Primary broker through the peak years and into the war. Sold 77 of 92 bales in 1858 — the largest harvest in the record. Handled the last cotton sale April 25, 1862: eight bales to C. Wise, $310.50. After that date, the cotton entries stop.

Sold 62 bales to E.A. Wilcox on March 26, 1866 — 32,047 lbs at 28 cents, $8,751.90 net in greenbacks. The largest single cotton transaction in the estate record. The Final Distribution was signed the following day.

Primary broker in the founding and middle years. Also a major provisioner — bagging, rope, shoes, blankets, dry goods. The Ross name runs through the record for over a decade, eventually becoming Harris & Ross in the post-war returns.

The first cotton buyer in the record. Seven bales in October 1847 — six months after James A. Bryan died. The 55-bale June 1848 sale through this firm is the largest single transaction in the founding years.

Took over as primary broker from John Jones & Son. Also a provisioner. Handled 46+ bales in the 1853 returns alone.

Bought 22 bales in 1863 at 35 cents a pound — $3,972.60. The pre-war price had been 10 cents. The Confederate dollar behind those 35 cents is not the pre-war dollar.

Primary broker in the earliest years. Recorded every bale weight and number. G. Patten acted as agent on individual sales.

Receipt for notes in the founding years. Among the first commercial relationships documented in the estate record.

Receipt for notes $269.59. Also connected to bills of sale. The same commercial networks that moved cotton also moved people.

The plantation brought raw cotton and raw wool to the Houston Factory and received back yarn and carded fiber — and the mill also bought the plantation's cotton directly, bypassing the Macon brokers. James A. Bryan helped survey and dam Mossy Creek in 1843 to power this mill. Superintendent A.M. Crowder bought 15 bales at 11 cents in January 1859. That same Crowder served as commissioner certifying the Final Distribution in 1866 — the man who bought their cotton eight years before, present at the close of the estate. Where the factory stood, Houston Lake Country Club now sits.

Overhauled the 50-saw gin in 1853 — filing all fifty saws, new main shaft, fifty-one new ribs, new cotton box and brush, $48.50. His factory at Griswoldville sat four miles east of Macon. When the war came, Confederate revolvers were made there. Sherman's right flank burned it in November 1864. In the spring of 1853 he filed fifty saw teeth, fit a new shaft, collected $48.50, and went home.

Repaired the existing gin in 1855 for $6.25. Sold the estate a complete new 50-saw gin in April 1858 for $95.44. The old gin had reached the end of its life. Ninety-two bales followed that fall — the largest harvest in the record.

Paid $133.98 for mechanics labor in building the gin house in 1849. Signed his receipt with his mark. The lumber arrived March 1848; his payment closed December 1849. The gin house that Griswold would overhaul in 1853 was built across that eighteen-month gap.

Mechanic work $25 in June 1853, signed with his mark. Painted the dwelling house chrome green in December 1859 — $40.00 labor plus $1.80 paint — signed with his mark. His work survives on the original porch rails. Two capacities, six years apart, in the same record.

Re-roofed the main house in fall 1858: 13,000 wood shingles at $2.50 per thousand, shingling 31 squares at $2.50 per square — $120.24 total. This is a full re-roofing. Every piece of shelter the house has provided since 1858 rests on this account. Also processed plantation hides and supplied lumber across a decade of returns.

Blacksmith and boardinghouse keeper in Perry. Isaac worked here October 1847 and January 1849. Cornelius and Hugh both boarded here for school. Recurring smithy services including buggy work and horseshoeing across the full founding and growth years.

Enslaved blacksmith, owned by Charles West, hired to the Bryan estate across twelve months in 1853 at $1.62½ per day — gun repair, wagon work, farm ironwork. Among the most specifically documented workers of that year. He appears in the record only because his labor was borrowed and billed by the day.

Cotton hauler — carried bales from the plantation to the Tobesofkee crossing at twenty cents per hundred pounds. Also rebuilt a chimney on the estate in February 1858 for $15. The man who moved the cotton and the man who rebuilt the masonry are the same entry in the ledger.

Every bale of cotton the Bryan estate sold crossed this bridge. Eight dollars for the crossing — recorded in every single annual return from 1847 through 1861, fourteen consecutive years, not once omitted. Owned by J.B. Wiley; Jefferson Tankersley collected the toll. The fifteenth and final appearance is April 20, 1865 — two weeks after the war ended. The last bale crossed the same water every bale before it had crossed.

1,000 bushels of corn impressed at $1.25 a bushel — $1,250.00. Direct delivery, no broker. The plantation had converted from cotton to food crops in April 1862. The war arrived in the ledger as a line item.

Received $500 from R.C. Bryan to exempt C.P. Bryan as overseer on the estate. The Twenty Negro Law required plantations with twenty or more enslaved people to employ a white male overseer exempt from Confederate service. The estate pays $500 to keep Cornelius in that role. Three months earlier Cornelius had been in the Macon jail for three days.

Receives $4.05: taking charge and putting in jail $1.80, taking out $0.90, dieting 3 days $1.35. Cornelius Bryan is in the Macon jail for three days in April 1863. The charge is not stated. The release is not explained. The $4.05 is Voucher 1 of the 1863 return.

B.G. Morris: 4 bushels salt, $100.00 — $25 per bushel, November 1862. Asher Ayres: 2 barrels, 600 lbs, $450.00 — 75 cents per pound, March 1864. Salt before the war cost cents per quantity. The same commodity, the same use — curing meat, preserving food — at prices that mark a supply chain under complete strain.

30 pairs of shoes made locally — $30.00, one dollar per pair. In every prior year the plantation's shoe distribution came from Macon suppliers. In 1862 the shoes are made locally. The same number of people receive footwear. The supply line has changed.

New names in the record, replacing the cotton brokers. McCallie & Jones: 116 bushels peanuts $175.12, 97 bushels ground peas $133.37. Dunn & Burdick: three ground pea purchases across December and January. The plantation that ran on cotton for thirty years sold food through these buyers in the thirty-first year.

A new name in the returns, replacing the Macon dry goods suppliers. Two purchases through agent W.A. Hopson: calico and homespun $15.50 in October 1865; calico, poplin, cambric, Irish linen, handkerchiefs, scissors, thread, needles $24.55 in December. The fabric categories are the same as always. The supplier has changed. The need has not.

Eight freedpeople and their families contracted to work the plantation for wages — fined 50 cents per day for unauthorized absence. Abner and James S. Bryan signed for the estate. The same land, new terms. The Boston family — Peggy, Charles, Neila, Matthias, Mintie — contracted together and remained in the county.