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 Robert Treat Paine Papers, #1110, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Loaned by Mrs. Charles C. Lockett, April 1946.

Additional Descriptive Resources

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

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.

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.

• Agriculture--Texas--History--19th century.
• American Party.
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Mexican War, 1846-1848--Claims.
• Migration, Internal--Southern States--History--19th century.
• North Carolina--Politics and government--1775-1865.
• North Carolina. General Assembly--History--19th century.
• Paine, Robert Treat, 1812-1872.
• Slave bills of sale--North Carolina.
• Slavery--North Carolina.
• Thompson, William.
• United States and Mexican Claims Commission.
• United States. Army--History--Mexican War, 1846-1848.

Robert Treat Paine (1812-1872) of Edenton, N.C., was a lawyer, state legislator, army officer during the Mexican War, member of the United States and Mexican Claims Commission, and United States Representative (American Party), 1855-1857. His daughter, Sarah E., married William Thompson, who settled in Texas and became a member of the Texas state legislature.

The collection includes family, political, and military correspondence of Robert Treat Paine. The bulk of the papers date from 1830-1858 with the greatest concentration in the Mexican War period. Earlier papers include letters written by Paine while attending Washington College (now Trinity College), Hartford, Conn., and to his wife while he was attending the North Carolina General Assembly. Letters written from the legislature discuss family, personal, and political matters as well as social events in Raleigh, N.C. Mexican War papers include letters home and military and political correspondence, discussing troop movements and morale, several are concerned with a mutiny, 1847, and other disciplinary problems. A smaller amount of papers relate to the postwar Mexican Claims Commission, his term as an American Party congressman, and, after 1860, to agricultural affairs of Paine and his son-in-law, William Thompson, in Texas. There are also some scattered financial documents related to the sale of slaves and other business interests of Paine and family and social correspondence of Sarah E. Paine Thompson.