Thomas J. Jarvis was born on January 18, 1836 in Jarvisburg, North Carolina. He was a teacher, lawyer, and politician. The collection is dated February 1, 1890 and includes a letter from Thomas Jordan Jarvis in Greenville, North Carolina to Horace P. Gates in New York, New York. The strength of the collection is Jarvis' accepting Gates' invitation to meet Civil War veterans of the Roanoke Island Campaign and his description of his own service during the Civil War.