Abstract: Papers collected by William S. Powell pertaining to Iredell and adjacent counties of North Carolina. The bulk consists of family correspondence, 1867-1901, and account books of two generations of the Goodman family. Letters are personal correspondence of Tobias Goodman (1814-1880) of Amity, Iredell County; his wife Ellen; and his sons and a nephew, including a building materials merchant at Hillsboro, Ill., a railroad employee at Birmingham, Ala., a resident of Lavon, Tex., and others. Letters from Hillsboro, Ill., discuss weather, prices, wages, opportunity that led to leaving North Carolina, the high cost of food in Illinois, and homesickness. Other personal letters discuss farming and give family news, especially about illnesses, deaths, and estates. Account books, chiefly from Iredell County, are for general merchandise and lumber sales, 1853-1856; church contributions (perhaps Presbyterian), 1855-1856; farm crops and miscellaneous labor, 1891; and a blacksmith, Goodwin and White, of Statesville, N.C., 1891-1893. Also included are miscellaneous Goodman family bills and receipts; deeds of other persons; and fourteen letters, 1922-1924, from a North Carolina black medical student, William D. Washington, at Howard University, Washington, D.C., to a friend, Janie Lee Norton, in Davidson, N.C.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folder 13 contains fourteen letters from William Washington, and African American medical student at Howard University to a friend, Janie Lee Norton.

Abstract: The Otey family of Meridianville, Ala., and Yazoo County, Miss., included William Madison Otey (1818-1865), merchant and cotton planter; his wife, Octavia Wyche Otey (fl. 1841-1891); and their children, Imogene Otey Fields, Mollie Otey Hampton; William Walter Otey; Lucille Otey Walker; Matt Otey, and Elliese Otey. The collection includes family and business correspondence, financial and legal papers and volumes, and personal items. Family correspondence is with members of the Wyche, Horton, Kirkland, Pruit, Landidge, and Robinson families in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, and Tennessee. A few letters from Confederate soldiers in the field appear as do some letters relating to difficulties on the homefront. There is also a letter dated 27 February 1863 from a slave in Mount Shell, Tenn., to his master about building a stockade. Business papers pertain mostly to William Madison Otey’s merchant activities in Meridianville, Ala., especially with Chickasaw Indians in the 1830s, and to the Oteys’ cotton plantations in Madison County, Ala., and Yazoo County, Miss. Others concern the financial affairs of the Wyche, Horton, and Kirkland families. Included are accounts with cotton factors and merchants, estate papers, deeds, loan notes, summonses, receipts, agreements for hiring out slaves, and work contracts with freedmen. Volumes include account books, plantation daybooks, a receipt book, and a diary of Octavia Wyche Otey that covers the years 1849-1888. The diary and other papers offer detailed descriptions of women’s lives, especially in nineteenth-century Alabama.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Letters from Rebecca Wyche in 1835 and Rodah Horton in 1832, as well as other family members throughout the 1820s and 1830s,  discuss buying and selling enslaved individuals (Folder 1).

Correspondence from William Otey to his wife in the 1850s and 1860s discuss the management of their property in Yazoo County, as well as the welfare of enslaved people on the property (Folders 4-17).  There is also a letter dated 27 February 1863 from an enslaved man named Thomas, in Mount Shell, Tenn., to his master, J. M. Oaty, asking him to get a substitute for him in the building of a stockade (Folder 17).

Financial and legal papers in Series 2 contain several references to enslaved persons. William Wyche’s 1829 papers concern hiring out slaves to the firm Otey Kinkle (Folder 30). There is also an order issued in 1838 for the delivery of a enslaved woman named Eliza, who had belonged to Dr. A. A. Wyche, deceased, to Joseph Leeman. Also included is a receipt for Eliza signed by Leeman in 1838. There is also agreement dated 1849 for the hire of an enslaved woman and three children belonging to the estate of Jackston Lightfoot, which John Wyche was executor of (Folder 31).

Octavia Wyche’s antebellum diary (Folders 39-42) contains frequent mentions of managing and punishing enslaved people on her property, as well as instances of illnesses.

After the Civil War, Octavia wrote in a large volume about interacting with free people of color on her plantation, as well as copies of contracts in 1866 for Maria, Nina, and Anderson, former slaves at Green Lawn plantation. (Folder 38 also contains a contract Octavia Otey signed in 1866 with Maria, who worked as a laundress and cook). Of particular note in the diary are descriptions, dated 29 November and 6 December 1868 and 19 January and 1 February 1869, of visits to Green Lawn by the Ku Klux Klan.Also included is an entry for 22 November describing wedding preparations for the daughter of a former slave, Maria, and another for 12 January 1880, in which Octavia complains that local blacks “will not work for white people if they can help it.” (Folders 43-63).

A merchant’s account book of William Madison Otey contains an account from at least one customer, Sally Shochoty, is listed as a Negro; the spelling of her name as Shock.ho.ty at one point suggests that she may have intermarried with the Chickasaws (Folder 64).

The daybook from 1857 in Series 4.2 contains records of cotton picked by enslaved individuals on Otey’s plantation, listed by name (Folder 65). Folders 67 & 68 also contain daybooks from the Civil War era.

Folder 74 contains an 1849 clipping related to the enslaved African American musician “Blind Tom” at Camp Davis. Tom Wiggins was born in Columbus, Ga., and was an extremely talented musician who composed a number of songs and could play music by ear. He was an autistic savant and was unfortunately exploited throughout his lifetime for his musical abilities. Click here to link to a website dedicated to preserving Blind Tom’s legacy.

After the war, Octavia Otey’s correspondence received from family in the late 1860s and mid 1870s discusses relations with free people of color (Folders 18 – 23).

 

 

Abstract: In 1815, Bryan Grimes (1793-1860) of Pitt County, N.C., married Nancy Grist. Three of their children reached maturity: Susan, William (1823-1884), and Bryan Grimes Jr. (1828-1880). The elder Grimes gave his two sons plantations along the Tar River. The brothers prospered as slave owners, cotton growers, and real estate investors. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Bryan became a major in the 4th North Carolina Infantry Regiment. He rose to the rank of major general. William remained in North Carolina. After the conflict, Bryan returned to his plantation Grimesland. William resided in Raleigh, where he became an absentee landlord in the tenant farming system, cattle breeder, and hotel owner. In 1880, Bryan became embroiled in a feud with the Paramore brothers and was killed by their hired assassin. William died four years later. The collection includes correspondence, financial and legal items, military papers, estate papers, account books, genealogical material, and other items relating to the Grimes family of North Carolina and the related Hanraham, Kennedy, and Singeltary families, chiefly 1830-1880. Among the topics documented are daily routines, the Civil War both in the military arena and on the home front, education at the University of North Carolina and other institutions, plantation management, slavery, sharecropping, livestock breeding, and cotton growing. Some materials relate to the buying and selling of slaves, and there are a few post-Civil War letters from ex-slaves. Besides members of the principal families, people important in the collection include Asa Biggs, John Gray Blount, William Boyd, William Cherry, Pulaski Cowper, James R. Hoyle, W.W. Meyers, James O’K Williams, and Charles Clements Yellowley. Significant locations include Beaufort County, Hyde County, Pitt County, and Raleigh (including information about the Exchange Hotel and the Yarborough House, both owned by family members), all in North Carolina, and Charleston, S.C.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: This collection contains material that has been digitized and is available online. Click here to link to the finding aid and to access the digital content.

Folder 5 contains mention of Grimes Family businesses, including selling of enslaved individuals in 1865.

Folders 7-14 and 17 include Overseer’s Reports at Avon Plantation mentions of the labor of enslaved individuals as well as free people of color.

Folder 53 contains 1844 receipts from the estate of John Singletary concerning the purchase and hiring out of slaves, as well as medical receipts for treatment.

Folders 72-76 contains bills and receipts from the estate of John Kennedy, concerning the hiring out of slaves as well as lists of enslaved individuals as well as their value, from 1825-1830. Folders 85,  87, and 90 also contain lists of enslaved persons.

Several folders in Subseries 2.3 relating to the estate of Thomas and Walter Hanrahan contains deeds of sale and receipts for enslaved individuals (Folder 91-96, etc.). Folder 105 also contains records related to the financial support and clothing of an African American woman and her children.

Folders in Subseries 2.5 (Estate of William Cherry) and Subseries 2.6 (Estate of James O’K. Williams) also contains lists, bills, and receipts for enslaved individuals.

Subseries 3.1 (Financial and Legal Items) contain several folders with deeds of sale and receipts for enslaved individuals (Folders 145-152, 155-158, etc). Folder 171 also contains a deed of sale for an eight year old boy without his mother. Folder 197 contains a list of slaves “who went to the Yankees” in Washington, N.C., in 1862.

Folder 205 and 210 in Subseries 3.2 contain sharecropping agreements from 1867 and 1868, including agreements with freedman.

The W.W. Myers material in Subseries 4.1 contains materials related to his work as a surgeon for the Freedman’s Bureau. Folder 315-316 contains correspondence between Dr. Myers and Rufus Craig, an African American man who worked with Myers. Also included are reports about Craig’s employment and salary. Folder 317-318 also contain reports about sick freedmen.

Volume 52 in Subseries 5.2 is an account book for laborers at one of the Grimes Family’s plantations with separate notations for African American workers (This volume has been digitized and is available online, click here to access the volume.)

Folder 415 contains correspondence among Grimes Family members about the purchasing and loaning of slaves.

Folder 417 contains a letter from William Grimes, formerly enslaved by the Grimes Family, who was now a Methodist circuit preacher. There is also a letter in Folder 418 from a formerly enslaved woman named Phyllis about visiting and obtaining employment.

Abstract: Sanders Meredith Ingram was a farmer, lawyer, and state legislator from Richmond County, N.C. He was also a part of the inaugural class at Wake Forest College, 1834-1835. Ingram served in the Mexican War in the lst Tennessee Calvary Regiment and in the Civil War as first lieutenant in the 38th North Carolina Infantry Regiment. He left the army in 1862 to serve as Richmond County representative in the North Carolina state legislature. Ingram’s first wife was Jane Mourning Shepherd, with whom he had five children; his second wife was Sarah Francis Moore Hogan, with whom he had at least three children. Ingram died in 1905 and was buried in Montgomery County, N.C. The collection includes letters, writings, printed materials, financial and legal materials, images, and other items of Sanders Meredith Ingram. Early letters relate to Ingram’s farm in Richmond County, N.C.; fundraising at Wake Forest College in Winston-Salem, N.C.; and the Mexican War. A February 1846 letter discusses the severity of a typhoid fever outbreak and high casualties among the slave population. Civil War-era letters include some from family members and friends, Ingram’s October 1862 resignation letter, and several from Confederate soldiers requesting transfers out of the military and into government service. Post-war, there is a February 1871 letter from John McLeod to Thomas Garrett in which McLeod criticized the work ethic of the African Americans he encountered. Writings include speeches by Ingram relating to the Mexican War and the Civil War and several of his Civil War-themed poems. Other materials include official correspondence from the Pension Office and the State of North Carolina, an 1861 document appointing Ingram as first lieutenant in the 38th North Carolina Infantry Regiment, contracts, receipts, clippings, and other items. Two receipts, one in 1849 and the other in 1853, document Ingram’s contracting for slave labor. Also included is Volume 1, Issue 1, of the Tampico Sentinel, 1 February 1846, an English-language newspaper published during the American occupation of Tampico, Mexico, during the Mexican War. There are also tintypes, ambrotypes, and daguerreotypes. One tintype is identified as John William Cameron; the others are unidentified and undated.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folder 1 contains a February 1846 letter discussing the severity of an outbreak of typhoid fever and high casualties among the enslaved population.

Folder 3 contains a February 1871 letter from John McLeod, who criticized the work ethic of the African Americans he encountered.

Folder 8 contains two receipts for the arrangement of slave labor. The first, dated 29 December 1849, concerns the transfer of a “certain Negro Girl Mary” from J.N. Ingram to Sanders Meredith Ingram. The second is dated 29 December 1853 and documents Ingram’s purchase of “two certain negroes by the name of Newberry and Daniel” from Alred Baldwin for $19.25 for one year. The receipt includes clothing, shoes, and a blanket for each slave.

Abstract: George C. Stoney (1916- ), a documentary filmmaker who specialized in socially relevant films, was a mentor and teacher to generations of filmmakers and media activists worldwide and a pioneer in the movement for the creation and use of public access television to enact social change. The collection consists of papers chiefly relating to George C. Stoney’s professional work as a documentary filmmaker, teacher, and early advocate of public access television. Correspondence, 1944-1993 (bulk 1960-1990), is chiefly work-related in content, though many of Stoney’s correspondents were long-time friends and colleagues and wrote personally as well. Letters, 1944-1945, from Stoney to his future wife, Mary Bruce (1926-2004), are chiefly personal in nature and include love letters, but also, to a lesser extent, describe Stoney’s experiences as a photo intelligence officer with the 8th United States Army Air Forces in England, France, Belgium, and Germany. Correspondence between Stoney and his long-time companion Betty Puleston (d. 2009), 1967-1968, also blend description of personal and working life. Subject files comprise the bulk of the collection and include materials relating to films Stoney wrote, directed, and/or produced for the Southern Educational Film Production Service and George C. Stoney Associates. Topics include sexually transmitted disease; outreach programs of the Methodist Church; cardiovascular healthcare; education; community mental health; race relations in the South; police training; old age and retirement; midwifery; urban redevelopment in New York, N.Y., Philadelphia, Pa., Pittsburgh, Pa., and Washington, D.C.; and other social issues. Some of Stoney’s early work as a journalist and social researcher is also documented in essays, a report on race relations in Mississippi, and materials relating to his work for the Farm Security Administration. Subject files also document classes and workshops Stoney taught, especially at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and his involvement with the growth of public access and local cable television, the Challenge for Change project of the National Film Board of Canada, the Alternate Media Center, and the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers. Additionally, there are film treatments and research materials for prospective projects and printed and other material relating to the documentary film and cable television industries. Loose papers, 1980-1990s, consist of memobooks that likely relate to Stoney’s filmmaking, and clippings, reports, readings, conference advertisements, miscellaneous printed materials, handwritten notes, and writings by others that are not clearly connected to his film projects or cable and public access advocacy work. Photographs depict the documentary filmmaking process for several of Stoney’s films, public access projects and the Alternate Media Center, the work of Farm Security Administration photographers in the South in the early 1940s, and Stoney’s family life. The audio-visual materials consist of films, tapes, and sound reels from various Stoney productions, 1950s-1990s.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folder 675 contains some of Stoney’s work as a Southern field assistant for Gunner Myrdal’s study on race relations in the U.S., An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy.

There are a number of Subject Files that relate to Stoney’s research for Myrdal’s study as well as many of Stoney’s own films. There are several that deal with race relations and various topics:Folder 162 (Auburn, Ala./Race Relations and the Methodist Church, 1963); Folder 214 (Brewster Methodist Hospital (Jacksonville, Fla.)/Race Relations and the Methodist Church, 1963); Folder 216 (Bunche, Ralph: Political Status of the Negro in the Age of FDR (1973)); Folders 625-626 (Kytle, Calvin, 1947, 1960, 1973 – materials related to anti-discrimination protests and land use); Folder 666-667 (Methodist Church 1962– Chiefly concerning “The Church and the Inner City”); Folders 752-760 (Newspaper Clippings, 1960s-1980s – dealing with issues such as segregation, race relations, and Christianity)

Several of Stoney’s films also discuss the African American community and various topics. Notable documentaries include All My Babies and The Shepard of the Night Flock

All My Babies (1953) was an award winning film that focuses on An African American midwife. Folder 101-113, 671-672, 887,  contains articles, correspondence, and other materials related to the film. Folder PF-4970/1-3 contain photographs related to the film. There is a copy of the film as well (Film F-4970/203).

The Shepard of the Night Flock (1975) is a documentary discussing the life of Father Joseph Gensel and his role ministering to the Jazz community in New York. Influential musicians such as Duke Ellington appear in this film. There is a Reference folder (between Folders 972 and 973) for this film. Subseries 5.2 contains numerous clips and edits from the feature film, as well as audio tapes of the performances featured in the film.

Abstract: The collection includes scattered bills, receipts, and accounts for purchases, schooling, blacksmith work, and other business of Solomon Slatter, Scotland Neck, Halifax County, N.C.; and one family letter from Slatter, 1848.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Includes an 1849 receipt, which lists medical treatments and cost for enslaved African Americans. An 1848 letter from Slatter to Martha Nicholls asks her to treat “the Negroes with humanity and without rigor” as outlined in his will. Slatter’s will, dated 21 August 1843, includes twelve enslaved individuals.

Abstract: Joseph Button was Virginia Commisioner of Insurance, 1925-1929. He also served on the Virginia Military Institute’s Board of Visitors and was a member of the Noble Order of the Blue Goose and of the Shriners. He became president of Union Life Insurance Company, Richmond, Va., in 1929. Chiefly correspondence, 1897 and 1924-1934, relating to Joseph Button’s position as Virginia Commissioner of Insurance, activities in national and state Democratic Party politics, service on V.M.I.’s Board of Visitors, community service, and memberships in fraternal organizations. Letters about insurance matters have slight reference to Button’s official activities as Commissioner of Insurance. Many of these letters are requests from associates for help in getting jobs with insurance companies for their sons or other relatives, while others relate to sales of insurance company stock and other financial deals.Political letters are mostly acknowledgements of financial and other support for Democratic candidates, including one in 1925 from Governor-elect Harry F. Byrd. Button’s community service is documented in a letter, dated 5 July 1927, in which he was asked to serve on the White Advisory Committee for the Richmond Colored Community Hospital Campaign.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence reflects his involvement with the White Advisory Committee for the Richmond Colored Community Hospital Campaign (1927).

Abstract: Calvin Jones, who moved to Smithfield, N.C., in 1795, was a physician; officer in the North Carolina militia; editor of the “Star,” a Raleigh, N.C., newspaper; and owner of a plantation near Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn., to which he moved his family in 1832. His son, Montezuma Jones, ran the plantation upon his father’s death. His grandson, James W. Jones, was an attorney and member of the Tennessee legislature. The collection includes correspondence, financial and legal papers, writings, pictures, and other materials of Calvin Jones and other Jones family members. Correspondence includes letters relating to land sales, medicine, and military business around the War of 1812. The establishment of the University of North Carolina is discussed in 1801 letters. Correspondents include N.C. governor Benjamin Williams; Joseph Caldwell, president of UNC; Davy Crockett; Benjamin Rush; and James Madison. There is also a one-page address, 1798, by John Adams; Jones’s travel diaries from trips to Washington, D.C., 1815; the old southwest, 1818; and Europe, 1844; and a farm journal in which he described agricultural experiments. Papers, 1847-1879, chiefly relate to Montezuma Jones and include financial documents about the Tennessee cotton trade, particularly land sales and dealings with cotton factors. Also included are letters, 1841-1843, from Montezuma Jones, as a student at UNC; a diary, 1869-1871, of teenager Frances Irene Jones; letters and political papers of Calvin Jones’s daughter, Octavia Rowena Jones, and her husband, politician Edwin Polk; and correspondence and other items of Calvin Jones’s wife, Temperance B. Jones. After 1880, there are scattered family letters and some business and professional letters to James W. Jones. Several items document slavery in Tennessee, including a few relating to runaway slaves. There is little Civil War material.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folders 3, 19, and 22, contain letters discussing runaway slaves (1805, 1844, 1850). Folder 12 contains a 28 December 1830 letter discussing a rumored slave insurrection; Folder 33 contains a document related to the hiring of freedmen in Georgia and Tenn. (1867).

Folders 21 and 22 include receipts for the sale of slaves between 1847-1850 and Folder 84 contains  newspaper clippings containing advertisements for slave sales and runaways (1819).

Undated correspondence in Folder 47 contain a letter to Montezuma Jones about a child (possibly who was enslaved) for a disease of the jaw.

Folder 60 also contains a farm journal, which includes a list of enslaved individuals on E. Polk’s farm,

Folder 73 contains a ledge of “Negro accounts and payments” from 1851-1866, including what are probably slave accounts, accounts of various Jones and Polk family members, and a table for lost time.

Abstract: Papers collected by William S. Powell pertaining to Iredell and adjacent counties of North Carolina. The bulk consists of family correspondence, 1867-1901, and account books of two generations of the Goodman family. Letters are personal correspondence of Tobias Goodman (1814-1880) of Amity, Iredell County; his wife Ellen; and his sons and a nephew, including a building materials merchant at Hillsboro, Ill., a railroad employee at Birmingham, Ala., a resident of Lavon, Tex., and others. Letters from Hillsboro, Ill., discuss weather, prices, wages, opportunity that led to leaving North Carolina, the high cost of food in Illinois, and homesickness. Other personal letters discuss farming and give family news, especially about illnesses, deaths, and estates. Account books, chiefly from Iredell County, are for general merchandise and lumber sales, 1853-1856; church contributions (perhaps Presbyterian), 1855-1856; farm crops and miscellaneous labor, 1891; and a blacksmith, Goodwin and White, of Statesville, N.C., 1891-1893. Also included are miscellaneous Goodman family bills and receipts; deeds of other persons; and fourteen letters, 1922-1924, from a North Carolina black medical student, William D. Washington, at Howard University, Washington, D.C., to a friend, Janie Lee Norton, in Davidson, N.C.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection includes fourteen letters from William D. Washington, an African-American medical student at Howard University, to Janie Lee Norton, a school teacher, in Davidson N.C. from1922-1924 (Folder 13).

Abstract: The Singletons were cotton planters living near Sumter, S.C. Prominent family members include Richard Singleton (1776-1852), John Singleton (1754-1820), and Matthew R. Singleton (1817-1854). The collection includes correspondence, financial, legal, and other papers document the business affairs and, to a lesser extent, the personal lives of the Singleton family. The bulk of the papers belonged to Richard Singleton and date from 1815-1854. Correspondence consists primarily of business letters that document the trends of the cotton market in Charleston, S.C., and Liverpool, England, and reveal the working relationship of planter and commission merchant. Financial papers reveal the amounts and prices of cotton and other crops sold and indicate the expenses of a plantation family. Other topics documented in the collection include slavery in South Carolina and Alabama; a plantation near Claiborne, Ala.; horse breeding; and mental illness.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence covers various topics including purchase and sale of slaves and runaway slaves primarily between 1791, 1801-1820, 1821-1822 (Folders 1-43).

Financial papers contain accounts, bills, receipts and tax returns that document slavery including the purchase, hire, and medical treatment of slaves between 1787-1852.

Also included in the collection are bills of William Ellison, a free black craftsman, for repairing saw gins between 1820-1831 (Folder 186-197). There are also bills from Ellison in Series Series 2.1.3. and Series 2.2.1.

There is also a bill and receipt for the capture and holding of a runaway slave in 14 March 1827 (Folders 255-257); an advertisement for the sale of slaves in Sumter 10 March 1838 (Folder 271); a slave list from 1849 (Folder 284-285); a slave pass from 12 November 1820 for an enslaved man Jesse (Folder 314); an agreement to purchase a factory and slaves who worked it in1843; a petition to send slaves to work on roads 1845; and a document on slaves charged with murder of an overseer  in 1843 (Folder 317)