Timeline extended for launch of Wilson Library facilities work.

Collection Number: 03359

Collection Title: Daniel Moreau Barringer Papers, 1797-1873

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.


Funding from the State Library of North Carolina supported the encoding of this finding aid.

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Collection Overview

Size 3.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 2,300 items)
Abstract Daniel Moreau Barringer of Cabarrus County and Raleigh, N.C., was a lawyer; North Carolina state legislator; United States representative, 1843-1849; minister to Spain, 1849-1853; active Whig and later Democrat; and member of the North Carolina Democratic Party state executive committee, 1860, and chair, 1872. The collection includes family, business, and political correspondence and other papers of Daniel Moreau Barringer and members of his family. Included are letters, 1830s-1870s, from numerous North Carolina politicians and public officials, including Daniel Laurens Barringer, David F. Caldwell, Thomas L. Clingman, William Gaston, James Graham, William Alexander Graham, Willie P. Mangum, David L. Swain, and Calvin H. Wiley. Letters concern such issues as state and national politics; positions to be filled by President Zachary Taylor, 1848-1849; slavery; railroads; the University of North Carolina; and gold mining in Cabarrus and Mecklenburg counties, N.C. Papers for the period of Barringer's diplomatic service in Spain are especially full and include material relating to Americans taken prisoner after an expedition against the Spanish in Cuba. Letters, 1844-1860, from Barringer's brother, Paul Brandon Barringer, cotton planter near Oxford, Miss., discuss agricultrual, economic, social, and political affairs in Mississippi. There are also letters from Franklin L. Smith, a student at the University of North Carolina, 1827 and 1829; about politics during the Civil War; about race relations just after the Civil War; and about student life at Washington College, Lexington, Va., 1867-1869. Papers of Barringer's wife, Elizabeth (Wethered) Barringer (1822-1867) of Baltimore, Md., document her life, including treatment she received for cancer, 1866-1867, and the lives of members of the Wethered family. There are also two color photographs of oil portraits of Daniel Moreau Barringer and Elizabeth Barringer painted by Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz during the Barrigers' stay in Madrid.
Creator Barringer, Daniel Moreau, 1806-1873.
Curatorial Unit Southern Historical Collection
Language English
Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Information For Users

Restrictions to Access
No restrictions. Open for research.
Copyright Notice
Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], in the Daniel Moreau Barringer Papers #3359, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Acquisitions Information
Received from Mr. Brandon Barringer, Philadelphia, 1958-1964.
Additional Descriptive Resources
Detailed inventory of collection that was produced 1965-1973 by Manuscripts Department staff is filed in folder 67.
Sensitive Materials Statement
Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.
Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Processing Information

Processed by: Southern Historical Collection Staff, June 1965

Encoded by: Mara Dabrishus, October 2004

Funding from the State Library of North Carolina supported the encoding of this finding aid.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subject Headings

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Biographical Information

Daniel Moreau Barringer was born in Cabarrus County, N.C., 30 July 1806, the son of Paul and Elizabeth (Brandon) Barringer. He was graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1826, studied law with Judge Thomas Ruffin, and practiced in Concord, N.C. Barringer served in the North Carolina General Assembly, 1829-1835, 1840, 1845; in the state of constitutional convention of 1835; in the United States Congress, 1843-1849; and as minister to Spain, 1849-1853. In 1861, he was a delegate to the Peace Convention in Washington and, in 1866, to the National Union Convention in Philadelphia. He was a Whig in the 1830s and 1840s, but, in 1856, supported James Buchanan for the presidency and thereafter was affiliated with the Democrats. He was active in the campaign of 1868 and chair of the State Executive Committee of the Democratic Party in 1872.

Barringer was married on 15 August 1848 to Elizabeth Wethered (1822-1867), daughter of Lewin and Elizabeth (Ellicott) Wethered of Baltimore. They had two sons who lived to maturity, Lewin Wethered Barringer (b. 1850) and Daniel Moreau Barringer, Jr. (b. 1860). They also had a daughter, Elizabeth Brandon, who died in 1864 at the age of thirteen, and several other children who died in infancy.

Barringer lived in Cabarrus County and Concord until his marriage. In the year between their marriage and their departure for Spain, he and his wife lived with relatives in Cabarrus County and in Baltimore. On their return, they were again unsettled until June 1859, when they moved to Raleigh, N.C. During 1865-1866, they were in Baltimore for several months, but returned to Raleigh in 1866. Elizabeth Barringer was ill and went to the home of her brother James and his wife Mollie in Brooklyn for medical treatment, staying there until her death in May or June 1867. Daniel Moreau Barringer continued to live in Raleigh until his death on 1 September 1873.

The Barringer family was descended from a German immigrant, John Paul Barringer, who settled before the Revolution at Poplar Grove in what later became Cabarrus County. Paul Barringer (1778-1844) was one of his sons and had several sons and daughters: Daniel Moreau, the oldest; Margaret, who married first John Boy and second Andrew Grier; Paul Brandon, who married Mary Pickens Carson and moved to Mississippi; Mary Ann, who married Charles W. Harris and lived at Mill Grove; William, a Methodist preacher, whose wife was Lavinia Alston; Elizabeth, who married Edwin Harris; Rufus, who married first Eugenia Davidson, second Rosalie Chunn, and third Margaret Long; Catherine, who married William C. Means and lived at Bellevue; and Victor Clay, who married Maria Massey.

Elizabeth (Wethered) Barringer had one sister, Mary Lewin Wethered, who married William G. Thomas of Baltimore. She had four brothers: Charles; John, member of Congress 1843-1845; Samuel; and James. The family operated woolen mills at Wetheredville near Baltimore.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Scope and Content

The papers include family, business, and political correspondence and other papers of lawyer, North Carolina legislator, United States Representative, United States minister to Spain, and member of Whig Party and later the North Carolina Democratic Party's executive committee Daniel Moreau Barringer of Cabarrus County, N.C., and Raleigh, N.C., and members of his family. Included are letters, 1830s-1870s, from numerous North Carolina politicians and public officials, including Daniel Laurens Barringer, David F. Caldwell, Thomas L. Clingman, William Gaston, James Graham, William Alexander Graham, Willie P. Mangum, David L. Swain, and Calvin H. Wiley. Letters concern such issues as state and national politics; positions to be filled by President Zachary Taylor, 1848-1849; slavery; railroads; the University of North Carolina; and gold mining in Cabarrus County and Mecklenburg County, N.C. Papers for the period of Barringer's diplomatic service in Spain are especially full and include material relating to Americans taken prisoner after an expedition against the Spanish in Cuba. Letters, 1844-1860, from Barringer's brother, Paul Brandon Barringer, cotton planter near Oxford, Miss., discuss agricultrual, economic, social, and political affairs in Mississippi. There are also letters from Franklin L. Smith, a student at the University of North Carolina, 1827 and 1829; about politics during the Civil War; about race relations just after the Civil War; and about student life at Washington College, Lexington, Va., 1867-1869. Papers of Barringer's wife, Elizabeth Barringer (1822-1867) of Baltimore, Md., document her life, including treatment she received for cancer, 1866-1867, and the lives of members of the Wethered family. There are also two color photographs of oil portraits of Daniel Moreau Barringer and Elizabeth Barringer painted by Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz during the Barrigers' stay in Madrid.

Back to Top

Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Papers, 1797-1873.

About 2,300 items.

Folder 1

1797-1808, 1812

Folder 2

1824-1826

Includes a letter from F. L. Smith to Daniel M. Barringer, 2 June 1826.

Folder 3

1827-1828

Folder 4

1829-1830

Folder 5

1831-1833

Folder 6

1834-1835

Folder 7

1836-1838

Folder 8

1839-1840

Folder 9

1841

Folder 10

1842-1843

Folder 11

1844-1845

Folder 12

1846-1847

Folder 13a

1848

Folder 13b

1848

Folder 14-16

Folder 14

Folder 15

Folder 16

1849

Folder 17-19

Folder 17

Folder 18

Folder 19

1850

Folder 20-24

Folder 20

Folder 21

Folder 22

Folder 23

Folder 24

1851

Folder 25-30

Folder 25

Folder 26

Folder 27

Folder 28

Folder 29

Folder 30

1852

Folder 31-32

Folder 31

Folder 32

1853

Folder 33-34

Folder 33

Folder 34

1855

Folder 35

1856

Folder 36

1856

Folder 37

1857

Folder 38

1858

Folder 39

1859

Folder 40

1860

Folder 41

1861

Folder 42

1862

Folder 43

1863-1864

Folder 44

1865

Folder 45

1866

Folder 46a

1867

Folder 46b

1867

Folder 47a

1868

Folder 47b

1869

Folder 48

1870-1871

Folder 49-51

Folder 49

Folder 50

Folder 51

1872

Folder 52

1873-1885, 1919, 1928, 1936

Folder 53

Family records, obituaries, reminiscences

Folder 54-58

Folder 54

Folder 55

Folder 56

Folder 57

Folder 58

Papers relating to Spanish mission, 1849-1853 and undated

Folder 59

European bills, 1848-1854

Folder 60

Undated letters

Folder 61

Undated miscellaneous

Folder 62

Clippings before 1861

Folder 63

Clippings and other items after 1865

Folder 64

Welheardville map description

Oversize Paper OP-3359/1

Welheardville map

Folder 65

Barringer, Brandon: Lists and comments

Folder 66

Congressional autograph album

Folder 67

Copy of the detailed inventory of the Daniel Moreau Barringer Papers that was produced by Manuscripts Department staff, 1965-1973

Image Folder PF-3359/1

Two color photographs of oil portraits of Daniel Moreau Barringer and Elizabeth Barringer painted by Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz during the Barrigers' stay in Madrid.

The portraits, 4'7" x 3'3" (5'10" x 4'3" framed), were in the possession of Mrs. Philip W. Rabinowitz, daughter of Brandon Barringer, in 1972.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Items Separated

Separated items include photographs (P-3359) and oversize papers (OP-3359).

Back to Top