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

                             #973-z
              ROBERT FRANCIS WITHERS ALLSTON PAPER
                            Inventory

Abstract: Robert Francis Withers Allston, rice planter and civil
engineer, surveyor general of South Carolina, 1823; member of the
General Assembly, 1828-1832; state senator, 1832-1856; and governor
of South Carolina, 1856-1858.
         One letter, dated 5 September 1843, and apparently written
by the Reverend Alexander Glennis of Waccamaw, S.C., to Robert
Francis Withers Allston of Society Hill, Darlington District, S.C. 
In the letter, Glennis described an epidemic of croup among
children in his neighborhood and other sickness in the area; wrote
of church business (presumably Episcopal), including an inquiry
from the Reverend Edward J. Stearns of Richmond, Va.; and offered
Allston spiritual counsel.

Index Terms:Allston, Robert F. W. (Robert Francis Withers),
1801-1864.
         Croup.
         Epidemics--South Carolina--History--19th century.
         Episcopal Church--South Carolina--History--19th century.
         Glennis, Alexander, fl. 1843.
         Stearns, Edward J., fl. 1843

Size:    1 item.

Provenance:Received (in the Thomas Legar‚ Receipt Book, #974) from
Duncan Cameron Waddell of Plantersville, South Carolina, in April
1945.

Access:  No restrictions.

Related Collections: Robert Francis Withers Allston Papers, South
Carolina Historical Collection Robert Francis Withers Allston
Papers, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina

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

                        BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

         Robert Francis Withers Allston (1801-1864) was the son of
Benjamin Allston and Charlotte Anne Allston, who were second
cousins.  The fifth of six children, Allston was born at Brookgreen
Plantation in All Saints' Parish, South Carolina.  He received his
early education at Waldo's School in Georgetown.  At the age of
sixteen, he entered the United States Military Academy and
graduated in June 1821.  He was appointed lieutenant in the 3rd
Artillery and assigned to duty with the Coast Survey.  After taking
part in the survey of the harbors of Plymouth and Provincetown,
Massachusetts, and the entrance of Mobile Bay, he resigned his
commission in February 1822, in order to assume the management of
the plantation of his now widowed mother.
         Allston continued his profession of civil engineer and was
elected, in 1823, to the office of surveyor general of South
Carolina.  In 1828, after two terms as surveyor general, he was
elected from the parish of Prince George, Winyah, to the lower
house of the General Assembly.  In the legislature, he acted with
the States-Rights Party, which was then evolving the doctrine of
nullification.  In 1830, he was reelected as a candidate of that
party, but was defeated in 1832 by a Unionist.  In the next month,
however, he ran successfully for the state senate.  Allston was
regularly returned to this body until his election as governor in
1856, and, from 1847 to 1856, he was its presiding officer.  He
continued in his support of states rights principles, but was
inclined to favor cooperation on the part of the slaveholding
states in preference to separate state action.  During the
nullification controversy, he was made colonel of the militia and,
subsequently, deputy adjutant-general.  In 1842, he was nominated,
against his wishes, to oppose J. H. Hammond in the election for
governor.  In 1850, he was a delegate to the Nashville Convention. 
His term as governor, 1856-1858, occurred in one of the rare
intervals of comparative quiet in the political history of
ante-bellum South Carolina.  He worked toward the development of
railroads, improvement of agricultural methods, and correction of
the inefficient public-school system.
         In 1832, Allston married Adele Petigru, sister of James
Louis Petigru.  He became one of the foremost planters and
slave-owners in the state and was one of the last rice barons of
the low country.  In the reclaiming of swamp land, in the ditching
and diking of rice-fields, his knowledge of engineering served him
well.  The results of some of his experiments were set forth in two
treatises, A Memoir of the Introduction and Planting of Rice in
South Carolina (1843), and An Essay on Sea Coast Crops (1854).  At
the time of his death, he was engaged in cultivating his lands in
order to contribute foodstuffs to his Confederate countrymen.

(Excerpts adapted from the sketch of Robert Francis Withers Allston
by J.H. Easterby in the Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. 1,
pp. 223-224).