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Funding from the State Library of North Carolina supported the encoding of this finding aid.
Size | 1.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 550 items) |
Abstract | Elisha Mitchell was a native of Connecticut, student and tutor at Yale College, Presbyterian minister, and professor of geology and chemistry and bursar at the University of North Carolina, 1818-1857. The collection includes family correspondence, scientific notes, manuscript articles, and sermons of Elisha Mitchell, for many years connected with the University of North Carolina. Mitchell's correspondence pertains to his varied religious, academic, and scientific activities, including mountain exploration in North Carolina. Among the correspondents are George E. Badger, William Gaston, Francis L. Hawkes, N. M. Hentz, William Hooper, Levi Silliman Ives, Archibald D. Murphy, James H. Otey, John Stark Ravenscroft, and David L. Swain. Included is correspondence with the North family of Mitchell's wife, Maria North Mitchell, in New Haven, Conn., and from the Mitchell children after they had married and moved to Salisbury, N.C., California, and Texas. Volumes include Mitchell's diary, 1813-1816, begun at Yale and kept irregularly while he was teaching at various places in the North, containing mainly religious reflections and slight personal comment; his private notebook, 1818-1847, containing miscellaneous comments on mathematics, musicology, electricity, the natural sciences, and history, and personal accounts and notes on reading and letters received; the diary, 1878, of Mitchell's grandson, J. N. Howard Summerell, on a voyage to Scotland; Mitchell's journal, letter book, and account book, 1818-1842; and Diary of a Geological Tour by Professor Elisha Mitchell in 1827 and 1828 with Introduction and Notes by Kemp P. Battle, published as part of the James Sprunt Historical Monograph Series by the University of North Carolina in 1905. |
Creator | Mitchell, Elisha, 1793-1857. |
Curatorial Unit | Southern Historical Collection |
Language | English |
Processed by: Staff, 1993
Encoded by: Peter Hymas, December 2004
Funding from the State Library of North Carolina supported the encoding of this finding aid.
Updated because of addition, September and December 2018
Updated by Amy Morgan and Jodi Berkowitz, March 2019
Back to TopThe 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.
Elisha Mitchell (19 August 1793-27 June 1857) of Connecticut was a graduate of Yale who taught at Jamaica, Long Island, N.Y. and at New London, Conn., and was a tutor at Yale before becoming a professor at the University of North Carolina in January 1818. Before leaving Connecticut, he was licensed to preach by the Congregational Church, and, in 1821, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. He married Maria Sybil North of New London, Conn., in November 1819.
At the University of North Carolina, Mitchell first taught mathematics and natural philosophy, but later shifted to chemistry, geology, and mineralogy. He continued the geological survey of North Carolina begun by Denison Olmstead and made botanical and geological excursions through all of North Carolina, publishing the results in pamphlets and periodicals. He measured the height of the mountain now known as Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, but his claim to priority in the measurement of the peak was disputed by Thomas Lanier Clingman, who declared that he and not Mitchell had found the highest point in the range. To settle the controversy, Mitchell went again to the mountains in 1857, andm in the course of this activity, fell down a steep bank into a creek and was drowned. He was buried in Asheville, N.C., and later reinterred on Mount Mitchell.
Mitchell had four daughters: Ellen, who married Joseph John Summerell; Mary, who married Richard Ashe; Eliza, who married Richard Grant; and Margaret, who never married; and one son, Charles, who died in Mississippi without issue. The Summerells lived in Salisbury, N.C., where J.J. Summerell practiced medicine; the Ashes lived in California; and the Grants lived in Texas.
Back to TopThe collection includes family correspondence, scientific notes, manuscript articles, and sermons of Elisha Mitchell, for many years connected with the University of North Carolina. Mitchell's correspondence pertains to his varied religious, academic, and scientific activities, including mountain exploration in North Carolina. Among the correspondents are George E. Badger, William Gaston, Francis L. Hawkes, N. M. Hentz, William Hooper, Levi Silliman Ives, Archibald D. Murphy, James H. Otey, John Stark Ravenscroft, and David L. Swain. Included is correspondence with the North family of Mitchell's wife, Maria North Mitchell, in New Haven, Conn., and from the Mitchell children after they had married and moved to Salisbury, N.C., California, and Texas. Volumes include Mitchell's diary, 1813-1816, begun at Yale and kept irregularly while he was teaching at various places in the North, containing mainly religious reflections and slight personal comment; his private notebook, 1818-1847, containing miscellaneous comments on mathematics, musicology, electricity, the natural sciences, and history, and personal accounts and notes on reading and letters received; the diary, 1878, of Mitchell's grandson, J. N. Howard Summerell, on a voyage to Scotland; Mitchell's journal, letter book, and account book, 1818-1842; and Diary of a Geological Tour by Professor Elisha Mitchell in 1827 and 1828 with Introduction and Notes by Kemp P. Battle, published as part of the James Sprunt Historical Monograph Series by the University of North Carolina in 1905.
Back to TopArrangement: chronological.
Family correspondence, scientific notes, manuscript articles, and sermons of Elisha Mitchell, for many years connected with the University of North Carolina. Mitchell's correspondence pertains to his varied religious, academic, and scientific activities, including mountain exploration in North Carolina. Among the correspondents are George E. Badger, William Gaston, Francis L. Hawkes, N. M. Hentz, William Hooper, Levi Silliman Ives, Archibald D. Murphy, James H. Otey, John Stark Ravenscroft, and David L. Swain. Includes correspondence with the family of Maria (North) Mitchell in New Haven, Conn., and from the Mitchell children after they had married and moved to Salisbury, N.C., California, and Texas.
Folder 1 |
1816-1821
Digital version: Letter from Elisha Mitchell to Maria North, 11 February 1818 |
Folder 2 |
1822-1827
Digital version: Letter from Abraham Rencher to Elisha Mitchell, 20 March 1823 |
Folder 3 |
1828-1835 |
Folder 4 |
1836-1842 |
Folder 5 |
1843-1846 |
Folder 6 |
1847-1855 |
Folder 7 |
1856-1857 |
Folder 8 |
1858-1877 |
Folder 9 |
1878-1905 |
Folder 10 |
Undated |
Arrangement: chronological.
Folder 11 |
V-518/1, 1813-1816Diary, kept by Elisha Mitchell, begun at Yale in the spring of 1813 and kept very irregularly thereafter while he was teaching at Jamaica, Long Island, N.Y.; New London, Conn.; and back at Yale as a tutor, ending there on 28 July 1816. Mainly religious reflections with slight comments on personal activity. |
Folder 12 |
V-518/2, 1818-1847Elisha Mitchell's private notebook: a large volume in which he entered his study notes and thoughts unconnected with his classes. The contents include notes on mathematics, musicology, electricity, botany and other natural sciences, optics, and history; a list of books sent to New York to be bound and a list of books to be purchased; a description of boundaries of a lot; personal accounts; and notes on reading and on letters received. |
Folder 13 |
V-518/3, August 1878Diary kept by Elisha Mitchell's grandson, J. N. Howard Summerell, of his voyage on the Anchoria (Anchor Line) from New York to Glasgow, Scotland, containing details about the other passengers, daily activities, and thoughts. J. N. Howard Summerell was the son of Joseph John Summerell and Ellen Mitchell Summerell and studied for the Presbyterian ministry at Davidson College and Edinburgh University, Scotland. |
Folder 14 |
V-518/4, 1818-1842Journal, letter book, and account book of Elisha Mitchell with entries both personal and related to the University of North Carolina. The entries connected with UNC relate to the students, the debating societies, the professors, the library, the laboratories, the building program, and other aspects of University life. |
Folder 15 |
V-518/5, 1905Paperback monograph in the James Sprunt Historical Monograph series titled Diary of a Geological Tour by Professor Elisha Mitchell in 1827 and 1828 with Introduction and Notes by Kemp P. Battle, published by the University of North Carolina, 1905. |
Acquisitions Information: Acc. 101991.
Folder 25 |
Letter, 3 September 1838 |
Aquisitions Information: Acc. 103358.
Folder 16 |
“Genealogy of the Eliot Family” |
Folder 17 |
Josephine Eliot Mitchell notebook |
Folder 18 |
Ellen Mitchell (Summerell) notebook |
Folder 19 |
Papers relating to Elisha Mitchell |
Folder 20 |
Correspondence to Elisha Mitchell, circa 1828-1851 |
Folder 21 |
Correspondence from Ellen Mitchell Summerell to Joseph John Summerell |
Folder 22 |
Correspondence between Elisha Mitchell and family |
Folder 23-24
Folder 23Folder 24 |
Correspondence to Mitchells from Chapel Hill |
Image Folder PF-00518/1-2
PF-00518/1PF-00518/2 |
Photographs |
Acquisitions Information: Acc. 102185
Box 3 |
Sermon by Elisha Mitchell about Revelations 1:7, 1831 |
Oversize Paper Folder OPF-00518/1 |
Oversize papers |