Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

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

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the David Franklin Thorpe Papers #4262, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Edith Mitchell Dabbs of Mayesville, S.C., in March 1973.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Rebecca McCoy; Suzanne Ruffing, September 1996

Encoded by: Eben Lehman, January 2007

Updated by: Dawne Howard Lucas and Becca Stubbs, February 2022

This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Abolitionists--New England.
• African American agricultural laborers--South Carolina--History--19th century.
• African Americans--South Carolina.
• Agriculture--South Carolina--History--19th century.
• Beaufort County (S.C.)--History.
• Boston (Mass.)--History.
• Clubs--South Carolina--Saint Helena Island.
• Confederate States of America--Social conditions.
• Cooley, Rossa B. (Rossa Belle), b. 1873.
• Cotton trade--South Carolina--History--19th century.
• Cotton--South Carolina--History--19th century.
• Diaries.
• Family--South Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Free African Americans--South Carolina.
• Freedmen--South Carolina.
• General stores--South Carolina--History--19th century.
• Judges--South Carolina--History--19th century.
• Penn School (Saint Helena Island, S.C.)
• Plantations--Management.
• Plantations--South Carolina--Saint Helena Island.
• Plantations--South Carolina--Sea Islands.
• Plantations--South Carolina.
• Planters Association.
• Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)--South Carolina.
• Rhode Island--History.
• Rifle and Sporting Club.
• Saint Helena Island (S.C.)--Commerce--History--19th century.
• Saint Helena Island (S.C.)--History.
• Saint Helena Island (S.C.)--Social conditions.
• Saint Helena Island (S.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Sea Islands--Commerce--History--19th century.
• Sea Islands--History.
• Sea Islands--Social conditions.
• Sea Islands--Social life and customs.
• Slavery--Songs and music.
• Slavery--South Carolina.
• South Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Thorpe, David Franklin, 1836-1909.
• Thorpe, Mary, fl. 1865-1866.
• Weld, William G.
• Women--Diaries.

• Penn School Papers (#3615)
• Francis Everett Barnard Papers (#4181)

David Franklin Thorpe:

The David Franklin Thorpe papers include correspondence, legal and financial material, subject files, diaries, and account books relating principally to cotton production and trade, to affairs in the Sea Islands and in the North, and to family matters. Most of the papers are letters to David Thorpe from William G. Weld, his Boston business partner, from friends and relatives in the North, and from plantation superintendents, military officials, and other Sea Island residents. Correspondence between Weld and Thorpe concerns management of plantations they jointly owned and leased. Topics discussed include cultivation, preparation for shipping, and marketing of cotton; gold prices; labor; land sales; and the general store Thorpe ran. Letters from family and northern friends, many of whom were abolitionists, concern political, intellectual, and social life, particularly in Rhode Island and Boston during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Twentieth-century correspondence consists of letters from Penn School Principal Rossa B. Cooley and other Saint Helena Island, S.C., residents to Thorpe's son and daughter-in-law. There are volumes of Thorpe's diaries, 1861-1869, noting his daily activities and data on planting and African American laborers; two other diary volumes, 1865-1866, probably of Thorpe's sister, Mary Thorpe; Saint Helena Island, S.C., plantation account books, 1854-1868, that include records of payments to free blacks and freedmen; a record book each for the Planters Association, 1866-1867, and the Rifle and Sporting Club, 1866-1868, both of Saint Helena Island; a booklet of slave songs, presumably from the 1860s; magistrates' records of Beaufort County, S.C., 1868-1869; and other volumes.

• Oversize papers (OP-4262/1-2 in OPF-4262/1)
• Picture (P-4262/1)