Essay On Sea Coast Crops: Read Before The Agricultural Association Of The Planting States, On Occasion Of The Annual Meeting, Held At Columbia, The Capital Of South-carolina, December 3d, 1853
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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)
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Essay On Sea Coast Crops: Read Before The Agricultural Association Of The Planting States, On Occasion Of The Annual Meeting, Held At Columbia, The Capital Of South-Carolina, December 3d, 1853
Robert Francis Withers Allston
A. E. Miller, 1854
Agriculture
The South Carolina Rice Plantation: As Revealed in the Papers of Robert F. W. Allston (Southern Classics)
(The reissue of The South Carolina Rice Plantation as Reve...)
The reissue of The South Carolina Rice Plantation as Revealed in the Papers of Robert F. W. Allston makes available for a new generation of readers a firsthand look at one of South Carolina's most influential antebellum dynasties and the institutions of slavery and plantation agriculture upon which it was built. Often cited by historians, Robert F. W. Allston's letters, speeches, receipts, and ledger entries chronicle both the heyday of the rice industry and its precipitate crash during the Civil War. As Daniel C. Littlefield underscores in his introduction to the new edition, these papers are significant not only because of Allston's position at the apex of planter society but also because his views represented those of the rice planter elite.
Report On the Free School System in South-Carolina
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
Robert Francis Withers Allston was an American politician and planter. He served as the 67th Governor of South Carolina and President of the South Carolina Senate from 1850 to 1856.
Background
Robert Francis Withers Allston was born on April 21, 1801 in Georgetown, South Carolina, United States. He was descended from John Alston, son of William Alston, Gentleman, of Hammersmith, Middlesex, England, who began in 1682 a seven-year apprenticeship to a certain James Jones, merchant of Charles Town.
This first Alston in South Carolina seems to have preferred the spelling "Alston, " but during the first three generations that form was replaced by "Allston. " Late in the eighteenth century, however, one branch of the family, by reverting to the earlier spelling, introduced a now recognized division into double and single "l" Alstons. John Alston, the immigrant, prospered, acquired wide lands, and became the founder of a family whose members were, for the most part, planters of the "low country. "
In the course of time Waccamaw Neck, All Saints' Parish, became the chief seat of the Allstons. Robert F. W. Allston, of the fifth generation, was of the Alston blood both by his father, Benjamin Allston, and his mother, Charlotte Anne Allston, who were second cousins.
Education
Allston's early education was received at Waldo's School in Georgetown. At the age of sixteen he entered West Point Military Academy and graduated in June 1821.
Career
About 1821 Allston was appointed lieutenant in the 3rd Artillery and assigned to duty with the Coast Survey. After taking part in the survey of the harbors of Plymouth and Provincetown, Massachussets, and the entrance of Mobile Bay, he resigned his commission in February 1822 in order to assume the management of the plantation of his now widowed mother. In this occupation he did not abandon, however, the profession of civil engineer and was elected in 1823 to the office of surveyor general of South Carolina.
In 1828, after two terms as surveyor general, he was elected from the parish of Prince George, Winyah, to the lower house of the General Assembly. In the legislature he acted with the State-Rights party which was then evolving the doctrine of nullification. In 1830 he was reelected as a candidate of that party, but was defeated in 1832 by a Unionist. In the next month, however, he ran successfully for the state Senate. He was regularly returned to this body until his election as governor in 1856, and from 1847 to 1856 he was its presiding officer.
He continued in his support of state-rights principles, but was inclined to favor cooperation on the part of the slaveholding states in preference to separate state action. During the nullification episode he was made colonel of the militia and subsequently deputy adjutant-general. With the latter his relations were in every way cordial, but such was the independence of his mind that he seems not to have been deflected from his political views by Petigru's ardent championship of the Union. In fact, the Petigrus regarded this tall, "good-looking" Allston as a trifle "obstinate. " In 1842 he was nominated, against his wishes, to oppose J. H. Hammond in the election for governor. In 1850 he was a delegate to the Nashville Convention. His term as governor, 1856-1858, occurred in one of the rare intervals of comparative quietude in the political history of ante-bellum South Carolina, a fact which enabled him to employ talents for organization and administration which he possessed in an eminent degree.
He was one of the last of the rice barons of the "low country. " In the reclaiming of swamp land, in the ditching and diking of rice-fields, his knowledge of engineering served him well. The results of some of his experiments were set forth in two elaborate treatises: A Memoir of the Introduction and Planting of Rice in South Carolina (1843) and An Essay on Sea Coast Crops (1854). A contemporary reviewer praised this publication: "Such essays do more for the advancement of agricultural science than can well be conceived. "
Indeed, it is upon his success as a planter and scientific agriculturist that Allston's claim upon the memory of posterity, in the main, must rest. He died in the midst of the Civil War. He was engaged at the time in cultivating his lands in order to contribute foodstuffs to his Confederate countrymen.
Achievements
Allston's papers, The South Carolina Rice Plantation, provide important agricultural, political, and social information about the pre-Civil War S. By scientifically draining and reclaiming swamps in his state, he developed one of the last great rice plantations in the Atlantic coast lowlands. He was also the author of two authoritative and influential works on crop raising. Allston became president of the South Carolina state senate (1847-1856) and served as governor (1856-1858).
This long and active public career was made possible by the harmony existing between the social and political life in ante-bellum South Carolina. Allston had come to be, chiefly through his own efforts, one of the foremost planters and slave-owners in the state.
