Creator: Glenn, L. C. (Leonidas Chalmers), b. 1871.
Collection number: 3052
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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).