This collection contains over 100 letters (1885, 1892-1897) written to Sallie Dromgoole Cotten (1876-1972), daughter of Sallie Swepson Southall Cotten and Robert Randolph Cotten, either while she was at home at Cottendale in Falkland, Pitt County, North Carolina, or at Notre Dame of Maryland Preparatory School and Collegiate Institute in Baltimore. The letters are written mainly by Sallie's female friends, but also some male friends in the 1890s (1892-1897) The correspondents are family, associates, and friends, especially schoolmates. Topics are mainly related to interests of college women and men. Also included are ephemera such as dance cards and dance invitations especially to "German" dances which were large popular events among wealthy white families in Eastern North Carolina tobacco towns in the 1890s.
Sallie Dromgoole Cotten was born on July 4, 1876, in Wilson, Wilson County, North Carolina, to Robert Randolph Cotten and Sallie Swepson Sims Southall Cotten. She was raised in Pitt County, North Carolina, at her family's Cottendale estate in Falkland, and apparently attended Notre Dame of Maryland Preparatory School and Collegiate Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. Miss Cotten married Russell Benjamin Wiggin, Jr. (1877-1950) of Boston, Massachusetts, on November 21, 1906, at Bruce, North Carolina. The 1910 U.S. Census has the couple living at Winchester, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, where her husband was a broker. They apparently did not have children. After Robert Randolph Cotten died in 1928, Sallie Southall Cotten moved in with her daughter in Massachusetts and died there in 1929. Sallie Dromgoole Cotten Wiggin died on September 3, 1972, at the age of 96 years and was buried at Pine Hill Cemetery at Tewsbury, Massachusetts, with her husband.
Sources: Ancestry.com, Find A Grave, U.S. Census Records, Information compiled by Carmen D. Valentino:: American HIstorical Manuscripts Dealer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
July 19, 2023, (unprocessed), 0.75 cubic feet; This collection contains over 100 letters (1885, 1892-1897) written to Sallie Dromgoole Cotten (1876-1972), daughter of Sallie Swepson Southall Cotten and Robert Randolph Cotten, either while she was at home at Cottendale in Falkland, Pitt County, North Carolina, or at Notre Dame of Maryland Preparatory School and Collegiate Institute in Baltimore. The letters are written mainly by Sallie's female friends, but also some male friends in the 1890s (1892-1897) The correspondents are family, associates, and friends, especially schoolmates. Topics are mainly related to interests of college women and men. Also included are ephemera such as dance cards and dance invitations especially to "German" dances which were large popular events among wealthy white families in Eastern North Carolina tobacco towns in the 1890s. Purchased from Carmen D. Valentino American Historical Manuscripts.
Purchased from Carmen D. Valentino American Historical Manuscripts
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