Abstract: Thomas Crawford, who was owned by Thomas Mosley of Mount Sterling in Montgomery County, Ky., was sold as a slave by Mosley to James Crawford, also of Mount Sterling. Thomas Crawford was manumitted by James Crawford in 1842 and moved to Delaware, Ohio, with his wife Hattie and their children. The collection contains a letter, 1 April 1844, from Thomas Crawford to his former owner, Thomas Mosley, commenting on his life in Delaware, Ohio. In the letter, Crawford addressed Mosley as “Farther” and mentioned receiving money from Mosley, which he used to pay off a mortgage debt, and renting property out to “a Dutchman to crop on the haves.” Thomas Crawford also mentiond his son, Steward Crawford, in the letter. Also included is a copy of the 1836 will of James Crawford, containing instructions to manumit Thomas Crawford after his death and urging Thomas to move his family to Ohio.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection contains a 1 April 1844 letter from freed slave Thomas Crawford to his former owner, Thomas Mosley, commenting on his life in Delaware, Ohio. In the letter, Crawford addressed Mosley as “Farther” and mentioned receiving money from Mosley, which he used to pay off a mortgage debt, and renting property out to “a Dutchman to crop on the haves.” Crawford also mentioned his son, Steward Crawford, in the letter. Also included is a copy of the 1836 will of James Crawford, containing instructions to manumit Thomas Crawford after his death and urging Thomas to move his family to Ohio. The will was certified as a true copy by the Montgomery County, Ky., court in December 1841 and was signed and dated with seal on 3 May 1842 by James Howard, clerk, and on 18 May 1842 by Joseph Bondurant, justice of the peace.

Abstract: Diaries, 1864 and 1867-1871, and a sketchbook of Robert G. Fitzgerald (1840-1919); copies of his pension record and marriage certificate and of the manumission certificate of Thomas Fitzgerald (father of Robert G.); two letters; and articles about members of the Fitzgerald family, including Fitzgerald’s granddaughter, Pauli Murray. Fitzgerald’s diary, 1864, describes his trip from Boston to Virginia; life in the 5th Massachusetts Colored Cavalry Regiment; war news, especially the activities of other black regiments; and his feelings about the war and the future of blacks. His later diary describes his work in freedmen’s schools in Amelia County, Va., and in Hillsborough, Orange County, N.C.; church affairs and social life; and his political activities, including a description, 31 July-2 August 1867, of the Virginia state Republican convention, to which he was a delegate. Some entries in 1867 describe Fitzgerald’s studies at Lincoln University (originally Ashmun Institute), life at the college, and church and social life. Entries, 1868-1871, describe in detail Fizgerald’s school in North Carolina; the Ku-Klux Klan; Republican politics; the Union League; Fitzgerald’s tanning business; a brick kiln established with his brother; building his house; and his farm and family life, including his new wife, Cornelia Smith. Fitzgerald’s undated sketchbook includes portraits of soldiers, a sketch of Ashmun Institute (later Lincoln University), and other scenes.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Microfilm Only. The collection includes copies of Fitzgerald’s pension record, his marriage certificate, and his father’s manumission certificate. Fitzgerald’s diary entries record the activities of black regiments and personal thoughts on the future for blacks in America; employment at a freedman’s school in Amelia Court House, Virginia; views of the local African-American community; political activities; attendance at Lincoln University; and personal and professional affairs as well as those of the African-American community in Hillsborough, Orange County, North Carolina.

Abstract: Papers, 1773-1845, chiefly of Richard Mendenhall of Guilford County, N.C., relating to the Manumission Society of North Carolina and other groups. Papers concern the emanicipation of slaves and emigration of free blacks to Haiti, sponsored by a branch of North Carolina Quakers, and include correspondence about arranging the voyage, legal papers liberating slaves, passenger lists, and agreements and accounts concerning the ship and voyage. Other papers include scattered minutes and other records, 1773-1845, of Quaker groups in North Carolina.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Papers of Richard Mendenhall of Guilford County, North Carolina, concerning the emancipation of slaves and the emigration of free blacks, sponsored by a branch of North Carolina Quakers, to Haiti. The papers contain correspondence arranging the voyage, legal papers freeing slaves, passenger lists, and agreements and accounts concerning the ship and voyage. Included in the papers are minutes, letterbooks, a daybook, accounts, and a pamphlet from committees dedicated to manumission and colonization.

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 content.

Abstract: Wilson (sometimes Willson), Glenn, and Torrence families lived in Crowders Creek, Gaston County, N.C. (previously Tryon County and Lincoln County) and York County, S.C. The Wilson family of Cumberland County, Pa., included John Wilson (1742-1799) of North Carolina; Samuel Wilson (1754-1799), Presbyterian minister of Cumberland County, Pa.; John’s sons Robert G. Wilson (b. 1768), Presbyterian minister of Abbeville, S.C., who moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, because of his opposition to slavery, Samuel Blain Wilson, a Presbyterian minister at Fredericksburg, Va., and later a professor at the Union Theological Seminary in Prince Edward County, Va., and William Joseph Wilson (1777-1854), of Lincoln and Gaston counties, N.C., and his son Lawson Wilson (1809-1876); and other relatives in Ohio. The Glenn family included William Davis Glenn (b. 1833) of Gaston County; his brother Robert N. Glenn (d. 1864), a Confederate soldier; their father John F. Glenn of Gaston County and York County, S.C.; and William’s son L. C. (Leonidas Chalmers) Glenn, author and geology professor at Vanderbilt University. The Torrence family included Edwin B. Torrence of Rutherford (later Cleveland) County, N.C., his children, Mary Ellen Torrence, Luther B. Torrence, and Thomas O. Torrence (d. 1862), a Confederate soldier, and brother-in-law Nathan Mendenhall of Gaston County, N.C.; William Wilson Torrence (1808-1875) and his son Leonidas Torrence (d. 1863), a Confederate soldier who died at Gettysburg; and other relatives in Arkansas. The collection consists of family correspondence, chiefly 1788-1871, of L. C. Glenn’s ancestors, including three letters, 1766-1768, from William Tryon, then governor of North Carolina. Letters from relatives in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Pope County, Ark., Green County, Tenn., Illinois, Ohio, and other locations discuss family news and social activities; the Presbyterian Church; 19th-century politics and economic affairs; slavery; gold mines of Kings Mountain, N.C.; the Union Theological Seminary at Hampden Sydney College in Virginia; the New Madrid earthquake of 1811; and life in Ohio. Civil War materials include letters from Confederate soldiers describing camp life and hospitals in Virginia and eastern North Carolina and to a lesser extent in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and battles at Seven Pines, Fredericksburg, Wilderness, and Gettysburg; Leonidas Torrence’s small diary, 4 June-4 July 1863, recording his march from Guinea Station to Gettysburg; and letters from the homefront describing desertion problems in Gaston County, N.C. Later correspondence, 1901-1927, concerns family history. William Davis Glenn’s diary, 1864-1869, includes descriptions of trips through Mississippi and to Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia. His journal records expenses for the 1866 Mississippi trip. Glenn’s volume of reminiscences, written in 1907, describes social activities and business ventures in the Carolinas before, during, and after the Civil War. Also included are a general merchandise store account book, 1794-1797, a mid 19th-century cipher book, and several photographs, circa 1880-1900, of Glenn family members.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Papers discuss the emancipation of slaves (1797); opposition to slavery (1799); the purchase of slaves (1831, 1852); abolitionist activities (1834); and hired slave labor (1858). Also included are deeds of ownership of slaves (1810-1815).

Abstract: Members of the Wilson and Hairston families were planters and merchants of Henry and Pittsylvania counties, Va., and Davie, Rockingham, and Stokes counties, N.C. Peter Hairston (1752-1832), of Pittsylvania, later Henry County, Va., was a merchant of Stokes and Rockingham counties, N.C., and owner of several plantations, including Royal Oak, Sauratown Hill, and Cooleemee Hill. His son-in-law, Peter Wilson (1770-1813), husband of Ruth Stoval Hairston (1783-1852), was a planter of Berry Hill, Brierfield, and Goose Pond, all in Pittsylvania County, Va., and partner in his father-in-law’s mercantile business. Ruth Stoval (Hairston) Wilson married second Robert Hairston (1783-1852), of Leatherwood Plantation in Henry County and who, circa 1837, moved to Mississippi to manage his properties there, leaving Ruth in Virginia. Robert’s brother, Samuel Hairston (1788-1875), of Oak Hill Plantation, Pittsylvania County, was one of the wealthiest men in Virginia, owning plantations there and in North Carolina and approximately 1700 slaves. His eldest son, Peter Wilson Hairston (1819-1886), lived his adult life at Cooleemee Hill in Davie County, N.C. Peter Wilson Hairston’s niece, Ruth Hairston (1863-1936) married Alfred Varley Sims (1864-1944), civil engineer who worked for several railroads, taught engineering, and worked for the Knickerbocker Trust Company as general manager and chief engineer of the Cuba Eastern Railroad Company based in Guantanamo, Cuba, 1905-1908. Business correspondence, financial and legal papers and scattered personal correspondence of six generations of the Wilson and Hairston families. Among the activities represented are the sale of tobacco through Virginia commission merchants; the service of Peter Hairston (1752-1832) as a deputy sheriff in Henry County, Va., mainly 1751-1788; the manumission of six Hairston slaves in 1832 through the American Colonization Society; purchase of supplies for plantation and household use; and activities of the Sandy Creek, Mayo, County Line, and Staunton River Baptist associations, 1833-1868. Civil War materials are few and consist of scattered family letters and some receipts for foodstuffs sold to the Confederate Army. Throughout the collection there is material concerning the management of the various family plantations. Approximately one-fourth of the collection consists of the personal and professional correspondence of Alfred Varley Sims as a professor at the State University of Iowa (now the University of Iowa), 1895-1904, and as a civil engineer, and includes materials related to his time in Cuba, 1905-1908, and to his connections with various southern and Cuban railroads and other businesses in Cuba and elsewhere.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The papers include bills of sale for an enslaved individual between 1751-1788 (Folders 1b-8); receipts for hiring out enslaved persons between 1789-1813 (Folders 8-75); jailors’ bills for keeping runaway enslaved persons; and doctors’ bills for attending enslaved people between 1814-1832 (Folders 76-128).

The collection also contains five letters  from 1832 about the American Colonization Society and the manumission of six formerly enslaved people who were sent to Liberia ; lists of clothing for slaves; work agreements with former slaves between 1833-1860; slave lists; an order to return a enslaved individual (1780- 1799).

There are letters discussing the legality of a will designating a “young mulatto child” sole heir to an estate and discussing arrangements for moving slaves from one plantation to another  between 1830-1860, and a letter written by a white man describing a fight with a African American man in 1892.

Several volumes (Volume 63 in Folder 458;  Volume 103 in Folder 508; con’t) contain information on the sale and purchase of enslaved individuals, as well as slaves lists  and lists of clothes and other items given out to slaves. A memorandum book also mentions runaway slaves  in 1800 (Volume 83 in Folder 479).

Volume 169 in Folder 58 also contains an accounting of money or goods paid to formerly enslaved individuals.

Abstract: John McRae was the postmaster in Fayetteville, N.C., in the 1840s and 1850s, and a private farmer and businessman in Mangum, N.C., from his retirement in 1853 to his death in 1880. Personal and business papers of McRae and his family, and of Joshua A. Wright and James G. Burr, businessmen of Wilmington, N.C. The McRae papers are primarily letters between McRae and his sons Alexander, Duncan K., Thomas, and James Cameron, concerning the men’s personal lives and careers. Topics include military service, the Kentucky Shaker community of which Thomas was a part, Duncan’s service as consul-general at Paris, and North Carolina politics.Also included is James Cameron MacRae’s 1879 diary. The Wright and Burr papers concern their legal and financial businesses in Wilmington. Topics include the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad; the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad; banks in New York, Wilmington, and the Cape Fear region; and dealings with New York merchants. The connections among the Wright, Burr, and McRae families are unclear.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Of note are a few letters describing Duncan McRae’s arrest in 1867 for complicity in the murder of an African American by a mob in Fayetteville. (See Folder 16) Series 2 (financial and Legal papers) also contain records relating to the emancipation of two enslaved individuals.

Abstract: John McKee Sharpe of Stateville, N.C. Papers of John McKee Sharpe, including his own genealogical correspondence, and correspondence, business papers, etc., of the Sharpe family and of John H. McKee. Series 1, Sharpe Family papers, 1793-1890 (510 items), concerns members of the family who moved from Cecil County, Md., to Rowan, later Iredell, County, N.C. Prominent family members included the sons of Thomas Sharpe, Jr., namely Amos, John, and William (member of the Continental Congress from North Carolina), and Ebenezer Franklin Sharpe, son of Amos, and his son, Silas Alexander, who married a McKee. The papers consist of bills, receipts, and business papers, and the papers of Silas Alexander Sharpe as a colonel in the North Carolina Home Guard, 1863-1865. Silas Sharpe’s papers deal with militia activities in Iredell and Alexander counties, especially with conscription, apprehension of deserters, slaves detailed to work at Fort Fisher, and local defenses; and his business papers in connection with the Atlantic, Tennessee, and Ohio Railroad. Series 2, John H. McKee papers, 1820-1870 (173 items), contains scattered business and legal papers and extensive family correspondence with relatives spread across the South. Topics of significance include the legal separation of John H. McKee and his second wife, and the successes and failures of son Thomas Jefferson McKee (d. 1855), who settled in Shelby County, Tex. Series 3, John McKee Sharpe papers, 1903- 1954 (117 items), consists almost entirely of correspondence relating to the history of the Sharpe and McKee families and members of the related Caldwell, Mills, Moore, and Murdock families, and to Iredell County history.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Papers belonging to Silas Alexander Sharpe, a colonel of the North Carolina Home Guard for Iredell and Alexander Counties, concern conscription, apprehension of deserters, and slaves detained to work at Ft. Fisher. The papers include in Folder 1 a Maryland bond to a North Carolina resident demanding the delivery of a slave (1793). Folder 5 contains letters concerning the purchase of slaves (1846, 1849). In Folder 15, there are letters describing race relations in Laurens District, South Carolina, during Reconstruction (1871). Also, in the early 1850s there is correspondence concerning the death of John Stevenson and the manumission of his slaves, who emigrated to Liberia (See Folders 20 and 21).

Abstract: Principal member of the Hughes family of Edgefield, S.C., are Dr. John Hughes (d. 1835) and his son, John H. Hughes (d. 1871), who were both cotton planters; John Hughes’s sister, Sophia Hughes Hunt (fl. 1825- 1864); his daughter, Jennie H. Hughes (fl. 1858-1879); his father-in-law, James Bones (fl. 1819-1836); his cousin, Lucy T. Butler Moore (d. 1857); his son-in-law, Cicero Adams (d. 1868); and wagon maker John Christie (fl. 1851). The collection includes family correspondence, legal, and financial papers, and miscellaneous items, dated chiefly between 1820 and 1898, and relating to Hughes family members and their Bones, Hunt, Christie, and Nicholson relatives. Papers relate primarily to plantation life, especially the daily routines and social and religious lives of plantation women. Other topics include army life during the Civil War and postwar antagonisms. South Carolina politics are also discussed in the early papers. Locations besides Edgefield for which considerable information appears are Augusta, Ga.; Grande Cane, La.; Woodville, Miss.; and various locations in Ireland. Financial and legal items of interest include wills, deeds, personal accounts, estate papers, and slave bills of sale. A few miscellaneous items include sermons, clippings, advertisements, and recipes.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folder 1 contains a letter,  dated 6 January 1818, is from James Blocker to Col. Sampson Butler, and contains Butler’s reply of 17 January on the back page of the original. The letter concerns the legal status of a free black man named Joe, who had once belonged to Samuel Butler’s brother.

A receipt signed 22 September 1828 by Joel Spencer acknowledged his purchasing  of an enslaved individual named Nace, whom he promised to sell in Louisiana for John Hughes. A bill appears from Hughes to Spencer for Nace on 23 May 1831 (See Folders 3 and 6).

Folder 10 contains a a copy of a slave bill of sale (originally dated 18 December 1827; copy dated 21 January 1847) for a young girl named Pricilla.

Folder 14a contains undated letters discussing a cholera epidemic among slaves in South Carolina and Louisiana.

Folder 16 contains a letter from Emma Lenice, dated 3 May 1860, which discusses the travel of her brother and sister to Africa as missionaries with 80 freed slaves, who had been educated and manumitted by a Mr. Cuthbert of Savannah.

Folder 17 contains a letter from Sophia Hughes Hunt on 15 October 1861, discussing the 27 enslaved individuals near Natchez for suspected involvement in inciting an insurrection.

Folder 22 contains a letter dated 26 November 1867 from Robert Hughes discussed being “forced” by the Freedman’s Bureau to pay higher wages to African American laborers. There is also a letter from 14 October 1867 from Cicero Adams concerning a black woman named Edith, who had died in childbirth. Adams had arranged for her burial and described the kind treatment she received in her last hours from friends.

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: James McDowell was born 13 October 1795, son of Col. James McDowell and Sarah Preston. He married Susanna Smith Preston in 1818. McDowell was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1833. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates, 1831-1835 and 1837-1838, as governor of Virginia, 1842-1846, and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1847-1851. Among McDowell’s major political concerns were internal improvements, slavery, and public education. The collection includes correspondence, writings, financial and legal material, and other papers of James McDowell. Most of the papers are letters, addresses, and essays relating to affairs in Virginia and the nation, including slavery in the territories, internal improvements, temperance, nullification, Democratic party politics, colonization societies, collegiate and literary societies, and colleges in Virginia.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Correspondence covers topics such as McDowell’s involvement with colonization societies (1820-1851) and views on slavery in the territories (1831-1851). Of particular note is his correspondence in two letters from 1828 and 1830 with Ralph Gurley, Secretary of the American Colonization Society (Folders 12-13)

Financial and legal materials contain an inventory of McDowell’s slaves as well as an emancipation contract (c. 1831) between McDowell and his slave, Lewis James, requiring that Lewis both purchase his freedom and apply for emigration to Liberia (Folder 65).

McDowell’s writings contain several speeches and articles on slavery in the territories, colonization of Africa by slaves; the “Great Slavery Debate” in the Virginia General Assembly, 1831-1832; and miscellaneous notes on slavery (Folders 67-75).