Note
Slavery at Cedar Grove and the
Hugh Torance House and Store
Designation Report Addendum
Stewart Gray and Tommy Warlick
April 2022
The April 1993 designation report for Cedar Grove and the Hugh Torance House and Store discusses the
significant role of slavery in the history of the Cedar Grove plantation and the Hugh Torance family,
including as to the family’s accumulation of wealth and local prominence.1 The following addendum
outlines additional available information about the individual enslaved people owned by the family.2
Over two generations, from approximately 1790 to 1847, Cedar Grove became the largest plantation in
Mecklenburg County. At its peak, Cedar Grove produced some 45,000 pounds of cotton annually and
included a grist mill, sawmill, and several cotton gins. As of the 1847 death of Hugh Torance’s only son
James Galbraith Torrance, whom historian Chalmers Davidson referred to as Mecklenburg County’s
“King Cotton,” the over 3,200-acre estate held 109 enslaved people. That was an unusually large
number for the Piedmont, given that over 70% of the state’s total enslaved population centered in
eastern North Carolina’s coastal plain and less than 3% of the state’s slaves lived on plantations with
populations exceeding 50 enslaved people. Although Hugh began to acquire substantial landholdings in
1779 – holding nearly 1,200 acres by the turn of the century – no available records suggest that he
owned any enslaved people prior to his 1783 marriage to Isabella Kerr Falls, the widow of Captain
Galbraith Falls. In 1784, Hugh used his new bride’s widow’s allotment3 to purchase five enslaved
persons from her deceased husband’s estate. Those persons and their associated purchases prices (in
pounds) were Phill (identified as a mulatto) 200, Binah 142, Ned 150, Nell 136, and Phoebe 70. The
ages and possible family relationships among these five individuals are unclear. In 1816, when the
February deaths of Hugh and Isabella Torance prompted an inventory of their possessions, including
enslaved people, only Phill, Ned, and Nell were still identified as Torance family property. As for Binah
and Phoebe, available records indicate only that Binah had at least one child, Flora, born in 1784, who
became the subject of subsequent protracted litigation between James Torrance and the children of
Isabella and Galbraith Falls.4
Hugh continued to accumulate enslaved people to work on his estate. According to the U.S. census, he
owned 12 slaves as of 1790 (at least one of whom was born on the property), 16 as of 1800, and 33 as of
1810. With two exceptions, available records do not identify these individuals. In the first instance,
Hugh successfully sued James Henderson in 1790 for purchasing two bushels of corn “from a certain
Negro named Bristo [or Bristol] the property to [Hugh] Torance.” As “dealing with Negroes” violated
then-applicable North Carolina law, Hugh was awarded ten pounds for Henderson’s offense. In the
second instance, Hugh obtained a “negro boy” of undefined age named “Jo or Joseph” as part of his
1803 purchase from James B. Farr of a 180-acre parcel adjacent to Clarks Creek. The total sales price
was $392. 5
The 1816 inventory of Hugh’s estate appears to be the only other extant record individually identifying
enslaved people acquired by Hugh. At the time of his death, he owned 33 enslaved persons – identified
in the inventory solely by name and gender (14 males, 19 females) – at least six of whom were born on
the then 1,400-acre Cedar Grove. Ownership of those individuals passed down to his only child James.
They were:
Males: Phill, Ned, Bristol, Bob, Matt, Pheler, Bill, Sam, John, Charles, Solomon, Jerry,
Lawson, and Andrew.
Females: Bette (or Bell), Minnie (or Mime), Julia, Luce, Maria, Phillis, Rachel, Celia, Nan,
Delse, Dovey, Silvia, Nel, Flora, Minda, Hannah, Melissa, Dina, and Charlotte.6
In 1817, as the administrator of his father’s estate, James Torrance was sued by his half-siblings – the
children of Isabella Kerr Falls’ first marriage to Galbraith Falls – over ownership of an enslaved woman
named Flora, the daughter of Binah whom Hugh had purchased from the Falls estate. Hugh took
possession of Flora after his marriage to Isabella, even though Flora had not been named in Hugh’s
purchase agreement with the estate. Between 1784 and 1816, while in Hugh’s possession, Flora had six
children. At the time of the suit, they were Sam (“aged now about 13”), John (“aged about ten”),
Minday (“aged about nine”), Solomon (“aged about eight”), Milesa (“aged about four”), and an
unnamed infant. After ten years of legal wrangling, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled against
James on the grounds that Hugh’s purchase agreement with the Falls estate named neither Flora nor her
“increase” (i.e., children). The court awarded Galbraith Falls’ heirs $1,069 in damages. In May 1827,
shortly after paying that award, James purchased Flora, her six children, and two other enslaved persons
(Narcissa and Lucinda) from the Falls’ heirs for $2,300. It is likely that Narcissa and Lucinda were also
Flora’s children, born during that ten-year litigation. The individual pages of an 1840 inventory of
enslaved people owned by James appear to organize the individuals by family groups. One page lists
Narcissa (“Narsiss”) and Lucinda (“Sindy” or “Sinday”) with Flora and her six children. A separate
entry within that same inventory identifies 1823 as the birth year for both girls.7
The number of enslaved people at Cedar Grove increased significantly during James’ ownership of the
estate. According to the U.S. census, James owned 49 enslaved people by 1820, and 94 by 1830. The
enslaved population at Cedar Grove in 1830 consisted of 38 males and 56 females, including 32 children
under the age of ten. Family records suggest that as many as twelve of these additional individuals were
born on the estate. Others may be attributable to marriage dowries. Margaret Allison, James’ third and
final wife, for example, brought at least two enslaved men, an enslaved woman, and her children into the
marriage when they wed in 1827. As evidenced by his purchase of Flora and her children and other
sales agreements filed with the county Register of Deeds, James also purchased enslaved persons,:
• “[O]ne negro Boy named Peter aged ninteen [sic] or twenty years,” purchased on May 14, 1823,
for $587.50 from Joseph Gillespie;
• “[O]ne negro boy named Joe aged about 22 years,” purchased on May 24, 1824, for $750 from
David Alexander;
• “[O]ne negro girl Jinny aged eight years,” purchased on August 6, 1824, for $240 from Andrew
McBride; and
• “[A] negro man named Tom,” no age provided, purchased on November 7, 1843, for $500 from
the estate of John Williamson.8
The Designation Report details the rare mentions of enslaved people within the Torrance family
correspondence and records. The scarcity of these references complicates efforts to identify individual
Black residents at Cedar Grove prior to 1840, when James apparently made his first effort to chronicle
his enslaved people in a journal entitled “Ages of Negroes.” The total number of enslaved people
dropped by only two (from 94 to 92) between the 1830 and 1840 censuses and maintained its age
composition of approximately one-third under the age of ten. However, the individual within that
population did change frequently during that period. In 1833, James Latta (the father of James
Torrance’s second wife Mary Latta) gave his Torrance grandchildren William and Jane Elizabeth six
enslaved children: Norfolk (age 11), Jerry (9), Patience (14), Livinia (11), Abby (15), and Martha (14).
An estimated six to ten of James’ enslaved persons became part of the bridal dowry for his daughter
Camilla in 1834. They moved with Camilla and her new husband William A. Latta to Yorkville (now
York), South Carolina. Another twenty-five to thirty of the Cedar Grove enslaved population moved
with sons Hugh and James Franklin Torrance and daughter Isabella Malvina Torrance Smith (with her
husband Franklin L. Smith) in 1837 to Coffeeville, Mississippi, to pursue an ultimately unsuccessful
venture as cotton planters. Little is known as to what became of those former Cedar Grove slaves, but a
February 17, 1837, letter from Isabella Smith to sister Camilla Latta stated that one (named Green) had
died and a second (Maria) had become fatally ill from an unnamed disease while enroute to
Mississippi.9
Meanwhile, as his agricultural operations expanded, James hired overseers to manage the estate,
including his growing enslaved workforce. Business ledgers for 1821 to 1834 record annual salaries of
$300 for the Cedar Grove overseers. Their responsibilities likely included managing those enslaved
persons involved in the 1830-1831 construction of the new Cedar Grove home, including production of
at least 12,000 of the more than 20,000 bricks used for the new home (all made from clay taken from the
property’s creek banks and fired at a creek-side kiln), cutting down trees and processing the lumber at
the estate’s sawmill, and working on construction crews. The Cedar Grove enslaved population also
included at least one trained miller and several individuals trained to operate cotton gins. Evidence
suggests that other skilled members of that enslaved community may have included a shoemaker, a
blacksmith, and several carpenters and/or joiners. 10
Based on his “Ages of Negroes” journal, including subsequent entries documenting other births and
acquisitions, James owed at least 125 enslaved people after 1840. The journal’s nine pages of names
provides the approximate ages of the named individuals (as of 1840) and in some instances birth years.
The significance of other symbols – including x’s, strikeouts, and numbers – is unclear. The journal
appears to be the most comprehensive extant list identifying the Cedar Grove enslaved population
individually by name. Other listings within the family papers identify significantly fewer enslaved
persons by name.11
After James’ death in 1847, his widow Margaret was joined at Cedar Grove by her brother Dr. John
Allison, who moved from Statesville to help manage the estate’s operations. Cedar Grove’s gradual
decline following James’ death is evidenced in the 1850 census, in terms of acreage (f rom over 3,200
acres to 2,481 acres) and the enslaved population. Of the 109 enslaved people that James owned at the
time of his death, a total of 87 remained on the estate, 65 of whom had been inherited by Margaret
(consisting of 34 males and 31 females). The remaining 22 had passed to William Torrance, James’ son
from his second marriage. John Allison moved to Mississippi during the 1850s, leaving Margaret to rely
on a series of contracted overseers to manage Cedar Grove until the two youngest Torrance boys
(Richard and John) were old enough to assume operational control. In 1862, after the boys enlisted to
fight in the Civil War, Margaret hired James Brown (the brother of an acquaintance) as an overseer at an
annual salary of $210 (including the use of a milk cow and horse). She described Brown in an August
1862 letter to son Richard as “the best overseer I ever had.” The terms of Brown’s employment contract
provide a unique insight into the daily lives of the Cedar Grove enslaved workforce:
• The enslaved people were awakened every morning by Brown’s horn “at such an hour as to have
all the stock fed, the Negroes time to prepare and eat their breakfast, and to leave their houses for
the field at the approach of day.”
• Each field hand was expected to perform “his task or work in farming like manner.”
• No field hand was permitted “to leave his work to go after water.” Instead, Brown was to
“appoint so many little ones to supply both the plow and his hands with water.”
• Field hands were given workday meal breaks of “two hours or more during the months of July &
August . . . and one hour in Spring & fall.”
• Field hands were dismissed “from work at dusk in the summer season & sun down in the
winter,” and everyone was expected to “go direct home & attend to his duty assigned him.”
• Each field hand was responsible for “currying rubbing and feeding” one or more assigned farm
animals.
• The field hands’ houses were subject to Brown’s inspection “once or twice per week at night to
prevent the Negroes from running about” and to stop anyone from coming “on the premises
without permission.” Brown was also to prevent any “quarreling, loud talk, fighting, or profane
language.”
• Each Saturday evening, the women were given “two hours or more to wash their clothes for each
hand to appear every Monday morning with comb head & clean clothes unless prevented by
circumstances.”
Brown was also expected to keep tabs on all farm animals and “if any missing at any time to watch at
night they are not cooked by some of the Negroes.” 12
The 1860 census – the final population survey conducted before the abolition of slavery – reported 48
enslaved residents (23 males and 25 females) at Cedar Grove. Over 35% of those individuals were
children aged 10 or younger. The eldest of the population, an 82-year-old woman, was more than 25
years older than the estate’s next eldest enslaved person.13
Three post-emancipation documents within the Torrance family records provide some insight into the
relationships between the family and the formerly enslaved of Cedar Grove. The first is a one-page
agreement dated January 21, 1867, between Margaret Torrance and a woman named Vina Johnston,
potentially the formerly enslaved Lavina identified in the April 27, 1848, inventory from James
Torrance’s estate sale. Johnston bound herself and her four children to work for Margaret Torrance,
doing “any thing she orders me to do” for two years. In return, Margaret provided the family with board
and cotton or wool for Vina to spin her family’s clothing. The second is an undated essay by Richard
Torrance Banks that relates how Sam Alexander – another of Cedar Grove’s formerly enslaved who
returned as a contract laborer – saved the life of James Torrance’s son Richard (Banks’ grandfather)
during Reconstruction. While working together with Alexander at the cotton gin, Richard’s arm was
caught in the gin. Without Alexander’s quick action, stopping the gin’s engine by pulling off the power
belt with his bare hands, Richard would have been pulled into the machine. Although he lost that arm,
Richard’s life was spared. The third document is a June 8, 1903, letter from Dave Reed, one of Cedar
Grove’s formerly enslaved persons, to Richard Torrance. The following is a transcript of the entirety of
that brief letter, sent from Richmond, Texas, and dictated by Reed to his son Will McFarlane:
“My Dear Old Master.
I heard you were in Richmond & came here to see you, but only to find out that I was to
[sic] late. I would have given most anything to have seen you. I wish you would tell all
the people who knew me there Howdy for me. I am doing as well as could be expected
of an old man. Your Bro Bill is well & doing well – I am in very good health but for the
Rheumatism. I heard from Sister Mary two years ago, she was in Arizona. She stated in
her letter, she was going from there to California. Her daughter Annie is dead. Please
answer my letter as soon as you can so I can write you again.
Your Humble Servant
Dave Reed
Mr. Torrance. I am also sorry that I was away from town when you were here. I would
have enjoyed talking to you, as I have heard my Father mention you so often.
Yours Truly
Will McFarlane”
