Inventory of the Bartholomew Fuller Papers, 1841-1924

Collection Number 3621-z

Manuscripts Department, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Collection Information

Descriptive Summary

Administrative Information

Online Catalog Headings

Biographical Note

Collection Overview

Detailed Description of the Collection

Papers, 1841-1924.

Related Collections

Contact Information:: Manuscripts Department; CB#3926, Wilson Library; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890; Phone: 919/962-1345; Fax: 919/962-3594; Email: mss@email.unc.edu; URL: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/

Descriptive Summary

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Creator: Fuller, Bartholomew, 1829-1882.

Title: Bartholomew Fuller Papers, 1841-1924

Call Number: 3621-z

Language of Materials: Materials in English

Extent: Items: 76

Abstract

Bartholomew Fuller (1829-1882) of Fayetteville, and later Durham, N.C., was a lawyer; editor of the Fayetteville Presbyterian; employee of the federal government in Washington, D.C.; and, during the Civil War, employee of the Confederate Post Office Department in Richmond, Va.

The collection is almost entirely personal and family correspondence of Fuller, his wife and children, and other relatives. Included are 22 letters, 1861-1864, from him to his wife, Wilhelmina Bell Fuller, in Fayetteville, written from Richmond, Va., in which he discussed his wife's domestic activities and referred to the situation in Civil War Richmond and at the Confederate Post Office Department. There are also two letters, 1851, from Fuller, that were written while he was a student at the University of North Carolina and a few later letters from David L. Swain and other professors at the University.

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Administrative Information

Restrictions to Access: No restrictions.

Acquisitions Information: Gift of Mrs. T. Earl Stewart of Fayetteville, N.C., in 1962 and 1963.

Processing Information: Processed by: Manuscripts Department Staff, April 1963; Encoded by: Mara Dabrishus, December 2004; Funding from the State Library of North Carolina supported the encoding of this finding aid.

Preferred Citation: [Identification of item], in the Bartholomew Fuller Papers #3621-z, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Copyright Notice: Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Online Catalog Headings

These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.

Fuller, Bartholomew, 1829-1882.

Fuller, Wilhelmina Bell.

Confederate States of America. Post-Office Dept.

University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Students--History--19th Century.

College students--North Carolina--Social life and customs.

Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs.

Confederate States of America--Officials and employees--Correspondence.

Fayetteville (N.C.)--Social conditions.

Richmond (Va.)--History--Civil War, 1861--1865.

Swain, David L. (David Lowry), 1801-1868.

Related Collections

Fuller-Robinson Papers (#1573)
Thomas C. Fuller Papers (#969)
Simeon Colton Diary (#1394)
Edwin Wiley Fuller Papers (#1027)
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Biographical Note

Bartholomew Fuller (1829-1882) of Fayetteville and later Durham, N.C., was a lawyer, journalist (editor of the Fayetteville Presbyterian), and an employee of the federal government in Washington, D.C., and later the Confederate Post Office Department in Richmond, Va. He was the son of Thomas Fuller, a merchant in Faytteville, and Catherine Raboteau Fuller; his wife Wilmhelmina was daughter of William Bell (1789-1865). A letter of 2 April 1864 mentions the birth of four children (Fuller does not include their names): Agnes (1854-1864), "born the first year of our marriage"; Tommy, "our only boy, born in our first house"; Katie, "born in luxury in a far off home"; Maggie, born in late 1863. Ralph, who appears later in the papers, may have been another son.

Bartholomew Fuller's mother was left a widow with three children, and she married the Reverend Simeon Colton in 1851. Fuller's sister Sarah married R. H. J. Blount; his brother Thomas C. (1832-1901) married Carolina D. Whitehead.

Collection Overview

The collection is almost entirely personal and family correspondence of lawyer and journalist Bartholomew Fuller, his wife and children, and other relatives. Included are 22 letters, 1861-1864, from him to his wife, Wilhelmina Bell Fuller, in Fayetteville, N.C., written from Richmond, Va., in which he discussed his wife's domestic activities and referred to the situation in Civil War Richmond and at the Confederate Post Office Department. There are also two letters, 1851, from Fuller, that were written while he was a student at the University of North Carolina and a few later letters from David L. Swain and other professors at the University.

Detailed Description of the Collection

Papers, 1841-1924.

73 items.

Arrangement: chronological.

Folder 1

1841, 1851-1863 (19 items)

Includes 1841 copy of Robert Strange's verses written in 1839 for his daughter's album; March, May 1851, two letters written by Bartholomew Fuller, student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., to his mother and his uncle Elijah; 1851, circular from Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, Va.; letter, 13 October 1854, from David L. Swain to Fuller to be used as a recommendation for the office Fuller was seeking; 1853-1855, letters to and from Bartholomew Fuller (Tholly), including September 1854 about the birth of his daughter; letter, 2 May 1857, signed by several professors and officers of the University of North Carolina endorsing Fuller for professorship at Davidson College; 10 December 1860, lines addressed to John Porter Brown on his departure for Turkey (possibly by Fuller); beginning August 1861, series of letters from Fuller working at the Confederate Post Office Department in Richmond, Va., to his wife and her family in Fayetteville, N.C.

Digital version: Composition of Bartholomew Fuller: "The Dangers of a College Life"

Folder 2

1864 (18 items)

Mostly Fuller's letters from Richmond to his wife in Fayetteville, chiefly concerned with her problems with domestic arrangements, raising the children, nursing their illnesses, and supplying the household needs, but also about inflation, purchases, office workers called upon to defend Richmond, women applying for government jobs, and the death of the Fullers' daughter Agnes in December.

Folder 3

1865-1876 (16 items)

Includes January 1865 letters of condolence upon the death of Agnes Fuller; scattered letters of family and friends, including Jones Fuller, Edith Hall, A. G. Browning at Mount Gilead, Ky., H. G. Hill; will of Duncan Murchison of Cumberland County, N.C., 19 April 1870; letter to Mrs. Morton B. Whitehead, 30 October 1876, from her 75-year-old mother that mentions members of the Fuller and Bell families.

Folder 4

1880-1882, 1924 (8 items)

Letters from Fuller to his wife, daughter, and mother, written from Durham, N.C., New Haven, Conn., or New York, N.Y., while travelling in connection with legal business; letter, 27 July 1880, from W. W. Fuller in Raleigh, N.C., to Bartholomew Fuller enclosing bonds and coupons; 1924 letter about family papers.

Folder 5

Undated (12 items)

Family letters and other papers of Fuller, including a letter from cousin Edwin W. Fuller of Lousiburg, N.C., telling of the death of his father and an item concerning the death of Charles A. McMillan.