Nims, Rankin, and Spratt Family Papers Inventory (#4255)
Manuscripts Department, 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/
- Processed by
- Lu Ann Jones and Roslyn Holdzkom
- Date Completed
- October 2001
- Encoded by
- Roslyn Holdzkom
- Revisions:
- Finding aid updated in October 2002 by Roslyn Holdzkom.
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Descriptive Summary Including Abstract
- Title
- Nims, Rankin, and Spratt Family Papers (#4255) 1824-1995
- Creator
-
Nims family.
Rankin family.
Spratt family.
- Extent
-
- About 7000 items (10.0 linear feet)
- Repository
- Southern Historical Collection
- Abstract
- The collection is chiefly correspondence of Nims, Rankin, and Spratt family members, most in Mount Holly, Gaston County, N.C., and Fort Mill, York County, S.C. Included are several letters, 1850s, describing railroad building in the South; some letters with detailed information about slaves and Native Americans in Georgia; and a few letters, 1860-1865, showing the centrality of the Civil War in the lives of family members and discussing life in the Confederate army. Letters, 1865-1907, deal chiefly with family life, including discussions of the family's agricultural interests and its cotton mill in Mount Holly, N.C. A few letters relate to service in a hospital in the Philippines during the Insurrection. After 1910, correspondence increasingly centers around Spratt family members in Mount Holly, chiefly the women, who included a Gaston County, N.C., social worker and a professor of home economics at Cornell University. All of these women wrote frequent and highly detailed letters, most dealing with their time as college students and later with routine family matters, fashion, and sewing. Also included are family financial and legal papers, including labor contracts with freedmen in 1866; writings; school materials; genealogical materials relating to the White, Spratt, Jenkins, Rankin, and Campbell families; diaries with short entries by some of the Spratt and Rankin women; clippings; and photographs, chiefly of family members and soldiers from Camp Greene in Charlotte, N.C.
Administrative Information
- Usage Restrictions
- Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
- Provenance
- Received from Bess Beatty of Rome, Ga., in 1981, 1986, 1991, 1994 (Acc. 94122), and March 2000 (Acc. 98599) and purchased from J. Douglas Maddox in 1991 and 1993.
Online Catalog Terms
- Account books.
- Agriculture--North Carolina--History--19th century.
- Agriculture--South Carolina--History--19th century.
- Campbell family.
- Confederate States of America. Army--Military life.
- Confederate States of America--Social conditions.
- Cotton manufacture--North Carolina--History--19th century.
- Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
- Family--South Carolina--Social life and customs.
- Fort Mill (S.C.)--Social life and customs.
- Freedmen--Employment.
- Gaston County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
- Home economics--Study and teaching (Higher)--United States.
- Indians of North America--Southern States--History--19th century.
- Jenkins family.
- Mount Holly (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
- Nims family.
- Philippines--History--Revolution, 1896-1898.
- Railroads--Southern States--History--19th century.
- Rankin family.
- Slavery--North Carolina.
- Slavery--South Carolina.
- Spratt family.
- White family.
- Women college students--North Carolina--History--20th century.
- Women college teachers--United States--History--20th century.
- Women--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
- Women--South Carolina--Social life and customs.
- World War, 1914-1918--Photographs.
- York County (S.C.)--Social life and customs.
Biographical Note
Frederick Nims, son of James and Lucy Boyden Nims, was born 29 May 1810 in Conway, Mass. He studied civil engineering at Andover and, after graduating at age 25, began working for the Georgia State Railroad. Nims surveyed and was a contractor for various railroads in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. On 20 November 1855, he married Elizabeth White of Fort Mill, S.C. In 1859, he bought a farm and mill in Gaston County, N.C., where he died in 1867.
Elizabeth White Nims Rankin, daughter of Susan Rachel Spratt and Joseph White, was born on 13 November 1835 at Fort Mill, S.C. Between 1856 and 1867, Elizabeth and Frederick Nims had five sons and two daughters: Luther (1856-1930), Frank White (1858-1876), Susie Spratt (1860-1887), Frederick (1862-1951), Annie (1864-1864), Edward (1865-1867), and Boyden (1867-1927). On 18 February 1874, Elizabeth married Wade D. Rankin, with whom she had two daughters: Eleanor Wade (called Nell; also called Chet by her sister Bess) (1875-1965) and Elizabeth White (called Bess and Bessie; also called Carrie by her sister Nell) (1877-1963). The sisters lived with their parents until their deaths. When Eleanor Wade Rankin married Roy Spratt (1876-1928) from Chester, S.C., in 1904, he came to live with the family. Wade D. Rankin died in 1906. Elizabeth White Nims Rankin died at Mount Holly, N.C., in 1908.
Boyden Nims, whose wife was named Edna Jackson, earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Michigan and was a chemist in Columbia, S.C. He of a heart attack while running towards a fire at his pleasure park, Boyden Arbor Picnic and Campgrounds, in 1926. Also included are Luther Nims and his wife, Eunice Nims, of the Nims Manufacturing Company, which produced cotton yarns in Mount Holly, and Frederick Nims (d. 1953) of Fort Mill, S.C., who married Floride Harrison.
Children of Eleanor Wade Rankin Spratt and Roy Spratt were: Wade Rankin (1904-1962); Frances Marion (1906-1997); Elizabeth White (1908-1999); Eleanor Royden (1912-1999); and Julia Caldwell (1916-1938).
Wade Rankin Spratt went to the University of Virginia, Rutherford College, and North Carolina State College. He became an engineer with Duke Power and lived with his wife, Mabel Rankin Spratt, whom he married in 1928, first in Chapel Hill, N.C., and then in Spencer, N.C., Pelzer, S.C., and finally in Belmont, N.C. Wade and Mabel had one son, Wade R. Spratt, Jr.
Julia Caldwell Spratt (called Coddie) attended Mitchell College in Statesville, S.C., and died in 1938 at age 22 in an automobile accident. Elizabeth White Spratt (called Bink, Binks, Inkie, Shortie, Lal, Libba) had surgery in 1921 because of scarring resulting from burns suffered when she was 4 years old; attended Queens College and the North Carolina College for Women in Greensboro, N.C., in the late 1920s; lived in Mount Holly; and worked for most of her life in social services in Gaston County. Frances Marion Spratt (called Toots, Til, and Tiltz) attended the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, N.C.; taught school in Spencer, Statesville, Mooresville, and Mount Holly, N.C.; received a Masters Degree from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.; and became a professor in the Clothing and Textile Division of the University of Texas in Austin, Tex. She later moved to the New York State College of Home Economics at Cornell University from which she retired to Mount Holly in 1967. Eleanor Spratt (called Leen and Lena) attended school in Greensboro in the early 1930s, then pursued a retail career in Asheville, N.C. She married Cliff T. Beatty in 1941 and lived with him in Long Island, N.Y., and, during World War II, in the Canal Zone. The Beattys had three children: Eleanor Wade (called Nell), born in the Canal Zone in 1944, who attended North Carolina State University and received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan; Nancy Todd (called Nan) (b. 1946), who attended Peace Academy in Raleigh, N.C., in the 1960s, married in 1963, attended Meredith College, and was graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Elizabeth Caldwell (called Bess) (b. 1947), who attended Wake Forest University and received a Ph.D. from Florida State University. Eleanor Beatty married George Hacker in 1960.
For additional information, see genealogies and family histories in Series 2.
Back to TopCollection Overview
The collection is chiefly correspondence of Nims, Rankin, and Spratt family members, most in Mount Holly, N.C., and Fort Mill, S.C. Many letters, especially in the 1850s, are from Frederick Nims to Horace Nims describing railroad building and other labor in the South. Limited but detailed information about slaves and Native Americans in Georgia appears in Frederick's earlier letters. There are a few letters, 1860-1865, showing the centrality of the Civil War in the lives of family members and discussing life in the Confederate army. Letters, 1865-1907, deal chiefly with family life, including discussions of the family's agricultural interests and of Luther Nims's cotton mill in Mount Holly, N.C. Some of Boyden Nims's letters relate to his service in a hospital in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. In the 1900s, Boyden wrote from Ann Arbor, Mich., where he was professor of physiology at the University of Michigan. After 1910, correspondence increasingly centers around Spratt family members in Mount Holly, chiefly Eleanor Rankin Spratt, her husband Roy Spratt, and their children: Wade Spratt, who became an engineer for various power companies in North Carolina and South Carolina; Julia Caldwell Spratt, who died in an automobile accident in 1938; Elizabeth Spratt, who worked in social services in Gaston County, N.C.; Frances Spratt, professor at the New York State College of Home Economics at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.; and Eleanor Spratt, who married first Cliff T. Beatty, with whom she had three daughters, then George Hacker. All of these women wrote frequent and highly detailed letters, most dealing with their lives as college students and later with routine family matters, fashion, and sewing.
There are also family financial and legal papers, including labor agreements with freedmen in 1866; writings; school materials; genealogical materials relating to the White, Spratt, Jenkins, Rankin, and Campbell families; diaries with short entries by some of the Spratt and Rankin women; clippings; and photographs, chiefly of family members and friends on leave in North Carolina during World War I.
Back to TopOrganization of Collection
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1. Correspondence
2. Financial and Legal Materials
3. Other Materials
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Series Descriptions
1. Correspondence, 1824-1995 and undated.
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2. Financial and Legal Materials, 1840s-1960s and undated.
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3. Other Materials, 1847-1993 and undated.
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Items Separated
Separated items include oversize volumes (V-4255/S-1 - S-4) and photographs (P-4255/Folders 1-3).