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 Bayne and Gayle Family Papers #1101, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

All or part of this collection is also available on microfilm.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Mrs. Ralph Hopkins of New Orleans, Colonel Hugh Bayne, Father W. W. Bayne, and Mrs. John May, 1940s-1960s.

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: Suzanne Ruffing, February 1996

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Kathryn Michaelis, November 2010

This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.

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--Militia--History--19th century.
• Alabama--Politics and government--To 1865.
• Bain family.
• Bayne, Hugh Aiken, 1870-1954.
• Bayne, Thomas Levingston, 1824-1891.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Officers--Biography.
• Creek Indians--Alabama--History--19th century.
• Families--Alabama--Social life and customs.
• Families--Louisiana--Social life and customs.
• Families--South Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Gayle family.
• Gayle, John, 1792-1859.
• Gayle, Sarah Ann Haynesworth, 1804-1835.
• Governors--Alabama--History--19th century.
• Lawyers--Louisiana--History--19th century.
• New York (N.Y.)--Social life and customs.
• Nicholas family.
• Nicholas, Wilson Cary, 1761-1820.
• Paris (France)--Social life and customs--20th century.
• United States. Army. American Expeditionary Forces--Officers--Biography.
• Women--Alabama--Social conditions.
• Yale University--Students.

John Gayle (11 September 1792-21 July 1891), governor of Alabama, lawyer, and planter was born in the Sumter District, S.C., son of Matthew and Mary Reese Gayle. He attended Newberry Academy in Newberry, S.C., and graduated from South Carolina College in 1815. He moved with his parents to a plantation near Claiborne, Ala. where he received an education in law. In 1818, Gayle was appointed by President Monroe to the first Council of the Alabama Territory and the following year was elected solicitor of his circuit. From 1819 to 1831, he served four terms in the legislature, where he was speaker of the House in 1829, sat as circuit judge and justice of the state Supreme Court, and developed his law practice.

Gayle was elected as a pro-Union, Jackson Democratic governor, 1831 and 1833, when disputes concerning state's rights over the removal of the Creek Indians weakened the governor's and Alabama's ties with the Union and the president. He served two terms in office until he returned to his law practice in 1834. Gayle was a member of the electoral college in 1836 and 1840. He was nominated for state senator in 1841; he lost, but went to the House in 1847 on a Whig ticket. In 1849, he was appointed federal district judge by President Taylor. He served in this capacity until 1859.

In 1819, Gayle married Sarah Ann Haynesworth, with whom he had six children, and, four years after her death in 1835, he married Clarissa Stedham Peck, with whom he had four children. Maria, a daughter from the first marriage, married Thomas L. Bayne, the son of a Monroe County plantation owner and Yale graduate, in 1853 and moved to New Orleans where her husband practiced law. He fought for the Confederate Army in the 5th Company of the Washington Artillery where he advanced to lieutenant colonel chief of the Bureau of Foreign Supplies. He returned to New Orleans to practice law after the Civil War and remained there until his death in 1891.

[Biographical information source on John Gayle: Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 7 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931): 197-198.]

The collection contains correspondence, 1832-1835, of John Gayle, concerning Creek Indians, militia organization, and other topics; journal, 1827-1835, of Sarah Ann Haynesworth Gayle, and her correspondence with her husband; memoirs, 1870, of their son-in- law, Thomas L. Bayne; memoirs of Hugh A. Bayne, describing his experiences at Yale University, 1888-1892, in New York City, 1898-1917, with the A.E.F., 1917- 1919, and in Paris, 1919-1928; biographical sketch of Wilson Cary Nicholas (1757-1820) of Virginia; and other Bayne, Gayle, and Nicholas family data and photographs. Included are some typed transcriptions and microfilm of original items from various sources.

• Pictures (P-1101/1-16)
• Oversize paper (OP-1101/1)
• Microfilm (M-1101/1-7)