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 Emsley Burgess and Thomas H. Hunt Papers #620-z, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Provenance

Received from Geroge C. Taylor in 1928.

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.

This collection was first known as Randolph County Diary and Papers. In 1969, the title was changed to the Emsley Burgess Papers. Because of evidence published by L. W. Cates in the Randolph County, N.C., Genealogical Journal (Fall 1996 and Spring 1997), the title was changed to the Emsley Burgess and Thomas T. Hunt Papers in 2003.

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.

• Agriculture--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Burgess family.
• Burgess, Emsley.
• Diaries.
• Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Farm life--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Guilford County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Hunt family.
• Hunt, Thomas T., b. 1800.
• Indiana--Economic conditions.
• Quakers--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Randolph County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Real property--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Tinsmiths--North Carolina--History--19th century.

Detailed information about Emsley Burgess and Thomas T. Hunt may be found in "Diary of a Tinsmith" by L. W. Cates, which appeared in the Randolph County, N.C., Genealogical Journal (Fall 1996 and Spring 1997), and which is included in the collection. The following information was excerpted from that publication.

Emsley Burgess lived in Franklinville, Randolph County, N.C. His wife was Nancy Caviness. Burgess was buried in the Franklinville Methodist Cemetery.

Thomas T. Hunt was born in Guilford County, N.C., on 5 July 1800, the son of Nathan Hunt, Sr. (1769-1853) and his second wife, Prudence Thornbrugh (d. 1822). Thomas T. Hunt married Nancy Dougherty Stockton in 1822. The Hunts were Quakers, who had a large family and, by 1849, a small tract of land in Franklinville. Hunt farmed and worked as a tinsmith.

The collection includes four items that relate to Emsley Burgess and his family of Franklinville, N.C., and a diary, with entries 1845-1847, that was most likely written by Quaker tinsmith and farmer Thomas T. Hunt while he and his family lived in Guilford County, N.C. The Emsley papers are two Randolph County, N.C., deeds of land, 24 December 1846 and 29 March 1849, to Burgess; a 25 April 1850 letter from J. A. Leach of Trinity College to William Burgess asking William to work for him in Thomasville during the summer; and a 27 May 1866 letter from B. C. Burgess in Westfield, Indiana, to his father, Emsley Burgess, about wages and job prospects in Indiana. The diary details farm and mechanical work, activities of family members, visits from neighbors, deaths, health, and attendance at Friends meetings in North Carolina. It ends just before the Hunts moved from Guilford County to Randolph County.

Also included is a photocopy of "Diary of a Tinsmith" by L. W. Cates, which appeared in the Randolph County, N.C., Genealogical Journal (Fall 1996 and Spring 1997). The article argues for Thomas T. Hunt as author of the diary and provides a transcript of it.