Captain Frederick Lee Edwards Collection

1760-1906, undated
Manuscript Collection #792
Creator(s)
Edwards, Frederick Lee, Captain
Physical description
0.133 Cubic Feet, 115 items , consisting of family papers (1760-1906, undated) for Greene, Dobbs, and Lenoir counties, N.C., including grants, deeds, wills, estates papers, plats, financial papers, letters, genealogical information, Harry Ormond Bible records and miscellaneous.
Preferred Citation
Captain Frederick Lee Edwards Collection (#792), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
Repository
ECU Manuscript Collection
Access
Access to audiovisual and digital media is restricted. Please contact Special Collections for more information.

Collection (1760-1906, undated) including grant, deeds, wills, estates papers, plats, financial papers, letters, genealogical information, etc.


Scope and arrangement

This collection consists of land records, records of enslaved persons, genealogy notes and records concerning several families that resided in Greene, Dobbs, and Lenoir counties, North Carolina. The main family names mentioned are Edwards, Hodges, Ormond, Hardy (Hardee), Hill, Dail, Albriton (Albritton), Dixon (Dickson), Washington, Croom, Kennedy, Graham, Moore, McKinney, Parrott, Jones, and Tull.

The records for Greene County consist of land records, records of enslaved persons, and genealogical records of the Ormond and Edwards families. A diary (1806-1828, with a few notes by other family members from the 1860s) kept sporadically by James Ormond primarily concerns his religious beliefs, but also contains some mention of his children and of R. B. Meeting House. Found in the back of the diary pages are birth, death, and marriage records for the enslaver family, Ormond and the birth records for the enslaved persons the family enslaved. There is also a typescript of the diary that was done by Captain Frederick Lee Edwards. Other Greene County records include a listing of the estate distribution for the John Ormond estate, and the will of Thomas Ormond (1820). Genealogical notes include an Edwards family notebook that includes Bible record information for the Edwards family and the family names Dixon (Dickson), Albriton (Albritton), Ormond, Tull, May (Pitt Co., NC) and Washington; an Edwards family pedigree chart; the Harry Ormond and JaneElizabeth Edwards Ormond Bible Records; and obituaries for the Dail and Ormond families.

The records for Dobbs County (1774-1784) include land deeds and plats concerning mainly the Ormond, Kennedy, and Dail families.

The records (1793-1892) for Lenoir County include land deeds and plats, enslaved persons, estates records, wills, a marriage contract, a petition for dower, and a Confederate States of America tax-in-kind form (September 9, 1864). The families involved in these records are mainly Edwards, Hill, Hodges, Hardy (Hardee), Kennedy, Croom, Parrott, Baker, Harvey, Westbrook and Moore. The enslaver Mary Hill estate records (1839) include a listing of the distribution and the auction of enslaved persons from the estate. Estate settlement records for the enslaver Richard Hill (1822) that contain a survey of the land and mention the future sale of enslaved persons. The records also include the wills for Harvey Hardee (1843), Nancy Hardy (1843), D. C. Edwards (1854), and West Edwards of Sumner County, Tennessee (1815), and an 1814 bill of sale for a woman and her daughter who were enslaved. The land deeds and plats cover the entire date span of the series. A petition for dower of land was presented by Maranda Hill against the Charles Hill estate (1854) and there is a marriage contract (1826) between Joseph and Nancy Hardee. Also found is a multi-page complaint (1846) filed by John C. Washington against Nancy Hardee's estate.

Virginia items include photocopies of the wills for Matthew Jones (1793), Robert Jones (1778) and John Edwards (1789) of Southampton County, Virginia.

Miscellaneous items consist of Hill family receipts (1845-1852), correspondence (1884-1901), a voter registration form (1904), and the papers of Rowena Hill Tull on microfilm (1795-1898). The correspondence for the 1880s discusses daily life on a Hill family farm in the Kinston, NC, area and mentions illness, schooling, farming, sewing, a buggy-train accident, preaching, and special train excursions to Goldsboro.

The Rowena Hill Tull microfilm contains primarily Tull family records from 1858-1867, consisting mainly of information on John Tull and his farm outside of Kinston and his other farm named Tower Hill. Included also are land deeds; genealogical records of enslaved persons (1795-1860) that were enslaved by John Tull; entries from the Tull family Bible; and records concerning the John M. McKinney estate (1859) and will (1852), the Henry Tull estate (1856), and the Chauncey Graham estate (1855-1861). General merchandise accounts (1858-1867, 1878-1879), Tull farm and dairy accounts (1878-1896), the hiring papers (1865-1867) the hiring papers (1865-1867) of freedmen who had formerly been enslaved by the Tull family, medical bills (1858-1881) including ones for treatment of enslaved persons (1858-1865), and several letters about daily life (1861-1892) are also found here. Miscellaneous items filmed include newspaper clippings concerning religious subjects; advertisements for home cures; a manual for school teachers in normal schools; freight billing and promissory notes for the farms, smithy shops, and lumber yards; a brochure for the World's Columbian Expositionof 1893 in Chicago and train tickets to the fair from the C & O Railroad Company; an insurance policy for Fidelity Mutual Life; and a Civil War claim against the U.S. government filed by John Tull. The originals of these papers are on microfilm found in the North Carolina State Archives.


Administrative information
Custodial History

March 21, 2000, 109 items; Family papers (1760-1891) for Greene, Dobbs, and Lenoir counties, N.C., including grants, deeds, wills, estates papers, plats, financial papers, letters, genealogical information, and Harry Ormond Bible records.

October 30, 2000 3 items; Papers include a copy of Bible records of Edwards, Dixon, and Albritton families, obituaries, and a typescript copy of James Ormond's manuscript. Gift by Mrs. Tull Edwards Harris of Kinston, North Carolina.

October 11, 2001 (unprocessed addition 1), 1 item, 0.043 cubic feet, 128 pages, 1 volume; Industrial Issue of the Kinston Free Press (Kinston, NC: Free Press Company, 1906). Donor: Ms. Martha Mewborn Marble.

Source of acquisition

Gift of Mrs. Tull Edwards Harris

Gift of Ms. Martha Mewborn Marble

Processing information

Encoded by Apex Data Services

Descriptions updated by Ashlyn Racine, May 2023

Copyright notice

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


Key terms
Personal Names
Ormond, James--Diaries
Tull, Rowena Hill
Topical
Deeds--North Carolina--Dobbs County
Deeds--North Carolina--Greene County
Deeds--North Carolina--Lenoir County
Slave records--North Carolina--Greene County
Slave records--North Carolina--Lenoir County
Places
Dobbs County (N.C.)--Genealogy
Greene County (N.C.)--Genealogy
Lenoir County (N.C.)--Genealogy