Search

Confederate soldier, member of the 55th North Carolina Infantry Regiment, Co. K; and farmer, from Granville County, N.C. The papers of James King Wilkerson and his family date from 1820 to 1929, and consist of Civil War correspondence, a number of almanacs used as diaries, copybooks, and a few other miscellaneous papers, including a genealogical sketch. There is correspondence by Lillie Wilkerson and Luther Wilkerson, James' children, discussing social life and customs, illnesses and hospitals, employment, and personal matters; and several letters from a soldier in France during World War I. There are also two early issues of the Berea, N.C. Gazette, one from 1876, with comments on the Hayes-Tilden election, and one from shortly thereafter. The Civil War letters, written by James Wilkerson to his family, contain references to the C.S.S. Virginia, detailed descriptions of marches, comments on crop conditions as he moved from place to place, his Civil War service around Petersburg, Virginia, late in the war, and his stay in the General Hospital at Greensboro, N.C. in 1865.

U.S. naval officer and explorer, of Washington, D.C. Family correspondence, chiefly relating to naval cruises of Wilkes and his son, John Wilkes; the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842, to Antarctica, the Pacific Islands, and the Northwest Coast of the U.S., including preliminary planning, the voyage itself with detailed descriptions of places visited, and publishing the results; gold mining and milling in North Carolina; the Civil War; and Wilkes family business ventures in North Carolina; together with legal and financial papers, writings, printed material, clippings, and other papers. Includes correspondence, 1848-1849, with James Renwick (1792-1863) and others.

Solomon, Ambrose, and Socrates Henkel were prominent Lutherant churchmen active in Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Correspondence (1812-1894), account books, and notes for sermons, articles and lectures, belonging to the Henkel family. The primary authors are Solomon and Ambrose Henkel, and their nephew, Socrates Henkel, prominent Lutheran churchmen. Includes information on the Lutheran Church in Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, and on the publishing house Henkel Press, Inc., at New Market, Virginia. Some of the material is in German. The correspondence touches on many subjects, chiefly church matters, but there is a small group of Civil War letters from Henkel family members recounting battles (Fort Sumter; Mine Run, Va.), Union occupation, and camp life. One letter from 1860 mentions the hanging of an abolitionist. Also included is a diary begun in 1802, written by Paul Henkel, with a transcription; there are also miscellaneous writings, items relating to religious music, and advertisements.

William Boone Douglass (1864-1947) was a white lawyer, engineer, and surveyor from Corydon (Harrison Co.), Indiana who was known for his survey work in the southwest United States. Collection includes correspondence, genealogical material, maps, photographs, notebooks on the Pueblo Indians, and other papers of Douglass and of various members of the Boone and Douglass families.

Collection contains chiefly correspondence relating to the Clingman, Jarratt, Poindexter, and Puryear families, early settlers of Surry County, N.C., together with a genealogical table. Subjects include the slave trade between North Carolina and Alabama, 1830-1835; North Carolina during the Civil War and Reconstruction, conditions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill prior to the war, plantation accounts, the distillation and sale of whiskey, and business affairs. Correspondents include William James Bingham, John Adams Gilmer, and Zebulon Vance.

Recorded earlier as the Benson Family Papers. Includes materials from the related families of Elias Benson, physician, of Marion Co., Alabama, and John Ford Thompson, officer of the Alabama Militia. The families emigrated from Greenvilee and Spartanburg counties, S.C., to Alabama in the early 1800s. Personal correspondence and business papers of the Benson, Thompson, and Moore families who migrated from Greenville County and Spartanburg County, South Carolina, to Alabama. Correspondence between the groups in South Carolina and Alabama is concerned for the most part with family matters. However, political events are occasionally discussed, and a number of letters, 1836-1840, deal with the Alabama militia. The collection includes letters reflecting conditions in Alabama during the Civil War; several items on medical education at the University of Louisiana (Tulane University), 1866-1868; and records of the Marion (Alabama) Grange, No. 95, 1873-1876.

Confederate Army officer, planter, and official of Hampton County, S.C. Mainly personal letters of Williams and his family, concerning his Civil War military service in the 25th and 47th Georgia Infantry Regiments, his efforts to become a planter after the war, his personal life, and his work as sheriff and auditor of Hampton County, S.C. Includes early land deeds, and letters from a physician who served in Cuba and Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War.

Public official, Indian agent, and Territorial Governor of Utah (1857-1861). Family and political correspondence, mainly of the 1850s, with material on Mormon history, including the "Mormon War," and on frontier and pioneer life. Includes journals, scrapbooks, letter books, and proceedings pertaining to councils and negotiations with the Blackfoot Indians and other tribes (1855). Letters of Cumming's wife, Elizabeth Wells Randall Cumming, describe incidents on her trip to Utah with her husband when he was named governor with frontier conditions and Indian troubles. Cumming's official letter books contain correspondence to James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, Howell Cobb, John B. Floyd, Albert S. Johnston, Brigham Young, and others. Additional correspondents include W.W. Bibb, J.S. Black, William Medill, B.F. Perry, Franklin Pierce, Alexander Stephens, and G.M. Troup. Includes papers of William Clay Cumming, a brother, pertaining to his studies at Princeton University (1805) and at Litchfield Law School; his accounts of opposition to Federalism in New England; his experiences in the War of 1812; travels in the Mississippi Valley and the South; and a few comments on Brazil and Uruguay (1816). The collection also contains papers from Thomas Cumming.

The Funkhouser family lived in Virginia with members moving West with the expansion of the Unites States. Other Funkhouser descendants moved into Ohio, Maryland and New Jersey. The collection contains correspondence, diary and other papers, chiefly 1836-1908, of the Funkhouser family of Mount Jackson, Va. including Andrew Funkhouser. Topics discussed include conditions in the West, opposition to slavery, and economic conditions in the U.S. after 1837; Civil War letters discuss camp life of Union and Confederate soldiers and the state of the South. Post-war letters are mainly personal. Includes a diary (1863) kept by G. H. Snapp, a minister of the United Brethren in Christ Church, telling of religious life among soldiers and civilians.