This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.
This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.
Size | 0.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 300 items) |
Abstract | The scattered papers of the white Giles family of Wilmington, N.C., include an 1882 letter written by Henry L. Giles (Active 1830-1882), a Black bricklayer of Savannah, Ga. He addressed the letter to his former enslaver William B. Giles (1812-1883), a white lumber merchant with businesses in North Carolina and Georgia. Letters written during the American Civil War are chiefly between members of the white Giles and Wright families who remained in Wilmington, N.C., or Savannah, Ga., and those who were fighting for the Confederacy in the 1st, 10th, 24th, and 37th North Carolina regiments and the 1st and 63rd Georgia regiments. Authors mention pro-Union sentiments in Wilmington, N.C., the construction of an ironclad gunboat for the defense of Wilmington and the Cape Fear River, army camp life, Union war ships off the coast of Elba Island near the port of Savannah, and Union General William T. Sherman’s march through Georgia. Also included are contemporary manuscript copies of military orders related to the “suspension of hostilities” and issued on 27 April 1865 by Sherman and by Confederate general J.E. Johnston. Family correspondence between 1800 and 1860 pertains chiefly to personal and social news; everyday life in Madison County, Tenn.; and travel and recreation in New Orleans, La., Natchitoches, La., Texas, Hagerstown, Md., and Inner Hebrides, Scotland. Eighteenth-century documents of the related Wright, Reston, Jocelyn, Grainger, and DuBois families include deeds, plats, indentures, and letters containing marital advice, reports home from students away at school, and other personal, family, and local news. Undated materials include a brief speech rationalizing the institution of slavery with Biblical, economic, and racist arguments.. |
Creator | Giles (Family : Wilmington, N.C.) |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
Processed by: Suzanne Ruffing, September 1996
Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008
Updated by: Kathryn Michaelis, January 2010
This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.
Back to TopThe 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.
William Giles + Arabella (Anabella?) Fleming James M.
William Burke (1812) + Almeria Reston James (b. 1837)
John Reston (b. 1838)
William (b. 1839)
Richard B. (July 19-October 2 1842)
Clayton (b. 1844) + Widow Murchison + Mary Augusta Wright
Clayton (b. 1874) + Agnes Seabrease
Mary + John Dillard Bellamy
Norwood (1846-1899)
Annabella + John Wall Norwood (1802-1885)
Margaret Yonge Norwood (1838-1925)
Margaret Giles + Dr. Philip Yonge
Back to TopPapers before 1800 consist of deeds, plats, and other land records, wills, and related legal papers mostly of the Grainger or DuBois families, and three letters relating to the Jocelyn family. From 1800 to 1812, papers include indentures and correspondence of Samuel R. Jocelyn, Elizabeth Jocelyn, and Eliza Jocelyn; a subscription list, 1810, for St. James's Church, Wilmington, N.C., with names, pledges, and records of payment, 1810-1813; eight pages of a diary of Thomas C. Reston on a tour from Wilmington by sea to Philadelphia, New York, Boston, New Haven, and Hartford; and another diary sheet recording a trip to North Carolina. There are other scattered papers of Samuel R. Jocelyn and Eliza Jocelyn Reston, 1812-1825, and more family correspondence, especially of Edward, Eliza J. Reston's brother, 1825-1830, as well as scattered indentures; letters from Thomas H. Wright in Wilmington; and letters to Christian Giles and Thomas C. Reston, Eliza Jocelyn Reston's husband.
Correspondence of the Giles family increases from 1835 to 1839 and includes letters to Annabella Giles in Wilmington from her son James M. Giles at New Orleans and Natchitoches, La., and letters to James's brother William B. Giles and sister Margaret Yonge. There are also letters to William A. Wright from Henry Toole in Washington and William Mercer Green in Chapel Hill. From 1848 to 1849, there are letters from William B. Giles at Savannah to his wife Almeria in Wilmington and his sons James and John. There are also daily letters from Giles in 1851. Letters of the Giles family begin again in 1853. They include letters of W. B. Giles in Savannah to his family as well as letters, 1855-1856, from James Giles at the College of St. James to his brother Clayton and to his father. There are scattered letters of the Wright family beginning in 1857 and containing mainly personal remarks.
Papers from the Civil War period include family letters of the Wright and Giles families; papers relating to a campaign to raise funds for building an ironclad for the defense of Cape Fear, 1862, with a subscription list of soldiers at Camp Wyatt and letters from George W. Mordecai, Richard Washington, and others, to William A. Wright and others; bills and accounts of W. B. Giles and R. Bradley, 1863-1864; a letter announcing the death of Major John R. Giles of the 63rd Georgia Regiment, 1863; and letters to and from Clayton Giles, private in the signal corps at Thunderbolt Battery near Savannah, 1863-1864.
Items from after the war are primarily the papers of Clayton Giles. Included is an 1882 letter from a former slave thanking W. B. Giles for his early training and other advantages. There are also three folders of undated material, largely Giles family letters.
Back to TopFolder 1 |
1729-1771 |
Folder 2 |
1785-1789 |
Folder 3 |
1790-1798 |
Folder 4 |
1800-1806 |
Folder 5 |
1808-1810 |
Folder 6 |
1811-1818 |
Folder 7 |
1825-1829 |
Folder 8 |
1830-1849 |
Folder 9 |
1851 |
Folder 10 |
1853-1858 |
Folder 11 |
1860-1862 |
Folder 12 |
1863 |
Folder 13 |
1864-1866 |
Folder 14 |
1867-1886; 1906 |
Folder 15-17
Folder 15Folder 16Folder 17 |
Undated |
Extra Oversize Paper Folder XOPF-3391/1 |
Seven oversize documents:OP-3391/1: Bill of complaint over a toll bridge between Henry Toomer and William Blount, 16 June 1789 OP-3391/2: Indenture of John Martin to John Lord of Wilmington, 4 March 1808 OP-3391/3: Indenture of Stephen Player to Peter Carpenter, New Hanover County, NC, 2 June 1792 OP-3391/4: Deed of land of Frederick Jones, New Hanover, 28 August 1795 OP-3391/5: Indenture of John Martin to John Lord, Wilmington, 1 March 1804 OP-3391/6: Indenture of Henry Watters to Thomas Hill, New Hanover County, 2 February 1804 OP-3391/7: Indenture of John Dubois and Richard Player, Wilmington, 10 April 1770 |