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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 | 6.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 4560 items) |
| Abstract | Correspondence; legal and financial papers; genealogical material; student notebooks, account books, and other volumes; pictures; and other papers of members of the Houston, Young, Dalton, and Kennedy families of Iredell County, N.C., and other locations in the South. Most of the papers are family letters exchanged among members of this large family, as they spread out from Iredell County seeking more profitable lands to the south and west. The letters provide vivid pictures of frontier life in Tennessee and Missouri, including reports of weather, health, crops, religion, education, slavery, and, especially, the daily lives and work of women. Letters of Christopher Houston (1744-1837) from Maury County, Tenn., about 1814-1837, contain discussions of his Presbyterian faith and anti-slavery convictions; papers dated after his death relate to attempts to challenge and settle his will, through which he had manumitted his slaves. Also included are documents relating to property; items relating to the postmastership in Iredell County, which was held by family members for nearly a century; and scattered papers relating to the North Carolina tobacco trade from the 1840s through the 1880s. There are also Civil War era letters written by soldiers, who told of military life, and civilians, who wrote about local conditions in various southern states. The extensive genealogical materials were chiefly collected by Mary Cecelia Houston Dalton (1814-1901) and her granddaughter Mary Hunter Kennedy. Volumes include school notebooks and account books relating to the tobacco industry and to general merchandising, as well as to estates and domestic expenses. |
| Creator | Kennedy, Mary Hunter. |
| 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
The story of the extensive family from whom these papers derive begins with Michael Cadet Young of Virginia (d. 1769). His son Thomas Young (1732-1829) of Brunswick County, Va., apparently migrated from Mecklenburg County, Va., to Hunting Creek, in what was then Rowan (now Iredell) County, N.C., about 1778-1780. His children, Elizabeth Ragsdale Young (1786-1837) and Samuel Young (1781-1847), married children of Christopher Houston (1744-1837) and Sarah Mitchell Houston of Houstonville, Iredell County. Christopher had come from Pennsylvania to North Carolina about 1765 and went on to Tennessee about 1814.
Elizabeth R. Young married Christopher's son Placebo Houston (1779-1859) and Samuel Young married Placebo's sister Sarah Houston. Until the 1840s, the bulk of the papers consists of letters to these two couples, especially letters from Placebo and Sarah's father Christopher and their brother James in Tennessee, and letters to Thomas Young, especially from his relatives in Tennessee and South Carolina.
From the mid 1830s, the correspondence is increasingly addressed to Placebo's daughter Mary Cecelia Houston Dalton (1814-1901) of Houstonville and Eagle Mills, also in Iredell County. Unlike her brothers and sisters, Mary Cecelia remained at home, and, throughout her long life, kept in close contact with her widely scattered relatives, especially with her brother Thomas Franklin Houston in Pettis County, Mo., and her sisters, Louisa Houston Reinhardt in North Carolina and Lucy Melissa Houston Motz also in Pettis County, Mo. In 1845, Mary Cecelia married John Hunter Dalton, a manufacturer of plug and twist tobacco. Following Louisa Reindardt's death and her husband's remarriage, some of her older children lived with Mary Cecelia and with her brother Thomas. Many of the letters Mary Cecelia received from Confederate Army soldiers were from these nephews.
Mary Cecelia appears to have acted as the hub of this far-flung family, the one who kept cousins many times removed up to date on family news. Probably it was from this role that her interest in genealogy grew, an interest inherited and carried on by her granddaughter, Mary Hunter Kennedy. Much of Mary Cecelia's correspondence after 1880 contains genealogical information as well as more general family news.
The Daltons' daughter Bettie married Philip Butler Kennedy, her father's partner in the tobacco business. After her mother's death in 1901, the bulk of the letters are to her from her children, especially Frank H. Kennedy and Mary Hunter Kennedy. Much of Mary Hunter Kennedy's later correspondence concerns genealogy.
For more information see folders 40-41 and 200-203.
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Scope and Content
This collection includes correspondence; legal and financial papers; genealogical material; student notebooks, account books, and other volumes; pictures; and other papers of members of the Houston, Young, Dalton and Kennedy families of Iredell County, N.C., and other locations in the South. The genealogical material was chiefly collected by Mary Cecelia Dalton and her granddaughter Mary Hunter Kennedy.
Most of the papers are family letters exchanged among members of this large family, as they spread out from Iredell County seeking more profitable lands to the south and west. The letters provide vivid pictures of frontier life in Tennessee and Missouri, including reports of weather, health, crops, religion, education, slavery, and, especially, the daily lives and work of women. Also among the papers are documents relating to property, including receipts, deeds, wills, and promissory notes; items relating to the postmastership in Iredell County held by members of this family for nearly a century; and scattered papers relating to the tobacco trade from the 1840s through the 1880s. There are also Civil War era letters written by soldiers and civilians in North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia. Letters written by Christopher Houston from Tennessee, about 1814 to 1837, contain discussions of his Presbyterian faith and anti-slavery convictions; papers dated after his death relate to attempts to challenge and settle his will, through which he had manumitted his slaves.
This collection is divided into two series: Series 1 consists of material received by the Southern Historical Collection prior to 1959; Series 2 consists of the numerous additions made since that date. The series contain essentially similar material. In Series 1, correspondence, business, financial and legal papers are arranged chronologically in Series 1, while in Series 2, non-correspondence has been separated from the letters.
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Series Quick Links
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Series 1. MATERIAL RECEIVED BEFORE 1959.
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Subseries 1.1 Correspondence and Related Items, 1759-1955 and undated.
Arrangement: chronological.
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Subseries 1.2. Other Material, 1876-1952.
Arrangement: by type.
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Subseries 1.3. Manuscript Volumes., 1795-1908.
Arrangement: chronological.
NOTE: Volumes have been renumbered. Old volume number follows current number in square brackets.
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Series 2: ADDITIONS SINCE 1959, 1776-1959.
This series contains material similar to that found in the original collection: family correspondence, business, legal and financial Papers, and genealogical material of the Young, Houston, Dalton, and Kennedy families of Iredell County, N.C., and their relatives primarily in South Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, and other southern states.
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Subseries 2.1 Correspondence, 1776-1959.
Arrangement: chronological.
The principal recipients in chronological order are Thomas Young, Placebo Houston, Macy Cecelia Houston Dalton, Bettie Dalton Kennedy, and Mary Hunter Kennedy. Continuing themes in the letters are health, domestic chores, quality of land, crops, weather, slaves, visitors, education, and attempts to settle estates and accounts. The latter illustrate the complex economic interdependence of family members across generations and states.
1776: Two letters from John Ragsdale to Thomas Young about Ragsdale's health and life in the army.
1780-1823: The bulk of the letters are to Thomas Young from his siblings, children and grandchildren in North Carolina; Sumner, Overton, and Warren Counties, Tenn.; Wilkes County, Ga.; and Claremont and Laurens, S.C., mostly concerning health, births, deaths, marriages, weather, and crops.
1824-1834: Mostly to Placebo Houston from relatives in Lawrence and Madison Counties, Ala.; Maury and Giles Counties, Tenn.; Laurens, S.C.; and Cole County, Mo. There are also a few letters to Samuel Young, including several from Lewis Williams, North Carolina member of the U.S. House of Representatives, on local and national politics. Topics in these letters are similar to those mentioned above with the addition of buying and supervising slaves, local social conditions, and the high hopes and frequent disappointments of those moving to the frontier.
1835-1860: Although letters to Placebo continue until 1841, beginning in 1834 and continuing up through 1900 the bulk of the letters are to his daughter, Mary Cecilia Houston Dalton (MCD). There are also a few letters scattered throughout this period to her husband, John Dalton relating to his tobacco business and to family financial matters.
Prior to MCD's marriage in 1844 there are numerous letters from cousins and friends about beaux, courtship, and marriages. Her most faithful correspondents were her sisters Lousia Reinhardt and Lucy Melissa Motz, her brother Thomas Franklin Houston, and Thomas's wife Mary Hampton. Those from the women provide a detailed picture of female life on the frontier with its loneliness and the unceasing round of spinning, sewing, preparing and putting food by, supervising slaves, and nursing both the white and black members of their households. Mary's and Lucy's letters on these subjects contrast with Thomas's, highlighting the disparities between men's and women's experiences.
In addition to the general family and farming news, other topics covered include travel and resettling in Tennessee and Missouri, especially in 1845 and 1846; railroad expansion; the establishment of schools and churches; slave and crop prices; speculation in land, slaves, hogs, and mules; and, in 1841, life of a cadet at West Point.
Occasionally in the 1830s and 1840s, there are discussions of national political issues such as Van Buren's election, including one undated letter on ballot box stuffing in Lincolnton, N.C.; the relative merits of the Whigs and Democrats; and opposition to bank speculation. In the mid-1850s, there begin to be hints of the impending Civil War. Letters in this period are from Tuscumbia, Pleasant Valley, and Leighton, Ala.; Carroll, Coopers, and Pettis counties, Mo.; North Carolina, especially Lincolnton and Statesville; Carroll and Whythe counties, Va.; and Laurens and Friendship, S.C.; with a few others from Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia.
1860-1865: Letters are primarily from MCD's nephews, Dwight and J.H. Reinhardt, mostly in Virginia and Tennessee and also at Bowling Green, Ky., discussing joining up, buying substitutes, camp conditions, lack of supplies, illnesses, long marches, low moral, and occasional battles, including at Lee's Farm Dam, Va.; near Corinth, Miss.; and Chancellorsville, in addition to several others in which they took no part. Other relatives wrote of hard times on the home front in Missouri; Sligo, Tenn.; and Water Valley, Miss.
1866-1899: In the immediate post-war years, letters document slow recovery from the war, problems with former slaves, and reconstruction government policies in South Carolina and Missouri. A few letters to and from Melmouth Reinhardt describe the life of a Wake Forest College student. In the 1870s, there are mentions of railroad bonds and a constitutional convention in North Carolina, and drought and grasshoppers in Missouri. In addition to the regular family news, the primary topic in the 1870s and 1880s is the families' financial interconnections and the suits and extensive and complex negotiations about settling estates and debts. MCD's correspondence about family genealogy begins in 1877 with a query about the Gill family. Lyman Draper wrote in 1879 in reference to P. S. Ney.
Letters in the 1890s, especially from Thomas Houston in Missouri, provide excellent documentation of the lingering effects of the war among southern farmers and of the concerns which led to the rise of Populism. Of particular interest is his January 1894 letter.
1900-1920: Following Mary Cecelia Dalton's death in 1901, the bulk of the correspondence is among members of the Kennedy family, especially Bettie to her daughter Mary Hunter Kennedy, and Frank to Mary and Bettie. From 1901 through 1904, the letters are almost entirely from Bettie to Mary, a student at North Carolina Normal and Industrial College at Greensboro.
Letters from Mary to her parents, 1905 through 1907, reveal her experiences as a school teacher in Asheville, N.C. Those from 1909 through 1919 are primarily from Frank to his parents and to Mary discussing his life as a student at Oak Ridge School, the University of North Carolina, and Harvard Law School, and as a teacher, 1912-1914, at New Bern, N.C.
From 1920 through 1940, the correspondence consists of general family news among Mary, her parents, siblings, and sisters-in-law. From 1940 to 1959, letters are more genealogical in content. Many are from Gertrude Enfield, a cousin, who was writing a biography of a mutual ancestor, Christopher Young.
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Subseries 2.2 Other Material, 1798-1924.
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Subseries 2.2.1. Legal Items, 1798-1920.
Legal papers 1798 through 1920, including wills; deeds; powers of attorney; complaints, summons, petitions, and other court records, especially of suits; contracts for sale of land, slaves, and tobacco, and for hiring slaves and freedmen; and miscellaneous other legal papers. The bulk of the papers concern Placebo Houston and John Dalton.
| Folder 193-194 |
Legal Items, 1798-1920 #03242, Subseries: "2.2.1. Legal Items, 1798-1920." Folder 193-194Folder 193Folder 194 |
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Subseries 2.2.2. Financial Items, 1810-1924.
Receipts, bills, accounts, statements, tobacco stamps, and other miscellaneous financial Papers, especially of John Dalton's tobacco business and in reference to settlement of debts and estates. Included are checks, bills, receipts, and accounts relating to the settlement of P. B. Kennedy's estate, 1925.
| Folder 195-199 |
Financial Items, 1810-1924 #03242, Subseries: "2.2.2. Financial Items, 1810-1924." Folder 195-199Folder 195Folder 196Folder 197Folder 198Folder 199 |
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Subseries 2.3. Genealogy.
Notes, family trees, biographical sketches and other items relating to the genealogy of the Houston, Dalton, Hunter, Young, Kennedy, and other families. Also typed transcriptions of letters, especially of Michael Cadet Young and Christopher Houston.
| Folder 200 |
General #03242, Subseries: "2.3. Genealogy." Folder 200 |
| Folder 201-202 |
Notes #03242, Subseries: "2.3. Genealogy." Folder 201-202Folder 201Folder 202 |
| Folder 203 |
Family Trees #03242, Subseries: "2.3. Genealogy." Folder 203 |
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Subseries 2.4. Miscellaneous Items.
Food and dye recipes; sewing patterns; poems; voter registration lists; shape note hymns (folder 206); post office reports, receipts, and accounts of the Houstonia, N.C., post office (folder 207); and invitations. Of particular interest is a list of books belonging to Laurens, S.C., Library Society, apparently in the early 1800s (folder 206).
| Folder 204-207 |
Miscellaneous Items #03242, Subseries: "2.4. Miscellaneous Items." Folder 204-207Folder 204Folder 205Folder 206Folder 207 |
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Subseries 2.5. Printed Items.
Clippings; school reports, programs, and pamphlets, especially of New Bern and Harmony, N.C., high schools; and other printed items.
| Folder 208-211 |
Printed Items #03242, Subseries: "2.5. Printed Items." Folder 208-211Folder 208Folder 209Folder 210Folder 211 |
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Series 3. Pictures.
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Items Separated
Processed by: Pamela Dean, 1988
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
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