Restrictions to Access

This collection contains additional materials that are not processed and are currently not available to researchers. For information about access to these materials, contact Research and Instructional Services staff. Please be advised that preparing unprocessed materials for access can be a lengthy process.

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 Nicholas Washington Woodfin Papers #1689, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

Microfilm copy available.

• Reel 1: Series 1 and additions of May 1960 and February and May 1962

Acquisitions Information

Received from Jessie Reed Burnett in March 1950 and from Perry Deane Young in May 1960 and February and May 1962; purchased from B. and L. Rootenberg in November 2006 (Acc. 100547).

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.

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.

• African Americans--California--History--19th century.
• Agriculture--Experimentation--History--19th century.
• Agriculture--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Buncombe County (N.C.)--History.
• Buncombe County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• California--Gold discoveries.
• Confederate States of America--Officials and employees.
• Confederate States of America--Politics and government.
• Confederate States of America--Social conditions.
• Family--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Gold mines and mining--California--History--19th century.
• Hamilton, Joseph Gregoire de Roulhac, 1878-1961.
• Henderson County (N.C.)--History.
• Holland, John W.
• Lawyers--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Legislators--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• McDowell family.
• North Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• North Carolina--Politics and government.
• Slavery--North Carolina.
• Slaves--Correspondence.
• Soldiers--United States--Correspondence.
• Spanish-American War, 1898.
• Tennessee--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• United States. Army--Military life--History.
• Woodfin family.
• Woodfin, Eliza G. McDowell, fl. 1850-1870.
• Woodfin, Nicholas Washington, 1810-1876.

Nicholas Washington Woodfin was born in Buncombe County, N.C., on 29 January 1810. In February 1831, he was admitted to practice law in the county courts, and soon after settled in Asheville, N.C. In 1840, Woodfin married Eliza Grace McDowell; the couple had three daughters. For ten years starting in 1844, Woodfin represented Buncombe and Henderson counties in the state senate. He was active on the Asheville school board and in the Episcopal church, and acted as the Buncombe County delegate to the North Carolina Secession Convention. During the Civil War, he was superintendent of the North Carolina Salt Works. Afterwards, he returned to the practice of law and died on 23 May 1876. The town of Woodfin, N.C., in Bumcombe County, is named for him.

(Details from Samuel Ashe's The Biography of North Carolina (volume II, 1905, pages 481-86) and townofwoodfin.org.)

The papers include photocopies of deeds, legal papers, very scattered family and political correspondence, clippings, and speeches on agriculture, and other items of Buncombe County, N.C., lawyer and legislator Nicholas Washington Woodfin, his wife Eliza G. McDowell Woodfin, and other family members, chiefly 1840s-1870s. Included are a photocopy of the bill of auction for the Woodfin Mansion House and Grounds in Asheville, N.C., to be sold 13 August 1879, and a biographical sketch of Woodfin written by J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton in February 1950. There are also photocopies of county deeds; family and business letters; Civil War letters; obituaries; clippings; indenturies; estate papers; family history materials; remarks made at a presentation of Woodfin's portrait in Asheville in 1950; land warrant from Governor Patrick Henry to William Gibbs (apparently unrelated to the rest of the collection); three letters, 1853-1855, from slaves or ex-slaves who had gone to California with members of the family to work in the gold fields; letters of John W. Holland, including a few dated 1898-1901 when he was serving in the United States Army in the Philippines; and an original 1862 letter from Woodfin to Governor Clarke about the defense of eastern Tennessee.