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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 FAQ section for more information.
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Collection Overview
| Size | 2.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 370 items) |
| Abstract | Boyd family of Warrenton, N.C., and the related Burwell, Massenburg, Norwood, Davis, and other families. Family members include William Henry Burwell (d. 1917); planter John Early Boyd (1812-1883) and his wife, Ann Bignall Jones Boyd (1816-1882); and their son, lawyer Henry Armistead Boyd (1855-1929) and his wife, Elizabeth Massenburg Norwood Boyd (1863-1944). Correspondence, financial and legal materials, genealogical materials, pictures, and other papers of the Boyd and related families. The earliest letters are to and from Burwell family members, relating especially to the academic career of William Henry Burwell at the University of North Carolina, where he earned an A.B. degree in 1856. Burwell materials continue through the 1860s, when they are gradually supplanted by items relating to the Boyd family. Letters from Henry Armistead Boyd, then a student at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., begin in 1875; they chiefly relate to affairs of the heart, with Henry first wooing a woman named Ada, and then switching to Bettie (Elizabeth Massenburg) Norwood, whom he married in 1881. Most letters after 1881 deal with family matters and Henry's law practice. The few letters dated after 1906 deal chiefly with genealogy. Financial and legal materials relate chiefly to Boyd and Norwood family members, and include indentures, bills and receipts, and insurance policies. There are also some estate papers and several items relating to John Early Boyd's 1868 bankruptcy, but there is little relating to plantation or farm matters. Also included are a few items relating to Robert E. Lee, including a lock of his hair and a description of how it was obtained. |
| Creator | Boyd family. |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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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.
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Biographical Information
This collection consists of papers of the Boyd family of Warrenton, N.C., and the related Burwell, Massenburg, Norwood, Davis, and other families. Family members include planter John Early Boyd (1812-1883), who appears to have come to Warrenton from Mecklenburg County, Va., around 1838, and his wife Ann Bignall Jones Boyd (1816-1882); their son, lawyer Henry Armistead Boyd (1855-1929), who, in September 1881, married Elizabeth (Bettie) Massenburg Norwood (1863-1944); Bettie's father William Jordan Norwood (1836-1909) and mother Mariam Stamp Massenburg Norwood (1840-1901) of Woodleaf, near Louisburg, N.C.; and Bettie's grandmother Lucy Henry Davis (1811-1896). Also included are the children of Henry and Bettie: William Norwood (1882-1951), who married Elizabeth Marshall Burwell; Anne Jones, who married William A. Graham; and Mariam (1885-1976), who taught school in Warrenton. The donor is the daughter of William Norwood Boyd and Elizabeth Marshall Burwell Boyd.
The collection includes correspondence, financial and legal materials, genealogical materials, pictures, and other papers of the Boyd and related families. The earliest letters are to and from Burwell family members, relating especially to the academic career of William Henry Burwell (d. 1917) at the University of North Carolina, where he earned an A.B. degree in 1856. Burwell materials continue through the 1860s, when they are gradually supplanted by items relating to the Boyd family. Letters from Henry Armistead Boyd, then a student at Randolph Macon College in Ashland, Va., begin in 1875; they chiefly relate to affairs of the heart, with Henry first wooing a woman named Ada, and then switching to Bettie Norwood, who he married in 1881. Most letters after 1881 deal with family matters and Henry's law practice. The few letters dated after 1906 deal chiefly with genealogy.
Financial and legal materials relate chiefly to Boyd and Norwood family members, and include indentures, bills and receipts, and insurance policies. There are also some estate papers and many items relating to John Early Boyd's 1868 bankruptcy.
There are many handwritten and typed notes relating to the genealogy of the Boyd and other families. There are also family trees, applications to organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and other items having to do with family history.
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Scope and Content
Correspondence, financial and legal materials, genealogical materials, pictures, and other papers of the Boyd and related families. The earliest letters are to and from Burwell family members, relating especially to the academic career of William Henry Burwell at the University of North Carolina, where he earned an A.B. degree in 1856. Burwell materials continue through the 1860s, when they are gradually supplanted by items relating to the Boyd family. Letters from Henry Armistead Boyd, then a student at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., begin in 1875; they chiefly relate to affairs of the heart, with Henry first wooing a woman named Ada, and then switching to Bettie (Elizabeth Massenburg) Norwood, whom he married in 1881. Most letters after 1881 deal with family matters and Henry's law practice. The few letters dated after 1906 deal chiefly with genealogy. Financial and legal materials relate chiefly to Boyd and Norwood family members, and include indentures, bills and receipts, and insurance policies. There are also some estate papers and several items relating to John Early Boyd's 1868 bankruptcy, but there is little relating to plantation or farm matters. Also included are a few items relating to Robert E. Lee, including a lock of his hair and a description of how it was obtained.
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Series Quick Links
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Series 1. Correspondence, 1847-1973 and undated.
Arrangement: chronological.
Correspondence relating to members of the Boyd family and other families. Letters in the 1840s and 1850s relate chiefly to William Henry Burwell's academic career, first at school in Shelbyville, Tenn., and then at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where he earned an A.B. degree in 1856. In 1852, there is a phrenological study of Burwell, and, in 1853, a letter from Burwell's mother about the importance of education. There are a few letters in 1859 from Burwell's father, William A. Burwell, to his wife from Hot Springs, Va., where he had gone to take the cure.
Boyd family letters begin in the Civil War years, but there are no letters relating directly to the war. These letters deal chiefly with the settlement of John Early Boyd's father's estate. There are some Norwood and Massenburg letters in the late 1860s, but the volume of correspondence picks up dramatically in 1875 with letters to and from Henry Armistead Boyd at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va. Some of these letters are to and from Henry's parents, but the bulk are courtship letters, first, to and from a Miss Ada, to whom Henry was secretly engaged, and, after the engagement was broken late in 1877, to and from Bettie Massenburg Norwood, who married Henry in 1881.
After 1881, most letters relate to family matters revolving around Henry and Bettie in Warrenton. There are also a few letters about Henry's law career and about activities of other Boyd family members, including the tobacco warehouse run by Walter B., William H., William L., and Richard B. Boyd in Henderson, N.C.
In the late 1880s and 1890s, there are letters from Davis and Massenburg family members, particularly B. B. Massenburg, who was a lawyer and clerk of the Superior Court in Franklin County, N.C. In June and July 1891, there are many letters from Bettie, who was in Richmond, Va., being treated for some unspecified ailment. In 1893, there are items relating to Henry's efforts to raise funds to build a Methodist church in Warrenton, and a few letters relating to Henry's tenure as treasurer of the Warrenton Colored Normal School, which received funds from the Peabody Education Fund. In 1906, there is a letter from Henry granting William A. Graham permission to marry his daughter Annie Jones Boyd.
The few letters dated after 1906 are to or from Annie Jones Boyd Graham and relate chiefly to genealogy. Undated letters are mainly about family affairs and include an appeal to family members to contribute to the John Early Boyd Cemetery Fund.
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Series 2. Financial and Legal Materials, 1825-1958 and undated.
Arrangement: roughly chronological.
Indentures, bills and receipts, insurance policies, and other financial and legal materials relating to family members.
There is a copy of the deed, 1838, by which John Early Boyd of Mecklenburg County, Va., bought land from William Eaton in Warren County, N.C. Other John Early Boyd papers relate to his role as guardian for Sarah Boyd in the late 1840s and to his bankruptcy in 1868. Beginning in the 1880s, there are notes and other materials of Henry Armistead Boyd, including his 1894 accounts with farm tenants. There are lists, 1957 and 1958, of contributions to and bank statements for the John Early Boyd Cemetery Fund, Mrs. William A. Graham, treasurer.
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Series 3. Genealogy.
Arrangement: roughly sorted by type.
Handwritten and typed notes, typed transcriptions and photocopies of wills, handwritten and printed family trees, application forms for the United Daughters of the Confederacy and other organizations, printed and photocopied writings on the Boyd and other families, and clippings relating to family members and to Warrenton, N.C.
| Folder 17-26 |
Notes #04577, Series: "3. Genealogy." Folder 17-26Folder 17Folder 18Folder 19Folder 20Folder 21Folder 22Folder 23Folder 24Folder 25Folder 26 |
| Folder 27-28 |
Writings #04577, Series: "3. Genealogy." Folder 27-28Folder 27Folder 28 |
| Folder 29 |
Clippings Boyd family clippings #04577, Series: "3. Genealogy." Folder 29 |
| Folder 30 |
Clippings Norwood and other family clippings #04577, Series: "3. Genealogy." Folder 30 |
| Folder 31 |
Clippings Warrenton clippings #04577, Series: "3. Genealogy." Folder 31 |
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Series 4. Other Papers, 1875-1973.
Diary of Annie Jones Boyd, 1902-1903, containing brief entries largely relating to family life; guest book from the 1906 wedding of William A. Graham and Annie Jones Boyd; materials having to do with General Robert E. Lee, including a lock of his hair and a description of how it was obtained, 1903; Henry Armistead Boyd's school notebook for a class in Greek, 1875-1876; and miscellaneous other items, including a few family recipes.
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Series 5. Pictures, Undated.
Photographs, mostly undated, of unidentified family members. Also included is a photograph of a Warrenton Railroad locomotive and two printed photographs, one of a graveyard and one of "The Oaks." There are also two tintypes, one of Annie Norwood, William J. Norwood's daughter who died at the age of eight, and one of an unidentified man.
| Image P-4577 |
Pictures #04577, Series: "5. Pictures, Undated." P-4577 |
| Folder P-4577-SF |
Tintypes #04577, Series: "5. Pictures, Undated." Folder P-4577-SF |
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Items Separated
Processed by: Amy Mitchell, Roslyn Holdzkom, August 1991
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
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