—History—18th century.
       Diaries—United States—History—18th century.
       Frontier and pioneer life—North Carolina—18th century.
       Fur trade—United States—History—18th century.
       Mecklenburg County (N.C.)—Commerce—History—18th century.
       Medicine—Formulae, receipts, prescriptions—History—18th century.
       Trapping—North Carolina—History—18th century.
       Travelers—United States—Diaries.
       United States—Commerce—History—18th century.
       United States—Description and travel—To 1783.

Size:          1 volume (130 p).

Date Span:     1770-1778.

Provenance:    Received from Mr. Bugs Barringer of Rocky Mount,
               N.C., in 1980.

Access:        No restrictions.

Copyright:     Retained by the authors of items in these papers,
               or their descendants, as
                       stipulated by United States copyright law.

Table of Contents:
   Biographical Note
   Description

                        BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

    Joseph Alexander, William Sample Alexander’s great-grandfather,
emigrated to America from Scotland in the late 17th century, and he and his
family first settled in Chester Co., Pa., and in the Maryland counties of
Somerset and Cecil.  Joseph’s son, James (William’s grandfather), purchased
land in Mecklenburg Co., N. C., and his son Hezekiah (William’s father)
moved to Mecklenburg County sometime before 1760.  William Alexander’s
birthplace is not known, and only scanty details about his life are
available in published sources.  He was married three times, his first wife
Elizabeth, being an early Mecklenburg County settler.


                           DESCRIPTION

    One volume, a diary of about 130 small pages, kept by William Sample
Alexander (d. 1826), of Mecklenburg Co., N. C., 1770-1778.  Alexander was
the son of Hezekiah Alexander (1728-1801), a prominent settler of
Mecklenburg County.  William Sample Alexander operated a wagon train
between Mecklenburg County and Chester Co., Pennsylvania.  The diary
provides a partial description of his wagon train journeys and includes a
record of accounts which he maintained with friends and family members, as
well as descriptions of a few “home remedies.”

    The first substantive entries in William Sample Alexander’s diary are
from 1774, when he left Mecklenburg County on a trip northward.
Philadelphia and Charleston served as Mecklenburg County’s main trading
centers, and traders such as William Sample Alexander traveled to these
centers quite frequently by wagon train.  Alexander operated a wagon train
to the Philadelphia area, and one author reports that he “would haul the
pelts and produce of the farms and forests to Philadelphia and would bring
back all sorts of goods ordered by the ladies and men of the community.”
[Victor C. King, Comp. and Ed., Lives and Times of the 27 Signers of the
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence of May 20, 1775:  Pioneers
Extraordinary (Charlotte:  Anderson Press, 1956).]

    The bulk of the diary describes Alexander’s transaction (the earliest
of which was in 1770) with those who ordered goods in Mecklenburg County,
merchants along the way, and friends, relatives, and merchants upon his
arrival in Chester County.  The diary gives a good idea of prices for
“luxury” items, ranging from furs (primarily fox, raccoon, mink, and
beaver) to coffee, calico, and silk handkerchiefs.

    The diary also gives a complete account of the route taken by
Alexander’s wagon train and of the special problems encountered by
itinerant traders—especially sickness, lame horses, and broken spokes.
There is a less complete account of Alexander’s penchant for “pleasuring”
with his friends and relatives in Pennsylvania.  The frequent reference to
“James” suggests that the trader employed slave labor on his journeys,
which lasted several months at a time.  Alexander also described a number
of remedies and recounted in some detail techniques he used for trapping
beaver.