Abstract: Harriet Jacobs was an escaped slave and abolitionist who wrote about her experiences in her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). Jean Fagan Yellin, head of the Harriet Jacobs Family Papers Project, is Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Pace University in New York, N.Y., and author of The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers (2008), a two-volume collection of primary source material related to Jacobs and her family. The collection consists chiefly of materials collected by Jean Fagan Yellin in her work as the head of the Harriet Jacobs Family Papers Project. Included are several original letters by or about members of the Jacobs family; Yellin’s administrative files; email print-outs and correspondence with archives and research centers; photocopied primary source materials, including letters, newspaper clippings, and other documents; indexes of collected and consulted items; and background subject files compiled to supplement the research effort. Topics include the Jacobs family and the related Knox family; slavery and runaway slaves; abolition; Harriet Jacobs’s life in North Carolina, New York (with the Willis family), and Boston; her antislavery work during the Civil War; and other topics.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Of particular interest are the original documents in Series 1, from the children and contemporaries of Harriet Jacobs, including letters to her daughter Louisa M. Jacobs (Folders 1 & 2).

Abstract: Nullification governor of South Carolina and diplomat of the Texas Republic. Materials gathered by J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, historian, in contemplation of a biography of James Hamilton. The collection consists of 50 original 19th-century manuscripts of Hamilton, mostly letters written by him; 30 manuscripts of his sons in Texas and the Confederate Army; many copies of Hamilton manuscripts in other repositories; notes, correspondence, and unpublished writings of J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton about James Hamilton; and microfilm copies of Hamilton family letters and writings of Samuel Prioleau Hamilton about his father, James. Original letters concern politics and private business in South Carolina, and diplomacy, finance, politics, and private business in Texas.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Included in the collection are Confederate government receipts for slaves and goods (1860-1865) and letters discussing the sale of slaves, the care of slaves during the war, and abolition. Microfilm available.

Abstract: Members of the Mendenhall and Hobbs families of Guilford County, N.C., included Lewis Lyndon Hobbs (1849-1932), educator and writer, active Quaker, and president of Guilford College; his wife, Mary (Mendenhall) Hobbs (1852-1930), active in promoting women’s education, pacifism, and Quaker philosophy; and Mary’s father, Nereus Mendenhall (1819-1893), devout Quaker, physician, teacher at New Garden School (Greensboro, N.C.), and legislator active in the construction of the state asylum at Morganton in the 1870s and other reforms. Family and personal letters, chiefly from 1870, concerning the political and religious activities, travels, and careers of members of the Mendenhall and Hobbs families of Guilford County, N.C. The papers reflect the Quaker view of life and relate to several reform movements. Included are Nereus Mendenhall’s treatise on pregnancy and childbirth and letters, 1914-1919, from Richard Hobbs, son of Lewis and Mary, written while he was in France serving with a Quaker relief organization. Volumes, 1797-1923, include students’ notebooks, particularly of Lewis L. Hobbs at Haverford College, 1870s; accounts; scrapbooks; diaries of Nereus Mendenhall, 1851, and L. L. Hobbs during a tour of England, 1890-1891; religious notebooks; and notes by Hobbs of his activities and his college experience, both as a student and as college president.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Included are letters regarding the Mendenhall’s aid to North Carolina slaves attempting to escape to a free state in 1864 (Folder 3) and North Carolina state appropriations for schools for free people of color  in 1891 (Folder 6).

Abstract: Fries, Shaffner, and related families of Salem (now Winston-Salem), N.C. Francis Lavin Fries (1812-1863), with his brother, Henry (1825-1905), owned and operated woolen and cotton mills and a general store in Salem. Fries was active in the Moravian church and in local government and politics, and served in the North Carolina legislature, 1858-1859. He married Lisetta Marie Vogler (1820-1903), also of Salem, and with her had seven children, including Caroline Louisa (1839-1922), called Carrie, who married John Francis (“Frank”) Shaffner (1838-1908); and Mary Elizabeth (1844-1927), who married Rufus Lenoir Patterson (1830-1879).Shaffner studied medicine in Philadelphia and Salem, where in 1861 he joined the Confederate medical service and was named assistant surgeon of the 33rd North Carolina Regiment and was captured briefly by federal forces, May-June 1862. In 1863 he joined the 4th North Carolina Regiment. Caroline Fries and J. F. Shaffner were married in 1865 and together had five children. Mary (Fries) Patterson and her husband lived during the early years of their marriage at “Palmyra,” the Patterson family home in Caldwell County, N.C. Primarily personal and family correspondence of Francis Lavin Fries, his daughter Caroline (“Carrie”) Louisa Fries Shaffner, and her husband John Francis (“Frank”) Shaffner. There is correspondence, 1850-1860, between members of the Fries family visiting in Philadelphia and other family members at home in Salem; letters to J. F. Shaffner at Jefferson Medical College from members of the Fries family; and scattered letters from Francis Fries on business trips and while attending the North Carolina state legislature in 1858. During the Civil War period there are letters from J. F. Shaffner with the Confederate Army in North Carolina and Virginia and letters to him from Caroline and Mary Fries describing life in Salem.Also included are letters to Caroline from Mary, after the latter’s marriage and removal to Caldwell County, N.C., mostly dealing with domestic and family affairs. There are scattered business letters of J. F. Shaffner, 1868-1887. Volumes include diaries of Caroline (Fries) Shaffner, 1861-1876; surgical notes, 1862-1863, by J. F. Shaffner; his diary, 1863- 1865; and an address by him about his Civil War experiences.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Letters discuss Carrie Fries’ social encounters with abolitionists in Philadelphia in February 1860 and news of the health, illnesses, and deaths among Fries slaves in Salem in March thru May 1860 (See Folders 4- 6).

Abstract: Robert Hall Morrison was a Presbyterian minister and educator from Lincoln County, N.C., and father of Mary Anna (Morrison) Jackson (1831- 1915), wife of Stonewall Jackson. The collection includes letters written to and from members of the Morrison family, financial papers of R. H. Morrison, and miscellaneous papers. The letters, chiefly from R. H. Morrison to his cousin, James Morrison, discuss family matters; business of the Presbyterian Church in North Carolina; Robert Hall Morrison’s work in the establishment and administration of Davidson College; details of his congregations in Cabarrus and Mecklenburg counties, N.C.; his religious convictions; his views against slavery and secession; and agricultural activities on his Cottage Home Plantation. Morrison’s financial papers consist of letters from agents managing his property in Tipton County, Tenn., and Lafayette and Sevier counties, Ark., detailing his business concerns; problems in conducting business during secession, the Civil War, and Reconstruction; and the construction of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad and the Memphis and Ohio Railroad. There are also receipts for his expenses and tax payments in North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Miscellaneous papers include letters from members of the Morrison family in Dallas County, Ala., and two letters from a chaplain in the Army of Northern Virginia during the war.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights:  The bulk of the correspondence regards church matters and includes discussion of Morrison’s abhorrence of slavery and his support of the Colonization Society in Sierra Leone throughout the 1820s. Letters also discuss the low price of slaves in North Carolina and Morrison’s advocacy of cotton and woolen mills as a replacement for the slave-based cotton industry, particularly between 1837-1840 (Folder 4) and the buying and selling of slaves between 1820-1834 (Folders 1-4) .

Abstract: Mitchell King, of Charleston, S.C., and Flat Rock, N.C., was a teacher, lawyer, and judge of the Charleston City Court. He owned property in Charleston, as well as land in Buncombe (later Henderson) County, N.C., and on the Savannah River, presumably in Chatham County, Ga. He was a member of Presbyterian and Episcopal churches and an active member of numerous civic and educational organizations. The collection includes correspondence, accounts (including bills of sale for slaves), legal papers, diaries, and other items, chiefly 1816-1862. These materials relate primarily to family affairs; to the management of King’s property in North Carolina and of his plantation in Georgia; and to business, social, educational, and church affairs in Charleston. There is also some material on King’s legal practice; on politics, especially the 1848 presidential election; and on King’s intellectual interests, especially word usage. The Addition of February 2006 is a medical ledger belonging to Mitchell King’s son, Mitchell Campbell King, containing entries from 1853 to 1867 that are arranged by patient and document medical services and charges rendered in a clinic in North Carolina.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence includes an 13 July 1848 letter discussing the danger abolitionists posed to the South (Folders 20). The collection also includes numerous slave bills of sale from 1801-1828 (Folders 37-39 ).

There is also a document dated 8 March 1850, apparently prepared by Mitchell King for Daniel Macaulay, emancipating two slaves left to Macaulay by his sister (Folder 59).

Abstract: Ruffin, Roulac, and Hamilton family members resided chiefly in eastern and central North Carolina, but also in Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama. Prominent among them were Thomas Ruffin (1787-1870), Anne M. Kirkland Ruffin (b. 1794), Joseph Blount Gregoire Roulhac (1795-1856), Catherine Ruffin Roulhac (b. 1810), and Daniel Heyward Hamilton, Jr. (b. 1838). The collection includes correspondence, financial and legal papers, account books, photographs, and other items, chiefly 1823-1890, relating to members of the Ruffin, Roulhac, and Hamilton families and their friends and associates. The papers relate to routine family matters and everyday life, and, to a lesser extent, to business matters, including the Ruffin plantations in North Carolina and Joseph Blount Gregoire Roulhac’s career as a merchant in Raleigh, to the Civil War and Reconstruction, and to various public concerns. There are few items relating to Thomas Ruffin’s legal and judicial career. The collection also contains photographs, carte-de-visite photographs, ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, tintypes, and sketches of members of the Ruffin and Roulhac families, friends, unidentified people, buildings, and Civil War naval engagements. There is also a mid-1850s daguerreotype of the sophomore class at the University of North Carolina, the earliest known image of a group of students at UNC.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: In Series 1, beginning after 1836, there are numerous letters between Catherine Ruffin Roulhac and her husband Joseph discussing various topics including slaves.

Throughout the 1830s and into the 1850s, correspondence also includes discussion of difficulties with slaves and fears of abolitionists.

Volume S-1 in Folder 166 includes records of cotton picked as well as clothing allotments for enslaved individuals.

Abstract: Blackford family members lived in Fredericksburg, Lynchburg, and Alexandria, Va. Chiefly correspondence of three generations of the Blackford family. Included are letters relating to the involvement of Mary Berkeley (Minor) Blackford (1802-1896) in the American Colonization Society; diaries, 1842-1844, kept by William Matthews Blackford (1801-1864) while serving as United States charge d’affaires in Bogota, New Granada (now Columbia); Civil War letters from Launcelot Minor Blackford (1837-1914) and his brothers; scattered correspondence from missionaries and former slaves in Liberia; three issues of a newspaper, 1854, published in Cavalla, West Africa; Blackford family history information (typed transcriptions), including microfilm of a scrapbook of Launcelot Minor Blackford containing genealogical sketches of the Blackford, Minor, Byrd, Willis, Washington, Ambler, Mason, Jacquelin, and Gray families.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Much of the correspondence relates to the activities of the American Colonization Society and its counterpart in Great Britain, and documents the Blackford family’s antislavery sentiments and their attempts to organize a colonization society in Fredericksburg. The collection includes discussion of fears of a large-scale slave insurrection in the slave states (1831); difficulties in educating black women to be teachers; the life of missionaries in Liberia (1836, 1843, 1845, 1852, 1855); freeing slaves to send to Liberia (1841); observations of South American slavery (1842-1843); antislavery views in Richmond, Virginia; and opposition to the annexation of Texas as a proslavery plot to enable the South to secede (1844); the outfitting with tools of a slave manumitted by the Blackfords (1844); letters written by the slave Maria West for her blind owner and occasional personal notes from West herself (1846-1847); news of Abraham, a manumitted Blackford slave who joined a colony in Liberia (1845); opposition faced by abolitionists in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and nationally (1849); views on slavery and colonization (1850); response to a plan to send slaves to the Amazon Valley (1851); Charles Blackford’s opinion of the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853); a proslavery argument and description of the treatment of slaves written by V. M. Randolph of Forkland, Alabama (1859); an account of the life, death, and philosophies of Richard Randolph, a Virginian who freed his slaves and moved to Ohio (1859); reaction to John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry (1860); the Northern working-class view of the war and slavery (1862); the secession crisis and Confederate army life (1861-1865); problems with freed slaves (1865); news of Liberia and the hope that emancipated slaves would join the African colony (1865); the idleness of freedmen and thievery among blacks and whites (1866); experiences of the white M. Payne in teaching black children (n.d.); and a description of a Danville, Virginia, race riot (1883).

Abstract: Whig congressman from Bertie County, N.C. Chiefly correspondence of Outlaw to his wife while he was a member of Congress, 1847-1853. Subjects discussed are state and national politics, including the Mexican War, the slavery question, sectionalism, the Wilmot Proviso, the Missouri Compromise, and the Compromise of 1850; social life in Washington, D.C.; and Outlaw’s family and his farm in Bertie County, near Windsor, N.C. In his absence from home, Outlaw’s farm was managed by one of his slaves. Also included are a few letters from Outlaw’s wife and daughter and genealogical material on the Outlaw and Anderson families of Tennessee (typed transcriptions).

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Chiefly letters of Outlaw, a Bertie County Whig, North Carolina, written to his wife while he was a member of Congress (1847-1853). During his absences Outlaw’s farm was run by his slave, George. Letters include directions for the hiring-out of slaves (1847) in Folder 1; discussions of the institution of slavery (1849- 1850) in Folders 6-11; and the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia (1849) in Folder 6.

Some material in this collection has been digitized and is available online. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and to access the digitized material.

Abstract: Head teacher at the Manual Labor School in Spring Hill, Tenn., and later president of Middlebury College, Vt. Letter from Labaree to James Gillespie Birney, Huntsville, Ala., discussing the Manual Labor School and the colonization of slaves; and notes made by Labaree’s grandson, Leonard, on Labaree’s meeting with Birney.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: A letter from Benjamin Labaree, head teacher at the Manual Labor School at Springhill, Tennessee, to James G. Birney of Huntsville, Alabama, discussing the school and mentioning the cause of colonization. There is also a note added by Labaree’s grandson, Leonard, on Labaree’s meeting with Birney, reformer, legislator, and agent of the American Colonization Society, who advocated abolition by political action. Typed transcript.