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 Cortlandt Van Rensselaer Letter Fragment #3296-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Purchased from Munroe D'Antignac of Griffin, Ga., in April 1857.

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: Suzanne Ruffing, August 1996

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.

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.

• Clergy--Virginia--History--19th century.
• Davis, Samuel S., fl. 1835-1836.
• Enslaved persons--Education--Georgia.
• Enslaved persons--Virginia--Religion.
• Presbyterian Church--Virginia--History--19th century.
• Savannah (Ga.)--Race relations.
• Slavery and the church--Virginia.
• Van Rensselaer, Cortlandt, 1808-1860.

Courtlandt Van Rensselaer (1808-1860) was the son of Stephen and Cornelia Patterson Van Rensselaer. After graduating from Yale in 1823 and studying law, he attended Union Seminary at Hampden-Sydney, Va., and was ordained in April 1835. He gave religious instruction to slaves on Virginia plantations for about a year before opposition to him increased to such an extent that he went back to the North in August 1836. He spent the rest of his career in the North as a Presbyterian fund raiser, chief of the Presbyterian Board of Education, lecturer, and writer.

[For further information see the Dictionary of American Biography.]

Pages 2-4 of a letter to Reverend Van Rensselaer, New York Presbyterian minister, then giving religious instruction to slaves in Virginia, from Samuel S. Davis in Camden, S.C., describing opposition to such work at Savannah, Ga., and other matters.