Inventory of the John Francis Speight Papers, 1795-1906

Collection Number 3914

unc seal
Manuscripts Department, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Collection Information
block Descriptive Summary
block Administrative Information
block Online Catalog Headings
block Biographical Note
block Collection Overview
plus Detailed Description of the Collection
block Related Collections
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
Southern Historical Collection
Creator
Speight, John Francis, 1804-1860.
Title
John Francis Speight Papers, 1795-1906
Call Number
3914
Language of Materials
Materials in English
Extent
Items: About 1000
Linear Feet: 2.5
Abstract
John Francis Speight was a Methodist clergyman, president of the North Carolina Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church, trustee of Jamestown Female College, and farmer of Edgecombe County, N.C.
The collection includes family and professional correspondence, primarily 1822-1894, and bills, receipts, and other financial materials of the Reverend John Francis Speight, his wife Emma Lewis Speight, and their descendants, relatives, and Lewis family connections. Materials prior to 1893 include papers of Emma Lewis Speight's father Exum Lewis II. John Francis Speight travelled extensively in central and eastern North Carolina, and his correspondence, 1832-1860, with his family and with fellow itinerant ministers reflects a variety of church affairs. Emma Lewis Speight's extensive correspondence includes letters exchanged with her numerous relations, particularly her sisters and brothers, in Edgecombe and Halifax counties and other places in North Carolina and in Alabama, Mississippi, and Iowa. This correspondence relates to family events, trips, cotton planting, schooling, and civilian conditions during the Civil War. There are also letters from Confederate soldiers serving in Virginia and eastern North Carolina, 1861-1863. Postwar items include correspondence of students at the University of North Carolina and the University of Virginia, and in medical training at the Baltimore Infirmary, 1867-1870. Also included are financial and legal materials, 1827-1906, and other items, among them two ciphering books, clippings, and a copy of a 1970s inventory of the papers that contains genealogical information about some of the correspondents in the papers and item-level description of selected materials.

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Administrative Information

Restrictions to Access
No restrictions.
Alternate Form of Material
Microfilm copy (filmed December 1973) available.
Reel 1: Folders 1-30 (1795-1 December 1867)
Reel 2: Folders 30-38 (6 December 1867-1906)
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Additional Descriptive Resources

Genealogical information and item-level description for selected items in folder 82.
Acquisitions Information
Gifts in 1970 and 1971.
Processing Information
Processed by: Staff, 1991
Encoded by: Peter Hymas, November 2004
Funding from the State Library of North Carolina supported the encoding of this finding aid.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], in the John Francis Speight Papers #3914, Southern Historical Collection, 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.
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Online Catalog Headings

These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.

Alabama--Social life and customs.
Baltimore Infirmary (Md.)--Students.
Circuit riders--North Carolina--History--19th century.
College students--Southern States--Social life and customs.
Edgecombe County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
Halifax County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
Iowa--Social life and customs.
Lewis, Exum, d. ca. 1839.
Lewis family.
Medicine--Study and teaching--History--19th century.
Methodist Protestant Church (U.S. : 1830-1939)--North Carolina--19th century.
Mississippi--Social life and customs.
Soldiers--Confederate States of America--Correspondence.
Speight, Emma Lewis, fl. 1822-1897.
Speight family.
Speight, John Francis, 1804-1860.
University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Students--History--19th century.
University of Virginia--Students--History--19th century.
Women--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
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Related Collections

Lewis Family Papers (#427), Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Mount Prospect Papers (#3211), Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Biographical Note

John Francis Speight was a Methodist clergyman, president of the North Carolina Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church, trustee of Jamestown Female College, and farmer of Edgecombe County, N.C. During the 1830s, Speight was chiefly in Edgecombe, Granville, Guilford, Orange, and Halifax counties. After his marriage in 1840, to Emma Lewis, lived in the Tarboro and Battleboro neighborhood (Mount Prospect) in Edgecombe County when he was not travelling.

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Collection Overview

The collection includes family and professional correspondence, primarily 1822-1894, and bills, receipts, and other financial materials of the Reverend John Francis Speight, his wife Emma Lewis Speight, and their descendants, relatives, and Lewis family connections. Materials prior to 1893 include papers of Emma Lewis Speight's father Exum Lewis II. John Francis Speight travelled extensively in central and eastern North Carolina, and his correspondence, 1832-1860, with his family and with fellow itinerant ministers reflects a variety of church affairs. Emma Lewis Speight's extensive correspondence includes letters exchanged with her numerous relations, particularly her sisters and brothers, in Edgecombe County, N.C., and Halifax County, N.C., and other places in North Carolina, and in Alabama, Mississippi, and Iowa. This correspondence relates to family events, trips, cotton planting, schooling, and civilian conditions during the Civil War. There are also letters from Confederate soldiers serving in Virginia and eastern North Carolina, 1861-1863. Postwar items include the correspondence of students at the University of North Carolina and the University of Virginia, and in medical training at the Baltimore Infirmary, 1867-1870. Also included are financial and legal materials, 1827-1906, and other items, among them two ciphering books, clippings, and a copy of a 1970s inventory of the papers that contains genealogical information about some of the correspondents in the papers and item-level description of selected materials.

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Arrangement of Collection

1. Correspondence
2. Financial Papers
3. Other Papers
3.1. Undated Papers and Miscellaneous Printed Material
3.2. Volumes
3.3. Newspapers and Advertisements
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Detailed Description of the Collection

1. Correspondence, 1795-1906 and undated.

About 800 items.
Arrangement: chronological.
Family and professional correspondence of John Francis Speight. Most of the letters are family correspondence, letters addressed mainly to Emma Lewis Speight of Edgecombe County, N.C., daughter of Exum Lewis II and Ann Harrison Lewis. The letters to Emma were written by some of her brothers, sisters, and in-laws, and, in later years, by her three sons, John Francis Speight, Jr., Richard Harrison Speight, and Exum Lewis Seth Speight, and by her nieces and nephews. Later still, they were written by her grandchildren, grandnieces, and grandnephews. There is also correspondence among these relatives with each other, and some letters received by them from friends. Early items are papers of Emma's father, Exum Lewis II, that were interfiled up to about 1839. The correspondence between Emma and her husband is dated mainly 1848-1860.
Also included are the letters and correspondence of John Francis Speight with other itinerant preachers, pastors, and officers of the North Carolina Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church. This correspondence, 1832-1860, contains considerable discussion of church affairs and the state of religion in central and eastern North Carolina; issues before the meetings and from the General Conference; personal and family news among the clergymen; and local, social, and personal news from the various communities in which each pastor served. Speight's most frequent correspondents were W. H. Wills and Samuel J. Harris. Among the many other correspondents are W. E. Bellamy, Joshua W. Swift, Alexander Albright, and J. J. Judge.
In addition to the family and professional correspondence, there are some scattered business and other papers of John Francis Speight and Emma Speight, including letters about financial and property matters. There are also some papers of the Powell family, which came to the collection through Margaret Ann Powell Speight, the first wife of Richard Harrison Speight, as well as occasional Foreman family items, which came in through Emma's brother, R. H. Lewis.
Most of the letters were written in eastern and central North Carolina, but there are also letters also from Iowa, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee; from travellers in Baltimore, Md., and New York, N.Y.; from young people at schools and colleges; and from Confederate soldiers in the field in North Carolina and Virginia.
Folder 1
1795-1824
Folder 2
1825-1826

Digital version: Letter from Richard H. Lewis to Exum Lewis, 5 March 1825

Digital version: Letter from Richard H. Lewis to Emma Lewis, 20 August 1825

Digital version: Letter from Richard H. Lewis to Exum Lewis, 24 September 1825
Folder 3
1827-1829
Folder 4
1830-1832
Folder 5
1833
Folder 6
1834
Folder 7
1835
Folder 8
1836

Digital version: Letter from Kenelm H. Lewis to Emma Lewis, 28 February 1836
Folder 9-10
1837

Digital version: Letter from Kenelm H. Lewis to Emma Lewis, 26 May 1837
Folder 11-12
1838

Digital version: Letter from Kenelm H. Lewis to Emma Lewis, 28 February 1838
Folder 13-14
1839
Folder 15-16
1840
Folder 17
1841-1843
Folder 18
1844-1847
Folder 19
1848-1849
Folder 20
1850-1852
Folder 21
1853-1854
Folder 22
1855-1856
Folder 23
1857-1858
Folder 24
1859
Folder 25
1860
Folder 26
1861
Folder 27
1862-1863
Folder 28
1864-1865
Folder 29
1866
Folder 30
1867
Folder 31
1868
Folder 32
1869
Folder 33
1870
Folder 34
1871-1872
Folder 35
1873-1879
Folder 36
1880-1889
Folder 37
1890-1896
Folder 38
1897-1906 and undated
Folder 39-40
Undated

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2. Financial and Legal Papers, 1827-1906 and undated.

About 150 items.
Arrangement: chronological.
Bills, receipts, several deeds, and some other business letters of John Francis Speight and Emma Lewis Speight.
Folder 41
1827-1838
Folder 42
1839
Folder 43
1841
Folder 44
1842
Folder 45
1843
Folder 46
1844
Folder 47
1845
Folder 48
1846
Folder 49
1848
Folder 50
1849
Folder 51
1850
Folder 52
1851
Folder 53
1852
Folder 54
1853
Folder 55
1854
Folder 56
1855
Folder 57
1856
Folder 58
1857
Folder 59
1858
Folder 60
1859
Folder 61
1860
Folder 62
1861
Folder 63
1862
Folder 64
1865
Folder 65
1866-1868
Folder 66
1869-1870
Folder 67
1871-1872
Folder 68
1873-1875, 1877-1878
Folder 69
1880-1883
Folder 70
1884
Folder 71
1885
Folder 72
1886
Folder 73
1887-1888
Folder 74
1889-1892
Folder 75
1893-1894
Folder 76
1895-1897, 1906, and undated

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3. Other Papers, 1817-1894 and undated.

About 50 items.
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3.1. Volumes, 1817, 1837.
3 items.
Arrangement: chronological.
Slight manuscript volumes including parts of two ciphering books, one apparently of John Wesley Lewis, 1817, and one of Exum Lewis. John Francis Speight's scrapbook, April 1837, contains written sermon texts and ideas.
Folder 77
V-3914/1: Ciphering book
Folder 78
V-3914/2: Ciphering book
Folder 79
V-3914/3: Scrapbook
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3.2. Newspapers and Advertisements, 1824, 1870, and undated.
About 10 items.
Arrangement: chronological.
Two newspapers: Washington Gazette of Washington D.C., 16 April 1824 and Appleton's Journal of New York, 17 May 1870, and miscellaneous advertisements from North Carolina and other southern states primarily relating to business and medical supplies.
Folder 80
Newspapers
Folder 81
Advertisements
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3.3. Miscellaneous Material, 1870s-1890s and undated.
About 40 items.
Copy of inventory of the John Francis Speight papers that was produced in the 1970s. This inventory contains genealogical information about some of the correspondents in the papers, including a death notice for Speight from Our Church Record (volume 4, number 45, 29 September 1898); it also contains item-level description of selected materials.
Other items include a poem; a memorial broadside upon the death of Clio Lewis Speight, 16 March 1889; a University of North Carolina commencement invitation, June 1878; newspaper clippings; and the University of North Carolina Executive Committee of the Board's "Statement of Facts About the University" pamphlet, [1894?].
Folder 82
Inventory
Folder 83
Miscellaneous

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