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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 rehoused and a summary created with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities; this finding aid was created with support from NC ECHO.
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Collection Overview
| Size | 115 items |
| Abstract | Elias Winans Price (1829-1897) was the son of Jeremiah Price (1786-1861) and his second wife Maria Gibbs Price (1788-1838) of Elizabeth, Essex County, N.J. Among Elias Winans Price's siblings were Theodore (born 1819) and Henrietta McDowell Price (born 1826). The collection includes papers of the Price family of Essex County, N.J., including eighty-five Civil War letters written home by Elias Winans Price, serving with the 5th New York Regiment in Maryland and West Virginia. Price's letters concern the discomforts of camp life; his activities as a nurse, cook, and prison guard; the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg; and his reactions to national news, especially the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Also included are antebellum papers, including records of Price's father, Jeremiah Price, constable of Essex County, N.J., relating to delinquent tax collections; letters from a brother in Michigan; and letters from E. W. Price and a brief account book Price kept while he was apprenticed to a bookbinder in Waterbury, Conn. |
| Creator | Price, Elias Winans, 1829-1897. |
| Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Processing Information
Processed by: SHC Staff
Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007
Updated by: Kate Stratton and Jodi Berkowitz, July 2010
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.
Diacritics and other special characters have been omitted from this finding aid to facilitate keyword searching in web browsers.
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Subject Headings
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.
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Biographical Information
Elias Winans Price (1829-1897) was the son of Jeremiah Price (1786-1861) and his second wife Maria Gibbs Price (1788-1838) of Elizabeth, Essex County, N.J. Among Elias Winans Price's siblings were Theodore (born 1819) and Henrietta McDowell Price (born 1826). Elias Winans Price married Phebe Shipman in 1852.
Elias Winans Price learned the bookbinders' trade in 1845, lived at Waterbury, Conn., in the 1850s, and owned a bookbindery in Brooklyn, N.Y., when he enlisted in the United States Army in August 1862. He served in Company A, 5th New York Volunteer Artillery, stationed at Fort Marshall, Baltimore, Md., near Harpers Ferry, W.Va., and in the Shenandoah Valley and Winchester, Va.
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Scope and Content
The collection includes papers of an Essex County, N.J., family, including eighty-five Civil War letters written home by Elias Winans Price, serving with the 5th New York Regiment in Maryland and West Virginia. Price's letters concern the discomforts of camp life; his activities as a nurse, cook, and prison guard; the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa.; and his reactions to national news, especially the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Also included are antebellum papers, including records of Price's father, Jeremiah Price, constable of Essex County, N.J., relating to delinquent tax collections; letters from a brother in Michigan; and letters from E. W. Price and a brief account book Price kept while he was apprenticed to a bookbinder in Waterbury, Conn.
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Elias Winans Price Papers, 1823-1868 and undated.
| Folder 1 |
Original finding aid |
Papers, 1823-1858The antebellum items are papers of Jeremiah Price, a constable in Essex County, N.J. They include scattered papers relating to his official duties and to his own property, and 20 items addressed to him and his daughter Henrietta from other members of the family. There is one letter from Jeremiah's brother Enoch Price at Avon, Livingston County, N.Y. Seven letters are from Jeremiah's son Theodore at Madison, Wisc., and at Port Huron, Mich. Theodore tells of the trip out of New York in 1851, family news, weather, and mentions lumbering and business conditions. Eleven letters, 1852-1858, are from Jeremiah's son Elias Winans Price, living at Waterbury, Conn., and working there and at New Haven, Conn. These letters tell of the boarding house where he lived before his marriage and later of home and family. He comments on politics, current events from the newspapers, news from friends and relatives at Elizabeth, N.J. Letter, 3 June 1855, mentions balloon ascension and plans for another one at Waterbury. |
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| Folder 2 |
Papers, 1862-1863Includes letters written by Elias Winans Price while serving with the 5th New York Volunteer Artillery. The first letter, from Harpers Ferry, W. Va., was written one month after Price enlisted and while he was on his way to Annapolis, Md., as a sick, paroled prisoner. One letter was written from Camp Douglas, Chicago, Ill., where he was doing carpentry work, still a paroled prisoner. The other letters were all written at or near Fort Marshall, Baltimore, Md., where Price did cooking, hospital nursing, guarding of property and prisoners, and drilling. He wrote to his sister Henrietta, wife Phebe, and stepmother about his situation, health and daily discomforts, the incompetence of the officers and administration under which he livied, and his reactions to national news. One letter, 8 September 1863, describes his guard duty at lighthouse and powder magazine on Patapsco Bay, Md. Another, 23 November 1863, describes the cemetery dedication ceremonies at Gettysburg, Pa., which he attended. |
| Folder 3 |
Papers, 1864Includes six letters written by Elias Winans Price at Fort Marshall, Md., the last while he was guarding rebel prisoners at the Post Hospital. In April 1864 he was cooking for a hospital in a Lutheran church at Harpers Ferry, W. Va. There are also six letters written by Price at the United States General Hospital at Parkersburg, W. Va., while a patient and later a convalescent with cooking and nursing responsibilities, describing living conditions and hardships there. Also included are letters written at Harpers Ferry, W.Va., where Price rejoined his company and did guard and picket duty, along with burning and destroying in the vicinity. These letters contain comments on current events, military and political, and on officers, northern and southern; also inquiries about family and relatives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Elizabeth, N.J. There are also a few letters to Price from his siblings. |
| Folder 4 |
Papers, 1865-1868Includes 19 letters written by Elias Winans Price at Harpers Ferry, W.Va., during which time he did picket duty. He comments on current events and the war; the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Post-war letters were written by Price at Brooklyn, N.Y., and concern family matters. |
| Folder 5 |
Papers, undated and miscellaneousIncludes some Civil War period items and clippings. There are also two small notebooks. One, 1845-1847, is accounts of Elias Winans Price while an apprentice bookbinder. The other, 1853-1855, contains a tax list kept by Jeremiah Price as constable of Essex County, N.J. |
| Image Folder PF-3725/1 |
Photograph of Elias Winans Price |
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Items Separated