Collections : [David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

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David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

The holdings of the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library range from ancient papyri to records of modern advertising. There are over 10,000 manuscript collections containing more than 20 million individual manuscript items. Only a portion of these collections and items are discoverable on this site. Others may be found in the library catalog.

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Folder

A majority of the documents in the Legal series pertain to property transactions of Benjamin Newton Duke and other individuals in Orange County, NC and Durham, NC. Property deeds dating from 1838 show changes in ownership of land that Duke eventually purchased. Other papers include architectural contracts, plans and specifications, trust indentures, a legal brief, copies of the wills of Benjamin N. Duke and Washington Duke, and materials related to the execution of the estates of Angier B. Duke and Benjamin N. Duke.

File
Box 1

Assorted manuscript documents from the Massie family, arranged chronologically. Items include correspondence from acquaintances and business contacts regarding crops and prices for tobacco, corn, wheat, rye, hemp, and other agriculture; planning and maps for planting fields, raising pigs, or other farming activities; letters between Thomas and William Massie negotiating estates, land, and boundaries following the death of their father and mother; letters from Thomas James Massie to his father William Massie while away at school, including one about a missing umbrella; a deposition signed by Thomas Massie in 1833 about his 1775 Continental Army service; a fragment of a 1838 land assessment for Nelson County, including mention of Pharsalia. Several pieces of local correspondence indicate they were carried by enslaved people, including Robin, Ned, and Roger, with a slave pass note of their name near the letter's addressee. The folder includes a note from 1831 January 11 from E. Pendleton asking Massie to send an update on Bob, an enslaved person who had been sent to work on Massie's plantation. Includes an affidavit of sale for "a young Negro Woman named Judy, and her Female Child Esther," sold by Thomas Massie to William Massie for three hundred dollars on 1831 April 18. Includes a manuscript copy of an affidavit, dated 1832 May 4, for William Massie from Landon R. Cabell for the sale of "a man slave named Jack, of which slave is now in the possession of said Massie as a hireling" for four hundred fifty dollars. Includes an affidavit for the sale of "three Negroes, vis. Patty, Lizzy, and Dorcus, for the sum of seven hundred dollars" from Reubin G. Coffey to William Massie, 1834 August 29. Includes a note from John Junkins that "Mr. John Hill will deliver my negro woman Betty to William Massie, I having this day sold her to the said Massie" (1835 December 12). In one letter, 1834 October 1, from Thomas Massie advises William on a remedy for an unnamed enslaved boy's eye. Includes an 1837 copy of a note by William Massie agreeing to pay Thomas J. Baird seventy five dollars for the "hire of his Negro man named Henry for one year." Includes a November 1836 receipt by Charles A. Jacobs "the following slaves, which were bequeathed to me" by the estate of David Jacobs: "Jim Clarkson a mulatto man, Phil a boy, Edmunton boy, and Lewis a young man." Includes a letter dated 1836 Dec. 10 from Henry Massie in Louisville, Kentucky, to his uncle William, updating him on the as-yet unsuccessful search for Gil, an escaped enslaved person. Includes a letter dated 1837 March 30 from Thomas Baird to Massie discussing a property dispute between Baird and Mr. Acker over "my boy Henry," whereby Baird agrees to "accept your offer of six hundred and fifty dollars for Henry." Includes a 1837 October 10 bill of sale for "two negro men Milford and Jack" for 1100 dollars, sold by Henry Rose to William Massie and subsequently hired to M. Cabell for labor on the James River Canal. Includes a bill of sale for "a negro girl named Mary Ann," sold by Henry Rose to William Massie on 1837 October 21. Includes a 1827 bill of sale for "a negro girl named Matilda," attached to a 1837 October 27 note by William Massie as evidence of his ownership of Matilda in a dispute between him and John Stevens. Includes a 1837 October 23 bill of sale for "a negro woman Betsy" for six hundred dollars, sold by Henry Rose to William Massie. Includes several bills of sale for enslaved men and women; some are accompanied by correspondence indicating different disputes between the Massies and others about the legal or ownership status of some enslaved people. Includes a 1838 August 27 receipt from Peter Coffey for payment of four hundred twenty dollars by William Massie "in full consideration of a Negro Boy named Joshua." Includes a note from William Massie to Frances Barnett regarding "the hire of Negro man Martin" for the year 1839.

File
Box 3

Bound volume, 173 pages, approximately 20x32cm, consisting of chronological entries by William Massie recording the various agricultural activities of the Pharsalia, Tyro, and Level Green plantation lands, with additional notes regarding weather or other events. Entries tend to be brief, for example: "Finished cutting the wheat" (1828 June 26). Some entries indicate which area of the plantation was being farmed, such as Newground, Old Ground, or various fields. Crops include wheat, oats, tobacco, apples, barley, clover, hemp, sweet potatoes; others entries record the killing of hogs, shearing sheep, and birth of foals. This book does not seem to include entries with names or groups of enslaved people, although their labor is indirectly implied. Later in the book, Massie began arranging entries by "Crop Memorandum," "Weather Memorandum," and "Orchard Memorandum."

File
Box AF35

Contents Include: Pan-Africanism, Germany, Edwardian Nationalism, Antiqua, St. Kitts, Colonization Movement, African Nationalism, Gold Coast, William Randolph Hearst, and Garveyism; newspaper articles on the war of the races, race war, and racial war; transcriptions; and keyword searches. Materials may overlap with Research (RE).

Folder

The Caribbean series (Vols. XI-XIII) covers Marcus Garvey in Jamaica from 1910, before the founding of the UNIA, to the peak of the organization in 1922. In this series are facsimiles and transcriptions of primary sources from the British West Indian territories, Haiti, Brazil, U.S. Virgin Islands, Panama Canal Zone, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the Central American republics of Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Panama.

Folder

The microfilm series of the Robert A. Hill Collection primarily consists of facsimiles of newspapers, periodicals, Federal Bureau of Investigation documents, church records, and the personal papers of black nationalists and various officials, that Hill acquired from repositories in the U.S. and abroad such as the National Archives and Jamaica Archives. The Crusader, Negro World, and The Blackman are a few of the more prominent publications found in this series. Hill used this microfilm to obtain copies of original documents later featured in many of Hill's publications, particularly The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers as well as The FBI's Racon.

Collection

Admittance cards, 1811-1880 0.2 Linear Feet — 98 cards; 1 box

.Admittance, matriculation, and "Order of Lecture" cards are from a number of medical students from 1811-1880 in the University of Pennsylvania, Jefferson Medical College, Long Island College Hospital (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Harvard University Medical School, Philadelphia School of Anatomy, New Hampshire Medical Institution, Berkshire Medical Institution, and St. Bartholomew's Hospital (London, England). They contain the autographs of the most eminent professors of the day: i.e., Samuel Gross, Franklin Bache, Benjamin Rush, Austin Flint, Samuel Jackson, S. Weir Mitchell, J. K. Mitchell, Charles D. and James A Meigs, John Barclay Biddle, et al. The St. Bartholomew's Hospital card is signed by Ludford Harvey, John P. Vicent, and John Abernethy, the latter (1764-1831) being an eminent English surgeon and founder of the Medical School of St Bartholomew's. The "Order of Lecture" cards from Jefferson Medical College and the University of Pennsylvania list curricula, faculty and their residences, schedules of lectures and texts.Admittance cards, 1850-1853, are for courses at the Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia. They include two matriculation cards for William D. Watson of Chatham County, N. C., dated Nov., 1850, and Oct., 1852, and an examination card Oct., 1852-1853, which is signed by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell as professor of Anatomy, Surgery and Physiology. Dr. Watson returned to Chatham County after his graduation. His house was destroyed during the Civil War. The portion of his medical library saved and stored in a neighboring attic eventually was placed in the historical Collection of the library of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.

.Admittance, matriculation, and "Order of Lecture" cards are from a number of medical students from 1811-1880 in the University of Pennsylvania, Jefferson Medical College, Long Island College Hospital (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Harvard University Medical School, Philadelphia School of Anatomy, New Hampshire Medical Institution, Berkshire Medical Institution, and St. Bartholomew's Hospital (London, England). They contain the autographs of the most eminent professors of the day: i.e., Samuel Gross, Franklin Bache, Benjamin Rush, Austin Flint, Samuel Jackson, S. Weir Mitchell, J. K. Mitchell, Charles D. and James A Meigs, John Barclay Biddle, et al. The St. Bartholomew's Hospital card is signed by Ludford Harvey, John P. Vicent, and John Abernethy, the latter (1764-1831) being an eminent English surgeon and founder of the Medical School of St Bartholomew's. The "Order of Lecture" cards from Jefferson Medical College and the University of Pennsylvania list curricula, faculty and their residences, schedules of lectures and texts.

Admittance cards, 1850-1853, are for courses at the Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia. They include two matriculation cards for William D. Watson of Chatham County, N. C., dated Nov., 1850, and Oct., 1852, and an examination card Oct., 1852-1853, which is signed by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell as professor of Anatomy, Surgery and Physiology. Dr. Watson returned to Chatham County after his graduation. His house was destroyed during the Civil War. The portion of his medical library saved and stored in a neighboring attic eventually was placed in the historical Collection of the library of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.

Folder
Online

James Sprunt had very extensive correspondence files, of which only a small portion has survived. A year's letters were subdivided alphabetically and included both the incoming originals and the outgoing copies. The years represented by a sizeable body of papers are 1904, 1906, 1909-1910, and 1919-1921, but they are probably quite incomplete. All of the papers have been arranged chronologically. The series also contains "other papers," which cannot be identified with their original files. Most of the material came from James Sprunt's files.

The series represents a variety of Sprunt's personal and professional interests. Business operations, the cotton market, and domestic and foreign economic conditions are constant concerns. There was frequent communication between Sprunt and his relatives and business associates in Liverpool. His work as vice consul for Great Britain and Germany appears occasionally. Prominent among his activities and charities is the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., the southern body of the Presbyterians. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church and assisted other congregations in Wilmington and Chapel Hill, where he financed the remodeling of the church as designed by architect Hobart Upjohn. He made substantial contributions to the mission in Kiangyin, China. The interdenominational Laymen's Missionary Movement and its general secretary, John Campbell White, are also prominent in the papers, along with the southern Presbyterian part of of that organization. Sprunt was a principle mover in the arrangements for a statue of George Davis, Confederate attorney general and native son of Wilmington, and there is much correspondence about it, including that with Francis Herman Packer, the sculptor. Sprunt was a trustee of the University of North Carolina and a benefactor of Davidson College, and there are communications between him and the schools' students and officials. Other educational institutions represented include Columbia Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary, the antecedents of North Carolina Central University, and other colleges and academies in the South, including several historically black colleges. River and harbor improvements at Wilmington are noted. Scattered political correspondence includes references to state elections, the N.C. Supreme Ct., and the U.S. District Court for Eastern N.C., and the Wilmington riots of 1898. There are several letters about the N.C. Literary and Historical Association and the N.C. Folklore Society, and about other episodes of state history, such as blockade running during the Civil War, President Taft's visit to Wilmington in 1909, Governor Benjamin Smith, and the monument for the Revolutionary battle at Moore's Creek. Correspondence with and about Woodrow Wilson mainly concerned a Carnegie pension for Henry Elliot Shepherd, an educator, but there are a few minor items of a political nature. Sprunt communicated with Senators Lee Slater Overman and Furnifold Simmons about various matters.

Several close relatives of James Sprunt had distinguished careers and are also represented by letters and references: his brother Alexander Sprunt (1852-1937), a Presbyterian clergyman at Charleston, S.C.; Kenneth Mackenzie Murchison, an architect in New York who was a brother-in-law; Edward Jenner Wood, a nephew and physician who was a pioneer in the campaign against pellagra; and Joseph Austin Holmes, another brother-in-law who was a geologist, chief of the technological branch of the U.S. Geological Survey in charge of the investigation of mine accidents, 1904-1907, and the first director of the Bureau of Mines established in 1910.

File
Box 1

The majority of the incoming letters were written by Campbell's friends made through the Oneida Institute. Topics include stargazing; faith issues; crops and harvests; slavery and abolition; temperance; politics, including activities of Whigs and Democrats; possibilities regarding settling in Vineland, New Jersey; and a few letters regarding women's suffrage activities. Includes letters from William G. Allen, Henry B. Blackwell, J. B. Grinnell, Laura C. Holloway, Francis Lawson, Thomas McClintock, Wendell Phillips, Ira Porter, and Parker Pillsbury. There is one letter (1904) that dates past Campbell's death; it is not addressed directly to Campbell.