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General merchant, Pittsylvania Co., Va. Correspondence, account books, daybooks, fee books, invoices, ledgers, memoranda books, records of sales, inventories, and letterpress copybooks, chiefly 1800-1869, of three generations of general merchants of Pittsylvania Co., Va. Business interests included a general store, a tavern, a blacksmith shop, a simplified type of banking, and the keeping of a post office. Large amounts of tobacco were bought and sold before the Civil War. Post-war records indicate a large volume of trade in Peruvian guano and commercial fertilizers. Partners in the firm included Philip L. Grasty and other members of the Grasty family, John F. Rison and Samuel Pannill. Includes letters (1849-1867) of John S. Grasty, a Presbyterian minister, referring to North Carolina agriculture, slave hiring, Unionist sympathy among the Dutch population of Botetourt Co., Va., and the devastation of Fincastle, Va., during the war.