Search Collection Guides

Papers (1830 – 2010, undated) [Bulk: 1940-1970] documenting the life of Robert Lee Humber, Jr., who was born 30 May 1898 – and died 10 November 1970, in Greenville, North Carolina; after attending local schools he earned a BA from Wake Forest College, 1921; he then attended Oxford University in the United Kingdom as a Rhodes Scholar, 1921-1923; he then earned a MA from Harvard University in 1936; he moved to Paris, France, in 1926, where he married and served as an American Field Service fellow, 1926-1928, and subsequently earned a fortune as an international lawyer, art dealer, and businessman, 1930-1940, until the Fall of France, in 1940, when he, his wife, and their two sons, John and Marcel, fled the German invasion - his infant daughter Eileen died during their escape - and he returned to North Carolina, where he purchased a farm on Davis Island, established a legal career, and devoted himself to public service and to a wide range of philanthropic causes, as an educator, civic, cultural, political and religious leader; beginning in 1940, he became well-known nationally and internationally for establishing and leading the World Federation movement as a way to promote lasting world peace through international law; statewide for persuading the General Assembly and the Kress Foundation of New York to fund and establish the North Carolina Museum which opened in 1956; also as an art collector and patron of local and regional volunteer organizations; as a Democratic state senator from Pitt County, 1958-1964; as an educator who led the effort to create Pitt Technical Institute (later Pitt Community College); as a leader in the Southern Baptist denomination becoming a member of the Board of Trustees of Wake Forest College and other Baptist institutions; and as an attorney and business leader and developer; additionally, the collection includes historical files documenting the history of the World Federation in the United States, compiled by his son, John Leslie Humber.

Material (1844-1891) including correspondence, account books, speeches, pamphlets, receipts, legal papers, and publications concerning William Robinson (an Irish immigrant) who was a newspaper publisher, town commissioner and mayor of Goldsboro, Wayne County, North Carolina, and his son Dr. Marius Emmet Robinson who practiced in Goldsboro, operated a drugstore with his brother, and was the first chief of staff of Goldsboro's first hospital.

553 pages original typescript of memoir, 147 written/printed letters, 588 pages edited typescript consisting of memoir and letters, a pamphlet, and five biographical books. Memoir relates to the life of Brigadier General George Willcox McIver (1857-1947)

Communications from East Carolina University, Pitt County, and The United states regarding the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Destroyer Leaders 1999-2001, a history of the frigate USS WILLIS A. LEE (DL-4) compiled for the reunion at San Diego, California (4-7 November 1999), by Harold R. Andrus, Jr. ("pAr") Typescript, 6 p.; Cleveland (OH) Harborfest (11-15 July 2001) "The Tall Ships Challenge" media kit, including correspondence, brochures, news releases, original art, photographs, and printed materials. 24 p.; Miscellaneous material including Cleveland (OH) American Accordionists Association Accordion Festival (11-15 July 2001) printed materials and notes in English and Ukrainian.

Robert Ryves (later Rives) is traces back to 1465 France. His family eventually settled in North Carolina in the mid 1700's. Robert Ryves descendant John Gaston Rives Jr was born on June 24, 1854 in Edgecombe County, North Carolina. This collection spans 1818-1957, 2007 and contains three pages removed from the Rives family Bible, containing birth, death, and marriage records dating between 1818 and 1957, genealogy of the Rives family back to 1465 France, and a photograph of John Gaston Rives Jr. The strength of this collection is the genealogical records.

This collection contains a photocopy of a letter written by Thomas J. Jarvis of Greenville, North Carolina, on February 1, 1890, to Horace P. Gates in New York, New York, accepting Gates' invitation to meet with Civil War veterans of the Roanoke Island Campaign and describes his own service during the Civil War. Also included are many items related to Eastern North Carolina citizens relative to life during World War II such as ration books, application for appointment as an Aviation Cadet, farm allotments, and photographs of Basic Training Camp #10 in Greensboro. Unrelated items include photographs of Sycamore Hill Baptist Church in Greenville, North Carolina, on February 11, 1969, after it had burned presumably due to arson.

Papers (1865-2013, bulk 1919-1982) relating to Georgia Pearsall Hearne, an artist, musician, and teacher, whose portraits of prominent North Carolinians earned her state-wide recognition, including consisting of correspondence, daybooks, photographs, original artwork, reproductions of art work, newspaper clippings, printed forms, printed materials, genealogical materials, and miscellany.

The collection includes materials (1898-1959) documenting the work of Shackleford Banks native Josiah Clark Chadwick working on freighters running from North Carolina to New York, and then with the Army Corps of Engineers in North Carolina (1927-1959) working the Eastern N.C. federal waterway projects on diesel engines and then inspecting dredges. Included are family history, Chadwick's work history, training materials, engineers' level books, logbooks, and inventories of engineering property in Chadwick's charge.

Collection (1863-1865) related to the American Civil War and Andrew Giddings of Company E, 3rd North Carolina infantry. Includes Oath of Allegiance to the United States signed by Andrew Giddings on November 6, 1865 [Following the American Civil War, Confederate officials, veterans and prisoners of war were obliged to sign an "oath of allegiance" to regain their civil rights under the U. S. Constitution.]. The collection also includes a note concerning the capture of Washington Rose, a member of Company C, 6th Louisiana Regiment at the Battle of the Wilderness. Most significantly, the collection contains Andrew Giddings' leather-bound diary and ledger of income and expenses, which includes eyewitness accounts of the engagements in which he participated, including Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, Sharpsburg, Malvern Hill, 2nd Winchester, Chancellorsville, and Wilderness. It also includes descriptions of his capture and imprisonment in a Union prisoner of war camp. The collection also includes an envelope that held the diary with "Granddad Giddings Diary" written on it.

Papers (1942-1947) include correspondence related to the World War II U.S. Navy careers of Frank A. Bartimo and his brother-in-law Richard Toomey, and Bartimo's civilian life with the Army's Judge Advocate section stationed in post-war Heidelberg, Germany.

Papers (1924-1948, undated) of a prominent Greenville, NC tobacconist, including correspondence, financial papers, programs, certificates, a bond, debt, letters, annual statements, etc.

Papers (1861-1933, undated) of Greenville, NC singer, songwriter, and director of Jarvis Memorial Methodist Church including correspondence, news articles, photographs, genealogical information, portraits, etc.

This donation contains material (1968-1995) collected by Walter Charles Lackey and his wife Mildred Futrell Lackey documenting their involvement in the Murfreesboro Historical Association. Included are a photograph album containing images of the 1980 Dedication of Wheeler House and the 1977 Lafayette Ball, 1981 Lafayette Ball programs, clippings (1968-1979), the History of Murfreesboro United Methodist Church (1976), invocation and history of Wesleyan Female College upon unveiling of a historical marker, "Memories of Murfreesboro" compiled August 1992 by the Recollections Committee of the Murfreesboro Historical Assoc., and three publications.

Collection (1899-2004) of printed materials compiled for the centennial of the Orville & Wilbur Wright's first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina; including an article written by the Wright brothers on their flight experiments with various airplanes coupled with printed copies of photographs and a printed reproduction of the article; also copies of Monthly Weather Review magazines from August-September 1899; and a copy of the North Carolina Literary Review dedicated to commemorating the centennial of the first flight complete with poetry and interviews; also two calendars illustrated with images of the Wright brothers flight experiments.