Special Collections Staff Picks

Source: Captain Frederick Lee Edwards Collection, East Carolina Manuscript Collection #792 Staff Person: Martha Elmore Description: Family collections contain a wealth of sources of interest to descendants and to historians. These include birth and death records, land records, estate papers, wills, diaries, and letters. In some cases, when courthouses have burned, these records held by [...]

Source: The Fugitive Slave Act, East Carolina Manuscript Collection MB0001 (Miscellaneous Broadsides) Staff Person: Lynette Lundin Description: In the 1840′s the Underground Railroad was very busy due to the 1842 Supreme Court ruling of “Prigg” v. “Pennsylvania,” which held that states could pass laws prohibiting interference with runaway slaves. This era ended when Congress passed [...]