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 Heiskell, McCampbell, Wilkes, and Steel family materials collection #4504, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Edward M. Steel, Jr., of Morgantown, W.Va., in January 1988, with subsequent additions.

Received from Edward M. Steel, Jr.

Received from Edward Marvin Steel.

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: Lisa C. Tolbert, April 1990 with subsequent additions by Roslyn Holdzkom in 1994 and Linda Sellars in 1999

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, June 2021

A taped commentary on the contents of this collection was made by the donor in 1988. A typed transcription of the tape is available from the collection's control file upon request.

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.

• Art students--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.
• Brown, Hu.
• Brown, Mary Ann Susan.
• Brown, Susan Rice, 1835-1882.
• Clergy, Writings of.
• Clergy--Southern States--History.
• Confederate States of America--Social conditions.
• Family--Southern States--Social life and customs.
• Fruit Hill (Tenn.)
• Heiskell, Frederick Steidinger, 1786-1882.
• Knoxville (Tenn.)--History.
• Love-letters--19th century.
• McCampbell, Susan Heiskell, 1834-1917.
• McCampbell, William.
• Methodist Church--Clergy--History.
• Methodist Church--Missions--Brazil.
• Methodists--Southern States--History--19th century.
• Methodists--Virginia--History--20th century.
• Missionaries--Brazil--History--20th century.
• Plantation life--Tennessee.
• Prisoners of war--Germany.
• Prisoners of war--United States.
• Ramsey, Mary Eliza Julia Steel, 1852-1910?
• Steel, Edward Marvin.
• Steel, Laurence, 1813-1873.
• Steel, Miriam.
• Steel, S. A. (Samuel Augustus), b. 1849.
• Wilkes, Susan Heiskell.
• Women missionaries--Brazil--History--20th century.
• Women--Southern States--Social life and customs.
• World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons.

• Samuel Gordon Heiskell Papers (#1397); S. A. Steel Papers, Emory University; Frederick Steidinger Heiskell Papers, East Tennessee State University.

This collection is composed of papers of four distinct family groups, all ancestors of Edward Marvin Steel, Jr. Members of these families included newspaper editors, lawyers, missionaries, Methodist ministers, teachers, an artist, a librarian, and a history professor.

The histories of these families, as documented in this collection, begin with the Heiskell family members who lived on the Fruit Hill plantation near Knoxville, Tenn. Frederick Stiedinger Heiskell (1786-1882) was co-owner and editor of the Knoxville Register with his brother-in-law Hu Brown. After Brown died, his daughter Susan Rice Brown moved in with the Heiskells at Fruit Hill and maintained a close relationship with her Heiskell "siblings" throughout her life. She was especially close to Susan Heiskell, who married William McCampbell, a young lawyer from Dandridge, Tenn., in 1858. After their marriage, William and Susan were separated periodically by business and eventually by war as William served in the Confederate army.

The McCampbells' daughter Annie married James Horace Wilkes, a Confederate veteran and grain merchant from Nashville, Tenn. Wilkes, a widower, had two children, Bessie and John Henry. He and Annie had two more children, Susan and Judith. Susan Heiskell Wilkes was the director of the Department of Medical Illustration at Vanderbilt University from 1925 to 1956. Her sister Judith, a weaver and librarian, married the Methodist minister, Edward Marvin Steel.

The Steel family nurtured three generations of Methodist ministers. Ferdinand Lawrence Steel (1813-1873) spent much of his life as a farmer and itinerant Methodist preacher, especially in Mississippi. His son, Samuel Augustus Hankins Steel, served Methodist churches in Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Louisiana, and in towns throughout the South and Southwest. Samuel was chaplain at the University of Virginia during the 1870s. His son, Edward Marvin Steel, was a Methodist minister residing chiefly in Tennessee. He married Judith Wilkes Steel.

Edward Marvin Steel, Jr., gathered this collection of his family's papers. A graduate of Harvard, Steel was a pilot and prisoner-of-war in Germany during World War II. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina in 1953 and became a history professor at Limestone College, Gaffney, S.C., and later at West Virginia University, Morgantown, W.Va.

Family histories provided with each series description provide additional information about individuals represented in this collection. Family charts are available at the repository.

This collection has been arranged according to the four major families who composed Edward Marvin Steel, Jr.'s maternal and paternal lineage: Heiskell, McCampbell, Wilkes, and Steel. Each of the families is represented by correspondence that includes love letters, details of domestic life, health and sickness, farming practices, religious life, education, travel, and the effects of war, from the Civil War to World War II. In addition to correspondence, which is consistently strong from the mid-1830s to about 1925, the collection contains a variety of other papers ranging from recipes, various kinds of writings, newspaper clippings, and school reports to deeds and wills, World War II ration books, and other materials.

Also included are a variety of volumes, especially diaries created at various stages in the life cycles of their authors from their teenage years through senior adulthood. For the most part, women in this collection are more completely represented in the correspondence than in the volumes. However, in the addition of August 1998, there are seven volumes belonging to Mary Eliza Julia Steel Ramsey (1852-1910?).

Seven volumes belonging to Mary Eliza Julia Steel (1852-1910?) and three other items. Julia Steel, daughter of Amanda Hankins (1827-1898) and Ferdinand Laurence Steel (1815-1873), married E. B. Ramsey in 1880. They had two children, Edward and Alma.

• Photographs (P-4504/1-103)
• Audiocassettes (C-4504/1)
• Microfilm (M-4504/1-2)