Search Collection Guides

This collection contains the records (1872-2014, undated) for the Cumberland Lodge No. 5, Knights of Pythias, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Types of material included are correspondence, financial records, rosters, visitors' registers, by-laws, deeds, records of proceedings and printed material. Membership information often gives a member's age, dates when each class or rank was attained, date of death and what dues were collected. In some cases indication is also given as to when membership was withdrawn, suspended or reinstated.

Papers include account books, booklet, and receipts for services rendered.

Includes a public health nursing poem.

This collection contains financial records (including also bills of sale for enslaved persons) and deeds (1743-1872), and correspondence (1821-1891) related especially to Elias Fort and Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker of Halifax County, N.C. The correspondence also concerns other members of the Whitaker family and related families.

Records (1903-1954, undated) of the Leggett (NC) general store.

This collection contains correspondence (1841-1937) received by members of the May family of Farmville, Pitt County, N.C., including letters written from Michigan and Tennessee; receipts, promissory notes, and judgments (1813-1910); financial documents (1820s-1920), and account books (1819-1830s). Other material includes grade reports and tuition receipts for Farmville Academy (1899-1900), Farmville Seminary (1887-1888), and Farmville High School (1891, 1900); deeds and other land records (1760-1891), some of which refer to the Flake and Shivers families in Pitt County; a list Black enslaved men, women, and children that includes their birthdates (1830s-1850s) and their mothers' names; catalogs for Trenton High School (1897), St. Mary's School in Raleigh (1842), and Trinity School in Chocowinity (1907/1908); and a 1900 reward poster for the man who robbed R. L. Davis & Brothers of Farmville. Miscellaneous publications include among others The Primitive Baptist (1853-1860, 1870-1872), almanacs, telephone directories (1934 Greenville, 1930 Farmville), a 1919 Chicago war camp community service publication, and The Southern Women of the Second American Revolution . . . by H. W. R. [Jackson, 1863].

Collection includes 25 World War II era U.S. Ration Books issued to a Greene County, North Carolina, family and to a familly in Long Beach, California. Also included are a Fuel Oil Ration Book, 3 Mileage Ration Books and an A Gas Ration sticker. These ration books document the experience of necessities being rationed during the war, and the physical description and familial connections of the people to whom the ration books were issued. Also included are unused V Mail Stationery, and 12 pin-ups which could be mailed to U.S. soldiers during the war. An additional 18 images document an Army Day parade held in Gorizia, Italy, on April 6, 1946. This group consists primarily of photographic prints depicting military vehicles and personnel in procession, including scenes of an engineers wrecker truck, spectators lining the route of march, a two and one half ton truck transporting a tractor on a trailer, a Brockway truck, an M 24 tank of the 752d Tank Battalion, armored cars, a 105 mm howitzer with a detailed view of its recoilless mechanism, a 57 mm antitank gun, elements of the 105th Field Artillery, and the S P Shore Patrol Band.

Vaughan Family Papers (1872-1900, 1969, undated) includes photograph albums containing images of family members from Hertford County, North Carolina. Also included is Uriah Vaughan correspondence (1876-1887) and a photocopy of the 1969 appraisal of Uriah Vaughan Heirs Property in Murfreesboro, North Carolina.

Papers of Fred Chappell (1952-2017, undated) documenting the life and literary career of the noted Canton, North Carolina-born American educator, short story writer, novelist, and educator, whose writing focus on Southern themes, consisting of correspondence, holographs, typescripts, loose manuscript items transferred from the Stuart Wright Book Collection, photographic prints, proofs of published works, audio recordings, printed materials & oversized materials; also including Chappell's correspondence with George Garrett, Stuart Wright and Wallace Fowlie, a clipping and a print of his poem The Collector (2011) written in honor of Stuart Wright, and a painting by Fritz Janschka.

The U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation Collection: Lee D. Teal Papers contains materials documenting service aboard two U.S. Navy escort carriers during World War II: the USS Kitkun Bay (CVE-71) and the USS Hollandia (CVE-97). Items include a narrative history of the Kitkun Bay with an accompanying photograph of Lee D. Teal (1943–1945) and a program from a Divine Worship Service held aboard the Hollandia in 1944.

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.

Papers (1861 - 2025, undated) documenting the archaeological excavations of the Confederate defensive fortifications, river obstructions and fish trap on the River Neuse below Kinston, NC, and the Confederate ironclad ram CSS Neuse, relating to Capt. Joseph H. Price, commander of the CSS Neuse, and relating to Lenoir County, N.C., history in general including correspondence, notes, photographic prints and negatives (black and white), and publications.

Papers of Harry Crews (1973-1987, undated) documenting the life and literary career of the noted Alma, Georgia-born American novelist, playwright, short story writer, essayist & educator at the University of Florida, where he taught creative writing; including proofs of published materials, photographic prints, loose manuscript items transferred from the Stuart Wright Book Collection, printed materials & oversized materials.

Papers of Flannery O'Connor (1962-1984, undated) documenting the life and literary career of the noted Savannah, Georgia-born American short story writer & novelist in the Southern Gothic style, consisting of a broadside entitled Higher Education [Poem] by Mary Flannery O'Connor. Palaemon Broadside No. 16 (Palaemon Press, Ltd., undated); also mimeographed, photocopied typescripts, clippings, letters, and an audio recording of Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction, a speech given by Flannery O'Connor in 1960.

This collection (1791-1960) documents the horse and mule business, farm operations, land transactions, saw mill operation, and other business enterprises of Edward Cyrus Winslow (b. 1886) of Tarboro, Edgecombe County, N.C. Included in the collection are correspondence, financial and legal records such as account books, ledgers, bills and receipts, contracts with other mule dealers, promissory notes, agricultural liens and chattel mortgages, deeds, and lease and rental agreements. Also included are superior court records, blueprints of farm tracts and dairy equipment, printed material, business and family photographs, and a small quantity of family correspondence.