1849 - A guest of a prominent Virginia planter describes the plantation's crops: corn, wheat, and timber by Isaac French - 1849

Robert Buckner Bolling's plantation in Charles City County, Virginia, 1849. Envelope or Cover. Very good. This three-page stampless folded letter measures approximately 15" x 9½". It was sent by Isaac French, a guest at "Sandy Point," Robert Buckner Bolling's plantation in Charles City County, Virginia to his friend, J Huntsman, Esq. The letter has no postal markings indicating it was probably favor-carried. In nice shape with a few tiny splits at the intersections of mailing folds.

In the letter, French reports,

"Bolling has one thousand & eight acres of wheat & last Sunday I took a walk down to look at it, & I tell you Sir, it is the most beautiful field of wheat I ever saw & you would say so too if you were to see it. He has eight or nine hundred acres of corn, so I was told by a man that works there. At any rate it is the largest cornfield I ever saw or ever expect to see. . .. The saw mill is in full operation, cutting an order from Baltimore of sixty thousand feet of ship stuff from six to fourteen feet long and ten inches thick all of which has to be delivered in Baltimore within two months from the receipt of the order, which we received about 15 days ago, & we are now loading a schooner with it which I expect will take about 35 or 40 thousand of it. The balance of it we will get out within three weeks besides filling some small orders for heart pine flooring boards. . .. Mr. Chapman had a "ware" built this spring to catch fish in, & we have had a great supply of as fine catfish as you ever saw. . .."

He also notes that cholera and smallpox had appeared.

"The cholera & smallpox have been in Norfolk, Portsmouth & Richmond & a few days ago a man died with the cholera a little distance from us, but I have heard of no new cases since. When I was at Portsmouth there was 20 cases of smallpox there but fortunately escaped it. . .."

. Robert Buckner was a member of the prosperous and prominent Bolling family and directed operations of their vast holdings to include the dowry his wife Sara Melville Menge brought to their union, the Sandy Point planation on the banks of the James River. Bolling, had more than 500 slaves working his land, was said to have been proud that he had kept their families intact by having never sold any and was active in the American Colonizing Society which worked toward gradual emancipation and the establishment of a freedman's colony in Liberia. The Bolling's grand city home in Petersburg, Centre Hill, was the most lavish in the city. Today it is a city-owned museum.

(For more information, see "Colonel Robert Buckner Bolling" in Tyler's Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography.)

A scarce piece of Virginia's plantation history. At the time of listing, no similar Bolling items are for sale in the trade or have appeared at auction per the Rare Book Hub. OCLC shows none in intuitional collections, although the Library of Virgina holds the Bolling Family [Genealogical] Association's records.

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