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: Digby Gordon Seymour (1855-1927) was a railroad engineer who lived and worked in the southeastern United States. He was the father of Knoxville, Tenn., lawyer and businessman Charles Milne Seymour (1882-1958), who was the father of Tennessee medical doctor and historian Digby Gordon Seymour (1923- ). The collection chiefly includes letters, 1893-1902, written by Digby Gordon Seymour at his work locations in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee to his oldest son, Charles Milne Seymour. Also included are telegrams from Digby Seymour and a letter from him to another son, James. These communications contain fatherly advice, especially comments on and encouragement of Charles Seymour’s studies. Digby Seymour wrote of borrowing money to pay for Charles Seymour’s attendance at Sewanee Military Academy in Tennessee and at the University of Tennessee and for his family’s monthly expenses; expenditures for rent, food, clothing, shoes, and travel; and a lawsuit with R. M. Quigley & Co., a Saint Louis contractor for which he had previously worked. In later letters, he discussed his political opinions, especially his support for Republican politicians. Items of note include a 22 March 1900 letter that provides directions for staging an eleven-act minstrel show.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

 Collection Highlights: Folder 4 contains a a 22 March 1900 letter that provides directions for staging an eleven-act minstrel show, which also discusses actors performing in blackface.

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 digitized content.

Abstract: The Atlantic Coast Line was based in Wilmington, N.C., and possessed rail that ran through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida. The Atlantic Coast Line later formed part of the CSX Transportation System. The collection contains records, 1900s-1950s, of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. Files are divided between President’s Files, which document railroad operations and relations with other companies, and Tax Files, which contain records of federal, state, and local taxes paid by the Atlantic Coast Line. There are also a set of financial journals and a series of files related to the reorganization of the Florida East Coast Railway Company. Addition of 2011 consists of records, 1918-1963, of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company Police Department. Reports document often extensive investigations into crimes such as trespassing and vandalism, especially by juveniles; petty larceny of railroad and personal property; vagrancy and train hopping; public drunkenness; and assault. Reports typically mention age, race, and sex of the suspects, many of whom were African American, and often personal or family information. There are also lost luggage claims, reports of injuries sustained in the rail yard, and personnel records that document relief checks, retirement traditions, job applications, and funerals.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The addition of October 2011 contains records of the Atlantic Coastline Railroad Company Police Department, and includes investigative reports and arrest records for juveniles as well as adults. Many of the records involve African American men and women, suspected of crimes as well as victims.

Abstract: Theodore Rosengarten (1944- ) graduated from Amherst College in 1966 and received his Ph.D. in American civilization from Harvard University in 1975. In 1969, in the course of his research on the Alabama Sharecroppers Union in Tallapoosa County, Ala., he met African American farmer Ned Cobb (1885-1973), a former member of the Union. Rosengarten recorded a series of oral histories with Cobb and his family. These interviews were edited and re-ordered by Rosengarten for his book All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (1974). The collection consists of 47 audiocassette tapes, most of which contain interviews conducted by Theodore Rosengarten with Ned Cobb and other members of the Cobb family. The interviews describe Cobb’s life as a sharecropper, then independent farmer, in east-central Alabama, his involvement with the Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff’s deputies intent on seizing a neighbor’s livestock, and his life after leaving prison. Included are 18 tapes of interviews with Ned Cobb, 20 tapes of interviews with his family, and five tapes of interviews with unidentified persons. There is also a small number of tapes containing music and other recordings.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection consists of 47 audiocassette tapes most of which contain interviews conducted by Theodore Rosengarten with African American sharecropper Ned Cobb and other members of his family. These interviews were used as the basis of Rosengarten’s book All God’s Dangers, which describes Cobb’s life as a sharecropper in east-central Alabama, his involvement with Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff’s deputies intent on seizing a neighbor’s livestock, and his life after leaving prison.

Abstract: John Poynter Streety was born in Bladen County, N.C., in 1820. He arrived in the town of Haynesville, Ala., circa 1839, where he became a prosperous businessman. Streety’s plantation was located in Lowndes County, where he was primarily active in cotton farming, raising livestock, and other agricultural activities. He was also involved in a co-partnership with a firm named J.P. Streety and Company, which participated in several types of businesses, including mercantile and advancing credit, ginning and milling, and acquisition of land. Streety died in Haynesville, Ala., in 1894. The bulk of the collection is manuscript volumes, mostly written by John Poynter Streety, 1874-1894. The volumes contain entries describing life on his plantation and in the town of Haynesville, Ala., as well as a few accounts of national occurrences. Many entries describe Streety’s farming and mercantile endeavors, the weather and its impact on crops, family and town life, the performance of workers, and local politics, while others describe race relations in the post-Civil War American South and include Streety’s personal views, accounts of lynch mobs, and other information. Some entries discuss yellow fever, social and economic conditions, and the national political environment. Also included are research materials, late 1960s-early 1970s, relating to Streety and belonging to Roland Mushat Frye, a Streety descendant and professor of English literature at the University of Pennsylvania; a 2001 Streety family newsletter; and other items.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: There are several references to race relations and African Americans in Streety’s writings. From Volume 2 in Folder 4, The entry written 12 June 1875 concerns the Radical Republican Party meeting attended by “a crowd of Freedmen,” and describes it as “noisy and turbulent.

Volume 3 in Folder 6 includes entries regarding race relations, such as one written 14 November 1875 that contains the description of a court case against an African American for assaulting a white man, which John Poynter Streety noted as having been arranged to include a majority of African Americans on the jury. In entries written 23 October and 25 December 1875, Streety reflected on his views regarding the presence of African Americans at his store and his concern for the safety of the store’s goods. In another entry from 1 January 1876, he mentioned Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

In Volume 4 in Folder 8 for an entry dated 26 August 1876, Streety discussed the overall dissatisfaction of the African American population regarding the overwhelming Democratic Party victory in the state elections.

In an entry written on 9 May 1878, Streety discussed the time African Americans spent in court and their convictions for what he considered minor infractions (Volume 5, Folder 10)

Volumes 7 and 8 in Folders 14 and 16 contain numerous references to Streety’s views on race relations, and incidents involving newly freed African Americans

Volume 9a in Folder 18  contains entries concerning race relations, such as an account of a lynching written on 30 March 1888. In the account, Streety described an African American man being abducted from jail, where he was awaiting trial for allegedly killing a white man by a mob of masked men who hung him from a tree by the town’s public square. A few days later, on 7 May 1888, Streety commented on the consequences of the lynching, wherein numerous African Americans were arrested for organizing with the intention of avenging the action and state troops were called upon to handle the situation. In a 20 August 1889 entry, Streety reflected upon possible race troubles brought about by comments published in a newspaper edited by an African American man, in which an article characterized “the White race in most uncalled for and scandelous manner.”

There are accounts of local and national economic matters, such as the entry on 1 March 1892 noting the sharp decrease in the price of cotton and the dire situations encountered by farmers, especially African Americans. Another entry regarding race relations was written on 14 October 1893, describing a young African American girl being whipped by a white man for “rudely walking against his daughter.” The same white man had the parents of two smaller girsl whipped for the same reason. The entry goes on to describe the white man responsible for the whippings receiving a letter saying that future acts of this sort would result in the town being burnt down (Volume 10, Folder 21)

Abstract: Caroline Elizabeth Burgwin Clitherall was a plantation owner’s wife and school teacher who lived in Belleville and Walterboro, S.C., at Thornbury Plantation in North Carolina, and in Greensboro, Tuscaloosa, and Mobile, Ala. Her husband George Campbell Clitherall (d. 1829) was a planter and physician. Her children Eliza Inglis Clitherall Moore (1802 1886), Harriet A. Clitherall Spotts (1808 1834), George Bush Burgwin Clitherall (1814 1889), Frances King Clitherall Battle (1817 1849), Madeleine Clitherall Battle (b. 1818), and Alexander Baron Clitherall (1820 1869). She was the daughter of John Burgwin (fl. 1751 1800) and Eliza Bush Burgwin (d. 1787) of the Hermitage near Wilmington, N.C. Diaries containing narratives on family history and daily diary entries of Caroline Elizabeth Burgwin Clitherall, in which she wrote about events in her life and the lives of her friends and family. In the first eight volumes, she described her father’s arrival in America from Wales in 1751, his marriage to her mother, a Quaker from Bristol, England; her own childhood with her Quaker relatives in England, including her attendance at Belmont House school; and her eventual return to the United States. The next nine volumes cover her marriage to George Campbell Clitherall; their children; orphans and abused children they adopted; plantation life in North and South Carolina; their summer home in Walterboro, S.C.; relations with slaves; and financial difficulties. To earn money, Caroline began to teach school and George became a physician attached to an army garrison near Smithville, N.C. There are frequent references to North Carolina governor Gen. Benjamin Smith and his wife, who were her neighbors. The later volumes contain daily entries written when Caroline lived in Mobile and Montgomery, Ala., to be with her children. Among other topics, she wrote about the devastation wrought by the yellow fever epidemics in Alabama.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Entries detail the reception of Clitherall’s mother by family slaves in North Carolina (1784); the loss of slaves because of financial problems (1813); and Clitherall’s attempts to instill religious beliefs in her slave Eliza (1853). Microfilm available.

Abstract: Alabama and Washington, D.C., lawyer, author, Democratic U. S. representative, 1877-1893, and secretary of the Navy, 1893-1897. Correspondence, writings, speeches, and scrapbooks of Hilary A. Herbert. Correspondence, 1892-1919, is with friends, including many national politicians, concerning politics, foreign affairs, and, from 1904, Reconstruction and the race question. Also included are Herbert’s speeches; a “History of the 9th Alabama Regiment, C.S.A.,” written in 1864; European travel notes, 1887; historical, patriotic, and general articles; diary, 1910-1917; scrapbooks of his career; notes on his book, The Abolition Crusade and its Consequences; and reminiscences written 1903 and 1917 covering his early life in Laurens, S.C., and Greenville, Ala., his education at the University of Alabama and the University of Virginia, his Confederate service, and his political career, and containing his reflections on slavery, abolition, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the race question. Also included are scattered papers of his daughter, Ella (Mrs. Benjamin) Micou of Washington, D.C.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: After 1903 much of the correspondence focuses on race relations in the South. Included are letters which discuss Herbert’s efforts to bring Theodore Roosevelt and the South to an accord on southern race relations, to promote inter-sectional understanding, and to explain the South’s “Negro problem” (1904-1909). Other letters address national government’s domestic race policies (1904); Reconstruction and southern racial issues (1904-1905). See Folders 5-7.

There is also a 12 August 1909 letter from Booker T. Washington, thanking Herbert for his decision in a legal case involving the employment of African American by the Georgia Railroad (Folder 7).

The collection also contains Herbert’s “Reminiscences”, which express his thoughts on slavery and abolitionists (1903, 1917), and popular reactions to his book, The Abolition Crusade and its Consequences (See Folders 27-28).

Abstract: Fragments of the diary of Francis Hanson, minister at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Prairieville, Ala., at Demopolis, and at other places in Alabama. Daily entries focus on ministerial services for both blacks and whites. The volume also includes a short history of John H. Linebaugh and tells of Civil War efforts by civilians.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The diary records Hanson’s religious activities at Demopolis and other places in Alabama during this period. Entries record church services, baptisms, funerals, and marriages of both blacks and whites.

Abstract: Papers include instructions, 1857, to an overseer in Alabama concerning the management of slaves and a fragment of minutes of the first meeting of the Tombigbee Rangers, C.S.A., of which William Henry Sims of Mississippi was 1st sergeant. The diary was kept by William Henry Sims during his imprisonment in a Union Army hospital and military prisons in Tennessee and Kentucky. There are almost daily entries concerning prison conditions, groups interned there, soldier attitudes at the war’s end, arrangements for taking loyalty oaths, and so forth. In addition to the diary, there are a few poems, addresses, and miscellaneous notes.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Includes instructions to a plantation overseer in Alabama concerning the management of slaves (1857). Microfilm only.

Abstract: Planter of Pelika and Lafayette, Ala.. Also represented are his brother, Alexander A. Allen (fl. 1832-1870), planter and lawyer of Bainbridge and Lexington, Ga.; Alexander’s son, Alexander A. Allen (d. 1918), reporter and editor of Macon and Atlanta, Ga.; Willia M. (b. 1853) and Ruth Linton Allen (fl. 1891-1914), Alabama educators and travelers; and other Allen family members and their Wheat and Linton relations. Chiefly correspondence between George Washington Allen and his brother, Alexander A. Allen, about planting (chiefly cotton); plantation life, including buying and selling slaves; family affairs; and the practice of law. Civil War letters deal with preparations for war and, later, with descriptions of destruction left in the wake of battles. Postwar letters discuss Reconstruction in various states. Letters, 1870s-1880s, relate to the journalism career of Alexander A. Allen’s son, Alexander, Jr. Among his correspondents is Georgia governor Hoke Smith (1855-1931). Also included are letters, chiefly in the 1890s through 1918, from various family members traveling in Europe, particularly William and Ruth Linton Allen, whose teaching careers in various Alabama girls’ schools are also documented. Many letters from the 1910s through 1932 deal with Linton family history. Also included are school essays; scrapbooks relating to the teaching careers of Allen family members, 1880s-1920s; 1828 and 1831 mathematics books; and scrapbooks from European travel in the 1890s.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Topics include the management of slaves (1832-1865); the murder of an Alexander relative in Alabama by a slave (1849); and former slaves renting houses in Tuskegee in order to qualify for the vote (1868). Microfilm available.