Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

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 the Ephraim Steele Papers, #3876-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Transferred from the John Steele Papers (#689) and the Archibald Henderson Papers Relating to Family History (#3650), Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, January 1969.

Additional Descriptive Resources

A copy of the original finding aid for this collection is filed in folder 1.

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.

Processed by: SHC Staff

Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007

Updated by: Kate Stratton and Jodi Berkowitz, June 2009

This collection was rehoused and a summary created with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This finding aid was created with support from NC ECHO.

Diacritics and other special characters have been omitted from this finding aid to facilitate keyword searching in web browsers.

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.

• Carlisle (Pa.)--Social life and customs.
• Charleston (S.C.)--History--Revolution, 1775-1783.
• Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Family--Pennsylvania--Social life and customs.
• Industries--Kentucky--History--19th century.
• Ireland--History--1760-1820.
• Irish Americans--North Carolina--History.
• Irish Americans--Pennsylvania--History.
• Leather industry and trade--Kentucky--History--19th century.
• Rowan County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Steele family.
• Steele, Ephraim, fl. 1778-1787.

• John Steele Papers (#689).

Ephraim Steele (fl. 1778-1787) was a merchant and landowner, of Carlisle, Pa. Steele married Esther Smith in 1781.

The collection includes family correspondence and scattered business papers of two generations of the Steele family of Carlisle, Pa., chiefly 1773-1823. Much of the 18th-century correspondence consists of letters from Ephraim Steele's relatives in Ireland and from his brother's family in Rowan County, N.C. (parents of Federalist leader John Steele). Included are letters written from Charleston, S.C., in the late 1770s discussing recent public events and disorder during the Revolution; and letters written from Ireland in the 1790s describing social unrest there. Later papers concern the family leather business in Kentucky and Louisiana. There are also some genealogical notes and fragments of a family Bible record.