This collection consists primarily of bills of sale and receipts, promissory notes, along with correspondence and legal documents. In addition, there are newspaper clippings, schoolbooks, separate envelopes and photograph negatives.
The promissory notes, receipts and bills of sale represent firms primarily in the city of Greenville, but also businesses in Fountain Inn, Fairview, Piedmont and Simpsonville in Greenville County and Pelzer in Anderson County.
The earliest correspondence consists of four letters from 1864 from "Brother Benson" and cousin Mac during the Civil War.
Documents relating to freemen are an 1870 letter requesting that Henry be released from his contract so that he can live with his sister Rosey who is recently widowed; an 1880 document apprenticing an 8-year-old black girl, Harriet Walker, to John H. Harrison. The 1880 U.S. Census shows a Harriet Walker, age 8, black, living with the family as a servant.
There are documents in 1893 referring to a court case [Ferguson vs. Harrison] involving a mortgage between John H. Harrison, Sr. and H M. Cely, as well as land conveyed to Nannie Latimer Harrison.
There are twenty-one negatives of a woman with a baby, a man and woman with same baby, couple and children at the beach. Clothing and car suggest 1940s. Possibly Elizabeth Cox Mabry [1925-2008 and husband Fred Mabry 1923-1971].
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