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Collection Number: 04411

Collection Title: Young Allen Papers, 1783-1927

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.


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Size 0.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 125 items)
Abstract Chiefly deeds, estate records, and other financial and legal items, including slave bills of sale, relating to Young Allen of Wake County, N.C., and to members of his family. Also included are some correspondence of the Allen family with relatives and others, some of which relates to settling the frontier in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi in the 1820s and 1830s, and a bawdy poem about a parson and a black woman.
Creator Allen, Young, d. 1835.
Curatorial Unit University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
Language English
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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Information For Users

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 Young Allen Papers #4411, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Acquisitions Information
Received from Carrie P. Arnold of Raleigh, N.C., in June 1985.
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.
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Processed by: Mark Beasley, January 1987

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subject Headings

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.

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Biographical Information

Young Allen was a farmer and slave owner in Wake County, N.C., active from the 1780s until his death in 1835. He probably also operated a saw mill.

A number of members of Allen's family migrated west into the Mississippi River Valley in the 1820s and 1830s. Apparently, not all of them intended to move permanently. However, one of Allen's sons, Young W. Allen, settled and started a family in western Tennessee.

When Young Allen died in 1835, his son John Allen, also of Wake County, appears to have taken over much of his father's property. John Allen lived at least until the 1840s.

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Scope and Content

Chiefly deeds, estate records, and other financial and legal items, including slave bills of sale, relating to Young Allen of Wake County, N.C., and to members of his family. Also included are some correspondence of the Allen family with relatives and others, some of which relates to settling the frontier in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi in the 1820s and 1830s, and a bawdy poem about a parson and a black woman.

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Contents list

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 1. Correspondence, 1813-1864.

About 25 items.

Arrangement: chronological.

Correspondence of the Allen family of Wake County, N.C., and of relatives elsewhere in North Carolina and in Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi.

The earliest item is a letter written in 1813 in Wake County that discusses Senate candidates.

A number of letters were written in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi between 1822 and 1834. These letters include descriptions of conditions and attitudes of settlers along the Mississippi frontier in the 1820s and 1830s.

There are four letters from 1836 to 1839, all of which were written in Wake County. Two of these letters deal with social functions: one is an invitation to a member of the Allen family, and the other describes a sermon, dinner, and dance. The other two are more personal: one is a pledge to redeem a lady's honor from an unnamed rumor; the other is a marriage proposal.

Finally, there are two letters from the 1860s: an 1862 letter from a member of the Allen family in the Confederate army describes camp conditions, and an 1864 letter describes a smallpox outbreak and efforts to avoid military service.

Undated letters are chiefly of the same sort as the dated Wake County letters and are probably from around 1830. One letter, addressed to "Dear Sister," describes the care given a person dying of typhoid and that person's funeral.

Folder 1

1813-1839

Folder 2

1862-1864 and undated

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 2. Legal and Financial Items, 1783-1927.

About 100 items.

Arrangement: chronological.

Legal and financial items relating to the families of Young Allen and John Allen, probably father and son, both of Wake County, N.C. Items prior to 1810 are deeds, records of slave sales, and an account sheet, all relating to Young Allen. Material from 1810 to 1859 consists of deeds, receipts, summons, records of slave sales, account sheets, and other items, chiefly of John Allen. Also included are items from 1835 that relate to the estate of Young Allen. Items dated 1860-1879 are chiefly tax records of Anderson H. Allen.

Five deeds of members of the Allen and Arnold families, 1926-1927, also appear. Undated items are chiefly fragments of 19th century deeds, account sheets, and other records.

Folder 3

1783-1809

Folder 4

1810-1834

Folder 5

1835-1839

Folder 6

1840-1859

Folder 7

1860-1879

Folder 8

1926-1927

Folder 9

Undated

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 3. Writings, Before 1865.

1 item.

A single-page poem, signed on the back "Y.W. Young" (probably Young Allen or his son Young W. Allen). The poem is an obscene, comic poem about a parson and a black woman.

Folder 10

Poem, before 1865

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