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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 | 0.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 300 items) |
| 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 Gen. 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 mentions 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. |
| Creator | Giles 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
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
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Scope and Content
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.
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Giles Family Papers, 1727-1886; 1906.
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Items Separated
Processed by: Suzanne Ruffing, September 1996
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
Updated by: Kathryn Michaelis, January 2010
This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.
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