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 McKee Sharpe Papers, #3592, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Gift 1962; Addition of 1967, purchased from Kingston Galleries, Inc, of Somerville, Mass.

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: Adam Fielding and Jodi Berkowitz, February 2011

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.

• Alexander County (N.C.)--History.
• Alexander County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Atlantic, Tennessee, and Ohio Railroad Company.
• Caldwell family.
• Divorce--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Enslaved persons--Emancipation.
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Fort Fisher (N.C.)
• Genealogists--North Carolina.
• Iredell County (N.C.)--History.
• Iredell County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• McKee family.
• McKee, John H.
• McKee, Thomas Jefferson, b. 1855.
• Migration, Internal--Southern States--History.
• Mills family.
• Moore family.
• Murdock family.
• North Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• North Carolina. Militia--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Railroads--Southern States--History--19th century.
• Sharpe family.
• Sharpe, Amos.
• Sharpe, Ebenezer Franklin.
• Sharpe, John McKee, fl. 1903-1941.
• Sharpe, John.
• Sharpe, S. A. (Silas Alexander), 1830-1903.
• Sharpe, William.
• Shelby County (Tex.)--Economic conditions.
• Shelby County (Tex.)--History.
• Shelby County (Tex.)--Hitory.
• Slave bills of sale.
• Slavery--North Carolina.
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Participation, African American.

• Leander Quincy Sharpe Papers (#2374).

Members of the Sharpe family moved from Cecil County, Md., to Rowan, later Iredell, County, N.C. Prominent family members included the sons of Thomas Sharpe Junior, namely Amos, John, and William (member of the Continental Congress from North Carolina); along with Amos's son Ebenezer Franklin Sharpe. Ebenezer Franklin Sharpe married John Sharpe's daughter, Adalicia, and their son, Silas Alexander (fl. 1863-1865), married John H. McKee's daughter, Sarah Jane.

John H. McKee was a farmer in Iredell County, N.C. He first married Tirzah McKnight, with whom he had Sara Jane and Mary Emeline. He later married Rebecca Reese (Caldwell) Carson, whom he later divorced. McKee had four brothers: Archbald, who married Ethel Baggerly and moved to Tennessee; Eli, who married Mary E. Sherrill, and lived in Macon County, N.C.; James, who married Hannah Patton, and lived in western North Carolina, including Asheville; and Thomas Jefferson (b. 1855), who lived in Alabama and Texas. He also had two sisters: Margaret (Peggy) who was married to a man named McKnight; and Nancy, who was unmarried and lived with McKee. His daughter Sarah Jane married Silas Alexander Sharpe, and one of their sons is John McKee Sharpe (fl. 1903-1941). His other daughter, mary Emaline married Silas Alexander Sharpe's uncle, Leander Quincy Sharpe.

This collection contains the papers of John McKee Sharpe (fl. 1903-1941), the Sharpe family, and John H. McKee. The Sharpe Family papers, 1781-1890, contains the bills, receipts, buisness papers, and correspondence of the Sharpe family, principally relating to Amos Sharpe, Ebenezer Franklin Sharpe, and Silas Alexander Sharpe, along with other family members. The papers include material related to Silas Alexander Sharpe as a colonel in the North Carolina Home Guard, 1863-1865, which address militia activities in Iredell and Alexander counties, especially with conscription, apprehension of deserters, slaves detailed to work at Fort Fisher, and local defenses; and his business papers in connection with the Atlantic, Tennessee, and Ohio Railroad. Other papers include items related to slavery bonds, 1793; family news, the prosperity of Kentucky farmers, 1817; the estate of John H. McKee, family correspondence; slave sales, 1849; letters regarding political and economic conditions, as well as race relations during Reconstruction in North Carolina, 1871. The John H. McKee papers, 1820-1870, chiefly contains the scattered business and legal papers of John H. McKee, as well as extensive family correspondence with relatives spread across the South. Topics include the legal separation of McKee and his second wife, Rececca Reese (Caldwell) Carson; the successes and failures of son Thomas Jefferson McKee, who settled in Shelby County, Tex.; crops; debt; slave sales, 1846, 1854; the death of uncle John Stevenson and the manumission of his slaves, 1850; the move of John Stevenson's slaves to Liberia, 1854; family news, including marriages, deaths, and estates; William McKee's service during the Revolutionary War, and compensation rights from the United States government to his heirs, 1850, 1853; life among United States army troops in Tennessee, 1863; and an account of the planned but never established Western College, 1870. The John McKee Sharpe papers, 1903-1954 chiefly consists of correspondence and genealogical materials of John McKee Sharpe relating to the history of the Sharpe and McKee families and members of the related Caldwell, Mills, Moore, and Murdock families, and to Iredell County history.

• Oversize papers (OP-3592/1)