Franklin County, North Carolina

HISTORICAL FAMILY COLLECTIONS

A listing of Historical Family Collections found in local libraries

Family documents contributed to various institutions, libraries, and universities can be a valuable asset in researching one's ancestors. They can contain many things, including family histories, bibles, plantation records, deeds,  slave records of all kinds, personal letters and other correspondence. North Carolina is fortunate to have many such collections, some of which I am listing below along with the time period covered and linked to the institution where it is housed with a more complete description by clicking onto the name of the Collection. As I locate other collections with genealogical material, it will be added to this page.

 

Archibald Davis Alston Papers: 1804-1893 Archibald Davis Alston (b. 1817, son of Thomas Nicholas Faulcon Alston and Elizabeth Crawford Davis Alston), lawyer and planter of Halifax County, N.C. Deeds, wills, gold mining accounts, tobacco sales records, notes, bills, receipts, and family correspondence of Sarah M. Alston (fl. 1840s) of Halifax County, N.C.; her son, A. D. Alston and his wife; their son, A. D. Alston, Jr. (fl. 1870s), of Warrenton and Louisburg, N.C.; and of Elizabeth Crawford Davis Alston (fl. 1834-1846). Family letters, 1843-1859, are from Ariella Alston Hawkins (fl. 1843-1859) and her family in Matagorda County, Tex., and from Edgar M. Alston (d. 1848) in Galveston, Tex. There are no Civil War letters. Business correspondence, 1874-1882, of A. D. Alston, Jr., concerns mining properties. Includes materials for Joseph John Alston and Willis Alston.

Mary Jones Arrington Papers: 1707-1955 Mary Jones Arrington (1874-1950)  of Rocky Mount, N.C., taught school in Franklin County, N.C., and was interested in genealogy and local history of Nash County and Edgecombe County, N.C. The collection includes correspondence and collected data of Arrington related to family and local history, including copies of 19th- and 20th-century letters, wills, and Bible records. Families represented include: Arrington, Ballard, Bullock, Bunn, Burt, Clopton, Drake, Hight, Jarratt, Lenoir, Nicholson, Noe, Philips, Sclater, Sims, Swann, Swepson, Thorpe, Vick, and Weston. Also included are copies of 67 letters, 1809-1861, of the Drake family who migrated from North Carolina to various western states, chiefly letters to the family members who settled in Muhlenburg County, Ky., from James Perry Drake (1797-1876), United States land official in Indiana, and Benjamin Michael Drake (1800-1860) Methodist minister and college president in Mississippi. Volumes are mostly notebooks but include minutes of the Rocky Mount Women's Club, 1916-1921.

Battle Family Papers: 1765-1955 Lots of Battle Family information Prominent members of the Battle family of North Carolina included William Horn Battle (1802-1879) of Louisburg, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, lawyer,legislator, judge of the North Carolina superior and supreme courts, and trustee and professor of law at the University of North Carolina; he married Lucy Martin Plummer daughter of Kemp Battle and Susanna Martin of Warren County; their son, Kemp Plummer Battle (1831-1919) of Chapel Hill and Raleigh, lawyer, president of the Chatham Railroad, who was active in state affairs during the Civil War, served as state treasurer and as University of North Carolina president, 1876-1891, and professor of history, 1891-1907; and Kemp Plummer Battle's son, William James Battle (1870-1955), University of North Carolina and Harvard student, professor of classics, dean, and acting president, 1893-1917, and professor of classics, 1920-1955, at the University of Texas, and professor of classics, 1917-1920, at the University of Cincinnati. Many letters are from Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908), whose brother Charles Phillips married Kemp Plummer Battle's aunt, Laura Caroline Battle. Includes a family chart on website.   See Also: Photo of Lucy Martin Plummer Battle

JAMES BOON PAPERS: 1829-1853 James Boon (1808-?), a free African American of Franklin County, N.C., was apprenticed to William Jones, a carpenter, June 16, 1827, and was freed from this apprenticeship in September, 1829. He thereafter worked as a carpenter in Louisburg, Littleton, Wilmington, and Raleigh. He cohabited with Sarah, a slave of Maria Stallings of Louisburg, as a common law wife from as early as 1838 until as late as 1850. By 1850 he was living with Mahalia Buffalo, a free woman of color from Raleigh, by whom he had a son and a daughter. These children were taught in 1851 by Isabella Hinton Harris, wife of James Henry Harris. Despite the protests of Sarah, Boon married Mahalia Buffalo in 1854. Boon owned land and property in Louisburg. The papers include both professional and personal correspondence as well as accounts, bills, receipts, and other documents.

Harold Dunbar Cooley Papers: 1934-1971 Harold Dunbar Cooley (1897-1974)  was United States representative from North Carolina's Fourth Congressional District, 1934-1966, and chair of the House Committee on Agriculture, 1949-1966. The collection includes correspondence, office files, legislative and executive files, and other material of Harold Dunbar Cooley. Cooley's district encompassed, at one time or another, Chatham, Davidson, Franklin, Johnston, Nash, Randolph, Vance, and Wake counties. Letters from constituents and material concerning agriculture make up the bulk of the collection, but there is also material concerning flood control on the Cape Fear, Neuse, and New Hope rivers, and rural mail delivery and post offices.

F. M. Forster Papers: 1741-1783 Three land grants and indentures, 1741-1744, for land in Edgecombe County, N.C.; one land grant, 1783, to James Huckabey of Franklin County, N.C.; and a bill of sale for slaves belonging to Thomas Hill, 1766, in Halifax County, N.C. (Collected by F. M. Forster).

Hawkins Family Papers, 1738-1895 The Hawkins family, primarily of Warren and Franklin counties, N.C., included Benjamin Hawkins (1754-1818), who served with Washington in the American Revolution, was in the Continental Congress and the U. S. Senate, and, in the 1790s, was agent to the Creek Indians and superintendent of all tribes south of the Ohio River; John Davis Hawkins (1781-1858), who graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1801, studied law, and served in the North Carolina Senate; William J. Hawkins (1819-1894), who studied medicine, but worked chiefly in railroads and banking; Philemon Benjamin Hawkins (1823-1891), who was a planter and served in the North Carolina legislature; and Colin M. Hawkins (fl. 1860-1880). Records included are also 1738-1799 Deeds for lands, slaves, and other property, chiefly in Granville and Warren counties, N.C., but also Bute, Franklin, Montgomery, and Edgecombe counties.

Historical Table of Masonic Lodges of North Carolina A complete listing of the Masonic Lodges which founded the Grand Lodge of North Carolina

Hamilton H. Hobgood Papers: 1955-1981 Hamilton H. Hobgood (1911-1995), of Louisburg, N.C., was a lawyer, state senator, and judge. He presided over thousands of cases in his 24 years on the North Carolina Superior Court (1955-1979), but he is best known for presiding over the racially charged Joan Little murder trial in 1975. The collection includes trial materials, committee materials, speeches, prisoners' letters, personal correspondence, and other files of Judge Hamilton H. Hobgood. There are records, notes, and other materials for the 1975 Joan Little murder trial in Raleigh, N.C., and thousands of other trials over which he presided. Committee materials document work with the Conference of Superior Court Judges; the North Carolina Bar Association Penal System Study Committee; the Commission on Sentencing, Criminal Punishment and Rehabilitation; the Commission on Correctional Programs; and the Governor's Crime Commission.

Joyner Family Papers, 1817-1881; 1967-1982 The Joyner family of Franklin County, N.C. correspondence and legal papers mainly 1850-1865, including  Civil War letters from soldiers serving in the various campaigns. There are also account books, deeds, wills, records of hiring and selling slaves, and other family business records, including records during the Civil War years, when Julia Joyner managed the plantation.

Nicholas Bryar Massenburg Papers: 1823-1908 Nicholas Bryar Massenburg (1806-1867) was a planter of Franklin County, N.C. The collection includes records, 1834-1846 and 1847-1851, kept by N. B. Massenburg concerning agricultural and family activities, slaves, and accounts for Woodleaf and Egypt, his Franklin County, N.C., plantations. Also included is correspondence of Massenburg's daughter, Lucy C. Massenburg, including letters from her sister and mother and other relatives and friends. In addition, there are a journal, owner unknown, with brief daily entries, 1903-1908, relating to cutting and hauling lumber, and a scrapbook, chiefly containing clippings on agricultural and other topics.

Neal Family Papers, 1816-1916 Members of the Neal family and related Fox and Timberlake families, were planters, businessmen, and farmers in Franklin, N.C.; Fayette and Henderson counties, Tenn.; Tuscaloosa, Ala.; Hinds County, Miss.; Waxahachie, Tex.; and other areas in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Among them was Aaron Neal of Franklin County, N.C., who died in 1869. Included are correspondence and financial, legal, and other papers of Aaron Neal, his siblings, in-laws, and children, and other members of the Neal family, mostly during the antebellum era and letters from slaves in 1824 and 1834.

Alice Morgan Person Papers: 1872-1972 Alice Morgan Person (1840 - 1913) of Franklin County, N.C., was, beginning in 1882, the producer and distributor of Mrs. Joe Person's Remedy, a proprietary medicine. In 1857, she married Joseph Arrington Person, a planter from Franklin County, N.C., with whom she had nine children. Materials include two handwritten versions (72 pp. and 57 pp.) of an autobiography by Alice Morgan Person in which she discussed the difficulties and successes associated with her business efforts; an autograph album chiefly containing clippings relating to Person; Person's account book, 1910-1912; two versions of Person's will. Also included are two volumes, 1872-1873 and 1913-1916, of the diary of Person's sister, Lucy Morgan Beard, a schoolteacher of Hickory, N.C., chiefly concerning teaching and family and social activities.

Sherrod Family Papers: 1802-1967 The Sherrod family resided in Franklin County, N.C., in the 19th century. Thomas Sherrod was a member of North Carolina's Fourth Provincial Congress, which met in Halifax on 4 April 1776, and he fought in the American Revolution, reaching the rank of colonel. He died in 1818, leaving Jordan R. Sherrod as one of the executors of his will. Jordan R. Sherrod's children included John, Henry, Lucian, Alphonzo, and Martha. John M. Sherrod and Henry H. Sherrod served in Company E, 15th Regiment North Carolina Infantry during the Civil War. The collection consists primarily of receipts, warrants, business correspondence, settlements of estates for family members and other financial papers, 1802-1865, includuing transactions with Andrew Green. The collection also contains Confederate documents authorizing a disability discharge for John M. Sherrod and leaves of absence for Henry H. Sherrod. Other items include an 1802 marriage license, the text of Thomas Sherrod's 1818 will, an 1879 school report concerning Charlie Sherrod, and a 1967 letter about family genealogy.

Lucy Tunstall Alston Williams Papers, 1827-1979 Lucy Tunstall Alston Williams was the daughter of Jane Elizabeth Crichton (1840-1891) and Philip Guston Alston (1839-1924), a farmer and Confederate Army captain, of Warren County, N.C. She married Archibald Davis Williams, a planter in Franklin County, N.C. The collection includes personal and business correspondence of the Alston, Williams, Crichton, and Tunstall families of Warren and Franklin counties, N.C. The bulk of the collection consists of personal correspondence, including Civil War letters.  Miscellaneous items include leaflets, church bulletins, concert programs, poetry, cards, and invitations, school records, genealogical records, wills, pamphlets, and autorgraph albums.

Patrick Henry Winston Papers: 1848-1938 Patrick Henry Winston, born in Franklin Co., NC, (1820 -1886) was a prominent lawyer of Windsor, N.C. The Williams family of Bertie and Martin counties, N.C., included H. S. (d. 1858?), Samuel (d. 1855?), Joseph J. (d. 1865?), John P. (d. 1860?), and William A. K. (fl. 1861-1873). Winston was counsel for William A. K. Williams and executor of the estate of Joseph J. Williams. The collection includes business papers of Winston, including Williams family estate papers; Winston's private business correspondence and financial and legal papers; and scattered legal items for several other clients. The papers document the management of the estates of H. S., Samuel, Joseph J., and John P. Williams; Winston's legal efforts in a case against John Williams's estate; slave sales in several North Carolina counties; medical care given slaves; the Norfolk cotton market, especially the Civil War's effect on it; and the postwar legal and financial difficulties of planters. Financial and legal items include slave bills of sale; accounts; tax and other receipts; deeds and surveys for Bertie, Franklin, and Martin County lands; loan notes; affidavits; etc.   See Also: Slavery and the Making of the University - Includes archived copies of letters from Patrick H. Winston regarding slave transactions P. H. Winston to Charles Manly.