The Allstons of Chicora Wood : wealth, honor, and gentility in the South Carolina lowcountry / William Kauffman Scarborough.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Scarborough, William Kauffman.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Allston, Robert F. W. (Robert Francis Withers), 1801-1864.

Allston, Robert F. W.

Rice--Planting.

History.

Plantation life.

South Carolina--History--1775-1865.

South Carolina.

Chicora Wood Plantation (S.C.).

Plantation life--South Carolina--History--19th century.

Rice--Planting--South Carolina--History--19th century.

Rice.

Alston family.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xii, 204 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2011]

Summary:

William Kauffman Scarborough's absorbing biography, The Allstons of Chicora Wood, chronicles the history of a South Carolina planter family from the opulent antebellum years through the trauma of the Civil War and postwar period. Scarborough's examination of this extraordinarily enterprising family focuses on patriarch Robert R. F. W. Allston, his wife Adele Petigru Allston, and their daughter Elizabeth Allston Pringle Scarborough. Scarborough shows how Allston, in the four decades before the Civil War, converted a small patrimony into a Lowcountry agricultural empire of seven rice plantations, all the while earning an international reputation for the quality of his rice and his expertise. Scarborough also examines Allston's twenty-eight-year career in the state legislature and as governor from 1856 to 1858. Upon his death in 1864, Robert Allston's wife of thirty-two years, Adele, found herself at the head of the family. Scarborough traces how she successfully kept the family plantations afloat in the postwar years through a series of decisions that exhibited her astute business judgment and remarkable strength of character. In the next generation, one of the Allstons' five children followed a similar path. Elizabeth "Bessie" Allston took over management of the remaining family plantations upon the death of her husband and, in order to pay off the plantation mortgages, embarked on a highly successful literary career. Bessie authored two books, the first treating her experiences as a woman rice planter and the second describing her childhood before the war. A major contribution to southern history, The Allstons of Chicora Wood provides a fascinating look at a prominent southern family that survived the traumas of war and challenges of Reconstruction.

Contents:

The early years : West Point and return to Carolina

Politics and marriage, 1828-1840

Constructing a plantation empire

Church and school : Robert Allston's religious and educational contributions

Politics and family : Senate president, the Nashville Convention, and Ben at West Point, 1840-1855

Governor and the approach of Armageddon, 1856-1861

War and defeat : the deaths of James L. Petigru and Robert F.W. Allston, 1861-1865

Postbellum travails : Adele's school, return to Chicora Wood, Bessie as woman rice planter

Appendix A. The Allston and Petigru families

Appendix B. The Allston plantations

Appendix C. The public career of Robert F.W. Allston.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780807138434

0807138436

9780807138465

0807138460

9780807138441

0807138444

9780807138458

0807138452

OCLC:

708357804