Piedmont plantation

Richard Bennehan (1743-1825) moved in 1768 from Virginia to land just purchased in Orange (later Durham) County, North Carolina, which included the town of Stagville. Richard served with the colonists in the Revolutionary War, and married Mary Amis in 1776. John Cameron (1745-1815), of Scottish Jacobite ancestry, had immigrated to Virginia in 1770, and in 1773 married Anne Owen Nash. Their son, Duncan Cameron (1777-1853), married Rebecca Benneham, the daughter of Richard and Mary Benneham. Richard gave them 300 acres as a wedding gift, and this served as the beginning of the Fairntosh plantation which Duncan began to build. Eventually the plantation contained about 30,000 acres, and this book tells its history for about 150 years. It is the history of the Cameron-Bennehan families for four generations, with descriptions of their slaves, overseers, buildings, and agricultural enterprise.