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 Daniel Moreau Barringer Papers #3359, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Mr. Brandon Barringer, Philadelphia, 1958-1964.

Additional Descriptive Resources

Detailed inventory of collection that was produced 1965-1973 by Manuscripts Department staff is filed in folder 67.

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.

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.

• Baltimore (Md.)--Social life and customs.
• Barringer family.
• Barringer, Daniel Moreau, 1806-1873.
• Cancer--Treatment--United States--History--19th century.
• Clingman, T. L. (Thomas Lanier), 1812-1897.
• College students--Virginia--Social life and customs.
• Confederate States of America--Politics and government.
• Cotton--Mississippi--History--19th century.
• Democratic Party (N.C.)--History--19th century.
• Diplomatic and consular service, American--Spain--History--19th century.
• Gold mines and mining--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Graham, William A. (William Alexander), 1804-1875.
• Lawyers--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Madrazo y Kuntz, Federico de, 1815-1894.
• Mangum, Willie Person, 1792-1861.
• North Carolina--Politics and government.
• North Carolina--Race relations.
• Oxford (Miss.)--Social life and customs.
• Patronage, Political--United States--History--19th century.
• Plantations--Mississippi--Lafayette County.
• Slavery--United States.
• Spain--Foreign relations--United States--History--19th century.
• Swain, David L. (David Lowry), 1801-1868.
• United States--Foreign relations--Spain--History--19th century.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--History--19th century.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Students--History--19th century.
• Washington College (Lexington, Va.)--Students--History--19th century.
• Wethered family.
• Whig Party (N.C.)--History.
• Wiley, Calvin Henderson, 1819-1887.

Daniel Moreau Barringer was born in Cabarrus County, N.C., 30 July 1806, the son of Paul and Elizabeth (Brandon) Barringer. He was graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1826, studied law with Judge Thomas Ruffin, and practiced in Concord, N.C. Barringer served in the North Carolina General Assembly, 1829-1835, 1840, 1845; in the state of constitutional convention of 1835; in the United States Congress, 1843-1849; and as minister to Spain, 1849-1853. In 1861, he was a delegate to the Peace Convention in Washington and, in 1866, to the National Union Convention in Philadelphia. He was a Whig in the 1830s and 1840s, but, in 1856, supported James Buchanan for the presidency and thereafter was affiliated with the Democrats. He was active in the campaign of 1868 and chair of the State Executive Committee of the Democratic Party in 1872.

Barringer was married on 15 August 1848 to Elizabeth Wethered (1822-1867), daughter of Lewin and Elizabeth (Ellicott) Wethered of Baltimore. They had two sons who lived to maturity, Lewin Wethered Barringer (b. 1850) and Daniel Moreau Barringer, Jr. (b. 1860). They also had a daughter, Elizabeth Brandon, who died in 1864 at the age of thirteen, and several other children who died in infancy.

Barringer lived in Cabarrus County and Concord until his marriage. In the year between their marriage and their departure for Spain, he and his wife lived with relatives in Cabarrus County and in Baltimore. On their return, they were again unsettled until June 1859, when they moved to Raleigh, N.C. During 1865-1866, they were in Baltimore for several months, but returned to Raleigh in 1866. Elizabeth Barringer was ill and went to the home of her brother James and his wife Mollie in Brooklyn for medical treatment, staying there until her death in May or June 1867. Daniel Moreau Barringer continued to live in Raleigh until his death on 1 September 1873.

The Barringer family was descended from a German immigrant, John Paul Barringer, who settled before the Revolution at Poplar Grove in what later became Cabarrus County. Paul Barringer (1778-1844) was one of his sons and had several sons and daughters: Daniel Moreau, the oldest; Margaret, who married first John Boy and second Andrew Grier; Paul Brandon, who married Mary Pickens Carson and moved to Mississippi; Mary Ann, who married Charles W. Harris and lived at Mill Grove; William, a Methodist preacher, whose wife was Lavinia Alston; Elizabeth, who married Edwin Harris; Rufus, who married first Eugenia Davidson, second Rosalie Chunn, and third Margaret Long; Catherine, who married William C. Means and lived at Bellevue; and Victor Clay, who married Maria Massey.

Elizabeth (Wethered) Barringer had one sister, Mary Lewin Wethered, who married William G. Thomas of Baltimore. She had four brothers: Charles; John, member of Congress 1843-1845; Samuel; and James. The family operated woolen mills at Wetheredville near Baltimore.

The papers include family, business, and political correspondence and other papers of lawyer, North Carolina legislator, United States Representative, United States minister to Spain, and member of Whig Party and later the North Carolina Democratic Party's executive committee Daniel Moreau Barringer of Cabarrus County, N.C., and Raleigh, N.C., and members of his family. Included are letters, 1830s-1870s, from numerous North Carolina politicians and public officials, including Daniel Laurens Barringer, David F. Caldwell, Thomas L. Clingman, William Gaston, James Graham, William Alexander Graham, Willie P. Mangum, David L. Swain, and Calvin H. Wiley. Letters concern such issues as state and national politics; positions to be filled by President Zachary Taylor, 1848-1849; slavery; railroads; the University of North Carolina; and gold mining in Cabarrus County and Mecklenburg County, N.C. Papers for the period of Barringer's diplomatic service in Spain are especially full and include material relating to Americans taken prisoner after an expedition against the Spanish in Cuba. Letters, 1844-1860, from Barringer's brother, Paul Brandon Barringer, cotton planter near Oxford, Miss., discuss agricultrual, economic, social, and political affairs in Mississippi. There are also letters from Franklin L. Smith, a student at the University of North Carolina, 1827 and 1829; about politics during the Civil War; about race relations just after the Civil War; and about student life at Washington College, Lexington, Va., 1867-1869. Papers of Barringer's wife, Elizabeth Barringer (1822-1867) of Baltimore, Md., document her life, including treatment she received for cancer, 1866-1867, and the lives of members of the Wethered family. There are also two color photographs of oil portraits of Daniel Moreau Barringer and Elizabeth Barringer painted by Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz during the Barrigers' stay in Madrid.

Separated items include photographs (P-3359) and oversize papers (OP-3359).