Papers, 1729, 1766, and 1780-1957, consisting of legal, business, and political documents, as well as personal correspondence and genealogical information on activities of this family from the Pee Dee Region of South Carolina. Business and legal records include 18th-century land grants to John Kimbrough and Ann Dargan; papers relating to the retail business of Edgar and Hugh Charles (1839-1867), concerned mostly with their court actions against debtors; the minutes of a stockholder's meeting of the Darlington Railroad Company (31 August 1852); accounts of Samuel and Emelie Leslie Bacot for the years 1820, 1828, 1839-1843, and 1848; and 20th-century letters between Sarah and Emelie Charles and Edgar Haynsworth about management of their property (23 January 1917-24 August 1927). Political documents of note consist of speech, 4 July 1848, pre-dating the secession crisis of 1850 that warns of coming conflict between North and South; speech (August 1828) arguing against the protective tariff; petition [ca. later 1870s] to Gov. Wade Hampton requesting that Hugh Charles be made treasurer of Darlington County; and a late nineteenth-century speech by L. Bacot honoring Confederate veterans. Other notable items are a journal kept by Serena Dargan from 1864 to 1867, including her impressions on the invasion of South Carolina and Reconstruction; letters to Serena Dargan (24 January 1866-25 July 1866) concerning management of her plantation; compositions written by Caroline Charles for Prof. Darby (1848-49) on various subjects. Later items include a volume containing genealogical information on the Bacot family, as well as newspaper clippings with news of deaths and marriages in the Bacot family; letters from Thomas Wright Bacot to Caroline Charles containing genealogical information; letters from French relatives Celine Bacot (15 May 1901) and V. C. de Montivault (copy, orig. date 29 August 1866).
