Hollyday family papers

This extensive collection documents the correspondence, agricultural, and business dealings of the Hollyday family of "Ratcliffe Manor" in Talbot County and "Readbourne" in Queen Anne's County.

One volume contains tabulations of land duties levied on the Eastern Shore, 1727-1745, for the importation of enslaved people, Irish servants, and liquor; and for the exportation of tobacco, tar, and pork. Correspondence includes that of William Anderson and James Anderson--merchants of London and relatives of the Hollydays--on matters ranging from social affairs to the tobacco trade and nonimportation, 1748-1774.

There are also letters of Henry Hollyday I (1725-1789) to his brother, James Hollyday II (d. 1786) that document: smallpox inoculation (1777); salt making (1779); Continental currency (1780); the British in the Chesapeake (1780-1781); the social life of the family; and law, politics, and business matters, including references to work done by enslaved people.

Correspondence of James Hollyday IV relates to cotton planting in Adams County, Mississippi and the prospects of farmers there versus those in Maryland from 1814 to 1829, with some letters dwelling on the attitude of enslaved people in Maryland toward migration. The movement for improvements in agriculture in Maryland appears in letters, including some to John S. Skinner, 1823-1829.