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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 Robert A. Jones Account Book #389-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

All or part of this collection is available on microfilm from University Publications of America as part of the Records of ante-bellum southern plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, Series J.

Acquisitions Information

Received before 1940.

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: Jill Snider, May 1992

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Conscious Editing Work by: Nancy Kaiser, July 2020, August 2023. Updated abstract, subject headings, biographical note, scope and content note, and container list.

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

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.

• Account books.
• Enslaved persons--North Carolina--Registers.
• Grove (N.C.)
• Guardian and ward--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Halifax County (N.C.)--Economic conditions.
• Indian Woods (Bertie County, N.C.)
• Jones, Robert A., Active 1817-1828.
• New Hope (Bertie County, N.C.)
• North Carolina--Economic conditions.
• Occaneeche (N.C.)
• Public welfare--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Slavery--United States--History--19th century--Sources.

Robert A. Jones (Active 1817-1829) was a white owner of a cotton plantation and an enslaver in Halifax County, N.C.; he also owned or managed enslaved people and landholdings in Bertie and Wake counties, N.C. Plantations he owned or managed include Grove, Occaneeche, New Hope, and Indian Woods, whose exact locations are unknown. He appears also to have operated a paper mill outside Raleigh, N.C., and a blacksmith shop in Halifax. Between 1817 and 1826, Jones served as guardian for Willie W. Jones, who was the son of Mary Montfort Jones and possibly his nephew. Robert A. Jones acted as estate administrator for Mary Montfort Jones after her death in 1825. In 1823, Jones was appointed estate administrator for James Johnston (d. 1821), former postmaster of Halifax County, who died intestate. Jones also served as treasurer of the Wardens of the Poor of Halifax County and was treasurer of the Roanoke Navigation Company.

Robert A. Jones's account book, 1817-1829, documents his personal expenditures and business accounts for his cotton plantations and other landholdings he owned or managed in Halifax, Bertie, and Wake counties, including Occaneeche, the Grove, Indian Woods, and New Hope plantations, whose exact locations are unknown. His accounts are with commission and hardware merchants; overseers; tradespeople who were white, free people of color, and enslaved; and other plantation owners. The volume also includes records of Jones's account management for his ward, Willie W. Jones, of Bertie County, between 1817 and 1826; Mary Montfort Jones, whose estate he administered after her death in 1825; and for James Johnston of Halifax, whose estate he was appointed by a commission to administer in 1823 (pages 373-376 and 417-418). Jones also kept accounts as treasurer of the Wardens of the Poor for Halifax County between 1820 and 1823 (pages 189-197, 361-362, and 369-370).

Enslaved people and free people of color are mentioned throughout the account book. Nearly every page of Jones's personal expenditures includes instances of him making payments or gifts to enslaved people and free people of color who worked in fields at plantations and as artisans and tradespeople. Also of note are an undated inventory of people enslaved by Jones (pages 183-184) and accounts for wages paid, monies lent, and goods sold to laborers who were identified as being of mixed race (pages 329-334). Jones also recorded when he purchased an enslaved person (pages 100(?) and 132). Indigenous people are mentioned at least once as recipients of gifts (page 20).

Enslaved people and free people of color can also be found in business accounts Jones maintained for his ward, Willie W. Jones from 1817 to 1826 (pages 105-106, 207-209, 343-352, 389-396, and 401-412). These accounts record expenditures and arrangements for the hire of enslaved people in Bertie County. Included are several lists of enslaved people giving ages and number of children. Jones often made copious notes on his decisions about hiring out enslaved people, as well as on his other financial actions.

Entries Jones made in his account book as administrator for the estate of Mary Montfort Jones include lists of enslaved people who are identified by name, age, and family relationships (page 419, 427, and 429).

Accounts with artisans and tradespeople who were white, enslaved, and free people of color included veterinarians, blacksmiths, sawyers, carpenters, cabinetmakers, waggoners, auctioneers, surveyors, grocers and dry goods merchants, doctors, midwives, barbers, ditchers, weavers, shoemakers, and well diggers. Other accounts are with overseers, including Richard Carter at New Hope Plantation in 1822 and 1825 (pages 341 and 387-388); Solomon Griffin at Indian Woods Plantation in 1818 and 1824 (pages 129-130 and 385-386); Jonathan Skiles at an unknown location (pages 129-130); and Micajah Griffin, overseer in 1821 (pages 309-310). Jones also recorded monies spent for taxes and for the purchase of livestock, cotton seed, cotton for resale, and coal, which was used in his blacksmithing concern. Other business accounts are for deposits to the Newbern Bank and for stocks held in the Roanoke Navigation Company (page 165 and 397) and the Halifax Bridge Company (page 398). There is limited information about Jones's other business activities, which included operating a paper mill and blacksmith shop and acting as treasurer of the Roanoke Navigation Company.

Other personal accounts are for electioneering and travel expenses, literary and newspaper subscriptions, and monies lent, and individual charitable contributions. Of note are expenditures for many popular entertainments of the day, including gambling (cards, cockfighting, horse racing, and lotteries), the circus, subscriptions to balls and the Jockey Club, and admission to Punch and the Devil shows. Other personal expenditures he made were for subscriptions to the Bible Society and for the preaching of a Reverend Wright.

Other entries include property inventories for himself, Mary Montfort Jones, and James Johnston, and personal notes and observations. Scattered notes to himself in the volume concern bookkeeping techniques, his thoughts on his spending habits, the purposes of his personal charity (e.g., he gave $10 to E. Wade "to start him in the World,") and comments on the character of individuals with whom he dealt. Two enclosures are one receipt from Richard Carter, 27 January 1826, for timber sawed by "Prince's sawyers," who likely were enslaved people, and one undated page of miscellaneous calculations.