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 C. B. Mallett Papers #3165, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

Typed copies of Charles Peter Mallett's letters concerning the Union occupation of Chapel Hill, N.C., in 1865 are available.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Mrs. C. Beatty Overman of Falls Church, Va., in September 1955, August 1969, and September 1976; and from Thomas Scism in October 2019 (Acc. 103731).

Additional Descriptive Resources

An old description (folder 44) gives genealogical information about the Mallett family and a detailed inventory of the collection's correspondence.

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: Library Staff, January 1992

Encoded by: Peter Hymas, March 2005

Revisions by: Nancy Kaiser and Gillian McCuistion, October 2019

Funding from the State Library of North Carolina supported the encoding of this finding aid.

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.

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.

• Bastrop (La.)--Social life and customs.
• Chapel Hill (N.C.)--History--19th century.
• Chapel Hill (N.C.)--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Coal mines and mining--Confederate States of America.
• Coal mines and mining--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Cooking, American--Southern style.
• Cotton manufacture--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Families--Louisiana--Social life and customs.
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Fayetteville (N.C.)--Economic conditions.
• Fayetteville (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Industries--Confederate States of America.
• Industries--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Inland water transportation--Freight--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Kerosene industry--North Carolina--History-19th century.
• Mallett and Browne.
• Mallett family.
• Mallett, C. B. (Charles Beatty), 1816-1872.
• Mallett, Charles Peter, 1792-1873.
• Mallett, Peter, 1744-1805.
• North Carolina--Economic conditions.
• Railroads--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Recipes--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Saint John's Church (Fayetteville, N.C.).
• Union Manufacturing Company (Fayetteville, N.C.).
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Equipment and supplies.
• Western North Carolina Railroad Company.

• Peter Mallett Papers (#480), Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

C. B. Mallett was born in Fayetteville, N.C., on 8 June 1816, the second child and eldest son of Charles Peter Mallett (1792-1873) and Sophia Sarah Beatty (1796-1829). Sometime in the 1830s, Mallett attended Kenyon College at Gambier, Ohio, where he majored in engineering and scientific subjects.

On 17 November 1841, Mallett married Margaret Winslow Wright, only child of John Winslow Wright (1791-1854) and Margaret Ann Anderson (1800-1823). The couple's children were John Wright (1842-1917), Charles Peter (1844-1900), William Anderson (1846-1847), Caroline Green (1848-1924), Margaret Anderson (1850-1907), Charles Beatty (1851-1902), Mercer Wright (1854-1875), and Alice Hazelton (1857-1955). Margaret died in August 1859, and Mallett married Marion Winslow, Margaret's relative, in February 1862.

C. B. Mallett very early associated himself with his father in cotton manufacturing, both at the Rockfish Manufacturing Company in Cumberland County, N.C., and at the Phoenix Company in Fayetteville. In 1848, Mallett organized the Union Manufacturing Company, another cotton factory. In 1852, a group of Fayetteville citizens obtained a charter from the State Legislature or organize and construct a railroad from Fayetteville to the coal fields in Chatham County, N.C. Mallett was one of the first subscribers to the capital stock of the Western North Carolina Railroad and was elected its second president in 1855, a position he held until 1868. Problems attending the contracts for construction delayed the project. It was not until 1858 that the first rails were laid, and it was not until the Civil War had begun that the railroad was completed. In the meantime, Mallett had acquired the major interest in the Union Manufacturing Company, controlling 75% of the capitol stock.

When North Carolina joined the Confederacy and the Civil War began, the Egypt coal mines, which were owned by a Philadelphia-based company, were placed in receivership by the Confederate government. In 1862, Mallett, in partnership with James Browne of Charleston, S.C., successfully bid for the management and operation of the mines and was under contract with the Confederate government throughout the war to deliver coal at Wilmington, N.C. The facilities of the Western Railroad were used to transport coal to Fayetteville from which the coal was moved by river steamer and flat boat down the Cape Fear River to Wilmington. One of the steamers, the Chatham, and several flat boats were built and owned by Mallett and Browne.

Mallett had general superintendence of the mining operation at Egypt, getting the coal to Fayetteville, and reloading the flat boats. Browne was the agent at Wilmington, seeing generally to unloading and return of vessels upstream and to weighing and delivery of coal to the agents of the Confederate government. The firm was allowed, on special orders of the Confederate government, to sell coal privately, negotiating its own prices with several Confederate states, various railroad companies, and blockade runners. In addition to the coal mining operation and using an iron-stone band which overlay the coal seam, the firm also engaged in the extraction of crude oil and the distillation of kerosene. In 1863, to supply a need for railroad car wheels, Mallett bought a half interest and became a partner with his first wife's cousin, David Anderson, in the Eagle Foundry located in Fayetteville. In 1864, Mallett again negotiated a partnership for the construction of another iron works at Buckhorn Falls on the Cape Fear River, which was called the Ocknock Iron Works.

In March 1865, General Sherman's army reached Fayetteville and razed Mallett's businesses. Not only were the cotton factory and stores of cotton, the two iron works, and the steamboat and flat boats all burned, Woodside, Mallett's home in the country several miles north of Fayetteville, was destroyed with all its furnishings and provisions. The Western North Carolina Railroad, with rolling stock badly depreciated and some of its bridges burned, was out of operation. In the years following the Civil War, the partnership of Mallett and Browne continued and an attempt was made to reestablish river trade on the Cape Fear River, but, in 1868, Mallett was forced into bankruptcy. Until his death on 7 July 1872, Mallett attempted to raise grapes and manufacture wine on his plantation property.

The collection consists primarily of business papers and family correspondence of manufacturer, merchant, and railroad president C. B. Mallett of Fayetteville, N.C. The collection includes antebellum correspondence, bills, and accounts related to a textile mill; letters, contracts, bills, accounts, and other records pertaining to the operation of coal mines in Chatham County, N.C., during the Civil War by Mallett and partner, James Browne of Charleston, S.C., and their supplying the Confederate War Department with coal, iron, nails, and other materials; a volume with accounts, 1845-1854, for cotton bales, cotton cloth, cotton sheeting, meal, and miscellaneous merchandise, a daybook of a kerosene oil works, 1864-1865, and a daybook of a river freight firm, 1867-1868; and miscellaneous records of Mallett and Browne, the Union Manufacturing Company, the Western North Carolina Railroad, and Saint John's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, N.C. Also included are correspondence and other family papers, chiefly letters from the family of C. B. Mallett's father, Charles Peter Mallett, in North Carolina and in Balstrop, La., in the 1870s. Of particular interest are letters by Charles Peter Mallett in Chapel Hill, N.C., during the town's occupation by Union forces in the spring of 1865. Also of note is a volume of recipes and household tips, 1841.

Other persons represented in the collection include Alexander Fridge Mallett, a physician in the Confederate Army and younger brother of C. B. Mallett; Carrie Mallett, older sister of C. B. Mallett; Charles Peter Mallett, Jr., son of C. B. Mallett; Edward Mallett, younger brother of C. B. Mallett; John Wright Mallett, son of C. B. Mallett; Margaret Winslow Wright Mallett, first wife of C. B. Mallett; Marion Winslow Mallett, second wife of C. B. Mallett; Peter Mallett, younger brother of C. B. Mallett; William Peter Mallett, Chapel Hill, N.C., physician and younger brother of C. B. Mallett; Maria L. Spear (1804-1881), Englishwoman who was a private teacher for C. B. Mallett's children; John Winslow Wright, father of C. B. Mallett's first wife; and William Henry Beatty, maternal grandfather of C. B. Mallett.