Southern Women and Their Families
in the 19th Century

Papers and Diaries

Series A, Holdings of the Southern Historical Collections,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Part 8: North Carolina

• General Introduction
• Note on Sources
• Editorial Note
• Other Introductory Material

General Introduction

At any given time the prevailing conceptions of what is significant in the past will determine which sources are sought and valued. When politics and diplomacy are the center of historians' concern, government documents, treaties, newspapers, and correspondence of political leaders and diplomats will be collected and made accessible. When intellectual history is ascendant, the works of philosophers and reflective thinkers will be studied, analyzed, and discussed. Economic historians will look for records of trade, evidence of price fluctuations, conditions of labor, and other kinds of data originally collected for business purposes. The propensity of modern governments to collect statistics has made possible whole new fields for historical analysis.

In our own time social historians have flourished, and for them evidence of how people of all kinds have lived, felt, thought, and behaved is a central concern. Private diaries and personal letters are valued for the light they throw on what French historians label the mentalité of a particular time and place. The fact that such documents were usually created only for the writer, or for a friend or relative, gives them an immediacy not often found in other kinds of records. At best the writers tell us--directly or by implication--what they think and feel and do. Even the language and the allusions in such spontaneous expression are useful to the historian, whose inferences might surprise the writer could she know what was being made of her words.

This microfilm series focuses on a particular group (women) in a particular place (the South) in a particular time (the nineteenth century). The fact that many of these documents exist is a tribute to the work of several generations of staff members at the leading archives of the South such as the Southern Historical Collection at Chapel Hill, North Carolina; the William R. Perkins Library at Duke University; the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia; the South Caroliniana Library; the Lower Mississippi Valley Collection, Louisiana State University; the Swem Library at the College of William and Mary, Colonial Williamsburg; and several state historical societies. The legend of Southern Historical Collection founder J. G. DeRoulhac Hamilton who, in his effort to preserve the evidence of the southern past, traveled about in his Model A Ford knocking on doors, asking people to look in their attics and cellars for material, is well known. The result of his labors and those of his counterparts and successors is a vast collection that includes thousands of letters from women of all ages and hundreds of diaries or diary fragments. Only a small part of this material has been studied by professional historians. Some family collections cover decades, even several generations. Others are fragmentary: diaries begun in moments of enthusiasm and shortly abandoned; letters sporadically saved.

The years of the Civil War are particularly well documented, since many women were convinced that they were living through momentous historical events of which they should make a record. After the war ended and the "new South" began to take shape, other women wrote memoirs for their children and grandchildren, hoping to preserve forever their memories of a better time "before the war" or to record the sacrifices and heroism they had witnessed. The United Daughters of the Confederacy made a special effort to persuade women to record their wartime memories. In the best of circumstances--and each collection included in this edition was chosen precisely with this consideration in mind--the collections preserve the voices of one or more women through letters or diaries that cover many years.

Although women's letters to soldiers were often lost in the mud and carnage of battlefields, soldiers' letters were treasured and have survived in abundance. If it is true, as Virginia Woolf once wrote, that in writing a letter one tries to reflect something of the recipient, then these letters, too, may add to our understanding of the lives of women and families.¹ Moreover so many of the soldiers' letters respond to women's questions, give hints or instructions on managing property, and allude to family life and routine at home, that they can be used to draw valid inferences about the activities of their female correspondents, even when the woman's side of the correspondence is altogether lost.

Seen through women's eyes, nineteenth-century southern social history takes on new dimensions. Subjects that were of only passing interest when historians depended on documents created by men now move to center stage. Women's letters dwell heavily on illness, pregnancy, and childbirth. From them we can learn what it is like to live in a society in which very few diseases are well understood, in which death is common in all age groups, and in which infant mortality is an accepted fact of life. A woman of forty-three, writing in 1851, observed that her father, mother, four sisters, three brothers, and two infants were all dead, and except for her father, none had reached the age of thirty-six.²

Slavery has been a central concern of southern historians, generally from the white male perspective. Seen through the eyes of plantation mistresses, the peculiar institution becomes even more complex. We can observe a few women searching their souls about the morality of the institution, and many more complaining bitterly about the practical burdens it places upon them. We can find mothers worrying about the temptations slave life offers to husbands and sons--and even occasionally expressing sympathy for the vulnerability of slave women. Some claim to be opposed to the institution but do not take any steps to free their own slaves. Others simply agonize. There is, unfortunately, no countervailing written record to enable us to see the relationship from the slaves' point of view.

Until late in the century the word feminism did not exist, and in the South "women's rights" were often identified with the hated antislavery movement. "Strong-minded woman" was a term of anathema. Even so we find antebellum southern women in their most private moments wondering why men's lives are so much less burdened than their own and why it is always they who must, as one woman wrote, provide the ladder on which a man may climb to heaven. Very early in the nineteenth century women's letters sometimes dwelt on the puzzling questions having to do with women's proper role. After the Civil War a Georgia diarist reflected, apropos the battle over black suffrage, that if anyone, even the Yankees, had given her the right to vote she would not readily give it up.³ As early as the 1860s a handful of southern women presented suffrage arguments to the state constitutional conventions. After 1865 a surprising number of women spoke out in favor of suffrage and a larger number were quiet supporters. There were, of course, equally ardent opponents, and until 1910 or so, organizing suffrage associations was uphill work. As one goes through these records, however, suffragists and advocates of women's rights emerge from the dim corners in which they tended to conceal themselves when they were alive.

The conventional view that southern women eschewed politics will not survive a close reading of these records. In 1808 one letter writer regretted the fact that a male literary society would have no more parties since she enjoyed listening to the men talk politics.⁴ As early as the 1820s there is evidence for women's participation in political meetings and discussions. Such involvement continued through the secession debates and the difficult days of reconstruction. A South Carolina memoir offers a stirring account of the role of women in the critical election of 1876.⁵ By the 1870s southern women were already using their church societies to carve out a political role, and by the end of the century they had added secular clubs, many of them focused on civic improvement.

Reading women's documents we can envision the kinds of education available to the most favored among them. Many women kept records of their reading and much of it was demanding: Plutarch's Lives, for example, or Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. A very young woman who recorded reading Humboldt's Kosmos, Milton's Paradise Lost, Madame De Stael's Corinne, and Guizot's History of Civilization was not altogether unique. Others castigated themselves for reading novels and resolved (sometimes over and over) to undertake more serious study. At the very beginning of the nineteenth century a young woman from southwest Virginia had gone to Williamsburg to school, presumably to a female academy or seminary.⁶ There are many examples of strenuous efforts at self-education, and in the privacy of their diaries some women admitted to a passionate longing for knowledge (reading clubs, for example, were described as "a peace offering to a hungry mind").⁷ Of course one of the limitations of sources such as these is precisely that they come principally from the minority who had some education. It is up to the perceptive historian to extrapolate from these documents to the poorer women, the slave women, and all those who seldom left a record at all. (There are occasional letters from slaves in these voluminous collections, but they are rare.)

Papers that cover a considerable period provide us with many real-life dramas. Courtship patterns and marriage and family experience emerge. We see the widow left with children to support as she tries various options to earn a living--and in some cases takes to drink to ease her burdens. We see the single woman cast on her own resources as she tries teaching or housekeeping for a widower to keep body and soul together. Single sisters of wives who died young were likely to wind up first taking care of the bereft children and then marrying the widower. Other single women bemoan their fate and reflect that it might be better to be dead than to live single. In the 1880s women of the Carter family took over the running of Shirley Plantation.⁸ Married or single, rich or poor, many women inadvertently reveal the socialization that has persuaded them that they should never complain, that they must be the burden bearers of family life.

Through the whole century, while the rest of the country was restlessly urbanizing, the South remained predominantly an agricultural society. Women's records allow us to see the boredom of rural life in which almost any bit of news, any adolescent wickedness, any youthful romance is subject for comment. We see also the profound religious faith that supported many women through poverty, childbirth, widowhood, and the other trials that filled their lives. The religious history of the Civil War emerges as we see faith challenged by defeat, and many women beginning to question things they had always believed.

No reader of these documents can any longer doubt that plantation women, in addition to supervising the work of slaves, worked very hard themselves. Depending on their level of affluence, women might take care of livestock and chickens, plant and harvest gardens, card, spin and weave, make quilts, sew clothes, and perform many other specific tasks. The Soldiers' Aid Societies that formed so quickly after secession rested on just these skills developed in the previous years.

One of the most interesting aspects of southern culture that emerges from papers such as these is the views women and men had of each other. No matter how much a woman admired any particular man, she often viewed men in general with extreme skepticism and sometimes with outright bitterness. Men were often described as selfish, authoritarian, profligate, given to drinking too much, and likely to judge women as a class, not in terms of their individual attributes. Many women found their economic dependence galling. In spite of the rather general chafing at the confines of patriarchy, individual women were devoted to and greatly admired their own husbands, sons, and fathers. Women who traveled spoke with admiration of the independence exhibited by northern women (this both before and after the Civil War). Discontent with their own lot included a good deal of private railing against constant childbearing and the burdens of caring for numerous children.

The concept of a woman's culture is borne out by much of what can be read here. Women frequently assume that they say and feel things that only other women can understand.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of this microfilm publication. Historians of women have been making use of many of these collections for three decades or more. Now it is gradually becoming clear that they are useful to the student of almost any aspect of southern culture and society. In a recent example, Clarence Mohr, writing about slavery in Georgia, realized that women's records were virtually his only source for testing the well-established southern myth that all slaves had been docile, helpful workers when men went to war and left their wives and children to supervise plantations. Years earlier Bell Irwin Wiley had suggested that the story was more complicated than that, but it did not occur to him to look for evidence in women's papers. The description of such docility never seemed reasonable, but it was believed by many people, even some who had every reason to know better. In a close examination of women's diaries and letters, Mohr found a quite different picture, one of slaves who, when the master departed, became willful and hard to direct and who gave the mistress many causes for distress. To be sure, they did not often murder families in their beds, but they became lackadaisical about work, took off without permission, talked back, and ran away to the Yankees when opportunity presented itself. They made use of all the thousand and one ways of expressing the frustration bondsmen and women must always feel.⁹

Wartime documents are revealing in other ways. We can see rumors flying, as victories and defeats were created in the mind, not on the battlefield. We sense the tension of waiting for word from men in the army. We see the women gradually losing faith that God will protect them from the invaders. For some, religion itself is called in question by the experience of invasion and defeat.

As we move into the remaining decades of the nineteenth century, these records allow us to trace some of the dramatic social changes of the postwar world. In one family we see a member of the generation of post-Civil War single women earning her living in a variety of ways and then beginning a full-time career as a teacher at the age of fifty-eight. She continued to teach well into her eighth decade. This particular set of papers is especially valuable since it goes through three generations--a wonderful exposition of social change as revealed in the lives of women.¹⁰

We must be struck by the number of men in the immediate postwar years who chose suicide over the challenges of creating a new society without slaves. In records from the second half of the century we can see lynching from the white perspective, observe the universal experience of adolescence, watch the arrival of rural free delivery of mail and the coming of the telephone, and many other evidences of change. Reading these personal documents the historian may be reminded of Tolstoy's dictum that all happy families are alike, while unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way. One may be tempted to revise the aphorism to say that every family is sometimes happy and sometimes unhappy--the balance between the two states makes for a satisfactory or unsatisfactory life. Reading family papers one may also be forcefully reminded of Martha Washington, writing about the difficulties she faced as first lady. She was, she said, "determined to be cheerful and to be happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances."¹¹

From the larger perspective of the social historian, records such as these will help us develop a more comprehensive picture of life as it was experienced by the literate part of the southern population over a century. They help us understand the intricate interaction of individual lives and social change. We can see the world through eyes that perceive very differently from our own and understand better the dramatic shifts in values that have occurred in the twentieth century. Like any other historical data these must be used with care, with empathy, with detachment, and with humility. But given those conditions they will add significantly to our understanding of a world that in one sense is dead and gone, and in another sense lives on in the hearts and minds and behavior patterns of many southern people.

Anne Firor Scott
W. K. Boyd Professor of History
Duke University

¹Nigel Nicholson and Joanne Trautmen, eds. The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Vol. IV: 1929-1931 (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), p. 98. "It is an interesting question--what one tries to do, in writing a letter--partly of course to give back a reflection of the other person...."

²Anne Beale Davis Diary, February 16, 1851, Beale-Davis Papers, Southern Historical Collection.

³Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas Diary, November 2, 1868, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University.

⁴Jane C. Charlton to Sarah C. Watts, Sarah C. Watts Papers, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

⁵Sally Elmore Taylor Memoir, Franklin Harper Elmore Papers, Southern Historical Collection.

⁶Sarah C. Watts Papers.

⁷Hope Summerell Chamberlain, "What's Done and Past," unpublished autobiography, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University.

⁸Shirley Plantation Papers, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

⁹Clarence L. Mohr, On the Threshold of Freedom: Masters and Slaves in Civil War Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986).

¹⁰Mary Susan Ker Papers, Southern Historical Collection.

¹¹John P. Riley, "The First Family in New York." Mount Vernon Ladies Association Annual Report, 1989, p. 23.

Note on Sources

Historical maps microfilmed among the introductory materials are courtesy of the Map Collection of the Academic Affairs Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Maps consulted include:
Andrees Allgemeiner, Handatlas, 1899;
Thomas G. Bradford, Comprehensive Atlas, 1835;
J. H. Colton, General Atlas, 1870; and
S. Augustus Mitchell, "A New Map of Kentucky," 1846.

Editorial Note

Following the précis, the reel indexes itemize each file folder and manuscript volume. The four-digit number to the left of each entry indicates the frame number at which a particular document or series of documents begins.

A subject index, which is keyed to the information provided in the reel indexes for Parts 1-3, appears at the end of the user guide.

Researchers should note that significant other papers and diaries of southern women are included in UPA's microfilm edition of Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War and Women's Studies Manuscript Collections from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Series 1: Woman Suffrage, Part C: The South. Subsequent parts of Southern Women and Their Families in the 19th Century: Papers and Diaries: Series A, Holdings of the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill will extend to other regions of the South.

Other Introductory Material

Description of the Collection
This collection comprises chiefly family letters, 1835-1867, of George E. Badger (1795-1866), superior court judge, secretary of the navy, and U.S. senator, 1844-1855, of Raleigh, North Carolina, and members of his family. Correspondents include Badger; his wife, Delia Haywood Williams Badger; and their daughter, Mary Badger Hale. Letters dated 1835-1836 are to Melissa Williams, Delia's daughter by a previous marriage, who was attending school in Philadelphia, from her mother, and from a family friend, Mary I. Lucas of Raleigh, chiefly about family activities. Most of the later letters are to the Badgers' daughter, Kate Badger Haigh of Fayetteville, North Carolina, from George, Delia, or sister Mary Badger Hale of Raleigh, also giving family and neighborhood news. Of particular interest is an 1849 letter from Delia to Kate that contains a rich description of fifty drunken women and other rowdies at a cotillion in Raleigh. Also present are five letters from the Civil War period that include, in addition to news of the activities of family and friends, an account of how Delia and Mary spent their time quilting and sewing; mention of a group of neighborhood women visiting the troops in Richmond, Virginia; complaints about inflated wartime prices; and requests for fabric and other goods. In an 1863 letter to one of her sisters, an overworked Mary Badger Hale complained about the inability of her sickly and/or pregnant slaves to work. Two 1867 letters briefly mention military orders, the scarcity of money, the fear of land confiscation, and rumors that "the negroes were going to run a candidate for Mayor" of Raleigh.

N.B. A related collection among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection is the George E. Badger Papers, which is included in this microfilm edition.

George E. Badger Papers, 1829-1860,
Wake County, North Carolina; also District of Columbia

Description of the Collection
This collection comprises chiefly business letters, 1829-1860, from George E. Badger, superior court judge, secretary of the navy, and U.S. senator, 1844-1855, of Raleigh, North Carolina, to several friends and associates concerning legal cases, politics, and general news. Included are seven letters, 1855-1860, from Badger to James Mandeville Carlisle (1814-1877), a Washington, D.C., lawyer with whom he formed a law partnership in the mid-1850s. Of particular interest is an 1849 letter to Badger from George Davis (1820-1896), who later served as attorney general of the Confederate States of America, and Frederick J. Hill (1792-1861), both of Wilmington, North Carolina, concerning the political appointment of the commander of the revenue boat for that city's port. Also of interest is a letter, also 1849, from Badger to Charles M. Butler, rector of Trinity Church (Episcopal), Washington, D.C., concerning Episcopal doctrinal controversies.

N.B. A related collection among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection is the Badger Family Papers, which is included in this microfilm edition.

Bagley Family Papers, 1848-1964,
Perquimans and Wake Counties, North Carolina;
also District of Columbia, Cuba, and Mexico

Description of the Collection
This collection consists primarily of letters about family, personal, and social life received by William Henry Bagley (1833-1886), clerk of the North Carolina Supreme Court, 1863-1887, and his wife, Adelaide, daughter of Governor Jonathan Worth, including letters written by Adelaide to her future husband, 1864-1866, their children, and correspondence of other members of the Worth and Bagley families in North Carolina. Other correspondence includes letters from the Bagley children and their families, chiefly 1899-1939. Represented are Worth Bagley (1874-1898), a U.S. naval cadet and ensign, who was the only officer of the U.S. Navy to be killed during the Spanish-American War; William Henry Bagley (1877-1936) at Havana in 1899 and as a newspaper executive in Raleigh, North Carolina, 1900-1915; Adelaide Worth Bagley Daniels and her husband, Josephus Daniels, including letters from Washington, D.C., 1913-1920, while Daniels was secretary of the navy, and from Mexico, 1933-1939, while he was U.S. ambassador; and letters, 1931-1936, from George C. Worth (1867-1937), a Presbyterian missionary in China, which contain descriptions of the Japanese invasion.

The collection is arranged as follows: Series 1. Loose Papers--Subseries 1.1: 1848-1888, Subseries 1.2: 1889-1908, Subseries 1.3: 1909-1939, and Subseries 1.4: Worth-Bagley Genealogy and Series 2. Volumes.

Biographical Note
William Henry (W. H.) Bagley, 1833-1886, was the son of Colonel Willis H. Bagley of Perquimans County, North Carolina. Willis Bagley was, for many years, the sheriff of Perquimans County and was active in politics there. W. H. Bagley obtained his education at the Hertford Academy. After graduation, he edited the Elizabeth City Sentinel, then studied law, and was licensed in 1859. He originally opposed secession, but joined the 8th Regiment, North Carolina Troops at the start of the war. After being captured and released, he was promoted to major of the 68th Regiment, North Carolina Troops. He served in that capacity until 1864. During the war, the voters of Perquimans and Pasquotank counties twice elected him to represent them in the North Carolina Senate. After the war, he became the private secretary of Governor Jonathan Worth, a position he held until he was elected clerk of the state supreme court in 1868. He remained clerk until his death in 1886.

In 1866, W. H. Bagley married Adelaide Worth, daughter of Governor Jonathan Worth. They lived in Pittsboro, Chatham County, North Carolina, and, during legislative or court sessions, in Raleigh, North Carolina. They had six children: Adelaide Worth (1869-1943); Belle (1872-1936); Worth (1874-1898); Ethel (1875-1939); William Henry, Jr. (1877-1936); and David (b. 1883).

Adelaide Worth Bagley lived her early life in Pittsboro and Raleigh and received her education at Peace College in Raleigh. In 1888, she married Josephus Daniels, who was editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, secretary of the navy under Woodrow Wilson, and ambassador to Mexico under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Adelaide Bagley Daniels was active throughout her life in benevolent organizations and served on the board of directors at Rex Hospital in Raleigh in the 1920s and 1930s.

Belle and Ethel Bagley both received their early education in Raleigh. They lived together much of their lives and settled in Washington, D.C., where they were employed by the federal government. They lived on Dupont Circle for much of their time in Washington and were active in church and social activities in the city.

Worth Bagley received his early education at Centennial Graded School and the Raleigh Male Academy until, at age fifteen, he received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. After leaving for academic reasons in 1892, he was reappointed and graduated in 1896. He served on several vessels in the Atlantic until the start of the Spanish-American War, when his ship was sent to Cuba. On 11 May 1898, Ensign Bagley was killed at Cardenas, Cuba, the only American naval officer killed during the war. His body was returned to Raleigh and a monument to him was erected on the capitol grounds.

W. H. Bagley, Jr. received his education at a private academy in Mebane, North Carolina. For much of his life he worked as a reporter for newspapers around the country. He also assisted his brother-in-law, Josephus Daniels, with business aspects of the News and Observer.

David Bagley received his early education in North Carolina and then was appointed to the United States Naval Academy. After graduation, he became an officer in the navy and served in the two world wars, rising to the rank of admiral.

Series 1. Loose Papers, 1848-1964 and Undated
This series consists chiefly of letters to or from members of the Worth and Bagley families of North Carolina. Items detail events in the lives of W. H. Bagley, his wife, Adelaide Worth Bagley, and their six children, as well as news from other closely related family members.

Materials, 1848-1888, are chiefly letters to or from W. H. Bagley concerning his business, fraternity, and personal relations. Materials, 1889-1908, chiefly concern the children of W. H. and Adelaide Worth Bagley, including dozens of letters from Worth Bagley to his mother while he was a student at the United States Naval Academy and several letters from W. H. Bagley, Jr. to various family members from Cuba where he was assigned as a newspaper reporter. Items, 1909-1939, relate primarily to the surviving children of W. H. and Adelaide Worth Bagley and their families, including letters to and from Josephus Daniels, husband of Adelaide Bagley Daniels; to Belle Bagley from her suitor, W. E. Christian; and from George C. Worth, Presbyterian missionary in China, to members of the Bagley family. Miscellaneous items include photographs, bills, receipts, and a few other scattered items.

Subseries 1.1: 1848-1888 and Undated This subseries includes materials chiefly concerning the business, fraternal, and personal relations of W. H. Bagley. Items include letters, receipts, bills, and other miscellaneous materials. Most of the letters are either from or to W. H. Bagley. They include several letters to Benjamin Townsend of Catonsville, Maryland, 1853; many detailed letters from Adelaide Worth during her courtship with W. H. Bagley, 1864-1866; many letters exchanged by W. H. Bagley and Adelaide Worth Bagley and their children when one or more of the family members was away from home, 1869-1888; and several letters to W. H. Bagley relating to his activities on behalf of the International Order of Odd Fellows and the National Union of Mansfield, Ohio, 1874-1888.

Items of particular interest include letters from Adelaide Worth during her courtship with Bagley, in which she describes life in Raleigh at the close of the Civil War and during the first months of Reconstruction and emancipation, 1864-1866; several letters from W. H. Bagley's father and brother, Willis and Willis, Jr., chiefly concerning Reconstruction era politics in eastern North Carolina, 1866-1876; letters exchanged by members of the immediate Bagley family detailing the health of family members and friends, discussing social activities in Raleigh and Pittsboro, and describing new places seen during trips, 1869-1888; letters from W. H. Bagley to his wife Adelaide from Rockbridge Alum Springs, Virginia, describing the poor health and treatment of her father, Governor Jonathan Worth, immediately prior to his death, August 1869; letters from family members to Adelaide Worth Bagley during the illness and after the death of her husband, 1885-1886; and several letters indicating the engagement of Adelaide Worth Bagley's oldest daughter, also named Adelaide Worth Bagley, to Josephus Daniels, 1888.

Subseries 1.2: 1889-1908 and Undated This subseries consists chiefly of letters to or from the children and widow of W. H. Bagley. Most of the letters were written either by Worth Bagley while he was a student at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, and an officer in the navy, 1889-1898, or by W. H. Bagley, Jr. while he served in Havana, Cuba, as a newspaper correspondent, 1899. Items of particular interest include the dozens of letters Worth Bagley sent to his mother detailing his activities as a student in the Naval Academy, 1889-1895. Worth's many topics include the academic rigors of the academy, his participation in athletics, his frequent homesickness, and, especially from 1893 to 1895, his increasingly busy social life. Also interspersed with these letters are several report cards Worth received while he attended the Naval Academy. His later letters, 1895 to May 1898, focus on his experiences as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Several letters and telegrams of May and June 1898 express the sympathy of family, friends, and acquaintances, including William Jennings Bryan, over the death of Ensign Worth Bagley during the Spanish-American War.

Other items of interest include detailed letters from W. H. Bagley, Jr. to various family members while he was on assignment in Havana, Cuba, 1899. Among the topics he describes are the people and climate of Cuba, military activities related to the occupation of the island, and the murder of an American soldier by a Cuban policeman, 2 April 1899.

Subseries 1.3.:1909-1939 and Undated This subseries consists chiefly of letters of Adelaide Worth Bagley Daniels, her husband, Josephus Daniels, William E. Christian, and George C. Worth to various members of the Bagley family. The Daniels's letters, 1909-1939, concern events that occurred while they were in Raleigh working with the News and Observer, 1909-1913 and 1921-1933; in Washington, D.C., while Josephus served as secretary of the navy for Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921; and in Mexico City while Josephus served as ambassador under Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1939. Letters written by W. E. Christian, addressed primarily to Belle Bagley, who lived in Washington, D.C., mostly concern his courtship of Ms. Bagley, 1924. Also included are letters George C. Worth wrote from China where he was a Presbyterian missionary, 1931-1937.

Items of interest include W. E. Christian's extensive love letters to Belle Bagley, in which he outlined his efforts to write short stories and a novel, excerpts of which he sent to her. Christian apparently was recovering from some type of mental collapse and wrote fiction and his letters to Ms. Bagley as a form of therapy. Also included are the diary-letters of Josephus Daniels while he was ambassador to Mexico. These letters contain much information about Daniels's official duties, as well as references to the active social life he and his wife shared in Mexico City. Daniels also enclosed newspaper clippings with his letters, many of which refer to his activities in Mexico City. Of particular interest in the George C. Worth letters are his references to conditions in China and details about the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

Subseries 1.4: Worth-Bagley Genealogy, 1914, 1964, and Undated This subseries includes materials related to the genealogy of the Worth and Bagley families of North Carolina.

Series 2. Volumes, 1891-1929
This series consists of three volumes.

Volume 1: 1891, 91 pp. This volume has two sections. Pages 1-44 contain records kept by W. H. Bagley, Jr., as clerk to the Committee on Judiciary of the House of Representatives in the North Carolina General Assembly, 10 January-20 February 1891. The records include bills considered and recommendations made at each committee meeting. Pages 47-67 and 91 contain items of W. H. Bagley's "Memory Book," compiled chiefly May-August 1891, in which he pasted souvenirs, social cards and brief notes, invitations, pressed flowers, and leaves. For each item, he wrote short sentimental captions. This section also contains manuscript memoranda written by him during the same season.

Volume 2: 1902, 50 pp. Journal and notes of David Worth Bagley while on a U.S. Naval Academy cruise, 19 July-22 August 1902. The small volume is entitled "A Cruise on the USS Chesapeake."

Volume 3: 1929, 15 pp. Printed pamphlet with contents of speech delivered by Charles Whedbee upon the presentation of W. H. Bagley's portrait to the Supreme Court of North Carolina, 14 May 1929. The pamphlet contains biographical information on W. H. Bagley and background about the history of the North Carolina Supreme Court during the late 1800s.

N.B. Related collections among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection include the Josephus Daniels Papers; the Elvira Evelyna Moffit Papers; the Jonathan Worth Papers; and the Jonathan Worth Daniels Papers. Of these, the Jonathan Worth Papers are included in this microfilm edition.

Sources for the biographical note include John H. Wheeler, Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina, 1884; and Grady Lee Ernest Carroll, Sr., The City of Raleigh, North Carolina, and the Civil War Experience, 1979.

Jonathan Worth Papers, 1798-1899,
Guilford and Wake Counties, North Carolina

Description of the Collection
Jonathan Worth's personal business papers and legal professional papers extend from 1826 to 1869, and papers relating to his estate extend to 1876. Throughout the collection, there are also items relating to Worth's business as a cotton planter, with property in Randolph, Wake, and Anson counties, North Carolina. These include correspondence with brokers in New York and Wilmington and bills from northern merchants and local tradesmen. There are also papers relating to farm lands and city lots, securities and bonds, and enterprises in which Worth had a financial interest, among them a drug store at Salisbury and a Cedar Falls cotton factory.

Letters to and from members of the Worth family and their connections run from 1853 to 1899 and include letters from Worth's son, daughters, and sons-in-law, as well as Worth's brothers, nephews, and cousins.

Many of the family letters also relate to business deals. Jonathan Worth's son-in-law, Samuel S. Jackson, served as his agent in connection with farming interests at Asheboro. Worth's interest in the Salisbury drug store was undertaken for the benefit of his son-in-law, William C. Roberts. Another son-in-law, William Henry Bagley, was the governor's private secretary in 1866-1867 and shared his political interests. After Jonathan Worth's death in 1869, scattered family correspondence is of his widow, his children, and his grandchildren.

Correspondence between 1841 and 1869 reflects Jonathan Worth's interest in politics--both his own active part in North Carolina official and party affairs and his interest in the national scene insofar as it affected his state. Included are papers relating to Worth's responsibilities as former chairman of the Board of Superintendents of common schools for Randolph County, 1863; as public treasurer of North Carolina, 1863-1865, including an 1865 itemized receipt for transfer of assets from Worth to his successor as treasurer; and as governor of North Carolina, 1866-1867, including some papers of William Henry Bagley as the governor's private secretary. Letters, 1866-1867, addressed to Worth as governor chiefly concern politics--campaign tactics, meetings, alignments, and speculation--and other public matters, including distribution of financial relief, problems connected with the readmission of North Carolina to the Union, and the sale of the state's swamp lands for the benefit of the Board of Literature.

Also included are accounts, 1860-1863, of the estate of Timothy Griffin and Sarah Griffin of Randolph County, North Carolina; letters, 1863, to Mary Worth from James W. Hanks, fighting with the Confederate army in Virginia and Pennsylvania; and a series of about one hundred letters, 1864-1866, to Adelaide Worth from her fiance, William Henry Bagley, mentioning his campaign for the legislature in 1864 and other business, but chiefly concerned with his courtship. (Note that this series of letters ends 1 March 1866. Later letters relating to Adelaide Worth Bagley are filed with the Bagley Family Papers.) There are also Jonathan Worth's accounts and correspondence, 1865-1869, with New York and Wilmington brokers, Hathaway & Utley and Worth & Daniel; a typed copy of a letter, 1867, from Governor Worth to the president of the United States, relating injustices suffered under military authority; letters, 1869, to the ailing Worth at the Rockbridge Alum Springs in Virginia from members of his family, chiefly from William H. Bagley, telling about family matters and about Bagley's official activities as clerk of North Carolina Supreme Court; accounts, 1870-1876, of David G. Worth as executor of Johnathan Worth's estate; and scattered family letters, 1870-1899, to Martitia Worth and to and from the Worth children and in-laws.

There is one volume, a pocket-sized account book, 1848-1860, listing financial advancements made by Jonathan Worth to his children. Also included is a narrative account of the seventeenth century Worths in England and New England, with a chart showing five generations of the ancestors of Thomas C. Worth (fl. late eighteenth century).

Biographical Note
Jonathan Worth, 1802-1869, was the son of David Worth of Guilford County, North Carolina. He studied law under Archibald D. Murphy, married Martitia Daniel, and started practicing law at Asheboro, North Carolina, in 1825.

Worth was a member of the North Carolina state legislature in 1830, 1831, 1840, 1858, and 1860-1863, and was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 1841 and 1845. He opposed secession but accepted it after the fact, was public treasurer from 1863 to 1865 under the Confederate and then the Provisional government, and took office as governor under the Provisional government 28 December 1865. He was reelected in 1866 and continued in office until July 1868 when the government was suspended. He died 6 September 1869, leaving a widow, one son, and five daughters.

Worth's son was David Gaston Worth (1831-1897). He graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1853, and became a merchant in Wilmington, North Carolina, in business with Nathaniel G. Daniel; his wife was Julia A. Stickney. Governor Worth's daughters included Roxana, who married John McNeill of Pittsboro, North Carolina; Lucy, who married J. J. Jackson of Asheboro; Corinne, who married Dr. William C. Roberts and later Dr. Hamilton Jackson; Adelaide Ann, who married William H. Bagley of Perquimans County, North Carolina; Mary, who died in 1867; and Elvira, who married Samuel Spencer Jackson, then Eli Walker, and finally E. E. Moffitt. Jonathan Worth's brothers included B. G. Worth, who was a businessman in New York; Daniel; J. M.; and Joseph A. He had a nephew, David Worth Coffin, who in 1866 is known to have lived in Indianapolis. Most family members, however, lived in Asheboro, Pittsboro, Raleigh, Wilmington, and at Noise in Moore County, North Carolina.

N.B. A related collection among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection is the Bagley Family Papers, which is included in this microfilm edition.

John Lancaster Bailey Papers, 1785-1874,
Burke, Orange, and Pasquotank Counties, North Carolina;
also Mississippi and Virginia

Description of the Collection
John Lancaster Bailey was a resident of Pasquotank County, North Carolina, then Hillsborough, and, finally, Asheville, North Carolina. He was a superior court judge, served in the state legislature, 1827-1830, and was a delegate to the state convention of 1835. Bailey married Priscilla Brownrigg of Edenton, North Carolina, in 1821. Their daughter was Sarah Jane Bailey Cain (1828-1927), wife of William Cain (d. 1855) of Orange County. Among their grandchildren were Elizabeth B. Cain (1850-1929), who married John Steele Henderson in 1874, and William Cain (1847-1930), engineer and professor of mathematics at the University of North Carolina.

The material concerns family correspondence and miscellaneous papers of Bailey, his wife Priscilla Brownrigg Bailey, and other family members. Papers concerning Bailey's public interests and career are sparse. The correspondence among family members and the letters received by them from numerous relatives and friends provide descriptions of the activities and interests of many planter families in North Carolina, in southeastern Virginia, and around Columbus and Aberdeen, Mississippi. There are also letters from family and friends in Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina. Letters from civilians in federal-occupied eastern North Carolina are included as are letters from William Cain serving as drillmaster in Confederate army camps at age thirteen. Postwar letters include those from William while surveying railroad lines in North and South Carolina. Also included are deeds of gift, 1840s and 1850s bills of sale for slaves, drawings, Sarah Cain's scrapbooks and reminiscences, a detailed map of Hillsborough, North Carolina, c. 1839, and related items.

Bailey and Cain family papers dated after 1873 are filed in the John Steele Henderson Papers. However, the scrapbook and portfolio of reminiscences of Sarah Jane (Bailey) Cain have been kept with this collection.

Biographical Note
John Lancaster Bailey (1795-1877) of Pasquotank County, North Carolina, moved to Hillsborough and later (1859) to Asheville as superior court judge. He served in the state legislature, 1827-1831, and the state convention of 1835, but these activities are not reflected in these papers except for some typescripts added from other sources.

Priscilla Brownrigg of "Wingfield" near Edenton, North Carolina, married J. L. Bailey in 1821. Their daughter, Sarah Jane (Bailey) (1828-1927), married Dr. William Cain of Orange County, North Carolina, in 1846; he died in 1855, leaving his widow and two children: Elizabeth B. Cain, who married John Steele Henderson in 1874, and William Cain (1847-1930), engineer and professor of mathematics at the University of North Carolina.

There are some letters to other members of the family, but most are addressed to these five from each other and from innumerable connections and friends.

Papers
These papers consist largely of family correspondence and miscellaneous papers of John L. Bailey of Pasquotank County, Hillsborough ("Eno Lodge"), and Asheville, North Carolina, superior court judge, 1837-1863; his wife Priscilla (Brownrigg); their daughter Sarah Jane (Bailey) Cain (1828-1927); and grandchildren Elizabeth Brownrigg Cain and William Cain (1847-1930). Papers concerning Bailey's public interests and career are sparse; letters to his wife written while he was on the judicial circuit covering eastern and Piedmont North Carolina, 1857-1863, were mostly personal. The correspondence among the family and the letters received by them from numerous relatives and intimate friends provide graphic descriptions of the activities and interests of many planter families, mainly in Pasquotank, Perquimans, Chowan, Orange, and Buncombe counties in North Carolina; in southeastern Virginia; and in the environs of Columbus and Aberdeen, Mississippi, 1853-1873; letters also from family and friends who spread out to Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina; and from Hillsborough, Asheville, Morganton, Salisbury, Raleigh, and other North Carolina towns; also from vacationers at Nags Head on the Outer Banks as early as 1838; pupils at Episcopal boys school, Raleigh, 1836-1838; Hillsborough Military Academy, 1859-1867; and St. Mary's School, 1845 and 1863-1868; Civil War letters from civilians including ones who remained with their property in federally occupied territory near the coast, and from William Cain serving as drillmaster in Confederate army camps at Asheville, Raleigh, Wilmington, and Port Royal, at age thirteen; Cain's letters while surveying railroad lines in North Carolina and South Carolina, 1869-1873, and enjoying a pleasant social life in the region.

Among the families represented by personal letters are Bailey, Brownrigg, Brown, Sawyer, Scott, Cross, Granberry, Johnson, and Dillard families in the coastal area; Cain, Ruffin, and Caldwell families in Orange and Burke counties, North Carolina; Brownrigg, Sparkman, Waddell, and Bailey families in Mississippi. The letters are notable for their allusions to politically and socially prominent North Carolinians; political events of the winter and spring of 1860-1861; impressions of new places; and the social and economic changes of 1865-1867. The letters of Thomas B. Bailey, who married Sarah Harris, tell through the years of trying to operate schools and make a living in a number of different places in Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina.

There are also deeds of gift and sale of Negroes in the 1840s and l850s; scattered business papers concerning property, estate settlements, etc.; and drawings by Elizabeth Cain and William Cain.

Also included in the collection are over twenty letters from Silas McDowell (1795-1879) at Sugartown farms or Vale of Cullasaghoh (Cullasaja River Valley in Macon County), near Franklin, North Carolina, to John Lancaster Bailey. The long letters from McDowell contain reminisences of long ago and other narratives, poems written by him, discussions of his writings, and a number of repetitive accounts of his property and financial troubles--especially a claim on him from the bank at Morganton following the collapse of Confederate currency, and the Bryson judgment. McDowell also wrote about his orchards and various apple varieties.

The six volumes include a small account book of J. L. Bailey, 1862-1864; Sarah Jane Bailey's album and commonplace book, 1837-1859 and 1874-1883; a portfolio of sheet music used by her at St. Mary's School, Raleigh, 1843-1845; a small account book of uncertain dates; Sarah Jane (Bailey) Cain's scrapbook, 1867-1908; and a portfolio of her reminiscences, written or dictated in the later years of her long life.

Chronological notes on the papers and a list of the manuscript volumes follow. Informational notes and copies supplied by Mrs. Elizabeth H. Cotten are included with the manuscripts.

1785: Orange County newspaper notice to hunters: No Trespass--signed by thirty landowners (copy).

1806-1820: Three William Cain items, 1806-1807, Orange County, North Carolina and one letter, 14 October 1816, from William Cain at Hillsborough to Hugh Woods near Nashville, Tennessee, about division of land among heirs. 1818, 1820, three letters to Miss Priscilla Brownrigg at "Wingfield" near Edenton, North Carolina, including one from Sarah M. Brown at Philadelphia about the pleasures of reading and dangers of reading novels; and two from John Lancaster Bailey, Edenton, suitor, law student, making recommendations about her reading, etc.

1821-1829: Letters to Priscilla Brownrigg from John L. Bailey before their marriage in 1821. Papers concerning lands and Negroes acquired, and certificates and appointments to J. L. Bailey to practice law, as colonel in state militia, solicitor in First Judicial District, and attorney for UNC trustees in 9th district. 1 May 1825, Sarah A. B. Sawyer to her mother at Elizabeth City, telling of visits and social life at Wingfield, Edenton, etc. 14 December 1827, photocopy of will of William Cain. Other items in this period include letters from Margaret Caldwell, Chapel Hill, 20 September 1821; John D. Pipkin, Williamsboro, 12 April 1823; Thomas Brownrigg, 30 January 1825; cousin Jane H. Brown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 23 August 1827 and 10 October 1827.

1830-1835: Personal letters written by J. L. Bailey, his wife Priscilla, Sarah Ann B. Sawyer; Elizabeth Earl Johnson at Bandon (10 November 1832) to Mrs. Sarah A. B. Granberry; Ann B. P. Cox at Lebanon, Connecticut, 28 July 1838, to Mrs. Granberry; Sarah Brownrigg Sparkman, 24 October 1835, almost at Hillsborough, telling of their wagon journey, camping out on the way. Items relating to estate of William Cain, "elder," who died in 1834, and his will, first dated 15 June 1824. Typed copies of items relating to J. L. Bailey--minority report of legislative committee on nullification issue, 1833. Miscellaneous deeds.

1836-1839: Six letters from Thomas B. Bailey at Episcopal school for boys in Raleigh, North Carolina, including a description of his trip from Elizabeth City. Two letters from Mrs. Margaret Pooley, Marion, New York, 16 January and 13 August 1836. Personal and family letters from Mrs. Ann Avery, Greensboro, Alabama; Mrs. Mary Ann Cross at "Farmers Delight"; Mrs. Sarah A. B. Granberry at Nags Head, 15 August 1838, telling of a large schooner going aground about one-half mile from their tent; aunt Townsend at Hertford; cousins at Nags Head, 11 September 1839, mentioning shipwrecks, visitors, weather; Priscilla B. Bailey at Hillsborough, 20 September 1839, to Aunt Sarah Brown at Hertford. Diagram of part of Hillsborough, 1839, showing fifty-eight numbered houses and places, and identifying them.

Letters from J. L. Bailey in 1837 at Raleigh, Bladen County home of John Owen, and elsewhere in eastern and middle North Carolina. 30 May 1837, James Iredell, Raleigh, about accommodations for the Bailey family, personal.

1840-1849: Mainly personal correspondence. Two letters to Mollie Granberry, daughter of Priscilla's first cousin Sarah Ann (Sawyer) Granberry, including one from Jane Graham Daves at St. Mary's School, 15 September 1845. Items concerning estate of John S. Brothers; Gabriel Johnson property; debt of Thomas B. Bailey, 24 April 1846. 2 February 1846, William Cain to James H. Ruffin, Macon, Alabama, mentioning possibility of war, price of cotton, approaching marriage of William to Miss Sarah Bailey, members of family, and Hillsborough neighborhood news.

1850-1857: Personal correspondence of Bailey and related families: letters from J. L. Bailey on the judicial circuit, written at New Bern, Asheville, Wilson, 1856-1857, to his wife at "Eno Lodge" near Hillsborough, and her letters from Hillsborough and from a long visit with relatives in Columbus, Mississippi, 1857-1858. Letters from Thomas B. Bailey and other relatives in the 1850s in Mississippi. A letter, 16 March 1854, is from T. L. Skinner, Edenton, North Carolina. Photocopy of will of William Cain, 10 April 1856 (whose son William had died in 1846), and letters from young William Cain (1847-1930) to his grandpa Bailey. More Hillsborough letters: 17 September 1857, Sallie B. Dillard at "Farmers Delight" sends family news, baptism of James Hardy Dillard, etc. A letter, 6 July 1857, is from Edward Conigland, Halifax, North Carolina.

1858-1859: More family and friendly letters to Mrs. J. L. Bailey from Mississippi and from a variety of country places--kinswomen Sarah Brownrigg Sparkman, Jane H. Brown, Elizabeth B. Waddell; J. L. Bailey's letters from Statesville, Wilkesboro, Marion, Shelby, on the circuit. In 1859 the Baileys moved from "Eno Lodge" near Hillsborough to a place near Black Mountain or Swannanoa in Buncombe County, North Carolina. Social notes and invitations to Miss Elizabeth Cain. Silas McDowell's poem, 15 May 1859, concerns Elisha Mitchell (1798-1857). A letter, 20 May 1859, is from Edward Conigland.

1860-1861: J. L. Bailey's letters to his wife, describing excitement and activities and rumors in connection with the outbreak of war, were written from Hillsborough, Greensboro, Graham, Goldsboro, New Bern, and Washington, North Carolina, in 1860; and Wilmington, Greenville, Rocky Mount, Raleigh, Weldon, Goldsboro, Salisbury, Hillsborough, and Greensboro in 1861. William Cain's letters from Hillsborough Military Institute were written March 1860-May 1861; his letters from 29 August through November 1861 were written at Confederate army camps at Asheville, Raleigh, Wilmington, North Carolina, and near Port Royal, South Carolina, where he served as a drill master, though only thirteen years old. He subsequently returned to school in Hillsborough. January 1860, letters and data for Cain family tombstones, including a long letter from a Philadelphia businessman to Paul C. Cameron of North Carolina, concerning northern attitudes to slavery and abolitionists. 1 March 1860, circular from Delaware State Lotteries, Baltimore. A letter from Silas McDowell, 20 June 1860, tells of his orchard work, mentions his paper on the "frostless belt" for the commissioner of agriculture, and includes his poem on "Whiteside Rock" in the full moonlight. Letters to Mrs. Bailey and her daughter Mrs. Sarah Cain in Buncombe County, North Carolina, from the women of the family--Sally Sparkman at Oak Villa or Oakville; Jane H. Brown at Ingleside in Princess Anne County, Virginia; Mrs. Sallie Dillard; and from Thomas B. Bailey in Columbus, Mississippi. Two letters from William H. Bailey, with Confederate troops, 1861, in the Yorktown, Virginia area. 16 October 1861, Bettie Brownrigg (later Mrs. Waddell) sends news of the men in her family on several fronts, and much home activity in Mississippi.

1862: Only three letters, all from relatives in the Columbus, Mississippi, area. There is also a letter from Silas McDowell, 17 February 1862, telling of the troubles of his son Thomas, wrongly accused of desertion, arrested, and rescued by irate local citizens, etc., as well as metioning varieties of grapes. There is also a postscript on a slip dated 3 March 1862.

1863-1864: War letters include ones from Sallie Dillard, 26 March 1863, at "Farmers Delight" in enemy-occupied territory; from William Cain, again a cadet at Hillsborough Military Academy; from Sarah Brownrigg Sparkman at "Oak-Villa" somewhere near Columbus, Mississippi; from Mary Isabella (Granberry) Johnson at "Stockton" near Elizabeth City, 22 August 1863, surrounded by enemy camps; from J. L. Bailey at Mocksville, Statesville, from Mrs. J. L. Bailey and her daughter Mrs. Sarah Cain at "Deer Pass" in Buncombe County, North Carolina, and Asheville, and from Bessie Cain at St. Mary's School and at Graham, North Carolina, with her Ruffin relatives. Two letters in September 1862 are from J. T. Harris, Columbia, South Carolina, about land claims in Henderson and Buncombe counties, North Carolina. A brief note from William M. Woodard is also included in this period.

1865-1867: Correspondence of Miss Bessie Cain at St. Mary's School and visiting with relatives at Graham, Hillsborough, and elsewhere, chiefly with her family at Asheville and her brother at Hillsborough Military Academy. In these and later years there are letters to Miss Cain from her schoolmates and young relatives. 7 August 1865, Thomas B. Bailey at Rutherfordton, hoping to have a female school there. 29 January 1866, Columbus, Mississippi, Mrs. Elizabeth Brownrigg Waddell to her aunt, Mrs. Bailey, an account of many relatives, their plans and adjustments. 2 March 1866, Morganton, Bessie Cain visiting her aunt, Mrs. Tod Caldwell. 25 June 1866, more family news from Mrs. Waddell at Mayfield near Columbus, Mississippi. More social notes from Miss Bessie Cain's young friends. 1867: More letters to and from Miss Bessie Cain at St. Mary's School; also from William Cain at Hillsborough Military Academy about his courses, and a remarkable tale about Colonel Taw's whereabouts, 8 February 1867. 30 Novmber 1867, Thomas Ruffin, Jr., Baltimore, to Dr. James F. Cain, reporting in detail on his physical condition. 18 December 1867, Hugh Waddell, Wilmington, introducing his son, Cameron, coming to Asheville for his health, and commenting on the late war. Family letters.

Other items in this period include letters, 13 January 1865, Judge Edwin Godwin Reade, Roxboro, to Bailey at Asheville, about a small debt and difficulties of the times. Letters, 1 August-September 1865, from L. C. May and his nephew E. G. McClanahan, Tennessee, inquire about studying law under Bailey.

11 and 13 September 1865, two letters from J. N. Benners, Waynesville, replying to Bailey's request for help in finding some wheat that can be bought. 18 December, Hillsborough, Thomas Webb, replying to an inquiry about William J. Owen. [Another letter 18 May 1866.] 18 December, bill and letter from T. & J. W. Johnson & Co., Philadelphia, concerning law books purchased by Bailey in 1860/61. 26 December, printed letter from Fletcher Bros., New York, and notice of Havanna Lottery of Kentucky, proposing a deceptive scheme, in which "no one would lose" and the addressee (Bailey) would gain "a few hundred dollars" in exchange for showing his "winnings" around the neighborhood [1865/66]. An undated broadside advertises W. M. Walton & W. P. De Normandie, attorneys, Austin, Texas, establishing a land agency.

Miscellaneous correspondence about debts, claims, and such, 1866. Also, letters from J. K. Connolly, Richmond, Virginia, 10 January, trying to locate the law books he left with Bailey in 1861, and 13 February, hoping to go to Texas in six or eight weeks. A letter from Silas McDowell, 8 February 1866, tells of the death of his son Arthur in 1864, reviews the story of the maltreatment of his son Thomas, the Confederate service of Thomas, William E. and James, details of his own financial and property losses, as well as the possibility of his going to Texas, and asking for Bailey's influence in the appointment of Jackson Johnston as Clerk of Court. Another undated letter from McDowell [after 8 February 1866, and before 17 May 1866] is filed with the letter of 8 February 1866. 17 March 1866, Will H. Battle, Chapel Hill, giving noncommittal answer concerning General Martin. Letters from nephew John L. Brothers, sons T. B. and W. H. Bailey, and others. 7 November, Charlotte, James W. Osborne, enclosing a note and reflecting on the troublesome times.

More correspondence about debts and claims and miscellaneous business, 1867. Letters from William H. Bailey, grandson John L. Bailey Jr., and from law students. Also included are two Silas McDowell letters. The first, 30 January 1867, includes reminiscences of Burke County, c. 1817-1826, and the Spencer family there, property matters of his son William, experimentation with scuppernong grapes, and recollections of John Lyon, a botanist who came to Asheville in 1814 and died there in the presence of Silas McDowell and James Johnston. The second letter, March 1867, includes more information about Silas McDowell's poem "Whiteside Rock" and a version of it, considerable revised since 1860, as well as comments on grape and orchard culture, geological theories about these mountains (Whitesides), and the fact that McDowell had decided not to go to Texas.

1868-1869: Personal letters to Judge and Mrs. Bailey and Mrs. Sarah Cain at Asheville, and Bessie Cain either at Asheville or visiting with relatives in other towns. The letters include Bailey and Cain family letters from Asheville, North Carolina, and "Oak-Villa" near Columbus, Mississippi; letters from William Cain, young engineer working on a railroad survey near Greensboro, Hillsborough, and Columbia, South Carolina; three letters from Thomas B. Bailey at Bellevue and Edgefield, Tennessee in 1869, commenting on political situation and telling of his efforts to establish himself as teacher, writer, lecturer; correspondence of Miss Cain about social activities of young people. Letters received by J. L. Bailey include one from William Eaton, Jr., 11 January 1868, Warrenton, North Carolina, advertising his Book of Legal Forms, several letters of introduction for persons coming to Asheville, brief communications, November-December 1868, from Dr. Robert Heth Chapman about renting a house in Asheville.

Miscellaneous correspondence continued in 1868, concerning collections, accounts due, and legal, court, and property matters, mostly in the Asheville area. Notices from law-book dealers including their printed ads. Letters from Mrs. James A. Patton, Charlotte; Mrs. Varina J. M. Chapman, Hendersonville; M. H. Justice, Rutherfordton; B. S. Gaither (to N. W. Woodfin), T. J. Sumner concerning Carter v. Hoke.

Letters concerning legal and financial matters continue in 1869. 17 January and 9 March, R. D. Wade & F. J. Whitmire, Brevard, North Carolina, asking Bailey's opinion of some procedures under the civil code of 1867. Brief note from Stephen Lee, at Cove, about grandson. 15 May, W. H. Bailey at Salisbury about his own debts and hopeless financial situation.

A letter from Silas McDowell, 4 January 1869, includes autobiographical comments (on past and present and upon his writings), as well as comments on W. W. Holden and discussion of financial and property title matters that were worrying McDowell. On 12 May 1869, McDowell again addressed Bailey about his financial problems with the Morganton bank, with additional information on grapes, his report on the thermal zone, other publications, and mentions of the Blue Ridge Railroad.

1870: More family and social correspondence of Mrs. Bailey, Mrs. Cain, and Miss Bessie Cain, including letters from Bessie while she visited at Salisbury, North Carolina, "Ingleside," near Norfolk, and elsewhere; from T. B. Bailey in Davidson County, Tennessee; Mrs. E. B. Waddell at Columbus, Mississippi; George Walton at Davidson College; William Cain at Kingsville and Columbia, South Carolina, working on railroad survey; and cousin Jane H. Brown at Ingleside. Copy of obituary, Robinson Piedmont, d. 3 June 1870. Two letters, 24 July and 4 September 1870, are from T. B. Bailey, at Edgefield near Nashville, Tennessee, concerning his desperate situation and then about his new opportunity as North Carolina agent for the Nashville Life Insurance Company.

Four items are McDowell letters. The first, 16 May 1870, discusses John Lyon's death scene, which McDowell had written up for M. A. Curtis. Two letters in September include one concerning the death of Reverend L. F. Siler, while both repeat McDowell's financial and property worries, etc. A letter, 24 October 1870, includes more on his personal affairs and additional discussion of apples including a new variety.

1871, 1872, and 1873: Family and social correspondence continues, mainly of Mrs. Sarah Cain, her daughter Bessie, and Mrs. Bailey, including letters from relatives in Columbus, Mississippi (Mrs. Waddell) and at Ingleside near Norfolk (Jane H. Brown) and from William Cain, working on railroad survey in South Carolina. 20 January 1871, C. G. Meminger to J. L. Bailey, a reply to a question about a legal case (property). 13 February 1871, T. B. Bailey at Cave Spring, Georgia, deplores the economic depression of the region; local and family news. 21 March 1871, Tod R. Caldwell, Raleigh, Executive Office, to his daughter and his niece Miss Bessie Cain, about personal matters and mentioning impeachment trial (closed today) and possibility of being impeached. 20 April 1871, brief letter from B. F. Moore, Raleigh, to J. L. Bailey, replying to a question about a point of law. Correspondence between Mrs. Cain and her daughter Bessie, visiting at Irvington, New York, Norfolk, and Hillsborough. One of the 1870 items is a poem by Font Taylord, Raleigh, North Carolina.

Three letters from Silas McDowell, 14 January, 18 June, and 8 July 1871, include poems written with Jackson Johnston on specific occasions with explanations of the circumstances. These letters also discuss McDowell's illness with facial cancer, his stays during summer months with his daughter Mrs. J. L.(?) Weaver at Reeves Creek, reminiscences, and a visit with an old friend Hugh Walsingholm [Wolstenholme] "now in his 92nd year," living at the Buncombe County Poor House.

The letters of 1872 are nearly all to Miss Bessie Cain from family and a host of friends--Charles Overman, J. S. Henderson, and others. 20 November 1872, letter from Silas McDowell at Franklinton, North Carolina. Also included are letters to J. L. Bailey from various persons including nephew C. B. Brothers, Elizabeth City; niece Penelope, Norfolk; E. R. Arthur "in the wilds of western North Carolina"; son William Bailey; old schoolmate Walter F. Leak, Rockingham; and invitation to wedding of Hannie E. Caldwell, daughter of Tod R. and Walter Brem.

The letters of 1873 are Bailey and Cain family and social correspondence as in previous years. 17 April to J. L. Bailey from Simons and Simons of Charleston, South Carolina about a law case. November mortgage of J. L. Bailey's law library and real estate in Buncombe County, Lewis Hanes of Davidson County, North Carolina. Social letters from William A. Holland of Kinston, S. F. Lord of Rowan County, etc.

Other 1873 items include letters from Will H. Battle, George W. Simpson, J. A. Forney, H. A. Westall, grandson J. L. Bailey. 29 September, Thomas J. Wilson, Winston, North Carolina, about getting some cloth and telling what little he knows of his Wilson family history.

Three letters are included from Silas McDowell in 1873. On 17 May, McDowell wrote of his facial cancer having been cured after three years, with a resume of his health since birth including herbal treatments by D. L. Swain's mother. McDowell also commented on his writings, his family, and the same business affairs that had been worrying him since the Civil War. On 2 June he again addressed the financial and legal matters previously discussed and mentions mica mines and other minerals in the neighborhood. On 26 June he included recollections of Burke County in early years--the Tate, Walton, Avery, Caldwell, Erwin, McDowell, and many other families--and tells of recent correspondence with Lyman C. Draper about events in September 1776 near Franklin, North Carolina, when General Williamson was repulsed by Cherokee Indians.

This group of family letters ends arbitrarily at the end of 1873; the family correspondence beyond that date is included in the John Steele Henderson Family Papers.

Undated: After 1873, there is one full folder of additional, undated, family letters of the same kind as the dated ones. Among them is a twelve-page manuscript by William Henry Bailey entitled "Visit to the Athens of North Carolina," a description of Hillsborough in the 1870s.

Fragment of a page from Bailey family Bible record (original manuscript). Other family data include Priscilla Bailey's birth and baptism record (b. 14 April 1825). Map of Hillsborough, undated account of visit, and typed copy of account and of keys to the map. The map is in two pieces. One piece, "East of Churton," came with papers formerly in possession of Miss Mary Henderson, given after her death. In June 1973 the other piece, "West of Churton," was discovered in the Francis Nash Papers, Folder 900. Each map has a key on the back and together the maps and the keys show the houses of Hillsborough in 1839, with the names of the residents, as recollected by William Henry Bailey in later years. Each piece is 8 1/2 x 14<=.

William H. Bailey to his mother, Mrs. John Lancaster (Priscilla Brownrigg) Bailey, who then lived in Asheville, not dated but probably written sometime in 1871-1874, before the death of Mrs. Bailey in 1874 (12 pp.). Tells of return to Hillsborough to visit Haswell Norwood and his wife Maria (Howerton), sister of Bailey's wife Annie (Howerton), of calling on old friends, with news of other residents.

Typed copy of the keys to the map and of the account of the visit, and one-page explanation, by Mrs. Alfred G. Engstrom. Xerox copy made from typescript, gift of Mrs. Engstrom, 17 August 1973 (11 pp.).

One folder contains drawings by Bessie (Elizabeth Brownrigg Cain) and by her brother William Cain (1847-1930).

One folder contains pertinent clippings from newspapers, etc.

Manuscript Volumes
Volume 1: 1862-1864. Account book of J. L. Bailey, with some accounts on behalf of W. H. Bailey; scattered miscellaneous accounts and memoranda concerning small transactions with various persons--tobacco, meal, eggs and chickens, masonry and carpentry jobs in amounts less than $1 (written in a diary-book designed for "1861").

Volume 2: 1837-1859 and 1874-1883. Miss Sarah Jane Bailey's album and commonplace book, given to her in 1837 by Robinson Piedmont (1811-1870). The entries for 1837-1839 at Hillsborough were poems transcribed and autograph messages to Sarah Jane; the entries in 1843-1845 were more of the same kind written at Hillsborough and at St. Mary's School. The entries in 1855-1859 are Mrs. Sarah Jane Bailey Cain's commonplace book, mostly poems from different sources, copied at Black Mountain, North Carolina. Also several memoranda and obituary clippings, 1874, 1877, 1883, concerning the Bailey family.

Volume 3: About 1843-1845. A portfolio of sheet music used by Miss Sarah Jane Bailey at St. Mary's School, Raleigh, North Carolina. Compositions by Gustave Blessner and others.

Volume 4: 1854-1869 and undated. Accounts and memoranda, mostly undated, including recipes, remedies, etc.; one page concerning Bailey and Baker ancestors; several pages of accounts of Sarah J. Bailey and Thomas B. Bailey earlier than 1846; only dated entries are 1854, 1865, 1864, and 1869. It is not clear whether this little volume belonged to Sarah Jane Bailey Cain or some other member of the family.

Volume 5: 1867-1908 and undated (clippings). Scrapbook of Sarah Jane (Bailey) Cain containing clippings of the post-Civil War period, mainly about Confederate topics and heroes. Miscellaneous obituary clippings, 1867-1908--Confederate and family and friends. Also, poems and articles clipped.

Volume 6: Recollections and memoranda. Sarah Jane (Bailey) Cain: (one portfolio): Reminiscences of the Last Days of the War in Asheville, North Carolina. Several copies of typescript (about 8 pp.). 1 manuscript page. Notes on family information and memories, as taken down by Miss Mary F. Henderson in 1920; other notes written down by other members of the family about 1920, of what Mrs. Cain had told them. Disconnected pages of recollections and notes, some by Mrs. Cain, others not clearly identified.

[Mrs. Sarah Jane Bailey Cain (1828-1927) spent her later years in the Henderson family household. Her papers dated after 1873 are filed with the John Steele Henderson Papers, except for the manuscript volumes above listed, which are filed with this collection.]

N.B. Related collections among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection include the Brownrigg Family Papers; the William Cain Books; the Archibald Henderson Papers; and the John Steele Henderson Papers. Of these, the Brownrigg Family Papers are included in UPA's Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, Series J, Part 12, Tidewater and Coastal Plains North Carolina and the John Steele Henderson Papers are included, in part, in UPA's Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, Series J, Part 13, Piedmont North Carolina. A collection of Silas McDowell Papers is also among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection, and is included, in part, in UPA's Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, Series J, Part 14, Western North Carolina.

Mary Biddle Norcott Bryan Papers, 1819-1952,
Craven County, North Carolina; also Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee

Description of the Collection
Series 1 consists of Mary Biddle Norcott Bryan's scrapbook and a few enclosures from the scrapbook. The scrapbook contains items dated primarily from the mid-1860s to 1921, with a few from 1952. It is approximately 260 pages long, although many pages are blank. Included are more than eighty pages of Mary Norcott Bryan's reminiscences, written sporadically between 1896 and 1921, reflecting chiefly on her parents, her early family life and childhood, her marriage and honeymoon, the Civil War, and her married life at New Bern, North Carolina, after the war. Her son, Shepard Bryan of Atlanta, also wrote two letters and some of the notes in the book.

Pasted throughout the scrapbook are obituaries and newspaper clippings concerning family members; assorted items pertaining to the legal and judicial career of Henry Ravenscroft Bryan; United Daughters of the Confederacy memorial programs; articles on the Civil War, New Bern, and race relations; photos; telegrams; invitations; and other items. The half dozen enclosures are miscellaneous magazine and newspaper clippings and two law licenses, dated 1819 and 1820.

Series 2 consists chiefly of family correspondence, 1836 to 1904, of Mary Biddle Norcott Bryan, and members of the Norcott, Biddle, and Bryan families, with some business letters. The letters were originally pasted in the scrapbook but were removed for purposes of preservation in 1992. A page number at the top of each letter indicates its original location within the scrapbook. In many cases, brief notes that Mary Norcott Bryan wrote identifying her relationship to the correspondent appear on the scrapbook pages from which the letter was removed.

Most of the letters are addressed to Mary Norcott Bryan and mention news of family, relatives, and friends. Of particular interest are numerous letters from Mary Norcott Bryan to her mother, including some written while a student at a Murfreesboro, Tennessee, boarding school and others describing her honeymoon trip to Memphis, New Orleans, and Mobile, Alabama; letters to Mary Bryan from various relatives and friends, extending their sympathy at her mother's death; and letters concerning the burning of the Bryan home in New Bern, North Carolina, in 1895. Also included are several letters from Henry Ravenscroft Bryan to his mother, written between 1853 and 1855 when he was a student at the University of North Carolina, and letters he wrote from Paris in 1857 to his mother, brother, and sister, describing his visits to England and Switzerland.

The collection is arranged as follows: Series 1. Scrapbook and Enclosures and Series 2. Correspondence.

Biographical Note
Mary Biddle Norcott Bryan (1841-1925) was the wife of Henry Ravenscroft Bryan (1835-1919), a New Bern, North Carolina, attorney and judge. She was born in 1841 in Pitt County, North Carolina, the daughter of John Norcott and Sarah Frances Biddle. In November 1859, she married Henry Bryan at New Bern, where the couple resided for most of their married life. The Bryans had three sons and five daughters. Mary Bryan died in May 1925 and was buried alongside her husband at Cedar Grove Cemetery in New Bern.

Series 1. Scrapbook and Enclosures, 1819-1921 and 1952
This series reproduces the scrapbook of Mary Biddle Norcott Bryan, including approximately eighty pages of her reminiscences written sporadically between 1896 and 1921 (pp. 1d-1s, 12-20, and 146-202), and two letters and some notes (pp. 73-77) written in 1952 by her son, Shepard Bryan of Atlanta. The scrapbook contains items dated primarily from the mid-1860s to 1921, with a few from 1952, and is 261 pages long, although large sections are blank. All of the family and business letters, with a few exceptions, have been removed for purposes of preservation.

Mary Norcott Bryan's reminiscences, consisting of a sort of extended letter addressed to her children, reflect chiefly on her parents and family life before her marriage in 1859; her wedding trip through Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama; her life in Raleigh, North Carolina, during the Civil War; and her life in New Bern, North Carolina, after the war. Also included are photos of an unidentified woman (perhaps Bryan herself) and the Bryan home at New Bern; obituaries and newspaper clippings concerning family members; assorted items pertaining to the legal and judicial career of Henry Ravenscroft Bryan and to United Daughters of the Confederacy memorial programs; articles on the Civil War, New Bern, and race relations; telegrams; invitations; and other items.

The half dozen enclosures consist of magazine and newspaper clippings and two law licenses, dated 1819 and 1820, of John Herritage Bryan, Mary's father-in-law.

Series 2. Correspondence, 1836-1904 and Undated
This series is chiefly family correspondence, 1836 to 1904, of Mary Biddle Norcott Bryan, and members of the Norcott, Biddle, and Bryan families, with some business letters. The letters were removed from the scrapbook in 1992 for purposes of preservation. Apparently the scrapbook contained more letters at one point, but someone, probably Mary Norcott Bryan herself, removed them several decades before the volume was donated to the Southern Historical Collection. A page number at the top of each letter indicates its original location within the scrapbook. In many cases, brief notes that Mary Norcott Bryan wrote identifying her relationship to the correspondent appear on the scrapbook pages from which the letter was removed.

Most of the letters are addressed to Mary Norcott Bryan, or Mollie (apparently her nickname), and are concerned with news of family, relatives, and friends. Of particular interest are letters from the young Mary Biddle Norcott to her mother while she was a student at a boarding school in Murfreesboro, Tennessee; an 1857 letter from Mary Biddle Norcott, on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, to her mother thanking her profusely for "those lessons of wisdom which you have labored so long and faithfully to inculcate"; letters, 1859 to 1860, from the newlywed Mary Norcott Bryan to her mother, describing her honeymoon trip to the old southwest, especially Memphis, New Orleans, and Demopolis and Mobile, Alabama; letters, 1871, to Mary Bryan from various relatives and friends, consoling her on her mother's death; and letters, 1895, to Mary Bryan from various relatives and friends concerning the burning of the Bryan home in New Bern, North Carolina. Also included are several letters, 1853 to 1855, from Henry Ravenscroft Bryan to his mother written while he was attending the University of North Carolina; and three letters, 1857, from Henry Bryan in Paris to his mother, brother, and sister, describing his visits to England and Switzerland.

N.B. Related collections among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection include the Bryan Family Papers and the Shepard Bryan Papers. The Simpson and Bryan Family Papers, North Carolina Collection, UNC-CH, is another related collection.

Bumpas Family Papers, 1838-1854,
Chatham and Guilford Counties, North Carolina

Description of the Collection
This collection includes a small number of letters among family members; other papers, including family history materials and writings chiefly of Robah Fidus Bumpas; and volumes, including diaries and scrapbooks.

The collection is arranged as follows: Series 1. Correspondence--Subseries 1.1: Sidney D. and Frances Moore Webb Bumpas, 1842-1847, and Subseries 1.2: Robah Fidus Bumpas, 1866-1933 [not included]; Series 2. Other Papers [not included]; and Series 3. Volumes--Subseries 3.1: Sidney D. and Frances Moore Webb Bumpas Diaries and Subseries 3.2: Other Volumes [not included].

Biographical Note
Sidney D. Bumpas (1808-1851) was a Methodist minister of the North Carolina Conference, pastor, presiding elder, editor, and author. His wife, Frances Moore Webb Bumpas (1819-1898), edited and published The Weekly Message of Greensboro, 1851-1871, and was corresponding secretary of the North Carolina Conference of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society. Their son, Robah Fidus Bumpas (1850-1933), was for fifty-four years a Methodist minister in the North Carolina Conference, serving in Wilmington, Beaufort, New Bern, Kinston, Raleigh, and other North Carolina locations.

Series 1. Correspondence, 1842-1933
Subseries 1.1: Sidney D. and Frances Moore Webb Bumpas, 1842-1847 This subseries consists of three letters from Sidney D. Bumpas to Frances Moore Webb, two before their marriage about his activities and desire to marry and one after their marriage about his work, including an 1847 service he led that was attended by Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker. There is also one letter from Frances Moore Webb Bumpas to her husband about her activities at home.

Series 3. Volumes, 1838-1972
Subseries 3.1: Sidney D. and Frances Moore Webb Bumpas Diaries, 1838-1854 This subseries consists of three items.

Volume 1: Diary of Sidney D. Bumpas, 1 January 1838-1 December 1841. Irregular entries dealing with Bumpas's work as a Methodist minister in North Carolina, first on the Wilkes circuit, later on the Guilford circuit, and, finally, at a church in Raleigh.

Volume 2: Autobiography and diary of Sidney D. Bumpas, 1 January 1842-1 January 1844. An autobiographical essay is followed by diary entries made while Bumpas was chiefly in Raleigh, North Carolina. Entries discuss such topics as the examination of an infant school, the tarring and feathering of Lunsford Lane (a free black), a visit to the city by John C. Calhoun, the church conference at Louisburg, his marriage to Frances Moore Webb, holding a revival in Smithfield, his visit to and baptism of two convicts condemned to be hanged, and the church conference in Halifax, Virginia. Near the end of the diary, Bumpas was assigned to a church in Pittsboro, North Carolina, where he preached and ran a school with his wife.

Volume 3: Diary of Frances Moore Webb Bumpas, 16 February 1843-21 September 1854. Included are entries noting church activities. There is little about the school Frances ran with Sidney in Pittsboro. After her husband's death in 1851, most of the entries are reflections on spiritual matters, with little about daily life (formerly volume 3).

Omissions
A list of omissions from the Bumpas Family Papers, 1838-1854, is provided on Reel 11, Frame 0386. Omissions include Subseries 1.2, Robah Fidus Bumpas Correspondence; Series 2, Other Papers, 1946 and Undated; and Subseries 3.2, Other Volumes, 1839-1933.

Burton and Young Family Papers, 1807-1911,
Cabarrus, Granville, Lincoln, and Mecklenburg Counties,
North Carolina; also Texas

Description of the Collection
Alfred M. Burton was one of several sons of Robert and Agatha Burton of Granville County, North Carolina. He was licensed to practice law in North Carolina, 1807, and in Tennessee, 1808, and settled in Lincoln County, North Carolina, in the first decade of the nineteenth century. His seventh child, Sarah Virginia, married Robert Simonton Young of Cabarrus County, North Carolina, who was killed in the Civil War, leaving her with four children and property in North Carolina and in Milan County, Texas.

Family correspondence among members of four generations of the Burton and Young families who lived in Granville, Lincoln, Cabarrus, and Mecklenburg counties, North Carolina, includes letters, bills, and other items, 1866-1896, to Sarah Virginia Burton Young sent by agents managing the cotton plantation she inherited near Cameron, Milan County, Texas, on the death of her husband in 1864. Letters discuss cotton cultivation, price, and sale; crop conditions; conduct of farm workers, especially rioting by freedmen; and the unsettled nature of local politics as related to freedmen's votes. Also included are bills, accounts, receipts, estate papers, and other items of the related Smith family of Charlotte, North Carolina, relating to family members.

The collection is arranged as follows: Series 1. Correspondence and Financial and Legal Papers and Series 2. Volumes.

Biographical Note
Alfred M. Burton (1747-1825), one of several sons of Robert (1747-1825) and Agatha Burton of Granville County, North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina, 1802, was licensed to practice law in North Carolina, 1807, and in Tennessee, 1808, and settled in Lincoln County, North Carolina, in the first decade of the nineteenth century. His wife was Elizabeth (Betsy) Fullenwider(?). Their children were Robert S., Elizabeth W. (later Hoyle), Mary L., John W., Frances C., William B., and Sarah Virginia (later Young).

Sarah Virginia Burton was the second wife of Major Robert Simonton Young of Cabarrus County, North Carolina, who fought with the 7th North Carolina Regiment and was killed in the Civil War. Sarah Virginia's stepson, John Phifer Young (1845-1863), also with the 7th, was also killed in the war. Taking her four children with her, Sarah Virginia made the journey to Texas in 1864 to become familiar with her late husband's property there. For more than thirty years following her visit, the cotton plantation in Cameron, Milam County, Texas, was handled by agents for her and her family. She returned from Texas to settle in Concord, North Carolina. In later years, she lived in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Series 1. Correspondence and Financial and Legal Papers, 1807-1911 and Undated
Included are the following:
1807-1818: Alfred M. Burton's 1807 and 1808 law licenses; indentures; wills; deeds; letters relating to legal proceedings in North Carolina and in Tennessee. Letter from Hutchins G. Burton, a lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, about settling accounts. Letters among various Burton family members about family news.

1824-1829: Letters from Alfred M. Burton to his mother about family news and domestic affairs.

1829: Letters among various Burton family members about family news.

1830-1838: Indentures; family letters; legal documents, some of which relate to slaves bequeathed to various family members.

1839: Letter from Elizabeth H. Burton to her father.

1840-1849: Indentures; plats; law license of John W. Burton; family letters discussing the poor economic outlook, with money scarce, the price of cotton low, and business dull.

1850-1859: Family letters; contracts and other legal documents.

1861: Letter from Alfred E. Hoyle at Manassas Junction to his mother, Elizabeth W. Burton Hoyle, detailing the hardships of camp life, troop movements, etc.

1862: Letter announcing the death of Alfred E. Hoyle.

1863: Letters of sympathy to Elizabeth W. Burton Hoyle on the death of her son.

1864: Letters praising the recently fallen Major Robert Simonton Young; pass signed by Zebulon Vance allowing Sarah Virginia Young and her children to travel to Texas.

1866-1899: Letters, bills, receipts, and other documents of Sarah Virginia Young, relating to her Texas plantation. Letters discuss cotton cultivation, price, and sale; crop conditions; conduct of farm workers, especially rioting by freedmen; and the unsettled nature of local politics as related to freedmen's votes. Other papers include legal papers, claim settlements, and land evaluations.

1880s-1911: Documents relating to Smith family relatives.

Miscellaneous papers include family history materials, two posters supporting the erection of the Washington Monument, and a ribbon with the words and music to the "Star-Spangled Banner" woven in.

Series 2. Volumes, 1835-1875
This series consists of four items.

Volume 1: 1835, 26 pp. Book of poetry dedicated to Frances Burton, who apparently was taking leave of her friends.

Volume 2: 1836, 12 pp. "An inventory of the personal property of A. M. Burton which came into my hands as Executrix. [Frances C.?] Burton" and a few other accounts relating to A. M. Burton's estate.

Volume 3: 1841-1852, 134 pp. Ledger of Robert Simonton Young, with accounts for goods and services. Also included are a few accounts in another hand from the late 1860s.

Volume 4: 1868-1875, 68 pp. Ledger of Joseph N. Young of Concord, North Carolina, with accounts for goods and services.

Missouri Eley Darden Papers, 1837-1865,
Hertford County, North Carolina

Description of the Collection
Missouri E. Eley, daughter of Susan E. Vann and Lawrence Eley of Murfreesboro, Hertford County, North Carolina, married George T. Darden of Hertford County in 1862. They had at least one child, named Eley, who was born in 1863 or 1864.

The collection consists of the diary, 1861-1865, 77 pp., of Missouri Eley Darden and two love letters, 1837 and 1838, from Darden's father to her mother before their marriage. The diary chiefly documents daily activities, such as visiting, sewing, and leisure pastimes. It also includes some reflections that are religious in nature and comments on the Dardens' marriage and on George Darden's imprisonment in a Union prison in 1865.

De Rosset Family Papers, 1671-1940,
Brunswick and New Hanover Counties, North Carolina;
also South Carolina, New York, and Great Britain

Description of the Collection
This collection consists chiefly of family correspondence, especially letters exchanged among several generations of De Rosset family women. Their letters to each other were generally long and informative, documenting their deep religious convictions, their household concerns, social activities in Wilmington, North Carolina, and a wide variety of family matters. Also documented is the education of several generations of De Rosset family children at schools in North Carolina, Boston, New York, and Geneva, Switzerland. Interests of female family members are further documented in diaries kept by Catherine Fullerton, Eliza Jane Lord De Rosset, and Gabrielle De Rosset Waddell. Financial and legal materials document the French origins of the De Rossets, their accumulation of land and slaves in Brunswick County, their service in military companies, and the settlement of family estates.

The collection is arranged as follows: Series 1. Correspondence--Subseries 1.1: Loose Papers (Subseries 1.1.1: 1702-1815, Subseries 1.1.2: 1817-1849, Subseries 1.1.3: 1850-1860, Subseries 1.1.4: 1861-1864, Subseries 1.1.5: 1865-1871, Subseries 1.1.6: 1872-1940, and Subseries 1.1.7: Undated) and Subseries 1.2: Letterbooks; Series 2. Financial and Legal Materials--Subseries 2.1: Loose Papers and Subseries 2.2: Volumes; Series 3. Diaries; Series 4. Other Materials [not included]; and Series 5. Pictures.

Biographical Note
The De Rosset family was established in North Carolina in the 1730s with the immigration of physician Armand John De Rosset, a French Huguenot. Four generations of the men worked as physicians and merchants in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Armand John De Rosset, Sr. (1767-1859) was raised by his stepfather, Adam Boyd. He attended schools in Hillsborough before enrolling in Nassau Hall (now Princeton University) and studying medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He returned to Wilmington and became a prominent citizen. He married first Mary Fullerton (d. 1797), and with her had three daughters who died young and one son, Moses John De Rosset (1796-1826), who died shortly after completing his medical education. In 1797, Armand married Mary's sister, Catherine Fullerton (1773-1837), and had with her five children: Catherine (1800-1889); Eliza Ann (1802-1888), later known as "Aunt Liz"; Magdalen Mary (1806-1850); Armand John, Jr. (1807-1897); and Mary Jane (1813-1903). Catherine De Rosset married the Reverend William Kennedy (d. 1840), moved to Columbia, South Carolina, and became stepmother to his children. Mary Jane married Moses Ashley Curtis (1808-1872), moved to Hillsborough, North Carolina, and had ten children, five of whom lived to maturity. Eliza Ann and Magdalen never married.

Armand John De Rosset, Jr., became a physician and businessman in Wilmington. He established a mercantile partnership, with a branch office in New York City, and conducted business on behalf of the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad Company in the United States and Great Britain. He first married Eliza Jane Lord (1812-1876) and had eleven children with her: Katherine (1830-1914); William Lord (1832-1910); Eliza Hill (b. 1843), also known as "Lossie"; Alice (1836-1897); Moses John (1838-1881); Louis Henry (1840-1875); Armand Lamar (b. 1842); Edward Swift (1844-1861); Thomas Childs (1845-1878), frequently referred to as "the Colonel"; Annie (1848-1855); and Frederic Ancrum (b. 1856). He married second Catherine ("Cattie") Kennedy (1830-1894), his sister Catherine De Rosset Kennedy's stepdaughter.

The children of Armand and Eliza De Rosset married as follows. Katherine Douglas De Rosset married Gaston Meares (1821-1862) and had six children, including Magdalen De Rosset (1851-1855), Gaston (1852-1861), Armand De Rosset (b. 1854), Eliza Lord (1856-1858), Richard Ashe (b. 1858), and Louis Henry (b. 1860). William Lord De Rosset married first Caroline Horatio Nelson (d. 1861) and had with her two children, and married second Elizabeth Simpson Nash (b. 1840), with whom he had six more. Alice London De Rosset married Graham Daves (1836-1902), no issue. Moses John De Rosset married Adelaide Savage Meares (1839-1897) and had many children. Eliza Hall De Rosset married Charles D. Myers (1834-1892) and had many children. Louis Henry De Rosset married first Marie Trapier Finley (1844-1870), with whom he had a daughter, Gabrielle De Rosset (b. 1863), who later married Alfred Moore Waddell; and second Jane Dickinson Cowan (b. 1848), by whom he had two children, including a daughter Katharine (b. 1875), through whose line these papers were received. Armand Lamar De Rosset married Tallulah Ellen Low (1845-1901) and had many children. Frederic Ancrum De Rosset married Mary Williams Green (b. 1859), no issue. Thomas Childs De Rosset was unmarried at the time of his death. Edward Swift De Rosset and Annie De Rosset died in childhood.

See also the genealogical charts in the Appendix.

Series 1. Correspondence, 1785-1940 and Undated
This series consists chiefly of personal family correspondence of De Rosset family women. Their letters to each other were generally long and informative, containing much information about life in Wilmington and other towns in North and South Carolina. Their primary topics of conversation included the education of children, family health, fashion, household matters, social events, and religious opinions, but extended to a wide variety of other matters.

There is little information about the medical practices of De Rosset physicians, but the women's letters reveal their own considerable medical knowledge. Family correspondence contains scattered information about business interests including mercantile partnerships in Wilmington and New York, railroad interests, the family rice plantation, and other concerns.

Subseries 1.1: Loose Papers, 1702-1940 and Undated This subseries includes correspondence of four generations of the De Rosset family, particularly the families of Armand John De Rosset (1767-1859), his son Armand John, Jr. (1807-1897), his granddaughter Katherine De Rosset Meares (1830-1914) and grandson Louis Henry De Rosset (1840-1875), and his great-granddaughter, Gabrielle De Rosset Waddell (b. 1863).

Subseries 1.1.1: 1702-1815. This subseries consists chiefly of letters of Adam Boyd, stepfather of Armand John De Rosset, Sr. (1767-1859). Boyd was forced to leave Wilmington because of his debilitating asthma, and wrote long, informative letters from Knoxville and Nashville, Tennessee, and Natchez, Mississippi. Also included is correspondence of Armand J. De Rosset, Sr. (1767-1859), and his second wife, Catherine Fullerton (1773-1837), including letters from Armand's son, Moses John, while a student at the University of North Carolina.

Subseries 1.1.2: 1817-1849. This subseries includes scattered letters of Armand John De Rosset, Sr. (1767-1859), who wrote to his wife and children during occasional business trips, but chiefly letters exchanged between female members of the De Rosset and related families. Major correspondents include Catherine Fullerton De Rosset (1773-1837), her unmarried daughters, Eliza Ann (1802-1888) and Magdalen De Rosset (1806-1850), and their married sisters, Catherine De Rosset Kennedy (1800-1889) of Columbia, South Carolina, and Mary Jane De Rosset Curtis (1813-1903) of Hillsborough, North Carolina. Much correspondence during this period relates to the family of Armand John De Rosset, Jr. (1807-1897), and his wife Eliza Jane Lord (1812-1876).

Devout Episcopalians, the women wrote letters full of religious opinions and information about church politics and personalities, especially regarding St. James Church in Wilmington. Other topics of discussion include family and household concerns, sickness, and the education of children. In addition to information about social and daily life in Wilmington, many letters contain information about the small town of Smithville (now Southport) in Brunswick County, North Carolina, where the De Rossets owned a rice plantation. Catherine De Rosset Kennedy (1800-1889) frequently wrote her mother and sisters from Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina, about her life as the wife of the Reverend William Kennedy (d. 1840) and as stepmother to his children. The Kennedy family had many financial difficulties and, after the Reverend Kennedy's death, Katherine moved to Wilmington with her ten-year-old stepdaughter Catherine. Catherine, or "Cattie," became the second wife of Armand J. De Rosset, Jr. sometime after 1876.

During the 1840s, letters relate chiefly to Katherine ("Kate") Douglas De Rosset (1830-1914). Correspondence between Kate and her parents, Armand and Eliza Jane Lord De Rosset, documents her education at schools in Boston and New York, and at St. Mary's in Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1849, a few letters to Gaston Meares, Kate's fiancé, reveal his business concerns. For example, a letter of 13 February 1849 refers to a "sea expedition" that Meares was apparently planning with Armand J. De Rosset, Jr. to the California gold fields. Other business references disclose that Armand John De Rosset, Jr., traveled to England on business for the Wilmington & Weldon Railway Company.

Of particular note are scattered letters from friends and family about westward migration, including one from Catherine Childs Woodbury, 7 September 1847, about her father building forts on the Oregon Trail, and another from Julia Ann Eccleston, 5 March 1849, about her husband's murder by Indians and her hard life on the frontier in Bastrop, Texas.

Subseries 1.1.3: 1850-1860. This subseries consists chiefly of correspondence documenting the married life of Katherine Douglas De Rosset (1830-1914), who married Gaston Meares in 1850. Early in their marriage letters show that she lived at the Smithville plantation while he traveled on business. In 1854, letters document Meares's successful campaign for the state assembly; he was elected representative of Brunswick County, North Carolina. His letters from Raleigh, never lengthy, make some mention of legislative business, his affairs in Brunswick County, and other matters.

In 1855, Meares moved his family to New York City, where he entered into the mercantile partnership of [Barron C.] Watson & Meares. This marks the beginning of an extensive correspondence between Katherine De Rosset Meares and her mother, Eliza Jane Lord De Rosset. Kate's letters are filled with details of her daily activities: the births and deaths of her children (one daughter died of diphtheria, another of whooping cough); house hunting in Brooklyn and other unaccustomed decisions that she feared would make her "a strong-minded woman"; housekeeping problems; shopping in the city; and Yankee servants. In turn, Eliza De Rosset wrote her daughter from Wilmington about family and town news; sewing; illness; attempts to hire a white servant, 23 September 1857; hiring an Irish servant, 1 October 1857; visiting and parties in and around Wilmington; excursions to the beach; and the activities of St. James Episcopal Church. By the late 1850s, Eliza's letters are filled with expressions of loneliness and depression in her large house, nearly empty after the departure of most of her eleven children. Her letters also display her knowledge and application of medical remedies. She described illnesses and deaths in Wilmington in detail and prescribed treatments herself, 8 February 1859.

Scattered letters document the education of Kate's younger brothers in Geneva, Switzerland. William Lord De Rosset wrote from the University of North Carolina in 1854.

Also during this period, letters show that Armand John De Rosset, Jr. continued to travel on railroad business, investigated copper and gold mines in North Carolina, and conducted other business in South Carolina and Boston. There is some documentation about the New York office of Brown and De Rosset, a mercantile firm based in Wilmington. Family letters document the death of Armand J. De Rosset, Sr. in 1859. Letters of 1860 reflect growing tension in Wilmington as the nation moved toward war. On 9 December, Eliza Jane Lord De Rosset wrote that the town was on alert and its citizens preparing for its defense.

Subseries 1.1.4: 1861-1864. This subseries consists chiefly of Civil War correspondence documenting the Confederate sympathies of the De Rosset family and their movements to stay out of the way of the clashing armies. When the war started, Armand and Eliza Lord De Rosset were in New York City visiting Kate. Letters indicate that the Armand De Rosset and Gaston Meares families moved temporarily to Hillsborough. By 1862, the Armand De Rossets had returned to Wilmington, and Eliza's letters document her work with the Wayside Hospital there. After a yellow fever epidemic in 1863, they rented a house in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Armand traveled to Wilmington occasionally to conduct business.

Catherine ("Cattie") Kennedy became a significant correspondent during this period, writing her stepmother from Columbia, South Carolina, about such things as housekeeping problems; nursing her sick brothers (who eventually died of tuberculosis); high prices and shortages of food, clothing, and other supplies; and hiring out slaves. Also among the correspondents during this period are the elderly De Rosset sisters, Eliza Anne in Hillsborough and Kate in Wilmington.

Correspondence is chiefly between De Rosset family women, who discuss their own experiences as war refugees and housekeepers in an economy of scarcity. Their letters also contain strong evidence of their Confederate sympathies and many references to the military service of male relatives, particularly Gaston Meares, who was killed at the Battle of Malvern Hill, 1 July 1862. In 1863, Kate Meares settled in Chapel Hill and briefly taught school. She received letters from Northern friends who sympathized with the Southern war effort.

Letters show that for a short time in November 1861 Kate Kennedy worked at the military hospital in Petersburg, Virginia. Also of interest are letters from Alice De Rosset Daves (1836-1897), showing that she traveled with her husband, Graham Daves (1836-1902) in Virginia and North Carolina while he took part in various military engagements.

As the war dragged on, family letters are filled with discussions of hardships encountered by refugees in Wilmington, Richmond, and Columbia. Toward the end of 1864, the focus of correspondence shifts toward Louis Henry De Rosset (1840-1875) and his wife Marie Finley De Rosset (1844-1870). In that year, the couple took up residence with their baby daughter, Gabrielle, in Hamilton, Bermuda. Letters between Armand and Louis show that Louis supplied goods to the De Rosset commission firm in Wilmington by running the blockade from Bermuda.

Of particular note during this period are several letters written to refugee De Rossets by their slaves in Wilmington.

Subseries 1.1.5: 1865-1871. This subseries includes correspondence of Louis Henry and Marie Finley De Rosset, chiefly documenting their sojourn in England. Immediately after the war, they moved to England with their daughter, Gabrielle, living first in London and later in Liverpool. Louis had many employment problems, and the family seems to have had continual financial difficulties. In spite of this, correspondence shows that the De Rossets enjoyed the society of the British upper class, including several members of the nobility. Among their friends was Edward, Lord Bulwer-Lytton, whose estate they visited on several occasions (see also subseries 1.2).

Letters to Louis and Marie from family members in Wilmington contain details about Reconstruction, activities of freed slaves in the area, Episcopal Church affairs, and difficulties relating to their rice plantation. On 18 May 1865, Kate Meares discussed the former De Rosset slave, Louisa, who was attending school in Wilmington. The activities of other former De Rosset slaves are frequent subjects of correspondence. Letters between Armand and Louis document the efforts of father and son to establish trade connections between Liverpool, where Louis apparently worked for a shipping company, and Wilmington. Letters show that Armand's trip to England on behalf of the Wilmington & Weldon Railway Company failed to produce needed investment and resulted in De Rosset's disassociation with this company. Along with family letters from the states, the Louis De Rossets received letters and invitations from British friends. There are descriptive letters from Marie about the countryside of Cross Maglen, County Armagh, Ireland, where she visited for health reasons in 1865.

The De Rossets were neighbors of the Jefferson Davis family in London, and when Marie died in 1870 of an overdose of laudanum, Varina Davis volunteered to take Gabrielle to live with the family in Wilmington. However, to escape his mounting debts, Louis took the child himself in May of 1870. Louis left Gabrielle with her grandparents and obtained a clerking position in New York. He lost this job in 1871 and returned to Wilmington.

Subseries 1.1.6: 1872-1940. This subseries consists chiefly of correspondence of Gabrielle De Rosset Waddell. Her father, Louis, was plagued by business failure until his death in 1875. Correspondence during this period is scattered with the exception of 1894-1895. During that period, Armand John De Rosset, Jr. was receiving treatment at the Post Graduate Hospital in New York City. Gabrielle De Rosset visited her grandfather Armand every day and wrote frequent letters to her aunts, Alice Daves and Kate Meares in Wilmington. In 1896, Gabrielle married Alfred Moore Waddell. Twentieth-century letters chiefly document her interest in genealogy, her membership in the Colonial Dames, and her other historical research interests. Letters show that Gabrielle was retained in 1919 to write the history of St. James Episcopal Church in Wilmington.

Subseries 1.1.7: Undated. This subseries includes about one hundred items documenting Catherine ("Cattie") Kennedy De Rosset; Eliza Ann De Rosset; Mary Jane De Rosset Curtis; Rebecca Geneva Haigh; the De Rosset family and others; and England.

Subseries 1.2: Letter Books, 1849-1870 This subseries consists of four volumes.

Business letters of Armand De Rosset, Jr. document his efforts on behalf of the Wilmington & Weldon Railway Company, his mercantile concerns, and other business matters. Copies of his letters document his business connections in Wilmington, New York, and London, and include letters to his father.

Louis Henry De Rosset's letters were written from New York and Wilmington as well as Galveston and Austin, Texas, chiefly to business firms about shipping, steamer lines, cotton cargoes, and progress in getting a charter from the Texas state legislature. Also included are letters to Edward, Lord Bulwer-Lytton, and others regarding arrangements for an American production of one of Lord Bulwer-Lytton's plays.

The remnants of a scrapbook of letters assembled by Louis H. De Rosset for his daughter, Gabrielle, document their London years, including letters of Lord Bulwer-Lytton. Gabrielle apparently added letters to her father's collection.

Series 2. Financial and Legal Materials, 1671-1895 and Undated
This series consists primarily of legal papers concerning land transactions, including deeds, indentures, surveys, and land grants; slave bills of sale; wills and estate papers; military commissions, several signed by William Blathwayt, 1690s; and miscellaneous receipts and accounts. Of particular note are several French documents, including a marriage contract dated 18 February 1671; and a deed of emancipation for a Charleston, South Carolina, slave, 1817.

Financial and legal volumes include a slave record that lists births and deaths of De Rosset family slaves from 1770 to 1854. Also included is Marie De Rosset's book of household accounts and expenses in England, 1869-1870.

Subseries 2.1: Loose Papers, 1671-1895 and Undated This subseries includes about 150 items arranged chronologically.

Subseries 2.2: Volumes, 1770-1870 This subseries consists of two volumes. The first volume is a Slave Record, 1770-1854. The second volume is a Household Account of Marie De Rosset, 1869-1870.

Series 3. Diaries, 1798-1936
This series consists of twenty volumes arranged alphabetically. Included in this series are the diary, June-September 1798, of Catherine Fullerton in Charleston, South Carolina, about everyday social and domestic activities; two journals of Eliza Jane Lord De Rosset concerning people and activities during a visit to England and France, 1865-1866; and eighteen journals, 1885-1936, of Gabrielle De Rosset Waddell containing accounts of her daily life and travels. Catherine Fullerton's diary contains interesting commentary on the marriages of many of her friends and acquaintances. Eliza Lord De Rosset's journals consist of a volume of sketchy notes and a neater and more complete account of her visits to London and Paris. Gabrielle De Rosset Waddell's diaries are primarily lists of people seen and daily activities, with little or no narrative or commentary.

Series 5. Pictures, c. 1864-1905 and Undated
This series consists of six items.

Omissions
A list of omissions from the De Rosset Family Papers, 1671-1940, is provided on Reel 21, Frame 0304 and consists entirely of Series 4. Other Materials, c. 1671-1940.

N.B. Related collections among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection include the Moses Ashley Curtis Papers, the Meares-De Rosset Books, and the Alfred Moore Waddell Papers.

Charles Dewey Papers, 1828-1886,
Wake County, North Carolina; also Great Britain

Description of the Collection
This collection includes correspondence, miscellaneous papers, and two volumes relating to Charles Dewey and members of his family. Many of the items are business papers, 1828-1879, of Charles Dewey while he was a banker in Raleigh with the State Bank of North Carolina, the Bank of North Carolina, and the Raleigh National Bank. Among these are papers, 1839-1866, concerning the finances of the Cameron family, including letters from Paul C. and Duncan Cameron, and other papers relating to European investments in the United States. There is also family correspondence, 1854-1886, chiefly between Julia Ann Haylander Dewey and her children, nieces, and nephews. In 1886, there are letters describing a trip to Naples, Italy. Volumes are an 1833 travel diary of Julia Ann Haylander, on a journey to England to visit her ill sister, and a book containing lists of books read, quotations, and copies of writings by Shakespeare, Byron, and others that Charles Francis Dewey compiled in 1842-1843.

The collection is arranged as follows: Series 1. Correspondence, Financial and Legal Material, and Other Papers and Series 2. Volumes.

Biographical Note
Charles Dewey (1798-1880) was born in New Bern, North Carolina, the son of John Dewey (1767-1830), born in Stonington, Connecticut, an architect who built the Masonic temple and theater in New Bern. Charles Dewey's mother was Mary Mitchell Dewey, a native of Elizabeth, New Jersey, who died in 1839 at the age of 67.

Virtually nothing is known about Dewey's early life. He began his career in 1820 as a clerk with the New Bern branch of the State Bank of North Carolina. In 1826, he was appointed cashier of the Fayetteville branch of the bank. The following year, he was elected cashier of the main branch in Raleigh. In Raleigh, Dewey served as cashier of the Bank of North Carolina and its successor, the Bank of the State of North Carolina. After the Civil War, when the Bank of the State of North Carolina was closed, he was elected cashier and later president of the Raleigh National Bank. He served as president until his death.

Dewey married three times. In 1822, he married Catherine M. Hall of New Bern. His second wife, Ann Letitia Webber, was born in New Bern in 1803 and died in Raleigh in 1835; the date of their marriage is not known. On 5 January 1837, Dewey married Julia Ann Haylander (1804-1886), a native of Philadelphia, who had moved to Raleigh at an early age. Charles Dewey was survived by four children. One son was Charles Francis Dewey (b. 1825), an 1844 graduate of the University of North Carolina who became a physician in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Another son, Thomas W., married Bessie Lacy, daughter of Drury Lacy, pastor of Raleigh's First Presbyterian Church. Charles Dewey was a faithful member of that church for over fifty years, serving as superintendent of its Sunday school and as a ruling elder.

Although he owned a few slaves and a moderate amount of property, Dewey never accumulated great wealth. He left a house and lot in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Anna Maria Dewey, wife of his son Frank H., who resided there. Bonds, notes, stocks, and other property were willed to his wife and his daughters, Mary Ann and Rachel D. Wilder.

Series 1. Correspondence, Financial and Legal Material, and Other Papers, 1828-1886 and Undated
This series includes correspondence and other papers of Charles Dewey and members of his family. Many of the items are business papers, 1828-1879, of Charles Dewey while he was a banker in Raleigh. Among these are papers, 1839-1866 and undated, concerning the finances of the Cameron family, including letters from Paul C. and Duncan Cameron. There is also family correspondence, 1854-1886, chiefly between Dewey's third wife, Julia Ann Haylander Dewey, and her children, nieces, and nephews. Miscellaneous papers include a few anonymous poems and other items. There are no items relating directly to the Civil War.

Series 2. Volumes, 1833-1843
This series consists of two items.

Volume 1: 1833, 42 pp. Travel diary of Julia Haylander Dewey entitled "A Succinct Account of the Voyage Across the Atlantic and Travels in England together with many interesting incidents, descriptions, and etc. with notes." Julia kept this diary on a trip she made to England to visit her sister, who was ill. Also included is a typed transcription of the diary.

Volume 2: 1842-1843, 107 pp. Book containing lists of books read, quotations, and copies of writings by Shakespeare, Byron, and others that Charles Francis Dewey compiled in 1842-1843.

N.B. Related collections among the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection include the Cameron Family Papers; the Drury Lacy Papers; and the Daniel A. Penick Papers. Of these, the Cameron Family Papers are included, in part, in UPA's Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, Series J, Part 1.

The biographical note is adapted from the entry by Memory F. Mitchell in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, volume 2 (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1986).

Gordon and Hackett Family Papers, 1752-1942,
Wilkes County, North Carolina; also South Carolina,
Alabama, and Lousiana

Description of the Collection
This collection documents two Wilkes County, North Carolina, families united in Robert Franklin Hackett (d. c. 1889) and his wife, Caroline Louise Gordon Hackett (1828-1891), who were married in 1859 after an extended and secret engagement. Robert Franklin Hackett was an 1849 graduate of Jefferson Medical College and practiced medicine in Wilkes County. Caroline Louise Gordon Hackett was connected with the Brown, Gwyn, Lenoir, and Stokes families of North Carolina; her brother was Confederate General James Byron Gordon (1822-1864).

These papers, the bulk of which are dated 1847-1860, are mostly personal and family letters and are concerned with household affairs, social activities of young people, and local news from the Yadkin Valley of North Carolina; Unionville, South Carolina; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Cherokee County, Alabama. Many of the letters are to and from female family members and describe their activities. Early papers include letters to Caroline Louise Gordon at school in Salem, North Carolina, and to Robert F. Hackett at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Later papers include materials about public education in Wilkes County in the late 1850s and scattered Civil War letters, some from Confederate Brigadier General James Byron Gordon in Virginia. There are also materials relating to Robert and Caroline Hackett's sons, Richard Nathaniel Hackett, who was a student at the University of North Carolina, 1883-1887, and James Gordon Hackett, who was appointed to serve the state of North Carolina on several boards and commissions in the 1920s and 1930s. There are also several items relating to family history.

The papers consist primarily of personal and family correspondence of Robert Franklin Hackett and Caroline Louise Gordon, later Mrs. Robert Franklin Hackett, both of whom were born and lived their entire lives in Wilkes County, North Carolina. They were married in 1859. There are also letters from James Byron Gordon, brother of Caroline, and from Hugh Thomas Brown and Hamilton Allen Brown, half brothers of Caroline Gordon. The Gordon family were related to the Gwyn, Lenoir, and Stokes families of North Carolina. In the Hamilton Brown Papers, also in the Southern Historical Collection, is a full description of the persons appearing in the Gordon-Hackett Papers and also numerous letters from and about these same individuals. These two groups should be read in conjunction.

The majority of the Gordon-Hackett Papers are concentrated in the 1847-1860 period, with approximately four hundred items representing these years. Most of the letters contain very general information on local happenings, gossip, news of relatives, activities of the young people in the Yadkin Valley, North Carolina area; in Unionville, South Carolina; in Shreveport, Louisiana; and in Cherokee County, Alabama. A general description of the papers, with specific mention of the more informative items, follows.

1752-1832: 1752, typed copy of Anson-Rowan County deed to Morgan Bryant. 1813-1814, three letters from James Hackett to Fanny Johnson, whom he married in this period. 1832, John P. Bell of Iredell County to Oliver P. Hackett at U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, commenting on Hackett's situation at the academy, Jackson politics, and his own personal affairs. Scattered personal letters to different members of the Gordon and Hackett families occur throughout the period.

1837: Typed copy of a letter to James Gwyn, Wilkesboro, from M. S. Stokes (son of Governor Montford Stokes), U.S. Navy, at St. Petersburg, Russia, telling of the Emperor boarding the ship incognito, the Emperor's Court, and the city of St. Petersburg, all described in considerable detail.

1842-1844: Letters to Caroline Gordon at school in Salem, North Carolina, from several members of her immediate family, giving news of family and Wilkesboro.

1844-1846: Letters to Robert Franklin Hackett from his brothers, Richard, James, Charles Carroll, and Alexander L., and from James Byron Gordon, with news of friends and family in Wilkes County, in particular a letter from James B. Gordon of 12 November 1844, about the marriage of his former sweetheart, Anne Stokes, and the pangs of his unrequited love, and letter of 16 March 1845, from Alexander L. Hackett about a duel between Messrs. Tedewell and Bogle, fought in Wilkesboro. Two letters of March and September 1846, from John T. Finley to his brother-in-law, James B. Gordon, written from Philadelphia and New York where Finley had traveled to purchase goods and supplies for the general merchandise store that he and Gordon operated in Wilkesboro. John T. Finley had married Gordon's sister Anne.

1846-1849: Letters to Robert Franklin Hackett while he was attending Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia from his brothers and numerous other young people in the Yadkin Valley and Wilkesboro area, describing local events and activities of the young people; in particular a letter of 5 February 1847, from Richard Hackett about the conduct of the volunteer troops assembled at Charlotte, their refusal to serve under a Whig colonel. Robert Franklin Hackett evidently received his medical degree in March 1849, and returned to Wilkesboro to practice with his friend A. A. Scroggs.

1848: 23 June, London, England, Dr. Robert C. Martin to his cousin, Caroline Gordon, describing his travels, the sights, and hearing Jenny Lind.

1848-1850: Scattered letters from Richard Hackett written from Shreveport, Louisiana, where he had gone into business, describing his personal and business affairs; in particular a letter of 1850 mentioning the engagement of "Miss Cal" (Caroline Gordon) to Robert Franklin Hackett, which had apparently been broken off because of family disapproval. Apparently Caroline Gordon then went to Unionville, South Carolina, for an extended visit with her Dogan cousins.

1849-1860: Intermittent letters to Caroline Gordon from her cousins, Addie and Carrie Dogan of Unionville, South Carolina, describing Unionville social life, and giving news of Gordon relatives in South Carolina. The final letter of this group is dated July 1860 and is signed by Addie Dogan Scaife.

1851: 11 January, from Dr. N. N. Fleming of Mocksville, North Carolina, to Robert Franklin Hackett in reply to Hackett's inquiry about the desirability of his removing to Mocksville to practice medicine. Similar letter to Hackett from James L. Mosely of Calhoun, North Carolina, dated 22 February. Personal letters to R. F. Hackett and Caroline Gordon.

1852-1870: Scattered letters from Adelaide Stokes (Mrs. Lawrence Grain) of Shreveport, Louisiana, to her cousin, Caroline Gordon. These are detailed, sprightly letters written from the Grain home "Tara's Hall" about her domestic and social life in Shreveport. Adelaide Stokes was one of the daughters of Governor Montford Stokes. The final letter of this group is dated 1880, from L. S. Grain, oldest son of Adelaide Stokes, telling about the Grain family who were still living in Shreveport.

1854-1863: Letters from Anne Gordon Finley and her husband, John T. Finley of Cherokee County, Alabama. Letters indicate that the Finleys had left Wilkesboro in about 1853 to try their fortunes in Alabama. Their letters describe in some detail family problems, farming conditions, economic aspects, and episodes in their vicinity in the early part of the Civil War.

1854: 5 November to Caroline Gordon from her half brother, Hamilton Allen Brown, at the Naval Academy, telling of the requirements of the academy and describing routine. He left the Naval Academy in 1856.

1854-1861: Approximately a dozen letters from Hugh Thomas Brown to his sister, Caroline Gordon, and his mother, Sarah Gwyn Brown. He attended the University of North Carolina from 1854-1858, read law at Richmond Hill, Surry County, under Judge Richm