_July 10._ William has been overhauling the old letters and papers in
the garret and has come across many very interesting bits of
information among them. They are mostly very old. Old plantation books
of Mr. Eben Coffin, the first proprietor of the name of this estate,
dated 1800, containing lists of the slaves of former generations, in
which some of the oldest here now, like Uncle Sam, are mentioned as
two years old; estimates for this house and the building in the yard,
etc.
_Aug. 5._ C. has found a spike of papers in the old overseer house, on
which he and Mr. Soule are now expending their eyesight. Letters from
Mr. Coffin to Cockloft, etc. They have found out how much he was paid
for the year--also some references to an exciting time on Frogmore
where the overseer seems to have mismanaged--somebody was shot and
there was a trial! We shall ask the negroes about it all.
_Aug. 6._ I entertained myself to-day reading over these same letters.
It made me feel very queerly--they were mostly written during the
summer of 1860, from Charleston and Newport. It seemed so short a time
ago, and every thing and person spoken of about the plantation was so
familiar. It seems that the overseer of Frogmore, Benjarola Chaplin,
was a bad man, and, suspecting a boy and girl there of poisoning him,
had them tried and sentenced to be hung without letting Mr. Coffin
know anything about it. We find that the sentence was not
executed,--for Peter and Katy are still living,--but don't know why
they were pardoned, though apparently there was no proof of their
guilt.
_Sept. 22._ This morning I had a call from Henry, Mr. Coffin's old
cook, a very intelligent mulatto who wanted me to read some letters to
him and then talked a little while about Mrs. Coffin, to whom he seems
very much attached, and says he would serve her to the end of his
days. He and his wife would like to go North to her, and he was very
glad to hear from Captain Boutelle that she was safe there; he says
she suffered so the last part of the time she was here, he could not
bear to look at her. "The first Mrs. Coffin was a very nice lady, but
she _succeed_ her." He talks very well. He was much pleased that I
offered to write to her for him sometime, and said he had not liked to
ask any one to do so for fear they should not think it right to have
anything to do with the old people--"but she's a Nort' lady, you
know, Ma'am, a beautiful lady, I would serve her all my life."
_Sept. 27._ Have I told you of an interesting talk we had from one
Pompey, who said that it was the poor whites in Beaufort who made the
negroes "sensible" about the war? That if it had not been for them he
should have believed his master and gone away with him, but that they
let him into the secret.[141] He says that [the poor whites] wished to
stay, but were driven off by the rich men, whom they hate, and are now
in the ranks fighting the rich men's battles. He has heard several
times from the Main, through his old fellow servants who have run off,
and mentioned two or three of the old proprietors here who are now in
jail for trying to escape, among them Dr. Clarence Fripp, of whom they
all speak with great affection. He never wanted to go, but was carried
off by his brothers, one of whom, Eddings, has since died.
_Oct. 15._ As soon after breakfast as Robert had finished his regular
work we mounted two pair of stairs "to clear up the attic." Do you
think you know what that means? You have not the least idea. So far as
we can make out, this house was built in 1809, and I think Robert
dragged out from under the eaves the original shavings. It was
melancholy to see the spoiled and demolished furniture which would be
of so much use to us now, bureaus without drawers, sofas with only the
frames, and those all broken, pieces of washstands and bedsteads,
etc.
It seems that such wonders were afterwards performed in
renovating this broken furniture that the parlor became
almost a parody of its ancient splendor.
The letters now return to chronological order.