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Newspaper editor and author. Collection houses personal and political correspondence, financial and business papers, speeches, editorials, notes, printed materials, account books, a diary, photographs, and scrapbooks, documenting William Watts Ball's activities as editor of several South Carolina newspapers, including The State and the News and Courier, both of Columbia. Topics referred to include American and South Carolina politics in the 20th century; the South Carolina textile industry; African Americans in the South; the Great Depression and the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration; newspapers and the newspaper business; education in South Carolina; conditions and problems stemming from both World Wars; prohibition; states' rights; South Carolina social life and customs; Roman Catholicism in South Carolina; international issues; and business and family matters. Correspondents include J. J. McSwain, D. C. Heyward, John Gary Evans, John Hays Hammond, M. F. Ansel, David D. Wallace, James C. Hemphill, Ambrose E. Gonzales, Thomas R. Waring, Nathaniel B. Dial, James F. Byrnes, Ulrich B. Phillips, Josephus Daniels, Bernard M. Baruch, Warrington Dawson, Ellison D. Smith, Max Fleischman, Nicholas Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie, Frederick H. Allen, and Archibald Rutledge.

The Turner family was based in Van Buren, Crawford County, Arkansas. Correspondence, papers, diaries, and scrapbooks of Jesse Turner, Sr. (1805-1894), lawyer, jurist, and Whig politician of Van Buren, Ark.; his wife, Rebecca (Allen) Turner (1823-1917); their son, Jesse Turner, Jr. (1856-1919); and other members of the Turner and Allen families, relating to law practice, family history and personal matters, political activities in Arkansas and the U.S. (1840-1900), secession in Arkansas, the Arkansas Constitution of 1836, social life and customs in Arkansas, life during Reconstruction, and U.S. presidential elections of 1848 and 1860. Correspondents include prominent Arkansas attorneys Albert Pike and Absalom Fowler. There are also a number of letters between Rebecca Allen and Jesse Turner before their marriage, and letters from Rebecca to her son Jesse Jr., as well as diaries written by his mother (1857-1859) chronicling his early childhood.

Quaker farmer, fruit-grower, and broom-maker from Frederick County, Virginia. The Mordecai Purcell papers span the years 1778-1901 and contain correspondence, bills, receipts, business and legal papers, and a ledger relating to Quaker farmer Mordecai Purcell, his brother, John Purcell, and the Cather family (John Purcell married Adaline J. Cather), living in Virginia.

Holograph document. Statement of payment due from Major Joshua Huntington for medical services for the years 1776-1778.

The brothers John Wesley (1703-1791) and Charles Wesley (1707-1788) were Church of England clergymen and two of the founders of Methodism; Sarah Wesley (1726-1822) and Sarah Wesley (1759-1828) were the wife and daughter of Charles Wesley. The Wesley family papers span the years 1726-1889 and mainly comprise the correspondence of John and Charles Wesley, with single items from the wife and daughter of Charles, both named Sarah; there is also an inventory of John Wesley's library taken at the time of his death, 1791, and a photograph album, 1889, of English sites related to the Wesleys and the history of Methodism. Correspondence discusses John Wesley's life as a student at Lincoln College, the administration of Kingswood School, the brothers' mission to Georgia in the 1730s, and Methodism's eventual separation from the Church of England. Correspondents and people mentioned in the letters include the Countess of Huntingdon, George Whitefield, James Oglethorpe, Joseph Benson, and Samuel Bradburn.

Robert Carter III (1728-1804) was a plantation owner, enslaver, and iron manufacturer at Nomini Hall plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia. The collection contains correspondence, letter books, day books, and other papers that document colonial Virginia including: the Revolutionary War; plantation and family life; 18th century slavery and emancipation; the iron and textile industries; Methodist, Presbyterian, Quaker, Swedenborgian, and Baptist religious beliefs and practices, and their relevance to slavery and race; tobacco cultivation in Virginia; and life in Baltimore, Maryland after the Revolutionary War. Documents related to Carter's unusual act in 1791 to gradually manumit hundreds of enslaved persons are also in this collection. The letter books house over 3,000 pieces of correspondence written by Carter to well-known individuals of the time, such as Charles Carroll, Benjamin Day, William Ebzer, Thomas Fairfax, William Grayson, Patrick Henry, Ludwell Lee, Richard Lee, Peyton Randolph, George Turberville, John Turberville, and George Wythe, and letters to Carter written by Alexander Campbell, Christopher Collins, Thomas Jones, Richard Lee, George Newman, John Overall, and Simon Triplett. In his letters, Carter refers many times to the education and welfare of his many children and writes to them while they are away from home. Transcripts are available for the majority of the materials.

ALS. Introduces the grandson of Richard Mead and son of Frank Nicholls. Briefly refers to Charles Blagden.

Autograph and holograph documents, signed, for receipt of funds from Jonathan Trumbull for the running of the General Hospital in the Northern District. Both documents also bear receipts on the reverse side.

ALS. Gives an account of the death of General Mercer in the Battle of Princeton and of his burial in Philadelphia to Mrs. Gordon, a relative of the General.