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 Laurens Hinton Papers #340, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Provenance

Gift of Mary Laurens Hinton, before 1940. Addition of 1974 transferred from Jane Constance Miller Papers (#2627). Addition of 2003 received from Peter Pescud Williams (Acc. 99682).

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

Updated by: Kathryn Michaelis, October 2009

This collection was rehoused with support from a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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.

• Alabama--Commerce--History--19th century.
• Confederate States of America--Social conditions.
• Freedmen--North Carolina.
• Hillsboro Female Academy (N.C.).
• Hinton family.
• Hinton, Jane Constance, 1827-1897.
• Hinton, Laurens, d. 1864.
• Hunt, Thomas P.
• Merchants--Alabama--History--19th century.
• Merchants--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Miller, Willis L.
• Mobile (Ala.)--Commerce--History--19th century.
• North Carolina--Commerce--History--19th century.
• Plantations--North Carolina.
• Raleigh (N.C.)--Commerce--History--19th century.
• Reconstruction--North Carolina.
• Slave trade--North Carolina.
• Slavery--North Carolina.
• Union Theological Seminary in Virginia.
• Wake County (N.C.)--Politics and government.
• Women--Confederate States of America.
• Women--Education--North Carolina--History--19th century.

Laurens Hinton was a merchant and planter of Mobile, Ala., and Raleigh, N.C. He married his cousin, Jane Constance Miller (1827-1897), in 1851. The following year they purchased and moved to Broomfield, an 843-acre plantation located three miles south of Raleigh. Laurens died in 1864, leaving a widow and four small children behind. Jane Constance Hinton remained at Broomfield until her death in 1897.

The collection includes correspondence, business items, and legal papers of Laurens Hinton, a merchant and planter of Mobile, Ala., and Raleigh, N.C. Included are letters from Hinton's father in Wake County, N.C.; letters from Willis L. Miller at Union Theological Seminary; letters to Jane Constance (Miller) Hinton (b. 1827), wife of Hinton and daughter of Henry Miller and Isabella Miller, when she was a student at Hillsboro Female Academy in Hillsborough, N.C., and while visiting relatives in Virginia; and letters (1825-1833) from Thomas P. Hunt. The letters deal chiefly with family matters, but touch on cotton prices, the slave trade, Wake County politics, and Broomfield plantation affairs during Reconstruction. The addition of 1974 is a commonplace book by Jane Constance Hinton. The addition of 2003 is Jane Constance Hinton's account of her Civil War experience, "The Reminiscences of the Key Basket of a Southern Matron." The account describes her life and duties at Broomfield prior to Laurens Hinton's death in 1864; service rendered by individual slaves and freedmen; and aid given to "Sherman's bummers" by other slaves and freedmen, particularly with respect to the 13 April 1865 raids on the plantation.