9

WILSON AND HAIRSTON #4134
PAPERS.
[underlined Chronological Analysis:] (Continued):
[underlined 1789-1813] (Continued):
In this period, there are also papers about Peter Wilson's guardianship of Mead and William Wilson, orphans probably of Peter Wilson, brother of John Wilson (d. 1820). These papers include inventories of the orphans' property; lists of bonds due them; and receipts about the hiring out of their slaves.

Slight, scattered military papers include the 1791 commission of George Hairston as county lieutenant of Henry county Virginia; letters and lists of supplies and weapons for Peter Wilson's 42nd Regiment of Pittsylvania County Militia; and letters to Lieutenant Samuel Hairston (1788-1875) from his captain and lieutenant-colonel during the War of 1812.

There are also scattered personal letters between Peter Hairston and Peter Wilson and between John Wilson and Peter Wilson which occasionally mention their personal well-being but usually only deal with their businesses and plantations. There are letters to Samuel Hairston while stationed at Niagara, New York, from Elizabeth Hairston, his mother, and Nicholas Hairston, his brother. Ruth Stovall (Hairston) Wilson (1783-1869) also received correspondence from her cousin, Green Pryor who resided in Williamson county, Tennessee, about his family and school. In 1806 Peter Perkins had Peter Hairston sell his lands, forge, and furnace to pay his creditors and to move with his son Nicholas Perkins to Cumberland county, Tennessee, and there are letters from Peter and Nicholas Perkins to Peter Hairston and Peter Wilson about their new life.

[underlined 1814-1832]
2200 items.
The papers for this period are principally those of Peter Hairston (1752-1832), described above, and his nephews, Robert Hairston (1783-1852) and Samuel Hairston (1788-1875), the sons of George and Elizabeth (Perkins) Letcher Hairston. [See family chart] As in earlier periods the papers are almost entirely business correspondence and financial and legal papers of the three men. From 1814 to 1821 business correspondence predominates while thereafter legal papers are more numerous than business correspondence and financial papers.

Among the business correspondence are letters to Peter Hairston from his daughter Ruth Stovall (Hairston) Wilson about the management of her plantation following Peter Wilson's death in 1813 until her marriage to Robert Hairston in 1816 (?). There are also letters to Samuel, Robert, and Peter Hairston from Lynchburg, Pettersburg, and Richmond, Virginia, and Fayettesville, North Carolina merchants. All three men produced large quantities of tobacco and sold it through commission merchants in Lynchburg while Peter Hairston sold his flour and cotton in Fayettesville market.

Dec. 1978
by
M.V. Jones