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North Carolina Office of Archives and History
The Cameron Plantation in Central North Carolina (1776-1973) and Its Founder RichardBennehan by Charles Richard SandersReview by: Max R. WilliamsThe North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 52, No. 2 (April, 1975), p. 190Published by: North Carolina Office of Archives and HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23529597 .
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Book Reviews
The Cameron Plantation in Central North Carolina (1776-1973) and Its Founder Richard Bennehan. By Charles Richard Sanders. (Durham: Seeman Printery for the author, 1974. Illustrations, acknowledgments, table, map, index. Pp. vii, 79.
$11.00.)
Charles Richard Sanders, eminent professor emeritus of English at Duke
University and author of numerous books and articles on English literature, has clearly demonstrated his capacity as local historian. This attractive little
book, which obviously benefits from Sanders's knowledge of English litera
ture, will be of interest to historians, genealogists, and laymen alike. The
text has literary merit, and the map and photographs—some twenty-one pages add to the reader's insight and enjoyment.
The subject matter of the book is the life, accomplishments, and progeny of Richard Bennehan (1743-1825). Bennehan was a Virginian of Irish ancestry who settled in Orange County, North Carolina, in December, 1768. There he
acquired a fortune, built a great landed estate, and inspired a tradition of
gracious living and noblesse oblige which for generations influenced his son Thomas Dudley Bennehan (1782-1847), Duncan Cameron (1777-1853), who
married his daughter Rebecca, and the Cameron family. Richard Bennehan was
a merchant and planter who, like the English aristocracy, believed land and
cultural refinement to be inexorably linked. He accumulated thousands of
acres, built a sturdy home at Stagville, worked his plantation efficiently with
slave labor, and took an active interest in internal improvements and in promot ing education, especially in the case of the University of North Carolina. Duncan Cameron, a sagacious lawyer and financier of great industry, con
tributed more land, wealth, and fame to the Bennehan-Cameron fortune. His
son, Paul Carrington Cameron (1808-1891), lawyer and planter, was the
wealthiest man in North Carolina in 1860, possessing 30,000 acres and 1,900 slaves. Despite the vicissitudes of war, he retained that status throughout his
life. Bennehan Cameron (1854-1925), the son of the Paul C. Camerons, kept the family estate intact and perpetuated the family tradition of skillful manage ment of the land and enlightened public service.
Sanders provides ample footnotes which suggest a familiarity with the perti nent secondary and primary sources. His research of primary materials includes
Virginia public records and, most notably, the extensive Cameron Family Papers in the Southern Historial Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While the author demonstrates sound scholarship in this project, a few
typographical errors were noted. More serious is the discrepancy in the birth
date of Thomas Dudley Cameron as seen on pages 26 and 33. All in all, how
ever, Sanders has proved to be a worthy historian of the Bennehan-Cameron families.
Western Carolina University
Max R. Williams
THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW
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