Collection (1770-1937) including correspondence, land records, records of enslaved persons, estate papers, financial records, deeds, land grants, a mortgage, plat, etc.
This collection contains mainly financial records and land relating to the enslaver families Parrott, Byrd, and Sutton of Lenoir Co., N.C. The relationship of these families to each other is not clear. Most of the collection consists of financial records in relation to the settlement of the Benjamin Byrd (of Greene Co., N.C.) estate (1836-1841) for which Benjamin Parrott was administrator, and to the same Benjamin Parrott of Lenoir Co., N.C., and his descendants (1804-1899). Byrd's estate records include promissory notes, accounts, summonses, and two notes (1839) concerning fees owed for "insurance of a foal" from Byrd's mare when she was bred with neighbors' horses.
Benjamin Parrott died in 1858 and the Parrott family Lenoir County financial records include mostly his estate papers and settlements of his bills. Items relating to the sale of enslaved persons include an account of the enslaver Parrot's estate sale (1859) noting the sale of enslaved persons; an enslaved person being sold (1804); a document (1861) transferring an enslaved person to the enslaver Harriet Parrott, the widow of the enslaver Benjamin and a document (1861) naming twenty one enslaved persons enslaved by the Parrot family, five of which were enslaved children to be hired for one year along with the names of their enslavers, the amount to be paid for their services, and the clothes to be provided for them. The Hiring-out system allowed a hirer to temporarily lease an enslaved person from an enslaver, generating revenue for the enslaver through the labor of the enslaved people completing the work. Also included in the Parrott financial records are promissory notes, a receipt for tuition (1859) for the two Parrott children, accounts with businesses in Kinston, tombstone payments (1859), an 1859 account for extracting a tooth in South Carolina, and an 1855 paper listing members of a school committee appointed to count the children in District No. 2 in Lenoir Co., N.C.
Correspondence (1918-1937) primarily relates to John L. Sutton's agricultural interests. Also present are letters (1937) concerning the disappearance of John Sutton's son, J. O. Sutton, in Germany.
The John L. Sutton financial records include a 1930 memoranda book manufactured by the Charles W. Priddy Co., which contains photographs of N.C. farmers and their crops; an unidentified accounts book (1918-1923); accounts with L. Harvey & Son Co. of Kinston; and a 1932 crop lien.
Land records (1782-1917) are for Lenoir County, N.C., property and concern especially Benjamin Parrott and his descendants and also the Wilson, Peacock, Creech, and Croom families. A miscellaneous file includes an undated sheet entitled "Suggestions for Precinct Leaders" (ca. 1930s) designed for Democrats, and an issue of the Chiropractic Educator, Volume 14, Number 1 (ca. 1930).
The oversize folder (1770-1926) contains deeds, land grants, a mortgage, and a plat concerning Dobbs County and Lenoir County, N.C., land owned by the Creech, Croom, Walters, Parrott, and Sutton families.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. Ed Stone
Processed by M. Boccaccio, November 1990
Encoded by Apex Data Services
Literary rights to specific documents are retained by the authors or their descendants in accordance with U.S. copyright law.