SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 219 



mill 2881/2 days of 11 1/2 hours. Size of building 125 feet 

 by 29, four stories. Average wages of hired blacks, 18% 

 cents a day. They board themselves. Wages of whites, 

 13 to 26 cents, and weavers by the piece — 18 cents a cut 

 of 33 yards, and average about 3 cuts a day. Weavers' 

 wages of the last month from $9.90 to $18 per week. 



Marlborough Factory, near Bennetville, S. C, owned 

 by Captain M. Townsend,^ runs 1,000 spindles on coarse 

 yarns, Nos. 5 to 10, with 35 hands from 10 years old up, 

 averaging $1.90 a week, including 5 slaves counted at $8 

 a month — consumes 500 bales a year, at 5 cents a pound, 

 and made last year 162,500 lbs. yarn. Average value 

 at home, 12 V2 cents per lb. Cost of production in labor 

 21/2 to 2% cents per lb. Capital $20,000 in mill and $5,000 

 floating. Sells about a third of yarn at home, and bal- 

 ance in New York. Hands all work by the day and week, 

 and included in average cost is a machinist now repair- 

 ing, whose wages are $9 a week. Solon Robinson. 



Raleigh, N.C., May 6th, 1849. 



Mr. Robinson's Tour. — No. 12. 



[New York American Agriculturist, 8:366-67; Dec, 1849'] 



[Written October 6, 1849, covering May 9, 1849^] 



The Turpentine Btcsiness of North Carolina. — In this 

 number, I will give some facts concerning the turpentine 

 business of North Carolina. The first place that I ex- 

 amined particularly, was that of Mr. David Murphy,^ ten 



^ Meekin Townsend, prominent merchant and manufacturer. Died 

 in 1851 at the age of forty-five. Marlborough Cotton Factory was 

 burned in 1850 and never rebuilt. Cyclopedia of Etninent and Rep- 

 resentative Men of the Carolinas of the 19th Century, 1:191 (Madi- 

 son, Wis., 1892). 



^ Reprinted in The Wisconsin Farmer and Northwestern ddti- 

 vator, Racine, Wisconsin, 2:5-6 (January, 1850). 



' This article is placed here to conform to Robinson's itinerary. 



* David Murphy, son of Patrick and Elizabeth (Kelso) Murphy 

 who came from Scotland to America and settled in Sampson 

 County, North Carolina, in 1774. Patrick acquired much heavily 

 timbered land and built a substantial home. David Murphy was 



