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Collection : John A. SUTTON Papers
1763-1915
Lenoir County
Physical Description: 189 items (182 original MSS; 7 xerographic copies)
including deeds, mortage deeds, bills of sale, bills and invoices, notes
of hand, tax receipts, insurance papers, and a printed pamphlet.
Acquisition: Gift, Mrs. Doris A. Smith, Morehead City, N.C., Oct. 28, 1991.
Description: John A. Sutton (ca. 1822-1889), owner of a 297-acre farm
in WNW Lenoir County on Neuse River, on the road leading from Kinston
to Seven Springs (formerly Whitehall), raised, ginned, and baled his
own cotton crop. A small slaveowner before the Civil War, Sutton operated
his farm business after the Civil War with the assistance of his sons and
hired labor. The farm appears to have been very nearly self-sufficient,
if one is to judge from the nature of the bills and invoices in this small
groups of papers. They reflect purchases of farm equipment and supplies,
shoes and clothing, dry goods, medical services, and tuition for his
children — but none of grocer’s, butcher's, or others' wares. In the
census year of 1870, his farm in Kinston Township produced wheat, rye,
corn, potatoes, butter, and cotton. Not reported in the census, but
reflected in the papers, the orchards on the farm produced a quantity of
apple and peach brandy both before the Civil War and afterwards.
The economic depressions of the 1870s and 1890s arising from the
panics of 1873 and 1893 are reflected in the homestead exemption, mortgage
deeds, and judgments found among the papers. Apparently it was not until
after the depression of 1893-1898 that the main crop of the farm was
changed from cotton to tobacco.
Sutton was twice married, first to Rosey A. H. Sutton (1827-1855),
then, three months after her death to Sarah C. A (1832-1912).
(The undated order for a gravestone for his first wife and footstones
for his dead children appears to date from shortly after the second
marriage.) In 1862 Sutton enlisted in Company C, 66th Regiment, N.C.
Troops, as a private, being detailed subsequently as a waggoner then as
a division ambulance driver. He is assumed to have worshiped at Wheat
Swamp Church, and he was a member of the fraternal society, International
Order of Odd Fellows.
