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 W.S. Hamilton Papers, #1471, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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 Jordan, April 2011

This collection was processed with support from the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1993.

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.

• Baptist State Convention of North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Claims against decedents' estates--Louisiana--History--19th century.
• College of New Jersey (Princeton, N.J.)--Students--Social life and customs.
• Diaries (Blank-books)
• Edenton (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Elizabeth City (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Fathers and sons--Louisiana.
• Hamilton, John, 1784-1822.
• Hamilton, W. S. (William Southerland), b. 1789.
• Hampton, Wade, 1752-1835.
• Law--Study and teaching--Scotland--History--19th century.
• Lawyers--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Louisiana--History--War of 1812.
• Louisiana--Politics and government.
• Migration, Internal--Southern States--History--19th century.
• North Carolina--Politics and government--1775-1865.
• Plantation owners--Louisiana--Correspondence.
• Plantations--Louisiana.
• Scottish Americans--Southern States--History--19th century.
• Slavery--Louisiana.
• Smith, Samuel Stanhope, 1750-1819.
• Soldiers--Confederate States of America--Correspondence.
• United States. Army--Military life.
• United States. Army--Records and correspondence.
• Washington (N.C.)--History.

W.S. Hamilton (b. 1789) studied at Princeton College, served as a United States Army officer, 1808-1817, and was a planter and legislator in Louisiana. His father, John Hamilton, studied law in Scotland before moving to the United States to be a lawyer, state legislator, and active Baptist in Edenton and Elizabeth City, N.C. John Hamilton later moved to Louisiana. W.S. Hamilton and his stepmother became involved in a controversy over property due to him from his mother's estate after John Hamilton's death.

The collection is the papers of W.S. Hamilton and John Hamilton (1784-1822). Materials pertain to John Hamilton's education, emigration, life in North Carolina, and move to Louisiana. Later papers detail W.S. Hamilton's education, his friendship and correspondence with Samuel Stanhope Smith, president of Princeton, his service as a United States Army officer, and his controversy with his father and stepmother over property due him from his mother's estate. Volumes, 1785-1802, are irregular diaries and brief memoranda books of John Hamilton.

Also available are military papers and orderly books of W.S. Hamilton and his later papers as a planter and legislator in Louisiana; correspondence with his sons, especially Douglas M. and William B. Hamilton, students in Louisiana and at the University of Virginia and soldiers in the Confederate Army in Virginia; and a Louisiana cotton plantation journal, 1861-1862. Pages from a record of daily work performed by slaves are available on microfilm.

• Microfilm (Reels M-1471/1-7)
• Oversize Paper Folder (OPF-1471/1)