Manuscripts Department
Library of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
SOUTHERN HISTORICAL COLLECTION
#4645
MARTHA VIRGINIA MCNAIR EVANS PATTERSON PAPERS
Inventory
Abstract: Martha (Mattie) Virginia McNair Evans Patterson (1870-
1912) of Laurel Hill and Laurinburg, Richmond, later
Scotland, County, N.C., who married first cotton farmer
Erasmus Hervey (Hervey) Evans (1861-1900) of Sherwood,
N.C., in 1899 and then Gilbert Brown Patterson (1863-1922)
of Maxton, N.C., in 1907, is the focus of the collection,
along with her suitors, friends, and Murphy, Evans, Lytch,
and McNair relatives.
Letters and other items, including family photographs,
of members of the McNair, Evans, and related families.
Letters, 1870-1886, chiefly relate to Evans family members
and include a few in 1877 to and from Hervey Evans at the
Union School in Carthage, N.C. The focus shifts to Mattie
around 1888 when, after completing her education at Peace
Institute in Raleigh, she returned to Laurel Hill and
became the object of several suitors' attentions, among
them Laurinburg physician Daniel Malloy Prince (1848-1919).
He, along with former school friends, wrote to Mattie
chiefly about social events, although there is one letter
from Prince about a lynching in Laurinburg. Letters in
1894-1895 are chiefly to Mattie from women friends, some of
whom supported themselves in offices and schools, but most
of whom discussed at length their beaus, marriages,
families, and wardrobes. Some of these friends, however,
shared Mattie's interest in the work of Presbyterian
missionary societies. Love letters from Hervey to Mattie
begin in August 1897 and continue until their marriage in
June 1899. Other letters document the 1898 suicide of
Mattie's brother, John William (Willie) McNair, a merchant
of Laurinburg. There are also a few letters in 1898 and
1899 from missionaries in China, the Congo, and Japan. In
1899, there are letters relating to the creation of
Scotland County out of Richmond County. In July 1899,
materials show that Hervey was involved in turpentine
manufacture in Fairfield, Fla., and by November, Mattie had
joined him there. By March, however, Hervey's ill health
forced the couple back to Sherwood, and by May, Hervey was
in the State Hospital in Morganton, N.C., where he died of
stomach cancer in June. After Hervey's death, Mattie moved
to Laurinburg where Erasmus Hervey Evans was born in August
1900. There are few letters documenting her marriage to
Gilbert Brown Patterson in 1907. Mattie died in childbirth
on 3 July 1912.
Online Catalog Terms:
Cancer--Treatment--History--19th century.
Evans, Erasmus Hervey, 1861-1900.
Evans family.
Fairfield (Fla.)--Social life and customs--19th century.
Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs--19th century.
Florida--Industries--History--19th century.
Florida--Social life and customs--19th century.
Laurel Hill (N.C.)--Social life and customs--19th century.
Laurinburg (N.C.)--Social life and customs--19th century.
Love-letters--History--19th century.
Lynching--North Carolina--History--19th century.
Lytch family.
McNair family.
Missionaries--United States--History--19th century.
Murphy family.
Patterson, Gilbert Brown, 1863-1922.
Patterson, Martha Virginia McNair Evans, 1870-1912.
Peace Institute (Raleigh, N.C.)--Students--Social life and customs
--19th century.
Presbyterian Church--Missions.
Prince, Daniel Malloy, 1848-1919.
Richmond County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--19th century.
Scotland County (N.C.)--Social life and customs--19th century.
Sherwood (N.C.)--Social life and customs--19th century.
Suicide--North Carolina--History--19th century.
Turpentine industry and trade--Florida--History--19th century.
Union School (Carthage, N.C).
Women--Employment--History--19th century.
Women--North Carolina--Social life and customs--19th century.
Women in missionary work--North Carolina--History--19th century.
Women in the Presbyterian Church--North Carolina--History--19th
century.
Size: About 1,000 items (3.0 linear feet).
Provenance: Received from the Evans family of Laurinburg, N.C.,
Helen Wolfe Evans and Murphy Evans, agents, in January
1993 (Acc. 93010).
Access: No restrictions.
Related Collections: Alderman Family Papers (#2994);
Patrick Livingston Murphy Papers (#535).
Copyright: Retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their
descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
INTRODUCTION
The following pages are the work of donor Helen Wolfe Evans, who
also provided typed transcriptions of most of the items in this
collection (see Series 3). Pages 3-6 contain the preface Evans wrote
to the typed transcriptions. In it, she identified the major figures
appearing in the papers and placed them in historical context.
Family charts begin on page 7. The first traces the lineage of
Martha (Mattie) Virginia McNair Evans Patterson (1870-1912), second
child and second daughter of John Franklin McNair (1843-1927) and Mary
Jane Lytch McNair (1841-1905). Mattie, who married first Erasmus
Hervey (Hervey) Evans (1861-1900) in 1899 and then Gilbert Brown
Patterson in 1907, is the focus of the collection. On page 8, a chart
shows the family of Hervey Evans, second son and fourth child of Susan
Murphy Evans (1834-1904) and Erasmus Hervey Evans (1830-1879). Charts
on pages 10-14 are for other generations of the Murphy, Evans, Lytch,
and McNair families.
The collection has been maintained in the following arrangement to
correspond with the order of the typed transcriptions:
Series 1. Correspondence and Related Materials
Series 2. Other Papers
Series 3. Typed Transcriptions
Series 4. Pictures
Researchers are strongly advised to request typed transcriptions
along with original materials, since the transcriptions provide not
only clear and accurate copies of handwritten materials, but also
supply detailed information on persons and events important in the
papers. SERIES DESCRIPTIONS
Series 1. Correspondence and Related Materials
1870-1912. About 900 items.
Arrangement: chronological.
Letters in the 1870s are chiefly of Evans family members and
include a few in 1877 to and from Erasmus Hervey (Hervey) Evans at the
Union School in Carthage, N.C. A letter of 9 October 1879 documents
the death of Hervey's father, also Erasmus Hervey Evans. Note that
there are a few letters, 1869-1871, filed in Series 2 that relate to
Hervey's mother Susan Murphy Evans's family before her marriage.
Most 1884-1886 items also relate to the Evans family. Included are
several letters from Hervey traveling in Texas trying to further his
education and looking for a job and, later, working for a short time
on a railroad engineering project in North Carolina. The first Martha
(Mattie) Virginia McNair Evans Patterson materials are grade and
composition books, 1880-1883, from Mattie's time at the Cool Spring
School, near her home in Laurel Hill, N.C. Also relating to her
school days are autograph and composition books, 1884-1887.
Around 1887, the volume of letters written to Mattie increased
considerably. After attending school at the Laurinburg Female
Institute in 1886 and graduating from Peace Institute in Raleigh in
June 1888, Mattie became the object of several suitors' attentions,
who, along with former school friends, wrote frequently to Mattie
after her return to Laurel Hill in 1889. By 1892, Mattie's suitors,
especially lawyer Crawford Dunlap Bennett (b. 1870) and physician
Daniel Malloy Prince (1848-1919), account for the majority of letters,
most of which document social events, the weather, and religion in
society, especially as it relates to dancing and other activities with
which Mattie and her friends were concerned. The letters also reveal
the varying degrees of ardor with which her beaus pursued Mattie.
Occasionally, events in the greater world were mentioned, as in a 19
November 1892 letter in which Prince told of a lynching in Laurinburg.
By 1893, Prince, who practiced medicine in Laurinburg and was many
years Mattie's senior, was Mattie's only serious beau, Crawford D.
Bennett, apparently feeling neglected, having removed himself from the
field in a letter of 22 May 1893. In a letter dated 26 July 1893,
Prince asked John F. McNair for permission to marry his daughter.
Whether or not this permission was granted, Mattie ended the
relationship in October 1893 after Prince admitted to having been
"overtaken by my old fault," which is nowhere specified in the papers.
Ironically, Prince was the attending physician when Mattie died in
childbirth in 1912.
Letters in 1894-1895 are chiefly to Mattie from women friends, some
of whom supported themselves in offices and schools, but most of whom
discussed at length their beaus, marriages, families, and wardrobes.
Some of these friends, however, shared Mattie's interest in the work
of Presbyterian missionary societies. Materials show that Mattie
worked in various capacities for church missionary societies,
especially the Women's Missionary Society of the Fayetteville
Presbytery, for most of her life. Among these letters is a chain
letter, dated 15 April 1895, in support of a poor woman in Clio, S.C.,
who would receive hundreds of 2-cent stamps in the chain remained
unbroken. In 1896, Mattie had a brief flirtation with a Thomas H.
Turner. In 1897, it was back to women's affairs with a long July 1897
letter, unsigned but written in Mattie's hand, entitled "The Club,"
which tells of a "literary" club that "doesn't read books."
During these years, there are few letters relating to Hervey Evans,
who was apparently growing cotton on the family farm in Sherwood, N.C.
Beginning in 1893, there are letters, often insightful and witty, to
Hervey from his female cousin Frank Faison Ryburn in Shelby, N.C.
Letters from Ryburn continue throughout the collection. An amusing
example of Ryburn's wit is in a letter dated 10 October 1898, in which
Ryburn accused her cousin of becoming a Populist, and, anticipating
Hervey's next visit, lamented, "Oh, my. I have to suffer the agony of
entertaining Marion Butler for a meal next week."
The first letter from Hervey to Mattie is dated 2 August 1897. The
couple met for the first time between Hervey's letters of 18 and 27
October. In the 27 October letter, Hervey claimed that "somehow you
were not a stranger to me after the first five minutes." From October
1897 to March 1898, Hervey's frequent and lengthy letters concentrate
on getting Mattie to agreed to marry him. On 12 March 1898, he wrote,
"I'll wait forever and a day, but it is a fact that time does hang
rather heavy." After she consented to the idea of marriage in mid-
March, Hervey embarked on a crusade to get Mattie to set a date for
the marriage, which finally took place on 14 June 1899. While most of
Hervey's letters deal with their forthcoming marriage, some discuss
other matters. In his 1 February 1898 letter, Hervey revealed that
his 19-year-old sister had mental problems in that "her mind is weak."
In his 10 May 1898 letter, Hervey lamented that his formal education
had been cut short by his father's death. In his 8 October 1898
letter, he wrote of how the discouraging nature of farming made him
long for a different career.
Besides love letters, letters and other items in January 1898
document the suicide at age 25 of Mattie's brother, John William
(Willie) McNair, a successful general merchant of Laurinburg. A 4
January 1898 letter from Daniel Malloy Prince's partner, Kenneth
Archibald Blue, explains that McNair had been depressed for some time.
Also in 1898, there is a sprinkling of letters from missionaries in
various locations, including one on 20 June from China, and another on
13 November from the Congo, and one in September 1899 from Kobe,
Japan. In 1899, several letters relate to the creation of Scotland
County out of Richmond County, which was officially accomplished on 20
February 1899. Laurinburg became the Scotland County seat.
Hervey's dream of pursuing a new career came true after his wedding
when he headed south to work for his father-in-law in the Florida
turpentine fields. John F. McNair had interests in businesses in
Laurel Hill, Laurinburg, and Wilmington, N.C., and in several
operations in Florida that dealt with lumber, turpentine, and naval
stores. In July 1899, Hervey was involved in turpentine manufacture
in Fairfield, Fla. In a letter of 26 August, he discussed his life in
Florida and his general ill health. In November 1898, Mattie moved to
Florida, but by March Hervey's ill health forced the couple back to
Sherwood. By 28 March, Hervey was at the Johns Hopkins Hospital,
where Mattie visited him. By May, he had been moved to the North
Carolina Hospital for the Insane in Morganton, N.C., where his uncle,
Patrick Livingston Murphy, was superintendent. While the hospital was
chiefly devoted to treating mental patients, Hervey was apparently
directly under his uncle's care until the end. While in the hospital,
both Hervey and Mattie, who never left his side, received letters from
friends and family. Most letters discuss family and neighborhood
news. In a letter dated 13 June, Hervey's mother mentioned White
Supremacy meetings in Sherwood. In a 15 June letter, Mattie's father,
still in Florida, wrote to her offering to foot the bill for Hervey's
treatment. On 17 June, Murphy wrote to John McNair asking how news of
Hervey's impending death from stomach cancer should be broken to
Mattie, since she was soon to be confined in childbirth. Murphy sent
a similar letter to his sister on 18 June. Hervey died on 24 June at
the age of 38. On 30 June, there is an itemized bill for his
treatment.
After Hervey's death, Mattie moved to Laurinburg where her family
had relocated in April 1900. The birth of Erasmus Hervey Evans on 22
August 1900 elicited many bitter-sweet letters of congratulations from
friends and family.
From 1901 to 1912, there are many letters to Mattie from friends
and relations, especially, until her death in 1904, from Hervey's
mother, Susan Murphy Evans. Mattie's own mother, Mary Jane Lytch
McNair, died in 1905, while Mattie was down with typhoid fever on a
trip to Colorado, which is sketchily documented in the letters.
There are few letters after 1905. On 23 January 1907, Mattie
married Gilbert Brown Patterson (1863-1922) of Maxton, N.C. A
daughter, Mary McNair Patterson, was born 11 November 1909. Letters
and other items show that Mattie and a second daughter died in
childbirth on 3 July 1912.
Folder 1 1870-1883
2 1884-1885
3 1886-1888
4 1889
5 1891
1892
6 January-May
7 June-September
8 October-December
1893
9 January-March
10 April-June
11 July-December
12 1894
13 1895
1896
14 January-June
15 July-December
1897
16 January-August
17 September-December
1898
18 January-February
19 March
20 April-May
21 June-August
22 September-December
1899
23 January-April
24 May
25 June
26 July-December
1900
27 January-May
28 June
29 July-December
30 1901-1903
31 1904-1912
Series 2. Other Papers
1858-1929. About 50 items.
Arrangement: arranged to correspond to order in typed
transcriptions.
Folders 32-34 Miscellaneous items, including an 1858 essay on
temperance by Mary Jane Lytch, age 17; an undated
list of expenses in Mattie's hand; letters, 1869-
1871, from Susan Murphy Evan's father, Patrick
Murphy, to his son, Patrick Livingston Murphy,
discussing their family's history; and assorted
bills and receipts, 1888-1892, chiefly relating to
cotton sales and purchases of farm equipment.
(Items are transcribed and/or listed in Appendix I-
IV of the typed transcription.)
Folder 35 Religious materials, including tracts and other
printed items, probably collected by Mattie.
(Listed in Appendix V of the typed transcription.)
Folder 36 Tributes to various persons, including a 1929
tribute to Hervey on the occasion of a Sunday
School being erected to his memory. (Transcribed
in Appendix VI-VIII of the typed transcription.)
Series 3. Typed Transcriptions
1992. 1 item.
Typed transcriptions, 1014 pp., of most of the materials in the
collection by Helen Wolfe Evans.
Folder 37 Preface; Notes; Charts
Series 1: 1858-1886
38 1887-1891
39 1892
40 1893-1895
41 1896-1897
42 1898
43 1899
44 1900
45 1901-1912
46 Series 2: Appendix I-VIII
Series 4. Pictures
1882-1908. 49 items.
Mattie and family
P-4645/1 McNair family and James Lytch, ca. 1882.
/2 James McNair, ca. 1882.
/3 Mattie, ca. 1882.
/4 Mattie, ca. 1898.
/5 Mattie and son Hervey, 1900.
/6 Son Hervey, 1903.
/7-8 Mattie and son Hervey with relatives, 1904.
/9 Mattie with Lytch family relatives, 1907.
/10 Mattie, ca. 1907.
/11 Mattie, son Hervey, and Mary Patterson, ca. 1911.
Hervey and family
/12 Children of Susan Murphy Evans and Erasmus Hervey
Evans, undated.
/13 Hervey as a young man.
/14 Hervey and family, 1899.
/15 Hervey in Florida, 1899.
/16 Susan Murphy Evans, undated.
Others
/17-19 Daniel Malloy Prince, 1892 and undated
(photocopies).
/20 Thomas H. Turner, undated (photocopy).
/21 Gilbert Brown Patterson, undated (photocopy).
Gravestones
/22 Erasmus Hervey Evans, 1861-1900.
/23 "Erected in the memory of Chloe Evans, died Jan. 3,
1908, age about 100 years, most trusted servant of
Susan Murphy Evans," undated (photocopy).
/24-49 Unidentified persons Shelf List
Series 1. Correspondence and Related Materials
Box 1 1870-1892 (folders 1-8)
Box 2 1893-1897 (folders 9-17)
Box 3 1898-June 1899 (folders 18-25)
Box 4 July 1899-1912 (folders 26-31)
Series 2. Other Papers (folders 32-34)
Box 5 Series 2. Other Papers (folders 35-36)
Series 3. Typed Transcriptions
Series 1. 1870-1898 (folders 37-42)
Box 6 Series 1. 1899-1912 (folders 43-45)
Series 2. (folder 46)
Items separated:
P-4645/1-49