Inventory of the George Coffin Taylor Papers, 1808-circa 1950
Collection Number 2502
Manuscripts Department, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- 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
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
- Creator
- Taylor, George Coffin, 1877-
- Title
- George Coffin Taylor Papers, 1808-circa 1950
- Call Number
- 2502
- Language of Materials
- Materials in English
- Extent
-
- Items: About 100
- Linear Feet: 0.5
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Administrative Information
- Processing Information
- Processed by: SHC Staff, March 1951
- Encoded by: Nancy Kaiser, August 2005
- Funding from the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc., supported the encoding of this finding aid and microfilming of this collection.
- Preferred Citation
- [Identification of item], in the George Coffin Taylor Papers #2502, 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.
Online Catalog Headings
These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.
- Bath County (Va.)--History.
- Confederate States of America. Army--Military life.
- Confederate States of America--Social conditions.
- Family--South Carolina--Social life and customs.
- Freedmen--Virginia--Correspondence.
- Horse racing--South Carolina--History--19th century.
- Horses--Breeding--South Carolina--History--19th century.
- Pocahontas County (W. Va.)--History.
- Slaughter, John H.
- Slavery--Alabama.
- Slavery--South Carolina.
- Slavery--Virginia.
- Soldiers--Confederate States of America--Correspondence.
- South Carolina--Social life and customs.
- Taylor, George Coffin, 1877-
Biographical Note
George Coffin Taylor was born in Charleston, S.C., in 1877. He was a gentleman farmer, lawyer, and Shakespeare scholar. He served for twenty-seven years on the faculty of the English Department at the University of North Carolina until retiring in 1949 to Columbia, S.C. Coffin died in 1961.
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The collection consists of scattered items, chiefly 1808-1867, unrelated or in small groups, documenting horse racing and horse breeding, slavery, the Civil War, and family and social life. Most items relate to South Carolina, though some concern North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, and Massachusetts. Many of the horse racing and horse breeding papers, especially 1808-1834, are photostats. Slave records include a letter, 1823, concerning a mortgage on a slave child from the George Taylor estate; a letter, 1847, regarding slave sales in Montgomery, Ala.; and a letter, 1864, expressing interest in hiring out slaves to work on a railroad. Civil War materials include letters, 1861, from John H. Slaughter with Confederate Army forces in Bath County, Va., and Pocahontas County, W. Va., describing camp life, marches, and soldiers' health. In addition there are miscellaneous letters, 1861-1865, that describe similar conditions, as well as military activities; soldier's morale; Confederate bonds and debts; cotton; medical care for soldiers; a Fort Delaware prisoner's conversion to Christianity and intent to join the Campbellites; a Guilford, N.C., man's decision to serve his country by "preaching down sin"; military prison in Charleston, S.C.; and the call for 16-year-old boys and men over 60 to military service. Postwar materials include a July 1865 plea from an ex-slave in Liberty, Va., to be brought home and a report, 1866, of the murder of a black man allegedly by two white men. Family and social life materials are found throughout the collection and include miscellaneous family letters describing finances, health, vacations, sightseeing, school life, and estate settlement. There are several letters, 1839-1840, from Anna Motte Lindsay "A. L.," a widow, to her brother, Jacob Rhett Motte, a United States Army surgeon. Lindsay, of Huntsville, Ala., wrote from Boston, Mass., where she was staying with another brother. Among many problems, Lindsay reported trouble concerning the status of a slave she brought with her to Boston.
All of the materials were collected by George Coffin Taylor, except for a letter, 1943, from James A. Hoyt Jr. to Taylor, enclosing photostats of correspondence, 1879-1880, concerning the proposed withdrawal of the Samuel Jones Tilden electoral ticket in the presidential election of 1876, and Taylor's typescript manuscript, circa 1950, of the posthumously published "So This Is Education."
Detailed Description of the Collection
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