NEWTON PLANTATION RENT BOOKS 1857 & 1868 - College of Charleston Libraries

Interesting…and some new names!
So, a few of the plantation workers were caught stealing, hmmm big deal on one part but on the other one wonders why they were stealing.
Some stole potatoes and few stole cane.  Were they stealing for food or to make a few extra dollars on the side?   
 Bravery King got 4 months for stealing potatoes and the others, who stole cane, were sentenced to between 21 days and 1 month with hard labor.  What’s amazing is that the women were also committing these crimes as Mary Hayes was sentenced to 1 month hard labor for stealing cane.  Now where did they spend this prison time?  Was time spent in a plantation prison or a national prison?  We know that Glendairy Prison was opened in 1855. However the Town Hall Goal functioned as a prison until 1876 when it was closed on humanitarian grounds.
 What I also found to be very interesting was the fact that back then the estates and plantations helped each other and seemed to have traded amongst themselves. The journal shows that there was some kind of barter relationship between Newton, Kingsland and Boarded Hall estates.
A few new names were introduced in these journals. But what I find really interesting are the names of the ships and the field names.  We came across Grass Pond Field and Duck Pond.  Funny enough today we have Duck Pond  on Kendall Plantation in St. John.  The ships carried interesting names such as “The Roman Emperor”, “Cleopatra” and “Lady Hilda.”
Now it’s onto the big books now… 🙂