Search Collection Guides

This pocket diary was kept by Union soldier James F. Shapleigh of 43rd Massachusetts Volunteers, Co. D, from January 1, 1863, through July 20, 1863. He was mustered out at the end of July 1863. During this period the 43rd Massachusetts Volunteers served in North Carolina with the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 18th Army Corps. Camp Rogers in New Bern, was home base. Included in the diary are good details related to the Battle of Washington, North Carolina, that covers March 30 to April 19, 1863, as well as everyday life for soldiers. Later scattered entries in the diary go through January 1864.

The Tyson-May Reunion Papers (1965–2023; undated) document the activities and genealogical research of the Tyson-May Reunion, a family organization founded in Farmville, North Carolina, around 1920. Formed to record and preserve the lineage of early settler Cornelius Tyson and Revolutionary War commander Major Benjamin May and his wife, Mary Clara Tyson, the Reunion has held annual gatherings and maintained detailed records of its membership and operations. Materials include meeting minutes, by-laws, genealogical reports, correspondence, reunion programs, newspaper clippings, and related documentation reflecting the group's administrative functions and ongoing interest in family history.

This collection contains material (1735-2004) detailing the history of the A.C. Monk Tobacco Company and the Monk Family of Farmville, Pitt County, North Carolina, including financial records, correspondence, tax documents, audit reports, wills, estate records, stock certificates, deeds, receipts, ledger, press releases, portfolios, and blueprints, land records, clippings, publications and broadsides, and family histories and Farmville histories. Also included are photographs (daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite, negatives, 35 mm prints, large framed images), and charcoal portraits, of Monk, Quinerly, Turnage, and May family members of Farmville, North Carolina.

Papers of Kelly Cherry (1972-1999 [Bulk: 1995-1999]) documenting the life and literary career of the prolific Baton Rouge, Louisiana-born American novelist, poet, essayist, educator at University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Virginia among other universities, and poet laureate of Virginia 2010-2012; consisting of typescripts of Paula: An Odyssey: A Novel, Parts 1 – 4) (1995-1999), an unpublished volume; a broadside of her poem Loneliness: Words for a Secular Canticle (1980); also including loose manuscript items transferred from Kelly Cherry's works in the Stuart Wright Book Collection Augusta Played: A Novel (1978-1979), Conversion (1980), and Sick and Full of Burning: A Novel (1972-1989).

F.W. Fisher's ledger 1901- 1909 of receipts, expenses, dues, and officer's reports of King's David Lodge No. 24 Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Kinston, Lenoir County, North Carolina, United States. Anonymous Donor.

Unpublished autobiography and personal papers of Rear Admiral Lucius W. Johnson (1882-1968), a distinguished Navy surgeon, who was awarded the Navy Cross for his relief efforts in the Dominican Republic during Dictator Rafael Trujillo's reign, coordinated construction of the National Naval Medical Center outside of Washington, D.C., oversaw the development of Naval Mobile Base Hospital No. 1 in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and is credited with introducing the Daiquiri to America. Included besides the 400-page autobiography are scrapbooks detailing the planning and construction of the medical center; a report on the construction of the mobile hospital which includes photographs; three binders containing over two hundred pamphlets, off prints, and clippings of Johnson's published articles; military orders; and his official Navy portrait.

This collection consists of the records of the Institute of Outdoor Theatre which was founded in 1963 and includes material related to over 600 outdoor theatres, some of which began operation in the 1920s. Included are play scripts, correspondence, clippings, publicity material, video and audio recordings, feasibility studies, publications, reel-to-reel tapes, 35 mm slides, blueprints, and audition-related materials. This collection is being processed with the support of a National Historical Publications and Records Commission grant.

This collection contains a logbook (1891-1929) kept by William Hadlock Gooding (b. June 1, 1856, d. September 7, 1936), the purser for the barkentine Olive Thurlow. During this time, Olive Thurlow, which operated out of Philadelphia, travelled to New York, Boston, Savannah, Washington, Port Royal, Barbadoes, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo. Other entries in the logbook refer to the settling of accounts in Boston by Gooding for his time with the bark Grace Deering (1901-1902); and accounts (1906-1909, 1925-1929) related to his life in Yarmouth, Cumberland County, Maine.

This collection consists of original photographs, photographic prints (copies), negatives and proof sheets (ca. 1890-1900, 1950s -1970s) documenting history in and around the area of Murfreesboro, North Carolina. These consist primarily of images of businesses, buildings, boats and ferries, mills, cemeteries and gravestones, architectural features of interest, churches, schools, people and historical houses.

This collection contains programs from campus events that are sponsored by multiple campus entities.

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.

Collection (25 November – 21 December 1862) including holograph letters written by 1st Lt. Frank W. Adams, Company B, 51st Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, to his sister Elizabeth in Massachusetts, describing in great detail on the regiment's departure from the Boston Harbor aboard the Steamer Merrimac, voyage to North Carolina, their arrival in Newbern [New Bern], N.C. their encounter with the 43rd Massachusetts and their participation in the Battles of Kinston and Whitehall (present day White Hall), North Carolina as part of General John G. Foster's Goldsborough [Goldsboro] Expedition; also transcript of the holograph letters and one additional letter; also folios that formerly contained the letters and transcripts. Note: the letter dated 10-21 December 1862 also contains an envelope containing remnants of the ribbons once used to bind the letters; the folder that held the transcripts is stamped inside the font cover: "Robert W. Adams Oct. 1, 1947".

Mrs. Booth (1916-2004), the owner of the Booth Guest House in Manteo, N.C., discusses her childhood memories, family life and history on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and in Norfolk, Virginia. She also talks about her father, Alpheus W. Drinkwater, the telegrapher who relayed the news of the successful first airplane flights of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, N.C., in 1903.

This collection includes many letters written during the American Civil War by Dr. Charles James O'Hagan, an Irish immigrant who settled in Pitt County, North Carolina, and served in the North Carolina State Troops as a surgeon, to his daughters; and letters written by Confederate soldiers to his eldest daughter. Also included are letters (1840s) from family in Ireland and testamonials written to help Dr. O'Hagan find employment; letters written in the post-Civil War era 1860s through 1882; and letters, photographs, and obituaries concerning the related Laughinghouse and Grimes families of Pitt County, N.C., in the late 19th century and early 20th century.