Bullock family papers, 1784-1940s and undated

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Summary

Creator:
Bullock family
Abstract:
Papers of several generations of a family of southern Virginia and central North Carolina, including Williamsboro, Granville County (now Vance), and southern Virginia. Fourteen photographs added at a later date represent bi-racial descendants of this family who lived in Nutbush and Manson, NC. The bulk is comprised of correspondence, 1820-1920, between John and William H. Bullock, a second John Bullock and his wife, Susan M. (Cobb) Bullock, their sons and daughters, and other children and grandchildren. Topics include family relationships and genealogy; illnesses and deaths; farming; enslaved persons and tenants (including lists with names of enslaved persons); campus life at the University of North Carolina, 1850s; plantation management; market prices, 1850s-1860s; secessionist and Union sentiments in Granville County; religious life; the Spanish-American War; and the Civil War in North Carolina and Virginia, with details on camp life, troop movements, and the Battle of Kinston and the siege of Petersburg. Volumes include two ledgers, a travel diary, 1848, from a business trip to Tennessee, and Susan Bullock's diary, 1869-1871. Included are legal and financial papers dating from 1784-1876.
Extent:
1.5 Linear Feet (3 boxes)
Language:
English.
Collection ID:
RL.00173

Background

Scope and content:

Collection houses the papers of several generations of a family of southern Virginia and central North Carolina, including Williamsboro, Granville County (now Vance), and southern Virginia. Fourteen photographs added at a later date represent bi-racial descendants of this family who lived in Nutbush and Manson, NC.

The bulk of the collection is comprised of correspondence, 1820-1920, between John and William H. Bullock, a second John Bullock and his wife, Susan M. (Cobb) Bullock, their sons and daughters, and other children and grandchildren. Topics include family relationships and genealogy; illnesses and deaths; farming; enslaved persons and tenants (including some lists of enslaved persons); campus life at the University of North Carolina, 1850s; plantation management; market prices, 1850s-1860s; secessionist and Union sentiments in Granville County; and religious life. Of interest are 46 letters relating to the Civil War in North Carolina and Virginia, with details on camp life, troop movements, and the Battle of Kinston in 1862 and the siege of Petersburg in late 1864. A few letters are send from Johnson Island, Ohio, and a few give some details on the final months of the war in North Carolina.

Volumes include two ledgers, a travel diary, 1848, from a business trip to Tennessee, and Susan Bullock's diary, 1869-1871. Also included are legal and financial papers dating from 1784-1876, and assorted other papers, including a list of about 40 names of enslaved persons from 1857, and medical receipts and accounts.

Biographical / historical:

There are two families represented in the papers: a white family of farm and plantation owners, and a bi-racial family whose members were enslaved by the Bullock family. The chief locations of both families were Williamsborough or -boro (Granville County, now part of Vance County), North Carolina, and the nearby towns of Nutbush, Henderson, Manson, and Bullocksville. Other locations where family members lived and moved to include Warrenton, Tarboro and Rocky Mount, NC; Clarksville and Soudan, Virginia; and Tennessee, and Mississippi, where the Bullocks owned land.

The majority of the papers were assembled by John Bullock (1799-1866) and Susan (Cobb) Bullock (1803-1875), who raised a large family of children in Williamsborough, NC. Their sons and daughters, and their spouses, are also well-represented in the correpondence to and from their parents, and there are many letters from their own children.

The influence of a large network of inter-related families from the same county and the same region is reflected in the correspondence and other papers: these names include Boyd, Eaton, Farrar, Goode, Hamilton, Tarry, and Taylor. Other names appearing are Harrison, Pearson, Martin, Morton, Paschall, Satterwhite, and Yancey.

Acquisition information:
The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book Manuscript Library purchased the John Bullock papers in 1942; a gift addition was received in 1998, and the name changed to the Bullock family papers.
Processing information:

Processed by Don Sechler, April 1999; encoded by Lisa Stark.

Reprocessed and description expanded by Paula Jeannet, December 2017

Arrangement:

Materials are arranged in the following series: Correspondence, Diaries, Financial Papers, Legal Papers, Other Papers, and Photographic Materials.

Physical facet:
Approximately 1200 items
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Contents

Using These Materials

Using These Materials Links:

Using These Materials

Restrictions:

Collection is open for research. The negatives are closed to general use; photographic prints are available.

Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection.

All or portions of this collection may be housed off-site in Duke University's Library Service Center. The library may require up to 48 hours to retrieve these materials for research use.

Please contact Research Services staff before visiting the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library to use this collection.

Terms of access:

The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to Duke University. For more information, consult the copyright section of the Regulations and Procedures of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

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Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Bullock family papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Permalink:
https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/m1dp4d