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 Royster Family Papers #4183, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

Rollbook, 1902-1911, available on microfilm.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Hubert A. Royster, Raleigh, N.C., in April 1951; Henry Page Royster, Raleigh, in March 1979 and April 1990; and Vermont C. Royster, Chapel Hill, N.C., in October 1987.

Received from Dorothy Merritt of Raleigh, N.C., through H. G. Jones of the North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in August 1989.

Received from Robert H. Baker of Houston, Tex., in March 2010 (Acc. 101270).

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: John Beam, June Bratcher, Jane H. Odom, February 1985; David Weber, November 1987; Roslyn Holdzkom, April 1990, August 1991; Kiley Orchard, May 2010

The March 2010 addition was processed with support from Elizabeth Moore Ruffin.

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

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.

• African Americans--North Carolina--Photographs.
• College students--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Military life.
• Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Cavalry Regiment, 1st.
• Daniels, Josephus, 1862-1948.
• Families--North Carolina--Photographs.
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Hall, James King, 1875-1948.
• Medical education--North Carolina--History.
• Medicine--Practice--North Carolina--History.
• North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts--Photographs.
• North Carolina State University--History.
• North Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Physicians--North Carolina--History.
• Raleigh (N.C.)--History.
• Raleigh (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Royster family.
• Royster, Hubert Ashley, 1871-1959.
• Royster, Iowa Michigan, 1840-1863.
• Royster, James Daniel, 1807-1890.
• Soldiers--Confederate States of America--Correspondence.
• Spanish-American War, 1898--Photographs.
• St. Mary's College (Raleigh, N.C.)--Photographs.
• Surgeons--North Carolina--History.
• United States. Army--Photographs.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Students--History--19th century.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962). School of Medicine--History.

• James King Hall Papers (#1563)
• Vermont Connecticut Royster Papers (#4432)
• Josephus Daniel Papers (#203)
• Francis Preston Venable Papers (#4368)
• High Family Papers (WTU00426), Department of Special Collections, University Libraries, Washington University, Saint Louis, Mo.

The family of James Daniel (1790?-1870?) and Mary Ashley (1795?-1880?) Royster were residents of Raleigh, N.C. The couple had eight children, all named in a rather unusual fashion. According to his great-grandson, Henry P. Royster (the donor of a portion of these papers), James Royster had grown "weary of hearing names around the house such as Tom, Dick, and Harry." Thus started the "American states series" (see genealogical list), with the eight Royster children being named after states. The boys were Vermont Connecticut, Iowa Michigan, Arkansas Delaware, Wisconsin Illinois, and Oregon Minnesota; the girls were Louisiana Maryland, Virginia Carolina, and Georgia Indiana.

Vermont Connecticut Royster married Hallie Lee High and with her had two sons, Wilbur High Royster (b. 1887) and Percy Lake Royster (b. 1888).

Iowa Michigan Royster (1840-1863), was a student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, graduating with highest honors in 1860. After graduation, he served the university as a tutor, but left this position and enlisted in the 1st North Carolina Cavalry as a private in 1862. On 5 June 1863, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 37th Regiment North Carolina Volunteers. Iowa Royster was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and died ten days later.

Wisconsin Illinois Royster (1845-1930), served Adjutant General Richard Gatling as a mail clerk during the Civil War before being transferred to Dr. E. Burke Haywood of Raleigh as a surgeon's assistant. From this experience, he developed an interest in medicine and, in 1866, he left Raleigh for Bellevue Medical School in New York City, graduating two years later. After practicing medicine for a brief period in New York, he returned to Raleigh in 1870, married Mary Wills Finch (1845-1920), and set up a practice in Raleigh. Dr. W. I. Royster became a locally prominent physician, having in 1870 been a founding member of the Raleigh Academy of Medicine, the state's first local medical society.

Wisconsin and Mary Royster had four children, one of whom, Hubert Ashley Royster (1871-1959), followed in his father's footsteps as a physician. (Another son, James Finch Royster, was later a professor of English at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.) After completing his secondary education at Raleigh Male Academy, Hubert A. Royster entered Wake Forest College. While there, he had the distinction of participating in the first intercollegiate football game in North Carolina. Following his graduation in the spring of 1891, Royster entered the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.

H. A. Royster graduated from medical school in 1894, and, like his father, established a practice in Raleigh. Ten years later, however, he restricted his practice to surgery and became the first surgical specialist in the state. H. A. Royster became a prolific writer and speaker on surgery, and was president of the Southern Surgical Association in 1926. He served as surgeon-in-chief at Saint Agnes Hospital and as a surgeon at Rex Hospital in Raleigh. Royster's career as a medical instructor began in 1895, when he was appointed to the faculty of the Leonard Medical School of Raleigh's Shaw University (which spawned in him an interest and concern for what was then known as Negro medicine). From 1902 to 1910, he served as dean and professor of gynecology at the University of North Carolina Medical Department in Raleigh, and he was professor of surgery at Wake Forest College of Medicine from 1934 to 1938. During World War I, he was appointed to the Medical Advisory Board of the National Defense Council (probably due to the patronage of then Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, with whom Royster corresponded).

H. A. Royster married Louisa Page of Maryland in 1901. The couple had three children, two of whom, Henry Page and Hubert Ashley Jr., became physicians. Dr. H. A. Royster retired from medicine in 1938, and died on 7 November 1959.

Sources for this biographical note include a typescript copy of a speech by Dr. John A. Fewell given on 23 April 1953 at the University of North Carolina Medical School (see folder 57), a typescript biography of H. A. Royster by Alexander Webb Jr., "A Surgeon's Surgeon," (see Volumes 4 and 5), and a letter from Robert H. Baker to the Southern Historical Collection located in the control file.

ROYSTER FAMILY:

James Daniel Royster + Mary Ashley

Indiana Georgia Royster + ? Collins

Vermont Connecticut Royster + Hallie Lee High

Wilber High + Olivette Broadway

Vermont Connecticut Royster (b. 1914)

Virginia Carolina Royster + ? Howell

Edward Vernon

Iowa Michigan Royster (1840-1863)

Oregon Minnesota Royster

Arkansas Delaware Royster (d. 1894)

Wisconsin Illinois Royster (1845-1930) + Mary Wills Finch (1845-1920)

Mollie (1881-1883)

James Finch (1879-1930)

Frank Wills

Hubert Asheley Royster (1871-1959) + Louise Page

Virginia Page (b. 1902)

Hubert Ashley Royster Jr. (b. 1905)

Henry Page Royster (b. 1909)

Almost half of this collection consists of correspondence received by Dr. Hubert Ashley Royster, with the remainder consisting largely of printed material and writings related to his medical career. Also included are letters and writings of Iowa Michigan Royster, including letters relating to his time as a student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and his service in the Civil War, and scattered correspondence and writings of other members of the Royster family. A few letters also relate to the family of Josiah Finch, whose daughter, Mary Wills Finch, was the mother of Hubert Royster.

Correspondence, deeds, a will, stock certificates, a marriage license, blueprints, a speech script, and newspaper clippings relating to various Roysters, specifically Wilbur High Royster (1807-1951) and Olivette James Broadway Royster (b. 1889), parents of Vermont C. Royster, who was the source of this accession; their son, and Vermont Royster's brother, Thomas Broadway Royster (b. 1919), who was killed at the Battle of Tarawa, 23 November 1943, and his wife, Eleanor Bryan Badger Royster, who were married 10 October 1941; Hattie Lee High, wife (and first cousin) of the first Vermont Connecticut Royster, and Mary Finch Royster, wife of Dr. Wisconsin Illinois Royster; and David Royster, Sr. (b. circa 1755) and David Royster, Jr. (1777-1865), grandfather and father of James Daniel Royster, whose correspondence with each other predates all other material contained in this collection.

Letters of Mary Wills Finch in Raliegh to Wisconsin Illinois Royster in Lake Mahopac, New York, before their marriage, with a few letters from Wisconsin Illinois Royster to Mary Wills Finch. Finch was the daughter of James Finch, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Raleigh. Royster had just finished his studies at the Bellevue Medical School in New York and was a resident in a hospital in Lake Mahopac. The letters chiefly include family information and anticipate the couple's being reunited in the future.

Two letters addressed to David Royster at school in Raleigh, N.C., from his father, David Royster. One, dated 7 March 1812, is from Warren County, N.C.; the other, dated 24 December 1817, is from Henderson County, Ky. Both letters discuss family matters.

The Addition of March 2010 consists of photographs, circa 1887-1904 (bulk 1898), of Royster family members, town scenes, African Americans, and soldiers at camp and in town during the Spanish-American War. Also includes photocopies of portraits of Hallie Lee High Royster and her sons, Percy Lake Royster and Wilbur High Royster, and panoramic postcards of Raleigh, N.C.; St. Mary's College, Raleigh, N.C.; and North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now known as North Carolina State University), Raleigh, N.C.

• Photographs (P-4183/1-28, PF-4183/1-4)