When Liberty Hall, as it came to be called, the ancestral home of the Kenan family, was being restored some years ago in Kenansville (Duplin County), North Carolina, among the many books left in the library was discovered an accounts ledger used by two members of the Chauncey Graham family. The most significant feature of this complex book is the obscurely-entered, first-hand account of a supposed slave insurrection and its consequences. The author is Dr. Stephen Graham, and the uprising that he depicts in Kenansville can be linked to the furor unleashed by the Nat Turner rebellion.
The ledger is approximately fifteen inches long and six inches wide. Its dark binding remains intact; but the front and back, both of which contain longhand notations and arithmetical calculations, are practically illegible now.
Inside, the owner is identified as Chauncey Graham [Jr.]; and the book is said to have been started in January 1800 in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. Dr. Graham recorded his patients' names, the work he did for them (e.g., extracting teeth), and prescriptions he gave them, as well as the ways by which he was paid (e.g., four pounds of butter; one cord of wood; or, less frequently, by cash).