The Adams Brothers Store Ledger was purchased through Florida State College for Women Class of 1944 Florida History Endowment.

Collection is open to research

Copyright holder for this collection: Copyright has not been transferred to the Florida State University Libraries

All requests for permission to quote, publish, broadcast or otherwise reproduce from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Director of University Libraries. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Florida State University Libraries as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.

Processed by Burt Altman in September 2006.

Adams Brothers Store Ledger, Special Collections, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida

The Adams Brothers Store was started by Robert Watkins Adams in White Springs (FL) around 1865. According to David W. Hartman and David Coles' Biographical Roster of Florida's Confederate and Union Soldiers, Adams was an officer in the Confederate army who was wounded and taken captive at the Battle of Gettysburg. After a prisoner exchange and a period of hospitalization, he resigned from military service. Following the end of the Civil War, he farmed for a few years and then opened a general merchandise store in White Springs. According to Rowland H. Rerick's Memoirs of Florida, he successfully managed this business until his death on August 15, 1886.

After Adams died, his widow Sophia Jane Adams and their sons Francis and Nathaniel renovated the building. Renovation was completed in 1892. In 1905, the store became an incorporated family business. Farmers brought their cotton in wagons to be weighed on the cotton scale behind the store, and cash was paid or credit was then entered in the mercantile records to purchase goods. The Adams Brothers Store is one of Florida's oldest wooden-framed mercantile stores, and it is still in its original location.

While the Adams Brothers Store Ledger covers only a brief period of the existence of this business (1898-1899), it documents the operations of a late 19th and early 20th Century mercantile store in north Florida. It is significant to researchers studying North Florida's economic history during this period.