Restrictions to Access

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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 Lewis Family of Edgecombe County, N.C., Papers #427, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Provenance

Received from Anna Lewis of Raleigh, N.C., before 1940; Robert Mills of Richmond, Va., April 1956; Margaret Whitaker Horne of Warrenton, N.C., April 1958; McDaniel Lewis of Greensboro, N.C., 1956 and 1963; Mary Lynn Beil of Greensboro, N.C., in 1998 (Acc. 98160, 98188); Mary Lynn Lewis DeLany of Greensboro, N.C., in May 2007 (Acc. 100670); in March 2012 (Acc. 101567); and in January 2015 (Acc. 102160).

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: Scott Philyaw with Elizabeth Pauk, March 1992

Encoded by: Linda Sellars, June 2002

Updated by: Amy Johnson, 2007; Nancy Kaiser, November 2020

The Mount Prospect Papers (#3211) have been merged with this collection.

This collection was rehoused under the sponsorhsip of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

Updated: April 2019

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.

• Bradley family.
• Bryan family.
• Bryan, John Heritage, 1798-1870.
• Confederate States of America--Social conditions.
• Diaries.
• Edgecombe County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Europe--Description and travel.
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Lewis family.
• Lewis, Elizabeth Heritage Bryan, fl. 1842-1884.
• Lewis, Exum, d. circa 1839.
• Lewis, Ivey Foreman, 1833-1884.
• Lewis, Kenelm Harrison, 1816-1866.
• Lewis, Lynnwood Cook, 1896-1964.
• Lewis, McDaniel, 1894-1978.
• Lewis, Richard Henry, 1806-1857.
• Lewis, Richard Henry, 1832-1917.
• Medicine--Study and teaching--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Mount Prospect Plantation (Edgecombe County, N.C.)
• Plantations--North Carolina--Edgecombe County.
• Real property--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Slavery--North Carolina.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Photographs.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Students--Social life and customs.
• Women travelers--History--19th century.
• Women traverlers--Diaries.

• John Francis Speight Papers (#3914);
• Bryan Family Papers (#96);
• Lewis Plantation Records (#2528);
• William Gaston Lewis Papers (#2314).
• Greensboro Historical Museum Archives (#41)

Lewis family members include Exum Lewis (d. ca. 1839), planter, postmaster, and county court justice of Mount Prospect Plantation, Edgecombe County, N.C. Prominent in the papers are Exum Lewis; his son Kenelm Harrison Lewis (1816-1866) and Kenelm's wife, Elizabeth Heritage Bryan Lewis (fl. 1842-1884), and her father, John Heritage Bryan (1798-1870); and Exum's other sons, Richard Henry Lewis (1806-1857), and William Figures Lewis (1819-1910). Included are materials of the related Bryan family. There are also papers of the Bradley family of Mount Prospect, whose relation to the other families is unknown.

These papers are of the Lewis, Battle, Bryan, and Bradley families of Edgecombe, Orange, and Wake counties, N.C. Note that it is often difficult to identify individuals because of the repetition of given names in succeeding generations and among contemporaries in different Lewis lines. There are, for example, at least four Exum Lewises and the same number of Richard Henry Lewises represented in this collection.

Exum Lewis (d. circa 1839), son of Col. Exum Lewis (d. 1796) of the Edgecombe militia, was postmaster and county court justice for Edgecombe County, N.C. He married Ann Harrison (fl. 1804-1819), with whom he had eight children, including John Wesley (1804-1842), Exum (fl. 1839-1875), Richard H. (1806-1857), Kenelm Harrison (1816-1866), William Figures (1819-1910), and Emma (fl. 1836-1895), later Emma Speight. Two other daughters, Mary, wife of Thomas Hunter of Halifax County, N.C., and Elizabeth (fl. 1839-1882), wife of Col. Spier Whitaker, are rarely mentioned in the collection. Exum's brother Figures (fl. 1796-1808) and his nephew Robert (fl. 1808-1813) also appear in the collection.

John Wesley Lewis (1804-1842), a physician, married Catherine Ann Battle (1809-1879), daughter of Joel and Mary Battle, around 1829. After John's death in 1842, Catherine moved the family to Chapel Hill, N.C., where she operated a boarding house. Their children included physician Joel Battle Lewis (1830-1870); physician and teacher, Richard Henry Lewis (1832-1917); civil engineer and Confederate veteran William Gaston Lewis (1835-1901); Exum Lewis (1837-1888); Christopher Columbus "Lum" Lewis (1840-1914); and Anna Harrison Lewis (1841-1920).

Exum Lewis (fl. 1835-1875), a physician, married Jane Cotton. Their daughter, Clio Cotton Lewis, married her cousin, John Francis Speight, Jr. (1841-1885).

Richard Henry Lewis (1806-1857), a planter, first married Mary E. Foreman (fl. 1833). Their children included the Alabama planter and Confederate veteran Ivey Foreman Lewis (1833-1884) and Mary Foreman Lewis (fl. 1850-1863), wife of Confederate General W. J. Hardee (1815-1873) (see Lewis Plantation Papers, #2528). Lewis next married Martha Elizabeth Hoskins Foreman, widow of John Foreman, Lewis's first wife's brother. Their son, Richard Henry Lewis (1850-1926), a physician, first married Cornelia Viola Battle (fl. 1877-1886) with whom he had four children. His second wife was Mary Long Gordon of Charlottesville, Va. Their only daughter was newswoman and feminist Nell (Cornelia) Battle Lewis (1893-1956).

Kenelm Harrison Lewis (1816-1866), a planter in Edgecombe County, N.C., married Elizabeth Heritage Bryan (fl. 1832-1858). They had at least two children, John Bryan Lewis (fl. 1858-1899) and Anna Lewis. Kenelm's father-in-law, John Heritage Bryan (1798-1870), was a prominent Whig congressman and Episcopal layman of New Bern and Raleigh, N.C. He and his wife, Mary Williams Shepard (1801-1881), had fourteen children, including Francis Theodore Bryan (b. 1823), Confederate Captain George Pettigrew Bryan (1841-1864), Frederick Richard Bryan (1846-1863), Mary Shepard (Bryan) Speight (1824-1894), and Elizabeth ("Bettie") Heritage Bryan (b. 1832).

Richard Henry Lewis (1832-1917) of Kinston, N.C., married Eleanor Mildred Betts (1844-1914) in 1863. Among their children was Elisha Betts Lewis (1867-1935), who married Dora McDaniel (1869-1919) in 1890. Elisha and Dora Lewis had five sons and one daughter, among whom was investment banker McDaniel Lewis (1894-1978), active both socially and politically in Greensboro, N.C. Lewis was a 1916 graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and worked as an English teacher before being commissioned into the United States Army at the end of World War I. He eventually served two years. In 1917 he married Lynnwood Adams Cook (1896-1964) of Danville, Va.; their children were Margaret Betts Lewis (b. 1920) and Mary Lynn Lewis (b. 1926). Margaret married Hugh Beard (b. 1919), and had two sons. Mary Lynn married Marshall Johnson (1923-1977) in 1947 and had one son and two daughters. After Johnson's divorce, Mary Lynn married Frederic Beil (1923-1987) in 1980. After Beil's death, Mary Lynn once again remarried, this time to Capt. Walter S. Delany Jr, USN (Ret.).

Planter William Figures Lewis (1819-1910) lived at the Mount Prospect Plantation in Edgecombe County. He married Annie Barlow Foxhall in 1872. Emma Lewis (fl. 1836-1895) married John Francis Speight (fl. 1804-1860), pastor and president of the North Carolina Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church in 1840 (see John Francis Speight Papers, #3914).

Stephan Bradley (fl. 1814-1842) lived at Mount Prospect in the early 19th century. He and his Tennessee relations were apparently farmers. The relationship of the Bradleys with the other families mentioned above is unclear.

The collection includes family correspondence; financial and legal papers, including, bills, receipts, accounts, land records, inventories, wills, powers of attorney, and the presidential pardons of William F. Lewis and Kenelm H. Lewis; and other items of the extended family of Exum Lewis (d. 1839). Most of the papers relate to eastern North Carolina. There are, however, a number of letters from other southeastern states, particularly Alabama and Mississippi. Correspondence has been divided by family into Lewis, Bryan, and Bradley subseries. Topics discussed include health, births and deaths, clothing, agriculture, and other routine matters. There are a number of letters from family members and friends that discuss 19th-century student life at the University of North Carolina. Political matters are only mentioned occasionally (see Subseries 1.1 letters of 22 May 1833, 7 May 1837, 1854, and 7 July 1858; Subseries 2.1). Civil War letters dwell chiefly on concerns of the homefront: moving slaves into the interior of the state to prevent their escape to Union lines, hiring substitutes, and fears of invading armies. Although there were several physicians in the family, there are only occasional references to that profession or its practice.

Records relating to land sales, purchases, and ownership have been grouped together in land records. Lewis letters limited to business or legal matters are filed in financial and legal papers. Other papers include a list of revolutionary era militia officers for Edgecombe County; a 19th-century copy of the act incorporating Edgecombe County; 19th-century notes on the North Carolina military of 1764; a map of the lower Mississippi Territory, 1798-1812; sermon notes; the words to two folk songs; 19th-century college essays and notes; an 1840 "Catalogue of the Trustees, Faculty, and Students of the University of North Carolina," with an attached handwritten oration by W. F. Lewis; a European travel diary dated 1857; and notes for lectures, 1883-1887, on physiology and hygiene. There are also genealogical notes and biographies of various family members. Finally, there are eight photo albums and scrapbooks and a small collection of photographs, which relate to the lives of McDaniel Lewis, his wife Lynnwood Cook Lewis, their daughters Margaret Betts Lewis Beard and Mary Lynn Lewis Johnson (later Beil and DeLany), and their five grandchildren.

Image folders: PF-00427/1-3

Oversize volumes: SV-00427/1-9

Rolled item: R-00427/1