Timeline extended for launch of Wilson Library facilities work.

Collection Number: 03300

Collection Title: William Stevens Powell Material for Iredell and Adjacent Counties, N.C., 1793-1924

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 Duplication Policy section for more information.


This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Collection Overview

Size 1.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 250 items)
Abstract Papers collected by William S. Powell pertaining to Iredell and adjacent counties of North Carolina. The bulk consists of family correspondence, 1867-1901, and account books of two generations of the Goodman family. Letters are personal correspondence of Tobias Goodman (1814-1880) of Amity, Iredell County; his wife Ellen; and his sons and a nephew, including a building materials merchant at Hillsboro, Ill., a railroad employee at Birmingham, Ala., a resident of Lavon, Tex., and others. Letters from Hillsboro, Ill., discuss weather, prices, wages, opportunity that led to leaving North Carolina, the high cost of food in Illinois, and homesickness. Other personal letters discuss farming and give family news, especially about illnesses, deaths, and estates. Account books, chiefly from Iredell County, are for general merchandise and lumber sales, 1853-1856; church contributions (perhaps Presbyterian), 1855-1856; farm crops and miscellaneous labor, 1891; and a blacksmith, Goodwin and White, of Statesville, N.C., 1891-1893. Also included are miscellaneous Goodman family bills and receipts; deeds of other persons; and fourteen letters, 1922-1924, from a North Carolina black medical student, William D. Washington, at Howard University, Washington, D.C., to a friend, Janie Lee Norton, in Davidson, N.C.
Creator Powell, William Stevens, 1919-, collector.
Curatorial Unit University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
Language English
Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Information For Users

Restrictions to Access
No restrictions. Open for research.
Copyright Notice
Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], in William Stevens Powell Material for Iredell and Adjacent Counties, N.C. #3300, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Acquisitions Information
Received from William Stevens Powell of Chapel Hill, N.C., in 1955, 1957, and 1961.
Sensitive Materials Statement
Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.
Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Processing Information

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.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse 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.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Scope and Content

Papers collected by William S. Powell pertaining to Iredell and adjacent counties of North Carolina. The bulk consists of family correspondence, 1867-1901, and account books of two generations of the Goodman family. Letters are personal correspondence of Tobias Goodman (1814-1880) of Amity, Iredell County; his wife Ellen; and his sons and a nephew, including a building materials merchant at Hillsboro, Ill., a railroad employee at Birmingham, Ala., a resident of Lavon, Tex., and others. Letters from Hillsboro, Ill., discuss weather, prices, wages, opportunity that led to leaving North Carolina, the high cost of food in Illinois, and homesickness. Other personal letters discuss farming and give family news, especially about illnesses, deaths, and estates. Account books, chiefly from Iredell County, are for general merchandise and lumber sales, 1853-1856; church contributions (perhaps Presbyterian), 1855-1856; farm crops and miscellaneous labor, 1891; and a blacksmith, Goodwin and White, of Statesville, N.C., 1891-1893. Also included are miscellaneous Goodman family bills and receipts; deeds of other persons; and fourteen letters, 1922-1924, from a North Carolina black medical student, William D. Washington, at Howard University, Washington, D.C., to a friend, Janie Lee Norton, in Davidson, N.C.

Back to Top

Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series Quick Links

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 1. Correspondence and Related Material, 1793-1924.

250 items.

Arrangement: chronological.

Business correspondence and papers of Tobias Goodman (1814-1880) of Iredell County; personal correspondence of Tobias Goodman, his wife Ellen, who lived at Amity, N.C., after his death, and their sons Tobias M., J. L., A. E., and George Elmer, their nephew George B. King, and other second generation family members, 1853-1901; bills, receipts, and promissory notes, 1850s-1870s, of the Goodman family; miscellaneous deeds and other papers of Mecklenburg, Rowan, Iredell, and Davie counties, 1793-1898; three letters to Alice Carey Anderson of Davie County, N.C., 1897, 1898, and 1901; and fourteen letters from William D. Washington, an African-American medical student at Howard University, to Janie Lee Norton, a school teacher, in Davidson N.C., 1922-1924.

Folder 1

1793-1858

Oversize Paper Folder OPF-3300/1

Land grants, 1793

Land grant to Peter Troutman in Rowan County, N.C., 27 November 1793, and land grant to Matthew McClure in Mecklenberg County, N.C., 14 December 1793.

Folder 2

1860-1869

Folder 3

1870-1879

Folder 4

1880-1889

Folder 5

1890-1893

Folder 6

January-May 1894

Folder 7

June-July 1894

Folder 8

August-December 1894

Folder 9

1895

Folder 10

1896-1899

Folder 11

1900

Folder 12

1901

Folder 13

1922-1924

Folder 14

Bills, receipts, and promissory notes

Folder 15

Undated

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 2. Volumes, 1853-1893.

5 items.

Arrangement: chronological.

Folder 16

Folder number not used

Oversize Volume SV-3300/1

Volume S-1: 1853-1854

Day book with accounts for general merchandise for R. & L. Feimster, Liberty Hill, Iredell County, N.C. 268 pp.

Folder 17

Volume 2: 1853-1856

Daily accounts of Tobias Goodman with individuals for sawing, lumber sales and produce, 1855-1856, and miscellaneous accounts from 1853 and 1854. 30 pp.

Folder 18

Volume 3: 1855, 1856, and 1890

Memoranda including subscriptions to and accounts of Amity Church in 1855; subscriptions to Erskine College in 1856 and to Sunday School Books; scattered receipts; and a diary entry, 1890. 50 pp.

Folder 19

Volume 4: 1891

Unbound volume with records and accounts relating to the corn crop, the wheat crop, blacksmith work, hired labor, harness making, and the potato crop. 25 pp.

Folder 20

Volume 5: 1891-1893

Miscellaneous fragmentary accounts apparently of the blacksmith firm of Godwin and White, Statesville, N.C. 50 pp.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Items Separated

Back to Top