Finding Aid: Matthew and Margaret Byrne Account Book, 1761-1864, PC.AB.76
Abstract
Matthew and Margaret Kelley Byrne operated a general store and wayside tavern in Bladen
County from approximately 1761 to 1789. The Byrne family kept a record of slave births
on their plantation from 1762 to 1862.
This volume is a ledger and day book, which lists transactions of Matthew and Margaret
Byrne's general store and tavern. Merchandise included food, herbs, clothing, and
hardware. Moving and delivery services were also supplied.
A record of enslaved people born on the Byrne planation from 1762 to 1862 is available
in the Search Room of the State Archives. A sampling of customer names from 1761 to
1789 is also available in the Search Room.
Descriptive Summary
- Title
- Matthew and Margaret Byrne Account Book, 1761-1864
- Call Number
- PC.AB.76
- Creator
- Byrne family
- Date
- 1761-1864
- Extent
- 0.200 cubic feet
- Language
- English
- Repository
- State Archives of North Carolina
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Private Collections: Account Books, PC.AB.76, Matthew and
Margaret Byrne Account Book, 1761-1864, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh,
NC, USA.
Collection Overview
This volume represents daily transactions of a store located in Bladen County. The
business is known as Matthew and Margaret Byrne. Merchandise included foodstuffs,
herbal remedies, cloth, apparel, and hardware. Individual entries listed leather,
hailed flax, spencers, shoes, stockings, plumes, blue mohair buttons, paper pins,
spirits, sugar, tea, coffee in the husks, rice, corn, Joshua's bark, broad axes, weeding
hoes, ammunition, and bed cords. Barter items such as hogs, horses, corn, leather,
and cotton were accepted for payment. The Byrnes also accepted cash, South Carolina
currency, doubloons, and other pieces of gold.
The establishment appears to have operated as a wayside tavern with lodging, meals,
refreshments, and pasturage for horses available. In addition, moving and delivery
services were offered. Both boats and horses were used for conveying goods.
The Byrnes made notations in the account book whenever they made their slaves available
for hire. In some cases, this was for a short term, such as for cutting logs or moving
a boatload of goods. Male slaves were sent to nearby Captain Robeson's Landing (Bladen
County), Rockfish (Cumberland County), and Cross Creek (Cumberland County) to deliver
supplies. In other cases, slaves were hired for a period of three months to a year,
particularly in the case of skilled female slaves who could card or spin thread. In
some of these transactions, the name of the individual slave was recorded. A sale
of an unidentified female slave was recorded at 90.00 (GBP) on December 20, 1763.
In addition, the family recorded the births of ninety-five slaves from 1762 to 1862.
The account book records the maiden name of Margaret Byrne as Kelley. The births of
the couple's three children are noted as follows: Mary Byrne, named for Matthew's
aunt Deerfield, July 26, 1763, Alexander Byrne, November 12, 1764, and Matthew Byrne,
August 6, 1766. One account record shows that the parents hired Robert Council to
school their young sons. The book appears to have been used as a school copybook and
herbal remedy book occasionally. Later, it became a place to record popular love poetry
with excerpts from poems of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, George, and Lord Byron.
In at least one memorandum, the book offers a glimpse of colonial unrest by noting
that the Byrnes provided a horse for their neighbor, Jonathan King, to ride for 1.5
days for the purpose of hunting Tories, by order of Captain Robeson and Captain Council.
Arrangement Note
Store transactions are arranged by date then name. The accounts are entered in somewhat
chronological order from front to back. The slave births are entered by date then
name. The earliest slave births are entered near the back of the book with later entries
continuing towards the front.
Biographical/Historical
The Matthew and Margaret Byrne general store operated in Bladen County in colonial
and Revolutionary times. The account book records the maiden name of Margaret Byrne
as Kelley. The couple had three children: Mary, Alexander, and Mathew Byrne. Matthew
Byrne's name appears in the 1763 tax list of Bladen County. Beginning with the earliest
Census in 1790, the Byrne family appears in federal Census data for Bladen County.
According to a document dated 1773 in the State Archives, Margaret Byrne deeded plantation
land on the southwest side of the Northwest Branch of the Cape Fear River to her young
sons, Alexander and Mathew. Later that year she gave a parcel of land in Elizabethtown
to her son, Alexander. Other place names mentioned in Byrne family deeds and letters
included Goodman Swamp and the nineteenth-century towns of Prospect Hall and Maysville,
which were all located in the northwest corner of Bladen County. In 1850, the Census
enumerator identified Alexander J. Byrn, John M. Byrn, and Mary Byrn as slaveholders
living on the southwest side of the Northwest Cape Fear River in Bladen County. The
1860 slave schedule identifies Mathew Burn and A. J. Burn as Bladen County slaveholders.
Contents of the Collection
Subject Headings
Acquisitions Information
Unknown