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No restrictions. Open for research.

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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 Harris and Foust Family Papers #5482, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Anthony Scott Ashcraft in December 2010 (Acc. 101376).

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: Allison Moore, Jackie Dean, and Nancy Kaiser, January 2011

Encoded by: Allison Moore, January 2011

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.

• African Americans--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Alamance County (N.C.)--History.
• Alamance County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Asheville (N.C.)--Description and travel.
• Chatham County (N.C.)--History.
• Chatham County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Cavalry Regiment, 5th.
• Families--North Carolina--Photographs.
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Fort Fisher (N.C.)
• Foust famiy.
• Foust, Thomas R.
• Graves, Robert J., 1832-
• Guilford County (N.C.)--History.
• Guilford County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Harris family.
• Harris, Sallie Maria Foust, 1842-1920.
• Harris, Thomas West, 1839-1888.
• Holt family.
• Love-letters--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Medicine--Study and teaching--History--19th century.
• North Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Orange County (N.C.)--History.
• Orange County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Physicians--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Randolph County (N.C.)--History.
• Randolph County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• School superintendents--North Carolina--Guilford County.
• Slavery--North Carolina.
• Steele family.
• Trafficking in enslaved persons--North Carolina.
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Personal narratives, Confederate.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962)--Students--History--19th century.
• University of North Carolina (1793-1962). School of Medicine.
• Women--Education--North Carolina--History--19th century.

Harris and Foust family members lived and owned property in Orange, Alamance, Chatham, Guilford, and Randolph counties, N.C. Thomas West Harris (1839-1888) was born to Nancy Clegg Harris and Thomas B. Harris, prosperous plantation owners in Chatham County, N.C. He was graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1859. During the Civil War, he served in Company E, 5th North Carolina Cavalry Regiment (later called the "Vance Troop," 63rd North Carolina Troops). After the war, Harris studied medicine in Paris and New York City. He received his medical license from New York University in 1868, then returned to North Carolina to practice medicine, first in the eastern part of the state and then in Chatham County. In 1877, Harris opened a practice to serve the village of Chapel Hill and the surrounding rural community. From 1879 until 1885, he also served as the first dean and professor of anatomy of the medical school at the University of North Carolina, after which he moved to Durham, N.C., where continued his medical practice until his death in 1888.

Thomas West Harris married Sallie Maria Foust (1842-1920), daughter of Isaac Holt Foust and Mary Jane Holt Foust of Reed Creek farm, Randolph County, N.C., in 1865. At the time of the Civil War, the Foust family at Reed Creek owned over 50 slaves. At some point before then, they were involved in the buying, selling, and transporting of slaves to the cotton belt, especially Mississippi and Louisiana. They also owned land in Tennessee and Alabama. Sallie Maria Foust, also known as "Danny," had at least three siblings: Henry Foust, William Holt Foust, and Lena Foust. Sallie attended the Oakland Female Institute in Norristown, Pa., until she was called home in September 1861 because of the war. William Foust attended Haw Creek Military Academy. Henry Foust attended the University of North Carolina and had at least one daughter, Mena Foust.

Sallie and Thomas West Harris had five children: Thomas West Harris Jr., Elizabeth Harris Foust, Mary Harris Robertson, Isaac Harris, and Frederick Harris. Elizabeth ("Lizzie") Harris married Thomas R. Foust, son of Thomas C. Foust and Mary Eliza Robbins Foust. Thomas R. Foust served as the superintendent of Guilford County schools from 1904 to 1941.

The collection consists of correspondence, other papers, and photographs that document the Harris and Foust families of Orange, Alamance, Chatham, Guilford, and Randolph counties, N.C., between 1839 and the 1940s. Letters were written and received by many family members and friends, including Isaac Holt Foust, Sallie Maria Foust Harris, Thomas West Harris, William Holt Foust, Henry Foust, Pleasant Allen Holt, Henry Colton, Elizabeth ("Lizzie") Foust, Maria Foust, Lena Foust, and Mena Foust. Their correspondence discusses local events, news, and family affairs.

The antebellum letters chiefly consist of correspondence between Isaac Holt Foust and his daughter, Sallie Maria Foust, that includes observations on the weather; the health of family members; events at the farm at Reed Creek, N.C.; and fatherly advice to a daughter living away from home. Post Civil War letters suggest close relationships among the Foust and Harris siblings and cousins. Their letters report on the health of family members, visits, marriage plans, the lack of romantic prospects, lawlessness in postwar North Carolina, and student life at the University of North Carolina. There are also numerous loveletters exchanged by Thomas West Harris and Sallie Maria Foust Harris while he studied medicine in Paris and New York City. His letters describe excavations at the Louvre Palace, the solar eclipse of October 1866, and his studies; her letters, written from the farm at Reed Creek, N.C., and Shell Castle, N.C., concern local and family affairs.

Some antebellum letters mention slaves, including buying and selling; after the war, some letters discuss African Americans. An 1856 letter from Nancy Harris describes the accidental death of a female slave. In February 1859, Isaac Holt Foust wrote two letters in which he mentioned the death of a slave and the subsequent decision to adjust his workforce through buying and selling slaves. In a 4 September 1865 letter, Thomas West Harris mentioned the possibility of relocating to northwest Texas, in part to be "removed from the intolerable presence of the negros," but at the same time he feared that "Indians and the Jay hawkers seem to have things too much their own way out there just now." In a A 20 December 1866 letter, Sallie Maria Foust Harris described how her mother, Maria Foust, assisted with the birth of a baby by an African American woman.

Other materials chiefly provide biographical and other contextual information about members of the Harris, Foust, Holt, and Steele families. Some of the materials are original documents, while others are copies (photocopies and/or digital surrogates) of originals not included in this collection. Original documents include school materials from the 1850s; receipts from Paris; the Harris's 1865 marriage license and related papers; an 1874 estate inventory; a scrapbook of the family history and career of Thomas R. Foust as long-serving superintendent of Guilford County, N.C., schools; and postcards and genealogical correspondence. Copied materials include an 1857 letter describing slave sales and other financial matters; a 15 April 1862 letter with a description of Fort Fisher; a 30 October 1862 letter with a description of Camp Lee; a 1 August 1864 letter describing healthful mountain living in around Asheville; a 21 March 1865 letter advising against raising a regiment of black soldiers and reporting on western soldiers passing through on their way home in spring 1865, some of them attempting to steal horses; and an 1899 Civil War reminiscence. Other copied materials concern Thomas West Harris's military service and medical career; Reverend Robert J. Graves, a Presbyterian minister who had been accused of spying for the Union; and other incidents of family history. There are also photocopies of numerous cartes de visite of Confederate generals and other public figures.

Photographs, including daguerreotypes, tintypes, and cartes de visite, are chiefly portraits of Foust and Harris family members. There is also a portrait of the Guilford County Board of Education, 1915, and collected cartes de visite of people and European locations.

• Photographs (SF-P-5482/1-6)
• Photograph Album (PA-5482/1)
• Data Compact Disc (DCD-5482/1)