Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

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 Meares and DeRosset Family #499, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Additional Descriptive Resources

A more complete finding aid for this collection is available at the Southern Historical Collection.

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. Updated by Sara Mannheimer, June 2013.

Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007

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.

• Confederate States of America--Social conditions.
• De Rosset, A. J. (Armand John), 1807-1897.
• DeRosset family--Photographs.
• DeRosset family.
• Diaries.
• Episcopal Church--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Family--North Carolina.
• Family--South Carolina.
• Lawyers--North Carolina--History.
• Meares family--Photographs.
• Meares family.
• Meares, Gaston, 1821-1862.
• Meares, Kate de Rosset, b. 1830.
• Merchants--North Carolina--History.
• North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Secession.
• South Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Wilmington (N.C.)--Commerce.
• Wilmington (N.C.)--Social life and customs.

• DeRosset Family papers (#214)
• Moses Ashley Curtis papers (#199)
• Alfred Moore Waddell papers (#743)
• Langdon, Young, and Meares Family papers (#1558)
• Dorothy Meares Coleman papers (#4185)

Kate (Catherine) Douglass DeRosset Meares, of Wilmington, N.C., married Gaston Meares, a lawyer, businessman, and Confederate Colonel who died at the Battle of Malvern Hill in 1862. They had three sons: Armand Meares, Richard Ashe Meares, and Louis Henry Meares. Richard Ashe Meares and Armand Meares attended St. Stephen's Episcopal College in Annandale, N.Y.; Armand Meares graduated in 1877 and then attended the General Theological Seminary in New York, N.Y. In 1876, Louis Henry Meares at age sixteen began working for his grandfather, but he was suspected of stealing money, and was sent to work on a farm in Friendship, N.C., in 1877. After college, Richard Ashe Meares moved to Winston, N.C. Armand Meares lived in New York, N.Y., and Baltimore, Md.

Most of Kate DeRosset Meares's extended family also lived in Wilmington, N.C., including her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Armand John DeRosset. Armand DeRosset was a physician and merchant.

The collection is chiefly correspondence of Kate DeRosset Meares, her sons, and other family members. Other topics include Episcopal church news; Wilmington residents and events; illness and ailments of family members; domestic matters; and the work and education of her sons. Letters prior to 1862 include some of Gaston Meares's professional correspondence regarding business deals, trades, and market speculation. Other materials include financial papers and account books, 1840s-1900s; a law notebook, 1865; an undated list of household articles; a printed volume of DeRosset family genealogy; an 1890 handwritten article making the case for an African American suffragan bishop in North Carolina; a 1911 essay entitled "Opposition to Secession in the South" by Kate DeRosset Meares; several cartes de visite depicting Meares and DeRosset family members; certificates, clippings, and other papers.