Kenneth Rayner Letter, November 14, 1845

Dublin Core

Title

Kenneth Rayner Letter, November 14, 1845

Subject

Antebellum Plantation Life

Description

Rayner relays details of an 11-day journey from Raleigh to Maury County, Tennessee, involving railroads, stagecoaches, and horseback travel. Excellent insight into available roads, stagecoach routes, and terminus points at the time. On the first part of Rayner's journey, he was accompanied by Paul Cameron en route to his new plantation in Alabama with the pair splitting after Atlanta. Rayner describes stays on friends' Lucius and George's plantations in Tennessee, discusses plans to purchase a new plantation along the Mississippi River in Arkansas, Mississippi, or Louisiana, and move his "negroes" to it. He gives insight into various crop values and the types of soil in which they seem to grow best.

Creator

Kenneth Rayner

Source

Cameron Family Papers, 1757-1978

Publisher

Photographed, transcribed, tagged, and shared in this Omeka Collection by Dr. Kevin Oliver, North Carolina State University College of Education

Date

November 14, 1845

Rights

As noted in the source collection, “copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.”

Relation

The Southern Historical Collection at the Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Format

PDF

Language

English

Type

Personal correspondence, letter

Identifier

series: 1.3.3, box: 41, folder: 971

Coverage

United States: Huntsville, AL; Montgomery, AL; Tuscaloosa, AL; Fayette, AR; Atlanta, GA; Augusta, GA; Cartersville, GA; Savannah, GA; Louisiana; New Orleans, LA; Mississippi; Branchville, SC; Charleston, SC; Columbia, SC; Columbia, TN; Maury County, TN; Memphis, TN; Pulaski, TN; Texas

Text Item Type Metadata

Original Format

Paper

Files

Rayner_1845_11_14.pdf

Citation

Kenneth Rayner, “Kenneth Rayner Letter, November 14, 1845,” Plantation Letters, accessed October 20, 2026, https://plantationletters.org/items/show/64.