Manuscripts Department
Library of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
SOUTHERN HISTORICAL COLLECTION
#3391
GILES FAMILY PAPERS
Inventory
Abstract: Correspondence and scattered legal and financial
documents, chiefly belonging to the Giles, Reston,
Jocelyn, and Wright families of Wilmington, New
Hanover County, N.C. Correspondence, 1727-1799,
details family matters, including marital advice to a
newlywed daughter, and describes local scandals, such
as a marital separation, a case of a daughter
poisoning her mother, a battle between Yale University
students and sailors in New Haven, Conn., and a
swindling scheme. There is also a photocopy of a
letter, 1791, describing a local visit by General
George Washington. Correspondence, 1800-1860, is
concerned primarily with family matters and social
news. Items of interest include many descriptions of
travels, including the land, prospects, and everyday
life in Madison County, Tenn.; a journey to Texas,
with colorful descriptions of New Orleans and
Natchitoches, La.; a tournament at a county fair in
Hagerstown, Md.; and a cruise in the Inner Hebrides in
Scotland. Civil War letters are from several members
of the Giles and Wright families in the 1st, 10th,
24th, and 37th North Carolina regiments, and the 1st
and 63rd Georgia regiments, and include mention of
pro-Union sentiments in Wilmington, N.C., the
construction of a gunboat for the defense of
Wilmington, details of camp life, and the progress of
the war. There is also a letter from a Union soldier
in the Army of the Potomac informing a Confederate
soldier's friends and family of the latter's death in
battle. Postwar correspondence consists chiefly of
letters concerning family matters and business, and
includes a letter from a former Giles family slave in
1882. Undated letters include those describing
blockade running along the North Carolina coast during
the Civil War and a spiritualist in a Confederate camp
calling up the ghost of Stonewall Jackson. Other
items include a copy of a pro-slavery speech, as well
as wills, indentures, land deeds, receipts, and other
scattered legal and financial documents.
Online Catalog Terms:
Confederate States of America. Army--Military life.
Confederate States of America. Army. Georgia Regiment, 1st.
Confederate States of America. Army. Georgia Regiment, 63rd.
Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Regiment,
1st.
Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Regiment,
10th.
Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Regiment,
24th.
Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Regiment,
37th.
Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs--18th century.
Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs--19th century.
Freedmen--North Carolina--Correspondence.
Giles family.
Inner Hebrides (Scotland)--Description and travel--19th
century.
Jocelyn family.
Johnston, Joseph E. (Joseph Eggleston), 1807-1891.
Louisiana--Description and travel--19th century.
Madison County (Tenn.)--Social life and customs--19th century.
Maryland--Description and travel--19th century.
Natchitoches (La.)--Description and travel--19th century.
New Orleans (La.)--Description and travel--19th century.
North Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Blockades.
Reston family.
Sherman, W. T. (William Tecumseh), 1820-1891.
Slavery--Justification.
Soldiers--Confederate States of America--Correspondence.
Spiritualism--Confederate States of America--Correspondence.
Tennessee--Description and travel.
United States. Army. Army of the Potomac.
Washington, George, 1732-1799.
Wilmington (N.C.)--History.
Wilmington (N.C.)--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
Wright family.
Yale University--Students--History--18th century.
Size: About 300 items (0.5 linear feet).
Provenance: Received from Harriet Bellamy Jewett of
Wilmington, N.C., in November 1958.
Access: No restrictions.
Processing Note: This collection was processed with support
from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.
Copyright: Retained by the authors of items in these papers,
or their descendants, as stipulated by United
States copyright law.
Table of Contents:
Family Chart
Description
Shelf List
FAMILY CHART
William Giles + Arabella (Anabella?) Fleming
James M.
William Burke (1812) + Almeria Reston
James (b. 1837)
John Reston (b. 1838)
William (b. 1839)
Richard B. (July 19-October 2 1842)
Clayton (b. 1844) + Widow Murchison
+ Mary Augusta Wright
Clayton (b. 1874) + Agnes Seabrease
Mary + John Dillard Bellamy
Norwood (1846-1899)
Annabella + John Wall Norwood (1802-1885)
Margaret Yonge Norwood (1838-1925)
Margaret Giles + Dr. Philip Yonge
DESCRIPTION
Papers before 1800 consist of deeds, plats, and other land
records, wills, and related legal papers mostly of the Grainger
or DuBois families, and three letters relating to the Jocelyn
family. From 1800 to 1812, papers include indentures and
correspondence of Samuel R. Jocelyn, Elizabeth Jocelyn, and Eliza
Jocelyn; a subscription list, 1810, for St. James's Church,
Wilmington, N.C., with names, pledges, and records of payment,
1810-1813; eight pages of a diary of Thomas C. Reston on a tour
from Wilmington by sea to Philadelphia, New York, Boston, New
Haven, and Hartford; and another diary sheet recording a trip to
North Carolina. There are other scattered papers of Samuel R.
Jocelyn and Eliza Jocelyn Reston, 1812-1825, and more family
correspondence, especially of Edward, Eliza J. Reston's brother,
1825-1830, as well as scattered indentures; letters from Thomas
H. Wright in Wilmington; and letters to Christian Giles and
Thomas C. Reston, Eliza Jocelyn Reston's husband.
Correspondence of the Giles family increases from 1835 to 1839
and includes letters to Annabella Giles in Wilmington from her
son James M. Giles at New Orleans and Natchitoches, La., and
letters to James's brother William B. Giles and sister Margaret
Yonge. There are also letters to William A. Wright from Henry
Toole in Washington and William Mercer Green in Chapel Hill.
From 1848 to 1849, there are letters from William B. Giles at
Savannah to his wife Almeria in Wilmington and his sons James and
John. There are also daily letters from Giles in 1851. Letters
of the Giles family begin again in 1853. They include letters of
W. B. Giles in Savannah to his family as well as letters, 1855-
1856, from James Giles at the College of St. James to his brother
Clayton and to his father. There are scattered letters of the
Wright family beginning in 1857 and containing mainly personal
remarks.
Papers from the Civil War period include family letters of the
Wright and Giles families; papers relating to a campaign to raise
funds for building an ironclad for the defense of Cape Fear,
1862, with a subscription list of soldiers at Camp Wyatt and
letters from George W. Mordecai, Richard Washington, and others,
to William A. Wright and others; bills and accounts of W. B.
Giles and R. Bradley, 1863-1864; a letter announcing the death of
Major John R. Giles of the 63rd Georgia Regiment, 1863; and
letters to and from Clayton Giles, private in the signal corps at
Thunderbolt Battery near Savannah, 1863-1864.
Items from after the war are primarily the papers of Clayton
Giles. Included is an 1882 letter from a former slave thanking
W. B. Giles for his early training and other advantages. There
are also three folders of undated material, largely Giles family
letters.
Folder 1 1729-1771
2 1785-1789
3 1790-1798
4 1800-1806
5 1808-1810
6 1811-1818
7 1825-1829
8 1830-1849
9 1851
10 1853-1858
11 1860-1862
12 1863
13 1864-1866
14 1867-1886; 1906
15-17 Undated
SHELF LIST
Box 1
Items separated:
OP-3391/1-7