Inventory of the Francis Terry Leak Papers, 1839-1865
Collection Number 1095
Manuscripts Department, University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- 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/
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Descriptive Summary
- Repository
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
- Creator
- Leak, Francis Terry, 1803-1864.
- Title
- Francis Terry Leak Papers, 1839-1865
- Call Number
- 1095
- Language of Materials
- Materials in English
- Extent
-
- Items: 14
- Linear Feet: 1.5
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Administrative Information
- Restrictions to Access
- This collection has restrictions to access. Please see details below or contact the Manuscripts Department for more information.
- Usage Restrictions
- Condition of manuscript volumes ranges from fragile to extremely fragile; except in rare cases, microfilm copies should be used.
- Alternate Form of Material
- Microfilm copy available.
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Reel 1: V-1095/1 (1841-1861)
Reel 2: V-1095/2 (1846-1852)
- Acquisitions Information
- Manuscripts volumes received from Mrs. Gerard Badow of Holly Springs, Miss., in May 1946; typed transcriptions added in 1947 and subsequent years (transcribing history documented in control file); maps received from Andrew Brown of Arlington, Va., in July 1962.
- Preferred Citation
- [Identification of item], in the Francis Terry Leak Papers #1095, Southern Historical Collection, The 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.
- Leak, Francis Terry, 1803-1864.
- Agriculture--Mississippi--History--19th century.
- Cotton growing--Mississippi--History--19th century.
- Cotton trade--Mississippi--History--19th century.
- Family--Mississippi--Social life and customs.
- Plantation life--Mississippi.
- Plantations--Mississippi.
- Slavery--Mississippi.
- Benton County (Miss.)--History--19th century.
- Confederate States of America--Social conditions.
- Mississippi--Economic conditions.
- Mississippi--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
- Mississippi--Social life and customs.
- Southern States--Description and travel.
- Tippah County (Miss.)--History--19th century.
Biographical Note
Francis Terry Leak, son of Walter and Hannah Pickett Leak, was born in 1803 in Rockingham, N.C. He was admitted to the North Carolina bar 27 December 1824. By 1839, however, he had established himself in northern Mississippi, where he was engaged in planting.
Leak's plantation was in Tippah County (now Benton County) near the town of Salem, which was an important trading center until the Civil War. Leak apparently bought the southern part of his holdings in 1836 and added significantly to his lands around 1851. In 1837, he was assessed for 32 slaves, who he probably brought with him from North Carolina. In 1850, there appear to have been ten or eleven whites living on the plantation (chiefly family members) and 110 blacks, most of whom must have been slaves. In that same year, he declared for tax purposes the following: 1,360 acres of land; factory stock in North Carolina; 1/3 share of a warehouse in Salem, Mississippi; houses, wagons, and farming tools; 100 yards of carpeting; 500 bushels of oats; 500 bushels of peas; 1,000 bushels of potatoes; 400 pounds of butter; 250 bales of cotton; 19 horses; 18 mules; 13 cows; 8 oxen; 23 cattle; 26 sheep; 150 hogs (manuscript volume 2, p. 195). In 1860, he owned 90 slaves, the largest number owned by any one man in Tippah County.
Leak appears also to have been active in financial dealings outside of farming operations. Besides the North Carolina factory stock and the interest in the warehouse in Salem, records in Tippah County for 1860 indicate that Leak had a sizeable amount of "money loaned at interest."
Leak died in Alabama in 1864 and was buried in Selma.
Back to TopCollection Overview
The collection includes manuscript volumes containing entries of various types, most of which are presumed to have been written by Francis Terry Leak, a cotton planter and businessman of Tippah County, Miss. (now Benton County, Miss.). With the exception of one volume consisting chiefly of work records of plantation hands, largely slaves, the greater portion of each volume contains Francis Terry Leak's diary/plantation journal. Some entries contain brief references to the number of acres plowed and the weather on a given day, while others are substantive narrative passages about plantation, family, and community life, ranging from trips through the South that were undertaken by family or friends to the progress of the Civil War. Other sections of these volumes are devoted to records of miscellaneous accounts, including those relating to cotton shipped and sold, goods and services purchased from various sources, transactions involving the loaning or collecting of money, and other activities having to do with finances.
Back to TopItems Separated
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Oversize papers (OP-1095/1-2)
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Detailed Description of the Collection
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