Diaries, plats, scrapbooks, photographs, daguerreotypes, and tintypes documenting the settlement of the Knotts family in the Woodford section of Orangeburg District, S.C., during the 19th century and their subsequent travels, education, real estate holdings, and other interests during the 20th century; collection chiefly relates to the families of Herschel Knotts Scott and her husband, Methodist minister Paul C. Scott. Early materials include inventory and account of sale, 1818-1819, of the personal property comprising the estate of Benjamin Knotts of Darlington District, S.C., including assessed value for hiring-out the labor of several African American slaves identified by name; essay, 1858: "An essay on Epidemic dysentery respectfully submitted to Henry R. Frost, Dean and Medical Faculty of The State of South Carolina for the Honorary degree of M.D. by D.L. Hildebrand of Orangeburgh District, S.C.," re diarrhea as result of typhus and other maladies (30 pages). Student diary, 1854-1856 and 1859, kept by Joseph Evander Knotts (1834-1882) while enrolled at Furman University, Greenville, S.C., with literary society debate topics on such questions as secession ("Are the influences which tend to perpituate, stronger than those which tend to dissolve the Union?"), Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War ("Does Cromwell deserve the odium attached to his name and memory?"), war ("Does the progress of civilization diminish the Love of Martial glory?"), books and reading ("Does the rapid multiplicity of books exert a salutary influence on literature?"), ("Is everyman Self-educated?"), and a comparison of art versus the natural world; with later entries consisting of labor contracts, 1878-1882, between Knotts and various tenants on the farm. Land papers include topographic maps and copies of plats for land in Orangeburg and Lexington Districts, S.C., including property of Annie Mercer Knotts of Woodford, S.C., that totaled 2300 acres in 1954; a land dispute dating to Great Depression, consisting of transcripts from U.S. Curcuit Court of Appeals and U.S. Supreme Court, between Shingler B. Knotts, Sr., debtor, versus the First Carolinas Joint Stock Land Bank of Columbia, S.C. Scrapbook, 1901-1946, kept by Annie Mercer Knotts (b. ca. 1878), with clippings on various subjects such as votes for women, and women's rights, pasted in an account book, 1904, and also containing records of groceries and other supplies purchased by tenants; topographic maps and plats, ca. 1954, showing lands owned by Annie Mercer Knotts of Woodford, S.C.; scrapbook volume, 1935-1963, with article re the extinct Orangeburg Collegiate Institute by Olin J. Salley in The State magazine, "Orangeburg's Former College"; recollections of Woodford resident Zimmie Dantzler re arrival General William T. Sherman's army in 1865, the Charleston earthquake in 1886, and anecdotes re various African American farm workers including John McCloud, Monroe Pinckney, and others. Scrapbook (ca. 1921-1925) kept by Miss Herschel Knotts while a student at Greenville Woman's College, Greenville (S.C.); record of local events in Orarngeburg County, S.C., documented in a newspaper column, "Woodford News," consisting of 35 typed drafts (9 May 1927 and 7 June 1970 - 7 Nov. 1971) written by Herschel Knotts Scott and published in The North Journal. Collection includes four photograph albums, 1881-1985, containing images of family members, including ancestors of Herschel Knotts Scott, family homes, automobiles, travels, schools, a chain gang, as well as in S.C. and Ohio served by the Rev. Paul Craig Scott; as well as obituaries, wedding announcements, and genealogical information; other papers include a printed label from a packing crate promoting "Palmetto Asparagus Grown and Packed by S.B. Knotts, North, S.C."; a genealogical chart, 1925, showing the Scott family tree; cemetery record, 1971, of the Penn Branch Methodist Church (Orangeburg County, S.C.); on the Coleman, Davis, Hildebrand, Holman, Jones, Knotts, Mercer, Redmon, Scott, Shingler, and Ulmer families. Daguerreotypes and tintypes in the collection depict members of the Knotts, Shingler, and Mercer families; also includes images of local residents such as John McCloud and Nick Caughman, who was the owner of Caughman's Pond in Lykesland, S.C.; African Americans employed by the Knotts family on the farm and elsewhere, including and Monroe Pinckney who was also employed at Williams' Hardware Store (Swansea, S.C.); leisure and work activities depicted include people at Caughman's pond and pavillion, people eating watermelon at a social gathering in Woodford, S.C. ca. 1920s; the sand pits at Dixiana, S.C.; Midway Mill Pond, a lumber mill operated by S.B. Knotts and a site for family gatherings; Tole's Lumber Mill in Charleston, S.C.; and life in the cotton and asparagus fields. Also includes photographs of the Gwynn School (Spartanburg, S.C.); professors and buildings at the Greenville Woman's College (S.C.); and various parsonages and Methodist churches served by Rev. Paul C. Scott in Kentucky, Ohio, and South Carolina; images of Paul Scott's family in Ohio include a street scene of an "Anti-Saloon" temperance parade in Butler, Ohio [ca. 1910], with family in a "Mission Truck to [the] Needy" that the family drove to Fort Wayne, Indiana [ca. 1915].
