Manuscripts Department
           Library of the University of North Carolina
                         at Chapel Hill

                 SOUTHERN HISTORICAL COLLECTION

                             #3413-z
                      FREDERIC SEIP PAPERS
                            Inventory

Abstract:  Frederic Seip (d. 1818), a doctor in Natchez, Miss.,
and his grandson Frederic Seip (1840-1911), officer in the
Confederate army and a planter at Oak Isle Plantation in
Alexandria, La.
         Accounts, bills, receipts, and promissory notes of
Frederic Seip, including accounts payable to him for medical
services and accounts of merchandise purchased at Natchez, New
Orleans, and Philadelphia.  Also included are a few documents
relating to his ginning and selling cotton.  Also included is a
fragment of a diary kept by Seip's grandson, also named Frederic
Seip, for a few months in 1860, in which the younger Seip
recorded information about his slaves, the weekly cotton-picking
schedule, and work done on other crops.  Also included is a typed
transcription of a speech on Alexandria during the Civil War,
which was delivered by the younger Seip in 1908.

Online   Alexandria (La.)--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
Catalog  Cotton gins and ginning--Mississippi--History--19th
Terms:   century.
         Cotton growing--Louisiana--History--19th century.
         Cotton trade--Mississippi--History--19th century.
         Diaries--Louisiana--History--19th century.
         Oak Island Plantation (Alexandria, La.).
         Physicians--Mississippi--History--19th century.
         Plantation owners--Louisiana.
         Plantations--Louisiana--Alexandria.
         Seip, Frederic, d. 1818.
         Seip, Frederic, 1840-1911.
         Slavery--Louisiana.

Size:    About 50 items.

Provenance: Received from Micah F. Seip of Alexandria, Louisiana,
in 1959, and from Fred Seip of Clarksville, Tennessee, in 1957,
1959, and 1965.

Access:  No restrictions.

Processing Note: This inventory is an edited version of a
previous inventory compiled by B. Allan of the Southern
Historical Processing staff.

Copyright: Retained by the authors of items in these papers, or 
their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

                        BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

         Dr. Frederic Seip (d. 1818) practiced medicine in
partnership with Dr. Andrew McCrery (various spellings) in the
vicinity of Natchez, Mississippi.  He was married to Ann Seip,
and had at least one son, John.
         Major Frederic Seip (1840-1911), grandson of Dr.
Frederic Seip, was the son of Dr. John Seip and Eliza Martin Seip
of Oak Isle Plantation in Alexandria, Louisiana.  He graduated
from Princeton University in 1860 and returned to Alexandria
where he managed the family plantation until the beginning of the
Civil War.  He served as a Confederate soldier during the war,
rising to the rank of major.  After the surrender, he returned to
Oak Isle Plantation, which had been burned, and rebuilt his home.

In 1865, Frederic married Adelia Flint (d. 1878), who died in
1878.  In 1882, he married Emeline Flint, daughter of James
Timothy Flint, a lawyer, and granddaughter of Timothy Flint,
writer and historian of Salem, Massachusetts.  They had five
children:  Adelia, who died in 1884, and four sons, John, James,
Micah, and Fred.

                           DESCRIPTION

         These papers consist mostly of accounts, bills,
receipts, promissory notes, and other financial papers of Dr.
Frederic Seip, and similar papers relating to his estate.  There
are about six business letters in the group.
         Seip's medical partner, Andrew McCrery, was also the
executor of his estate.  Their address was Natchez, Mississippi. 
The papers include accounts payable to the doctors for
professional services, and also accounts owed by Seip for
merchandise purchased at Natchez, New Orleans, and Philadelphia. 
Seip was also engaged in planting and ginning cotton, and a few
of the papers relate to his agricultural activities.  Papers of
1820 are business papers of Ann Seip, who was traveling to
Philadelphia that year with a child and servant.  Dr. Seip was
also engaged in planting and ginning cotton during his lifetime
and a few of the papers refer to his activities in this area.
         Also included is an 1860 diary fragment of Frederic
Seip, grandson of Dr. Frederic Seip, kept at Oak Isle Plantation
in Alexandria, Louisiana.  It contains the weekly cotton-picking
record for the plantation, and a journal of other farm work done
such as the cultivation of potatoes, strawberries, corn, and
vegetables, and the care of pigs.  Seip also recorded the weather
and information about his slaves.  He mentioned the first drill
of a military company.
         The final item in the collection is a typescript of "The
Burning of Alexandria, Louisiana, in May 1864," a paper delivered
before a Confederate reunion in 1908 by Major Frederic Seip, CSA,
sketching the history of Alexandria during the Civil War.  

Folder 1 1808-1817
       2 1818-1821
       3 1853-1908