Existing comment:
For the Record:
How is so much known about Ferry Hill's history? Plantation owner John Blackford often wrote in a journal.
Although well educated, John Blackford did not try to use correct English in his journal. Much like electronic correspondence today, the entries were short notes, clauses, and phrases written for his own use. Blackford's son, Franklin, and later owner Robert Douglas and his son, Henry Kyd, also kept detailed accounts of daily activities at Ferry Hill. They each recorded expenditures, business operations, births, illnesses, deaths -- and often, how they felt about their observations on the farm. Filled with hundreds of names of family, visitors, laborers, and strangers, the Blackford and Douglas family journals ensured Ferry Hill's recorded legacy for future generations.
"Franklin & Elgen sat out for Williamsport for a Boat borrowed my sleigh harness."
-- Plantation Owner John Blackford, Ferry Hill, 1838
A published version of John Blackford's Ferry Hill Plantation Journal, January 1, 1838 - January 15, 1839, Editing with An Introduction and Notes by Fletcher M Green, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1961. |