John Willis Ellis Papers, 1844-1958 (bulk 1844-1865).

Collection Number: 00242

Collection Title: John Willis Ellis Papers, 1844-1958 (bulk 1844-1865).

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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Size	1.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 600 items)
Abstract	John Willis Ellis of Salisbury, N.C., was a white lawyer, Democratic Party leader, and governor of North Carolina, 1858-1861. The collection consists of personal, professional, and official correspondence; a brief personal diary, October 1860-February 1861; and other papers, including notes and speeches on internal improvements, and volumes, 1844-1861, containing manuscript notes and clippings of materials used in campaigns for the North Carolina state legislature and for governor. Also of note are a series of letters, 1853-1858, from Philo White, United States minister in Ecuador, discussing social life in Ecuador and diplomatic relations with the United States; correspondence pertaining to Secession and the beginning of the American Civil War; and letters relating to the reburial of Francis Nash. Materials related to Ellis's extended family include bills of sale for people enslaved by Josephine Hyer Knowles and Peter Knowles, the in-laws of his daughter Mary Ellis Knowles, and the 20th-century papers of his grandson, John Ellis Knowles of Connecticut, concerning a biography of Ellis. A small part of the collection consists of microfilm, photoprints, and manuscript copies of manuscripts in other repositories, gathered by Noble J. Tolbert for The Papers of John Willis Ellis (Raleigh, 1964).
Creator	Ellis, John Willis, 1820-1861.
Curatorial Unit	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
Language	English

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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 Willis Ellis Papers, #242, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information: Received from John Ellis Knowles of New York, N.Y., 1932 and 1959.; Additions received from Noble J. Tolbert, March 1964; John Ellis Knowles Wisner, executor for the estate of John Ellis Knowles, July 1978 (Acc. 79150) and July 2015 (Acc. 102260); and Jean Littell Winslow of Wilmington, Del., February 1991 (Acc. 91037).

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.

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Processed by: SHC Staff

Encoded by: Noah Huffman, December 2007

Updated by: Kate Stratton and Jodi Berkowitz, July 2009; Nancy Kaiser, January 2024

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.

Conscious Editing by Nancy Kaiser, January 2023: Updated abstract, subject headings, biographical note, scope and content note, and contents list.

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

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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.

Expand/collapse Biographical Information

John Willis Ellis (1820-1861) of Salisbury, N.C., was a white lawyer, Democratic Party leader, and governor of North Carolina, 1858-1861. He was married to Mary McKinley Daves Ellis. Their daughter Mary Daves Ellis married William Hyer Knowles, the son of Josephine Hyer Knowles and Peter Knowles.

Expand/collapse Scope and Content

The collection of John Willis Ellis of Salisbury, N.C., white lawyer, Democratic Party leader, and governor of North Carolina, 1858-1861, consists of personal, professional, and official correspondence; a brief personal diary, October 1860-February 1861; and other papers, including notes and speeches on internal improvements, and volumes, 1844-1861, containing manuscript notes and clippings of materials used in campaigns for the North Carolina state legislature and for governor. Also of note are a series of letters, 1853-1858, from Philo White, United States minister in Ecuador, discussing social life in Ecuador and diplomatic relations with the United States; correspondence pertaining to Secession and the beginning of the American Civil War; and letters relating to the reburial of Francis Nash. Materials related to Ellis's extended family include bills of sale for people enslaved by Josephine Hyer Knowles and Peter Knowles, the in-laws of his daughter Mary Ellis Knowles, and the 20th-century papers of his grandson, John Ellis Knowles of Connecticut, concerning a biography of Ellis. A small part of the collection consists of microfilm, photoprints, and manuscript copies of manuscripts in other repositories, gathered by Noble J. Tolbert for The Papers of John Willis Ellis (Raleigh, 1964).

Contents list

Expand/collapse John Willis Ellis Papers, 1844-1958 and undated.

Folder 1a	Original finding aid
Folder 1	Papers, 1846
Folder 2	Papers, 1847
Folder 3	Papers, 1848
Folder 4	Papers, 1849-1850
Folder 5	Papers, 1851
Folder 6	Papers, 1852-1854
Folder 7	Papers, 1855-1858
Folder 8	Papers, 1859
Folder 9	Papers, 1860
Folder 10-11 Folder 10 Folder 11	Papers, 1861
Folder 12	Papers, 1863-1865
Folder 13	Papers, 1927
Folder 14	Papers, 1928-1929
Folder 15	Papers, 1930-1932
Folder 16	Papers, 1933-1940
Folder 17	Papers, 1943-1948
Folder 18	Papers, 1953-1958
Folder 19-20 Folder 19 Folder 20	Papers, Undated
Folder 20	Photographs
Oversize Paper Folder OPF-242/1	Oversize papers Diplomas and commission as judge of Superior Court of North Carolina.
Folder 21	Genealogical material Acquisition information: Addition of June 1979 Compiled by John Ellis Knowles Wisner.
Folder 22	Volume 1: Notebook, 1844-1846
Folder 23	Volume 2: Notebook, 1844-1861
Folder 24	Volume 3: Scrapbook, 1854-1860
Folder 25	Volume 4: Lettercopy book and diary, 1855, 1860-1861
Folder 26	Volume 5: Notebook, undated
Folder 27	Volume 6: "John W. Ellis, Governor of North Carolina, 1859-1861," by Annie Walker Garrard
Folder 28	Letters relating to reburial of Francis Nash, 1859 Acquisition information: Accession 91037
Folder 29	Bills of sale for enslaved people, 1848, 1863 Acquisition information: Accession 102260 10 August 1848: bill of sale for Ceres, an enslaved woman about 19 years old, who was trafficked by sale from Henry Hyer of Pensacola, Fla. to his daughter Josephine Hyer Knowles, New Orleans, La. Josephine and her husband Peter Knowles had a son William Hyer Knowles, who married Mary Daves Ellis, the daughter of John Willis Ellis and Mary McKinley Daves. 22 May 1863: bill of sale for an unidentified enslaved couple, a man about 27 years old who was a blacksmith and his wife, who were trafficked from John L. Hart to Peter Knowles in Charleston, S.C. (photocopy) 22 August 1863: bill of sale for Richard, about 34 years old, Adam, about 15 years old and Julia about 11 years old, all of whom were enslaved people trafficked from John G. Abercrombie to Josephine Hyer Knowles in Muscogee County, Ga. (photocopy) 21 October 1863: bill of sale for Isaac, Ann and 3 children, Little Beny, Jonas, Hager and 3 children, Charity, Maria, Frances, Dilla, Louisa, Burrow, Nancy, Little Easter, all of whom were trafficked by James Abercombie, an executor, to Peter Knowles, in Boiling Springs (photocopy)

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Oversize papers (OPF-242/1)

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Collection Number: 00242 Collection Title: John Willis Ellis Papers, 1844-1958 (bulk 1844-1865).