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 John Calhoun McDowell Papers, #3147-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Elizabeth McDowell Abernethy of Morganton, N.C., June 1955.

Additional Descriptive Resources

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

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, March 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.

• Burke County (N.C.)--Economic conditions.
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• McDowell, John Calhoun, 1825-1876.
• McDowell, Sarah Ann Erwin.
• Medicine--Practice--Accounting--History--19th century.
• Physicians--North Carolina--Economic conditions.
• Slave records--North Carolina--Burke County.

John Calhoun McDowell (1825-1876), a Burke County, N.C., physician, was the son of James Moffett McDowell and Margaret C. Erwin McDowell. He studied medicine at the Medical College of Charleston, S.C., and practiced in Morganton, N.C., and the surrounding area. McDowell married Sarah Ann Erwin in 1848.

Sarah Ann Erwin (1829-1903) of Bellevue, formerly Erwin's Delight, in Burke County, N.C., was the seventh child of James Erwin and Margaret Phifer Erwin, and the grandchild of Alexander Erwin. Her siblings were William C., Joseph J., Martin P., Alexander, and George W. P. Erwin, and Elizabeth P. Erwin Craige.

The collection includes scattered papers of John C. McDowell including records of births of slaves, 1832-1847; bills for goods and services purchased, 1840s and 1850s; a medical ledger, 1847-1849; and family correspondence of his wife, Sarah Ann Erwin McDowell. There are also a few early legal and financial documents of the the Erwin and McDowell families.