Autograph manuscript diary written by Robert J. Brown during travel from Boston to Florida Territory, 1834-1835. Entries describe travel by steamboat, stagecoach, and railroad, and record impressions of natural features, commerce, urban development, and social life in cities, towns, and regions including New York City; Newark, New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, D.C.; Richmond, Virginia, and the Tidewater region; Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah and Augusta, Georgia; Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida Territory, and the St. Johns River region; and Mobile, Alabama, Entries dated 1834 December describe visits to federal government buildings in Washington, D.C, including observation of debates about federal bank legislation in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Entries recorded in Virginia and South Carolina, 1834 December-1835 January, include references to slavery and the slave trade in Richmond and Charleston, During 1835 January-February, Brown was a guest of Orlando Savage Rees at Spring Garden, Rees’s sugar plantation near De Leon Springs, Volusia County, Florida Territory. These entries include detailed description of sugar production and the working and living conditions of enslaved African Americans, and Other entries relating to Florida Territory describe St. Augustine; camping, hunting, and fishing on the Saint Johns River, with references to alligator hunting and orange cultivation; and encounters with Native Americans. A few entries dated 1835 March-April, apparently incomplete, relate to travel in the Florida Panhandle with description of Pensacola, Florida, and Mobile, Alabama
Description:
Spring Garden, a sugar plantation near De Leon Springs, Volusia County, Florida Territory, was acquired in 1830 by Orlando Savage Rees (1796-1852), of Stateburg, South Carolina. In 1835 December, during the Second Seminole War, Spring Garden was occupied by Seminole Indians and Black Seminoles, who liberated African Americans enslaved on the plantation., In English., and Binding: contemporary three-quarter calf over blue morocco, with gilt edges.
Subject (Geographic):
Florida, Volusia County., Florida., South Carolina, Charleston., Virginia, Richmond., South Carolina., Virginia., De Leon Springs (Fla.), Florida Panhandle (Fla.), Saint Augustine (Fla.), Saint Johns River (Fla.), South Atlantic States, Spring Garden Plantation (Fla.), United States, Volusia County (Fla.), and Washington (D.C.)
Subject (Name):
Brown, Robert J., active 1834-1835. and Rees, Orlando Savage, 1796-1852.
Subject (Topic):
Alligator hunting, Black Seminoles, Indians of North America, Orange growers, Seminole Indians, Seminole War, 2nd, 1835-1842, Slave trade, Slavery, Sugar, Manufacture and refining, Sugar plantations, Description and travel, and History
Title supplied by cataloger., A peep show consisting of five engraved leaves, card-backed, hand-colored and cut away., Three-dimensional scene depicting a sugar plantation (probably on Saint-Domingue) with slaves at work and several overseerers; engraved by Martin Engelbrecht?, and First leaf numbered: 1.
