Adeline Alston Plantation
Adeline Alston Owner and Manager of One of Chatham County’s Largest Plantations
by Steven E. Brooks, Jim and Beverly Wiggins November 2020
Chatham Historical Museum
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Note: Our focus in on the enslaved Black people owned by Josh and Adeline Alston and their heirs.
Below are excerpts from different pages of the research done and compiled by Steven E. Brooks, Jim and Beverly Wiggins -Nov. 2020.
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Chatham County, North Carolina.
What was John and Adeline’s plantation like early in their marriage? Unlike most Chatham County farms, which were worked by the farm owner and his family, John and Adeline’s plantation was a large-scale operation, dependent upon enslaved labor. Although smaller than many coastal plantations, their plantation was large for the central Piedmont, and certainly for Chatham County.
Such farms were multi-crop producers, growing corn, tobacco, cotton, and a variety of garden produce for plantation consumption and requiring structures in addition to the main house, such as stables, storehouses, granaries, and barns.
John and Adeline’s plantation consisted of the main house, kitchen, pig-boiling pit, hand-dug well, smokehouse, cabins for enslaved workers, barns, and likely additional specialty structures such as a laundry or craft cabins.
Some of these are still preserved on the property, along with sections of farm roads that would have served traffic from Pittsboro to the west, as well as for getting plantation products to market.9
Many of the enslaved persons on the plantation would have engaged in agriculture, but others may have been crafts persons. Receipts in the Alston archive suggest that crafts persons enslaved by Chatham Jack Alston likely produced clothing and shoes and other leather goods.
An 1830 receipt suggests that gun manufacture or repairs may have been among the skills practiced on John and Adeline’s plantation. Receipts for cotton and wool cards suggest that some cotton and wool may have been spun and woven into cloth on the plantation. Purchased fabrics, including “linen, negro cottons, flannel, silk, calico, and muslin, edging, ribbons, and needles,” indicate that clothing was being made on the plantation.10
The living quarters for John and Adeline’s enslaved workers would have been constructed of logs with chimneys of local fieldstone. Several cabins were near the main house— probably the living quarters of enslaved workers who worked in the main house or in crafts.
Other cabins were located near the fields, so that agricultural workers would be near their work. We assume that John and Adeline’s relationship followed the expectations of their time for marriages.
When women married, their rights and interests were absorbed into those of their husbands. Wives had no independent right to own, purchase, sell, or contract for property. As a result, during the twenty years of their marriage, Adeline likely had little to do with the business dealings of the family and operation of the plantation.
During this time, she is mostly “out of sight” to us—surviving documents provide few references to her activities.11
Much of the wealth of the Alston’s planter class at this time consisted of enslaved people. As early as 1810, at age 18, John enslaved fifteen persons. (His father, Chatham Jack, enslaved 168 at that time.)
In 1820, John had enslaved 34 persons, of whom 12 were under fifteen years of age. Eighteen of the enslaved workers were employed in agriculture; two in commerce.
The 1830 census (after John and Adeline’s marriage) lists the number of persons enslaved by John at 74, putting him among the largest slaveholders in the county.
It is probable that some of this increase was due to a “dowry” that Adeline brought into the marriage, given the wealth of her own family.12
The plantation was a large producer of cotton and tobacco during the 1830s. Such produce was hauled by wagon over rough, muddy dirt roads to Fayetteville or to Raleigh.
There were tolls on many of these rough roads. From Raleigh, tobacco was shipped on the railroad to Petersburg, Virginia. High freight costs and spoilage of the produce due to inadequate transportation to major markets were major challenges.
Transportation costs reduced profits and were, in part, why Chatham County, along with other Piedmont counties, relied on corn as a major crop for local sales, rather than tobacco and cotton.
In fact, corn substituted for cash in many economic transactions. John Alston, however, was able to diversify his agricultural products and use cash for some business transactions. 13
*Pages 4 & 5/19
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An overseer was a common feature of plantation business as a means of providing the owner with a more leisurely life. In 1836, John made a contract with William Yearns to be overseer, likely not the first such contract and certainly not the last. Yearns was to be responsible for crop growth, husbandry, and the enslaved “hands.”
He was to be paid $200 and “800 weight of pork, two barrels of corn, two bushels of wheat, and two milk cows.” 14 By 1840 John Jones Alston owned more than 4,000 acres in Chatham and Moore counties.
The census schedule lists 106 enslaved persons for John Jones Alston—sixty working in agriculture and two in manufacturing and trade. In April, 1841, John’s father, Chatham Jack died, leaving John Jones Alston “a tract of 300 acres lying on Harland Creek including the house in which he lives…” 15
Only now did John and Adeline own the house and property where they had been living since their marriage.16 Only a year and a half later, John suffered a sudden stroke and died at age 50. At the time John died, he and Adeline, now 37 years old, had been married 20 years. Adeline had eight children and was pregnant with a ninth.
She likely had no experience running the business affairs of the plantation in which she was abruptly thrust as owner, or perhaps even how to relate to the overseer to whom she would give orders. But she did have many of John’s relatives17 close by from whom she could seek advice about managing the plantation as well as raising nine children.
She also had the labor of many enslaved persons and the management of an overseer at her disposal. John’s very sudden and rapidly failing health did not allow time for him to make a written will, so he made an oral statement, as sworn in court by two witnesses, that “I give all my property to my wife [Adeline] to do with as she pleases.” 18
This was an unusual circumstance that resulted in much subsequent litigation involving Adeline. Legally, an oral will could convey only personal property (such as enslaved persons and household goods)—not real estate, and widowed women were entitled only to a “dower share” of 1/3 of a husband’s estate. (See Appendix B for John’s obituary.)
*Pg 6/19
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Page 8/19 -
Rives argued that the younger Adeline should be given one-tenth part of her father’s personal estate. In this case, John’s personal estate would consist largely of enslaved persons, the source of significant wealth.
The lawyer for Adeline the elder stated that Adeline did not know the law and sought the advice and assistance of the court in resolving this matter. In December 1850, Judge Nash ruled that the younger Adeline was entitled to one-tenth of the personal estate owned by John at his death.
She was awarded nine enslaved persons valued at $2,833 in an 1854 settlement. Adeline the elder was allotted the remaining enslaved persons valued at $25,691.14.26
These sums, in 2020 dollars illustrate the wealth of Adeline’s family at this point in time. Adeline’s share of the enslaved persons, for example, was valued at $25,691.14 in 1854.
In 2020 dollars $25,691 would be $792,448. [See Appendix D for the names and valuations of individual enslaved persons listed in the accounting of John Jones Alston’s estate as of 1844.]
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Page 9/19
Adeline reported that her 1850 farm was valued at $10,000.30 There was a change in crops from cotton and tobacco to wheat, Indian corn, oats, hay, peas and beans, Irish potatoes, and sweet potatoes.
More emphasis was placed on husbandry—and the extent of the working plantation is suggested by Adeline’s livestock holdings: 5 horses, 6 asses/mules, 18 milk cows, 4 working oxen, 22 other cattle, and 115 swine. 31
Adeline’s home manufactures were valued at $225.32.
Her slaveholdings appear to have decreased since her husband’s death, but with 58 enslaved workers, she was still a large slaveholder for the area.33
Adeline’s involvement with managing her enslaved workers is evidenced by an 1855 letter in which John McKay assures her that her concerns about the health of the enslaved persons she rented him and who are working at his river farm both in farming and in turpentine were unwarranted.34
It would be comforting to interpret Adeline’s concern about the health of the enslaved persons she rented to Mr. McKay as evidence of her concern for them as human beings. Seen in the context of renting them, however, we cannot discount that her concern may have been for her property.
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In 1860, Adeline’s household as listed in the census consisted of herself and three of her children, Nathaniel Macon (22), Marina (24), and Adeline Eugenia (17).
Several of her other children lived nearby.40 In this period just before the start of the Civil War, Adeline owned fewer acres of land and she listed the cash value of her farm as just $4,000.41 She raised a large quantity of a number of crops, and tobacco again became one of her dominant crops though this was not so for the entire county.
The value of her livestock increased.
The value of homemade manufactures was listed at $900, indicating that the plantation produced items for sale.
According to the 1860 schedule enumerating enslaved persons, there are three separate listings for “A. Alston,” and it is impossible to sort out whether all of these are Adeline. The number enslaved by Adeline is therefore between 40 and 119 persons.
There is little doubt that she was one of only 9 (out of 769) slaveholders in the county who enslaved more than 50 persons.42
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Sections of Pgs. 12-15/19
After the war and emancipation, Adeline lost much of her wealth— which had consisted largely of land and enslaved workers. Without workers to do the work, land had lost much of its value. An entry in one of her account books reads:
“All of the negroes who have not quit work before the 24th of Oct 1865 quit on that day except Henry Betsy & Bethiah.” 50
The same account book indicates that after the enslaved Black people were emancipated, Adeline hired sharecroppers to keep some income coming from the plantation.
For example, a contract dated February 18, 1868 between Adeline and Madison Alston, a freedman, 51 stipulated that she furnish the land and provide Madison Alston with a house for which he was to pay her “when the crop is gathered.”
He was to haul and cut wood and keep up the fences. Adeline was to provide him with five barrels of corn, and was to receive one-third of all the crops, except the garden produce.
Madison agreed to “not keep liquor to sell and to behave himself in an orderly manner.” 52
Additionally, Adeline’s oldest son, John, signed an agreement with freedman Samuel Leach, which among other things stipulated that “Sam's wife agreeing to do the washing, ironing, cooking and milking of the said John Alston's mother.”
It appears from this same document that Sam Leach’s wife Emmeline actually lived in the house with Adeline, since Sam agreed to board the rest of his family.53
The war caused a decrease in wealth of owners of plantations and businesses and an increase in their debts. In response, the new 1868 state constitution included a bankruptcy article that protected some of the property of debtors from those threats by their creditors. The protected property included the debtors’ (1) “homestead and the dwellings and buildings used therewith” and (2) “things other than shelter necessary for existence.”54 Almost immediately, Adeline filed for bankruptcy under the new provisions.55
A remarkable letter from son John’s wife, Mary, to her sister, Sarah Clark Butts, dated January 10, 1869 gives insight into the lives of the Alston family after the end of the Civil War and the disruption their loss of enslaved labor had created.
Mary went on to describe herself as teaching school to earn enough money to pay “our servants.” She was taking pupils from the immediate neighborhood.
Clearly accustomed to having her every need satisfied during slavery, Mary complained about the state of servants after the war, saying, “I have been doing … my own cooking & cleaning up & this kept me busy all the time.”
She had been unsuccessful in hiring good household staff, as “I would get a white woman & think I was doing wonderfully for a while then would be compelled to discharge her, then cook for three or four weeks & try another & rest – a week or so, then try another.
The last one I thought would certainly do, but she was so lazy, ignorant, roguish & filthy, her skull as thick as a horseblock! I could not stand her.”58
So, she was quite happy when “a nice negro woman came along & I hired her and her family at $3½ for month & board.”
She goes on to describe this new hire as “a first rate cook, washer & ironer, wool & cotton spinner, knitter & seamstress” who “has a grown daughter who cleans up the house & waits on table &c &c & can sew, knit & spin; she will work in the field when spring comes.”
Additionally, “the woman has 3 other children, two little boys, the largest of which can hoe corn & chop cotton….I am perfectly delighted with my servants.”
She continued to state that “they have no free-negro airs at all, behave just exactly like our slaves used to, & seem as well satisfied as we are. I really think a great deal of them, I respect them for their principles. They cordially hate ‘poor white trash,’ as they call them & seem to look up to us as their best friends.”
Continuing to exult in her fortune in finding these new household servants, Mary stated “they seem to feel as if they have been wandering about for a long time, & had just got back home.
They say they despise to wait on poor white folks, & seem to think it an honor and privilege to wait on us, so different from most of them.”59
The key to this sentiment is clearly the word “seem,” but it does convey the feelings of Adeline’s family, stripped of the enslaved people they had long been accustomed to having, trying to find some certainty in a world turned upside down.
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