Creator: Burton and Young family.
Collection number: 111
View finding aid.
Abstract: Alfred M. Burton was one of several sons of Robert and Agatha Burton of Granville County, N.C. He was licensed to practice law in North Carolina, 1807, and in Tennessee, 1808, and settled in Lincoln County, N.C., in the first decade of the 19th century. His seventh child, Sarah Virginia, married Robert Simonton Young of Cabarrus County, N.C., who was killed in the Civil War, leaving her with four children and property in North Carolina and in Milan County, Tex. The collection includes family correspondence among members of four generations of the Burton and Young families who lived in Granville, Lincoln, Cabarrus, and Mecklenburg counties, N.C. Included are 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, Tex., 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, N.C., about family members.
Repository: Southern Historical Collection
Collection Highlights: Included are papers sent to Sarah Virginia Burton Young by the managers of her plantation in Texas discussing the conduct of workers, especially rioting by freedmen, and the unsettled nature of local politics as related to freedmen’s votes (1866-1896). (See Folders 7 to 11)
Folder 3 contains legal documents, some of which deal with slaves left to various family members from 1830 to 1838.
Materials from this collection have been digitized and are available online. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and to access the digital material.