Search Collection Guides

This collection contains materials (1940s-2013) related to the interests and activities of Holley Mack Bell II and Clara Bond Bell of Windsor and Eden House in Bertie County, N.C. Mr. Bell served in World War II, worked on several newspapers including the Charlotte News, Bertie Ledger-Advance, and the Greensboro Daily News; and was employed by the U.S. Information Agency as a press attaché at several American embassies in South America. Mrs. Bell worked as a social worker, in Public Welfare, and also with social service organizations while they lived in various South American countries. Both Mr. and Mrs. Bell were active in historic preservation, especially with the Historic Hope Foundation, Friends of Hope Committee, Preservation North Carolina, the Museum of the Albemarle, and the Historic Albemarle Tour (HAT), and were active in the Episcopal Church. Included are Bertie Ledger-Advance newspapers, correspondence, publications, photographs, clippings, pamphlets, notes, and brochures.

In this oral history, Carl Long (May 9, 1935 - January 12, 2015) discusses his professional baseball career (1952-1958) with the "Negro American League" and the Pittsburgh Pirates farm clubs including among others the Kinston (North Carolina) Eagles in the Carolina League where he was the first African American baseball player in the league; his time as the first African American deputy sheriff and first African American detective in Kinston; and his subsequent career as the first African American bus driver in Lenoir County (NC) from which he retired in 1995.

Papers (1908 – 1986, undated [bulk: 1964 – 1986]) of John Porter East, including biographical, genealogical, and historical materials relating to his life (b. 5 May 1931 – 29 June 1986) ; his marriage to Priscilla Sherk East and their children; his service as an officer in the U. S. Marine Corps; his battle against poliomyelitis and the paralysis it caused; his graduate studies in political science and as a professor of Political Science at East Carolina University, 1964 – 1980, including his teaching files for each of his classes, his academic and professional publications, speeches, interviews; and also his conservative Republican political beliefs and affiliations and political career, including his several unsuccessful attempts to win political office in North Carolina, 1966 – 1976, culminating in his successful campaign for and election to the United States Senate in 1980; but the bulk of the collection focuses on his service in the Senate, where he was aligned with Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and a member of Helms' political organization, the Congressional Club; including his mailing lists, correspondence and constituent cases and projects files; his office and staff files, including files of this administrative assistants, press secretaries and legislative assistants; his political patronage and nomination files, committee and legislative activities; his voting records, newsletters, voluminous clipping files, press and public relations files, including publications, audio and video of interviews, speeches, and political events; his frequent bouts of ill health due to poliomyelitis, hyperthyroidism, urinary tract blockages, and depression, and their side effects which may have contributed to his death by suicide; also including photographic prints and negatives, microfilm of committee records, correspondence, case and general files, voter registration files; and also oversized materials, 1981 – 1986, undated.

Papers of U.S. Navy enlisted man (1863-1864) aboard the US sloop of War Powhatan, including a private log book (Nov. 1863 - Aug. 1864), correspondence, a manuscript entitled " The Attack on Charleston," and a daguerreotype of a Civil War sailor (presumably Thomas).

Included is a logbook/scrapbook kept by Henry A. Phelon (1831-1902) who served as an acting Master in the Union Navy (1862-1865) during the Civil War. Orders, holograph letters, dispatches, handwritten copies of documents, and newspaper clippings glued into this scrapbook chronicle his wartime service under Rear Admiral Samuel P. Lee with the Blockading Squadron off the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina on the U.S. Steamers Shawsheen, Monticello, and Daylight, and U.S. Ironclad Steamers Canonicus and Atlanta. Later clippings (through 1900) and documents pertain to his post-war years, most of which was spent in West Springfield, Massachusetts.

The Watson and Boomer families of Beaufort and Hyde Counties, North Carolina, were connected through marriage. Included are original deeds from the early and mid-1800s; birth, death, and marriage dates and genealogy notes; baby book-type notes about the lives of 2 children (1885-1888) of William I. Watson (his mother was a Boomer) and wife "Ms. Charlie" Sidney Archbell Watson; World War I letters (1917-1918) written by William E. Watson to relatives in Aurora (Beaufort County), North Carolina, from Camp Sevier and Fort Jackson in South Carolina; and photographs (late 1800s-early 1900s).

Collection (1862-1994) containing correspondence, service records, photographic prints, newspapers, newsletters and clippings, scrapbook, publications, pamphlets and other miscellaneous papers relating to the American Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I and World War II; also relating to the U.S. Navy, its ships, stations, and personnel; donated by various individuals to the U. S. Naval Memorial Foundation and transferred to its collection at various times; arranged in original order.

Papers (1915-1975) of Edenton NC Funeral parlor operators, including correspondence, funeral service ledger, photographs, and miscellany. 200 items.

Diary (1944-1946) including detail activities, description of radio broadcast, propaganda pertaining to American casualties, views of World War II.

Papers (1866-1874, 1899-1964) including correspondence, diaries, daybooks, reports, certificates, photographs, manuals, clippings, an army register, notebooks, etc.

This collection (1821-2007) contains several groups of family history-related papers concerning eastern North Carolina and a large number of unrelated miscellaneous items such as photographs, church records, Bible records, and rare printed items on a variety of subjects. The majority of the family papers concern the Croom and Whitfield families of Lenoir County, N.C. Other family papers concern the Harvey family of Greene County, N.C., the Jordan and Waters families of Washington, N.C., the Meeks family of Pitt County, the Outlaw family of Lenoir County and the Thompson family of Georgia. A large part of this collection concerns the Ficklen family of Greenville, N.C., including scrapbooks, diaries, an autograph book and a post card collection. Some items concern the colorful poet, magazine editor, railroad speculator, paper mill owner, Civil War blockade-runner, and sea captain Appleton Oaksmith who lived in Carteret County, N.C., for fifteen years (1872-1887). Also included are ambrotype photographs of Confederate Civil War soldiers James Needham Alexander, who served in Company A, 11th North Carolina Troops (Infantry) and Stanhope Washington Alexander, who served in Company H, 35th North Carolina Regiment.

Collection (1848-1931) of Johnston County (NC) family including journal, will, deeds, letter, certificates, etc.

Collection (1950 - 2011), including correspondence, photographic prints, ephemera, subject files and published materials, relating to Democratic Party politics in North Carolina and Washington, DC, especially Leggett's activities as chief of staff for Robert B. Morgan, who was Attorney General of North Carolina and U. S. Senator, 1970-1980.

Papers (1898-1903, 1953-1984, undated) including photographs, clippings, biographical sketch, and photocopy of pages from "A Documentary History of The Negro People in the United States" concerning Alex L. Manly (1866-1944), African-American newspaper editor of The Daily Record in Wilmington, North Carolina, during the Wilmington massacre of 1898. Additional materials include typed transcriptions of nine letters (November 19, 1953-November 9, 1955) written by Caroline "Carrie" Sadgwar Manly (widow of Alex L. Manly) to her sons Milo A. Manly and Lewin R. Manly. The transcriptions were done by Milo A. Manly (1903-1991) and given by him to the donor, Professor Charles Hardy III. Also included is a photocopy of the transcription of an interview done with Milo A. Manly by the donor on September 11, 1984. The original interview is held at Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky.

Papers (1935-1947) including memorandums, manuals, publications, grade reports, and newsletters.