The collection is primarily composed of correspondence during F.H. Wood's time as chaplain in the confederate army, as well as sermon outlines and notes encompassing his long itinerant preaching career. The correspondence is a varied mix of originals, facsimile copies, and transcriptions. Some of the facsimiles and transcriptions do not have the original present in the collection. Correspondents include his wife and children. Topics of the sermons are widely varied, but follow a standardized pattern of 1-2 readings, hymn book numbers, and 3 point sermons on a topic related to the readings.
The collection also includes secondary source material assembled posthumously by Franklin Wood's family. This includes a memoir, photographs, and an excerpt from a published work.
Rev. Franklin Harris Wood was born in Randolph County, August 19th, 1836, and died at Trinity, October 2nd, 1913. His parents were Peneul and Callista Wood. He was brought up on a farm and in the church, and studied agriculture and the bible, educated by his parents until he went to the county high school. He married Elizabeth Pearce on October 23rd, 1858, and they remained married until his death in 1913.
He was admitted on trial into the North Carolina Methodist Conference at Beaufort, December 14th, 1859. He was ordained deacon at Louisburg, December 8th, 1861, and ordained elder at Greensboro on December 6th, 1863. He was an itinerant minister without break until 1901 when he retired due to deteriorating health. As part of that ministry, he served with the Confederate Army as a chaplain, attached to the North Carolina 22nd Regiment.
The collection is arranged into four series: Secondary Source Materials, Correspondence, Sermon Notes and Outlines, and a final catch-all series for other materials.
All correspondence and Secondary Source materials came to the archive in a three ring binder donated by the Wood family. Copies were made of facsimiles, and original materials were placed into archival folders. Original arrangement of the correspondence is presumed to have been lost. The correspondence has been organized by date. A large majority of the sermon outlines and notes were donated to the archive in a saddle bag with portfolio divisions. Sermon notes and outlines in the third series have been preserved in original order as found in the saddlebag portfolio pockets, and all sermon materials found in the binder were placed at the end of the series, as indicated by the folder titles.
