W. B. Fort Papers, 1700s-1930s

Collection Number: 05525

Collection Title: W. B. Fort Papers, 1700s-1930s

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.

Expand/collapse Collection Overview

Size	12.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 10,000 items)
Abstract	The papers of Wylie Becton Fort, white landowner and slaveholder of Wayne County, N.C., are chiefly financial and legal documents reflecting Fort's business interests in agriculture and railroads. Collection materials date from the late eighteenth century through the early twentieth century and include correspondence, ephemera primarily advertisements for goods and services, printed items such as broadsides and circulars, military orders from the War of 1812, deeds and indentures for land sales, bills, receipts, accounts, court summons, warrants, and wills and estate papers. In addition to Fort, James W. Cox, Fred Parker, and Gabriel Sherard are represented in the collection. Enslavement is documented in several items including a will, a receipt for hiring enslaved labor, and an undated petition to the North Carolina General Assembly requesting a bill to prevent slaves from trading with each other. Acquired as part of the Southern Historical Collection.
Creator	Fort, W. B. (Wylie Becton), 1841-1926.
Curatorial Unit	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
Language	English

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 W. B. Fort Papers #5525, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information: Received from Fred Parker in June 2012 (Acc. 101601).

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.

Expand/collapse Processing Information

A summary description was created in October 2017 to provide information about unprocessed materials in Wilson Special Collections Library.

Encoded by: Laura Smith

Updated by Rebecca Stubbs, Nicole Cvjetnicanin, Katie R. Herring, and Jodi Berkowitz, January 2019 and February 2019

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.

Expand/collapse Biographical Information

Wylie Becton Fort (1841-1926) was a large landowner whose home was near Pikeville in Wayne County, N.C. He was the son of William Benjamin Franklin Fort (1811-1894) and Evelyn Becton Isler Fort. A student at the University of North Carolina in 1862, W. B. Fort left before graduating to join the Confederate Navy. "Colonel" Fort had lifelong agricultural, railroad, and other business interests. He married Fannie Coley (born 1850). Their daughter, Pearl, married Robert A. Fetzer, Director of Athletics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1923 to 1952.

Expand/collapse Scope and Content

The papers of Wylie Becton Fort, white landowner and slaveholder of Wayne County, N.C., are chiefly financial and legal documents reflecting Fort's business interests in agriculture and railroads. Collection materials date from the late eighteenth century through the early twentieth century and include correspondence, ephemera primarily advertisements for goods and services, printed items such as broadsides and circulars, military orders from the War of 1812, deeds and indentures for land sales, bills, receipts, accounts, court summons, warrants, and wills and estate papers. In addition to Fort, James W. Cox, Fred Parker, and Gabriel Sherard are represented in the collection. Enslavement is documented in several items including a will, a receipt for hiring enslaved labor, and an undated petition to the North Carolina General Assembly requesting a bill to prevent slaves from trading with each other. Acquired as part of the Southern Historical Collection.

Contents list

Expand/collapse W. B. Fort Papers, 1700s-1930s.

About 10000 items.

Arrangement: Boxes 1-9 contain financial records, and they are arranged chronologically. The first group of papers are of W. B. Fort, followed by papers of James W. Cox. Note that these records are handwritten pieces of paper of varying size, handwriting, condition, and content. Letters arranged chronologically follow. Note that some letters are still in envelopes.

Box 1	1700s 2 folders
	1800s-1810s 2 folders The second folder contains a bill of sale for an enslaved person.
	1820s-1830s 3 folders The first folder contains a bill of sale for an enslaved person.
Box 2	1820s-1830s 3 folders The first folder contains several bills of sale for enslaved people.
	1840s-1850s 3 folders The second and third folders contain bills of sale for enslaved people.
Box 3	1860s-1870s 2 folders
	1880s-1890s 5 folders
Box 4	1900s 4 folders
	Undated 4 folders
Box 5	Undated 3 folders
Box 6	James W. Cox, 1790s 1 folder
	James W. Cox, 1800s-1810s 2 folders
	James W. Cox, 1820s-1830s 4 folders The first folder contains a bill of sale of an enslaved person.
Box 7	James W. Cox, 1840s-1850s 7 folders Bills of sale of enslaved people can be found in the first, fourth, and sixth folders.
Box 8	James W. Cox, 1860s-1870s 6 folders
Box 9	James W. Cox, 1880s-1890s 1 folder
	James W. Cox, undated 2 folders
Oversize Paper Folder OPF-05525/1	Insurance papers, 1870s-1880s
Box 10	Letters, 1700s-1890s
Box 11	Letters, 1882-1887
Box 12	Letters, 1887-1888
Box 13	Letters, 1888-1890s
Box 14	Letters, 1880s-1890s
Box 15	Letters, 1890-1905
Box 16	Letters, 1906-1910s
Box 17-18 Box 17 Box 18	Letters, 1900s-1910s
Box 19	Letters, 1900s-1930s and undated
Box 20	Letters, undated
	Letters to Gabriel Sherard, 1840s
	Postcards, 1877-1915 and undated
Box 21	Financial records, 1800s-1879
Box 22	Financial records, 1880s-1900s and undated
	Advertisements
	Clippings
	Notebooks and pamphlets
Box 23	Miscellaneous papers, 1800s-1900s and undated
Image Folder PF-05525/1	Photographic prints, 1880s-1930s 4 images

Expand/collapse Items Separated

Oversize papers (OPF-05525/1)
Photographic prints (PF-05525/1)

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Collection Number: 05525 Collection Title: W. B. Fort Papers, 1700s-1930s