Apr 15, 2021 - Sale 2564

Sale 2564 - Lot 306

Price Realized: $ 5,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
(SOUTH CAROLINA.) Receipt book kept by a widowed Charleston boarding house keeper. [137] manuscript pages, most of them containing signed receipts by a variety of parties, 1793-1804. Oblong 12mo, original calf, worn; a small number of leaves partly or completely excised, otherwise minor wear to contents. Charleston, SC and vp, 1793-1843

Additional Details

This receipt book was kept by Elizabeth Frazier, widow of Hugh Frazier, starting in 1793. Many of the receipts are for quarterly rent she paid on a boarding house she kept on Charleston's picturesque Stoll's Alley. She also paid for schooling for her sons Phil, Alexander William ("Sandy"), George, and James. In 1799 , she began monthly payments for the hired labor of enslaved people. The first of these entries reads "received 30th December 1799 of Mrs. Eliza Frazer six dollars in full up to this date for the hire of my wench Sue one month. Mary Fowke." In May 1801, she became Mrs. Matthew Miner, continuing with monthly payments for "negro hire" and moving their residence to nearby 21 East Bay Street.

The entries become more sparse after 1804, but reflect moves to Newport, RI, and French Grant and Marietta, OH, where Elizabeth died in 1815. A few later memorandum entries through 1843 were made by her surviving husband, and by son Henry Peregrine Miner.