Search Collection Guides

The Phoenix Historical Society: African American History of Edgecombe County was founded in 2001 to recover, record, and promote the unique history of Edgecombe County (North Carolina) as experienced by members of its African American community. This collection contains the society's official records, brochures, event programs, and publications related to research, community events and sponsored projects.

This collection contains over 100 letters (1885, 1892-1897) written to Sallie Dromgoole Cotten (1876-1972), daughter of Sallie Swepson Southall Cotten and Robert Randolph Cotten, either while she was at home at Cottendale in Falkland, Pitt County, North Carolina, or at Notre Dame of Maryland Preparatory School and Collegiate Institute in Baltimore. The letters are written mainly by Sallie's female friends, but also some male friends in the 1890s (1892-1897) The correspondents are family, associates, and friends, especially schoolmates. Topics are mainly related to interests of college women and men. Also included are ephemera such as dance cards and dance invitations especially to "German" dances which were large popular events among wealthy white families in Eastern North Carolina tobacco towns in the 1890s.

Collection (1911-1956, bulk 1918-1919) consists of material related to Roy S. Fisk who served as an Army cook with Co. C, 131st Engineers, AEF, stationed in Le Mans, France, during the latter half of World War I. Included are correspondence, papers related to Fisk's military career, war-related publications, French guide books and souvenir photo albums from places he visited in France, a postcard book from the USS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, and Vol. 1, No. 19, April 10, 1919, issue of The Bulletin which discusses issues in France and the military career of Brigadier General George S. Simonds. Also included are some papers and ephemera related to his post-military life.

Papers (1944-1945) including correspondence, incoming and outgoing intelligence logbooks, financial reports, orders and a travel account and miscellany.

Papers (1945, 1994) of a US naval officer including an autobiographical sketch entitled Trains, Planes and Boats: A Memoir [and Genealogy of Richards Thorn Miller], 1918 - 1994, by Capt. Richards Thorn Miller, USN (Ret.) (1945); also an historical account of his World War II service in the Office of Supervisor of Shipbuilding, USNR Annapolis, Maryland, prepared by LCDR Richards T. Miller, USNR, November 1945. Photocopy carbon typescript and Typescript.

Muster roll for a detachment of the 29th Regiment U. S. Colored Troops Detachment under the command of Capt. Wilson Camp, dated June 30 – August 31, 1865. The roll documents the names, ranks, enlistment data, and service records of the 17-man detachment consisting of soldiers from Illinois, Indiana, and Maryland.

Peart's Journal : Prepared from notes kept on a prisoner of War odyssey from Bilibid Prison, Manila, P.I., to Manchukuo, via the prison ship S.S. Oryoku Maru (undated)

St Thomas Episcopal Church Collection established in 1696 in Bath County North Carolina. The collection is a photographic print of a church alter circa 1910.

The bulk of the Raymond J. Kragness Papers (1943-1946, 2000, 2004) pertains to Mr. Kragness's service in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Theatre in World War II aboard the USS Escambia. Personal items include rites of passage membership cards (such as crossing the Equator), draft board notification, photographs, post cards of San Francisco Bay, course certificates, separation from service records and a brief family history. The remaining items pertain to his service on the USS Escambia, a fleet oiler. Included are the ship's history and directory, newsletter "Eighty Times," a list of ships fuled by the USS Escambia, plans of the day, congratulatory messages from Admiral Halsey, and invitations and tickets for commissioning and decommissioning ceremonies.

Papers (1887-1933) including diaries, medical school notes, school register, ledger, daybooks, memo books, clippings, physician's birth record stub book, a funeral memorial record, a photograph and miscellany.

Papers (1933–1987 [Bulk: 1941–1945]) of an American Red Cross volunteer who served on Guadalcanal, New Caledonia, and New Zealand, during World War II, including three drafts of her manuscript memoir of her service entitled Red Cross Adventure that was later published as No Drums, No Trumpets: Red Cross Adventure; Invitations, 1933, 1939, to Mary Ferebee Howard to attend the inauguration ceremonies for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vice President John N. Garner, with portraits of Roosevelt and Garner; Inauguration Ceremonies Program, 4 March 1933; Official Inaugural Concert Program, National Symphony Orchestra, Constitution Hall, Washington, 4 March 1933; Inaugural information envelope addressed to Mary Ferebee Howard; Invitations to Presidential Palace, Managua, Nicaragua, 12, 19 December 1939; also photographs, programs, memos, instruction, clippings, original art, ephemera relating to her wartime service.

Papers (1895-1935) of Greenville attorney, three-term mayor, and judge of the NC Superior Court, 1910-1920, consisting of correspondence, financial papers, legal papers, brief book, clippings, postcards, poems, negatives, standard diary, etc.

Includes a complete set of the monthly periodical, The Medical World, for the year 1908.

81st Division, Meuse-Argonne Offensive, November 2-11, 1918 Map. Published with 81st Division, Summary of Operations In the World War. Prepared by the American Battle Monuments Commission, Washington, DC: GPO, 1944.

Letters and ephemera (1926-1929) related to the life of Agnes Wadlington [Barrett], who was born in Trigg County, Kentucky in 1902, before she took a job at East Carolina Teachers College (now East Carolina University) as secretary to the president of the college. Also found with these papers are many photographs of members of the Putnam family of Murray, Kentucky. The only connection between Mrs. Barrett and the Putnam family appears to be that both she and Louise Vey Putnam Carter's husband Herbert Leland Carter both worked at East Carolina University. An 1982 engagement calendar kept by Mrs. Barrett documents her life during retirement in Greenville, North Carolina.