Brownrigg Family Papers, 1720-1872, 1936

(Manuscript Collection #597)

Title:	Brownrigg Family Papers
Creator:	Brownrigg family
Repository:	ECU Manuscript Collection
Languages:	English
Abstract:	Papers (1720-1872, 1936) including correspondence, legal documents, estate records, accounts, promissory notes, shipping records, receipts, an apprenticeship bond, tombstone records, tax lists.
Extent:	0.11 Cubic feet, 60 items , consisting of correspondence, legal documents, estates records, accounts, promissory notes, shipping records, receipts, an apprenticeship bond, tombstone records, and tax lists.

Accessions Information

June 23, 1990, 58 items; Papers (1720-1860, 1936) of Chowan County, N.C., family, including correspondence, tax lists, estates records, tombstone records, deeds, accounts, promissory notes, an apprentice record, and shipping records. Deposited by Richard Dillard Dixon, Jr., Edenton, N.C.

Access Restrictions

No restrictions

Copyright Notice

Literary rights to specific documents are retained by the authors or their descendants in accordance with U.S. copyright law.

Preferred Citation

Brownrigg Family Papers (#597), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.

Acquisition Information

• Gift of Richard Dillard Dixon, Jr.

Processing Information

• Processed by V. Jones, Jr., April 1991

• Encoded by Apex Data Services

Richard Brownrigg (1734-1771) was born in Wicklow, Ireland, and immigrated to North Carolina before 1760. In 1760, he married Sarah Campbell (1744-1797) and had at least one son, Thomas (1767-1826). Records found in the collection indicate that Richard Brownrigg was a Chowan County Justice of the Peace (1769).

Correspondence in the collection mainly concerns commercial activities. A letter to Edenton silversmith Thomas Agnis (1762) asks about the progress being made on a pair of silver buckles. Several letters to Edmund Hoskins of Edenton (1817) contain information from commission merchants in Baltimore, Md., and New York on prices of wheat, flour, corn, and naval stores. Another letter (1819) requests bills for the purchase of Negroes from an Edenton estate.

Legal documents, all pertaining to Chowan County or Edenton, include a deposition (May 1761) by Joseph Hewes, signer of the Declaration of Independence, concerning a dispute he witnessed between two sea captains over wages for a voyage to Philadelphia. Also included are legal proceedings (1756) concerning the ejectment of a tenant before his lease had expired, attachments to estate property for debts (1765, 1769), warrants to appear in court (1763), an apprenticeship bond for a tobacconist (1789), a deed (1832), and a coroner's inquest for a suicide (1828). An affidavit (April 14, 1827) concerns credit problems with the administration of the estate of John B. Blount by his son Thomas Blount. The affidavit mentions James Iredell's role in the affair, as well as complications with the State Bank and the Bank of Edenton. Promissory notes and a bond (1811) refer to the case mentioned in the affidavit.

Chowan County and Edenton financial and estate records include audits of the accounts of the estate of Brownrigg (1778, 1783) and a settlement of the accounts of the estates of Brownrigg and David Meredith (1797). A doctor's account with Nathaniel Bond (1827-1828) gives the date of treatment, medicine used, patient's name and costs, including the treatment of slaves. Other financial records include costs for the hire of Negroes (1826-1828, 1854-1855), a receipt for the sale of a slave for $650 (1850), and several promissory notes from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

An account book (1818-1825) of Edmund Hoskins of Edenton lists accounts with the Branch Bank of Edenton, doctors' bills, and debts owed to and by the estate of Richard Hoskins (1823). Also listed are the labor expenses for cutting wheat (1824); the sale of a Negro woman and her children (1825); and the costs of corn seed, bricks, and labor.

Miscellaneous materials include one share of stock in Edenton and Plymouth Steamboat Company (1819); lottery tickets and a tuition account for Edenton Academy (1804, 1808); a list of liquors purchased for the election of 1808; a tavern bill (1798) for the Red Lion Tavern in Edenton; shipping lists for pickled pork bound for Antigua (1720) from Roanoke and tobacco bound for Richmond (1819) from Plymouth; and pew rents for St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Edenton (1812-1818).

Genealogical notes in the collection consist of a letter (1936) requesting information about Richard Brownrigg of Ireland and tombstone records of Wingfield Cemetery near Edenton.

The oversize folder contains three seamen's contracts (1799, 1800, 1818) for the brigs, BETSEY and VICTORY, and the schooner JAMES MONROE for voyages from Edenton to Jamaica and from Edenton to New York. The contracts set forth conditions of the voyage and list people's names, ranks, and wages. Other materials include a detailed 1772 inventory of the property of Richard Brownrigg, including room by room lists of furniture and other personal property; a 1778 account of the sale of part of Brownrigg's property; a 1768 list of taxables taken by Richard Brownrigg, giving the names and the number of whites and blacks; and an 1827 Chowan County deed.

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Reading Room's card catalog. This system is no longer maintained, but it is left in place to help on-site researchers locate particular topics in the collection.

Geographic Entries :

• North Carolina, Chowan County

Autograph Entries :

• Hewes, Joseph 1761

Subject Entries :

• AGRICULTURE--Chowan Co., N.C.--19th Century
• BUSINESS AND COMMERCE--Commission Merchants--1817
• BUSINESS AND COMMERCE--Landlord and Tenant--1756
• BUSINESS AND COMMERCE--Naval Stores--1817
• BUSINESS AND COMMERCE--Ships and Shipping--18th Century
• CEMETERIES--Chowan Co., N.C.
• COURTS--Coroners
• COURTS--Debtor and Creditor--1760s
• EDUCATION--PRIVATE SCHOOLS--Chowan Co., N.C.
• ELECTIONS--Chowan Co., N.C.--1808
• HEALTH AND MEDICINE--Chowan Co., N.C.
• HOME ECONOMICS--House Furnishings--Edenton, N.C.
• HOTELS, INNS, AND TAVERNS--Edenton, N.C.--1798
• IREDELL, JAMES
• LABOR--Wages--Ships and Shipping
• LAND--Deeds and Sales--Chowan Co., N.C.
• MONEY AND BANKING--Chowan Co., N.C.--1827
• MONEY AND BANKING--Debtor and Creditor--1784-1785
• NEGROES--Health and Medicine--Chowan Co., N.C.
• RELIGION--Churches--Edenton, N.C.
• SLAVERY--Hire of Slaves--Chowan Co., N.C.
• SLAVERY--Slave Trade--Chowan Co., N.C.
• SOCIAL PROBLEMS--Suicide
• TAXATION--Chowan Co., N.C.--1768
• TRADES--Apprentices--Chowan Co., N.C.
• TRADES--Silversmithing--Edenton, N.C.
• TRANSPORTATION--Ships and Shipping--Chowan Co., N.C.
• TRANSPORTATION--Steamboats--1819

Genealogy Entries :

• BROWNRIGG FAMILY--Chowan Co., N.C.; Ireland
• HOSKINS FAMILY--Chowan Co., N.C.

Date Entries :

• 1761-1769
• 1783-1789
• 1791-1798
• 1808-1811
• 1815-1819
• 1820-1829