Benjamin Hickman Bunn Papers, 1845-2010 (bulk 1880-1900)

Collection Number: 05677

Collection Title: Benjamin Hickman Bunn Papers, 1845-2010 (bulk 1880-1900)

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Size	2.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 750 items)
Abstract	Papers of white lawyer, North Carolina state legislator, congressman, and Democratic Party politician, Benjamin Hickman Bunn (1844-1907) include political correspondence, legal documents, financial materials, and some items related to the Bunn family of Nash County, N.C. Political correspondence chiefly concerns congressional elections and North Carolina Democratic Party conventions in the 1880s and 1890s and contains frequent references to the North Carolina Farmers' Alliance. Other political materials are speeches, petitions to the North Carolina General Assembly and to U.S. Representative Bunn who represented North Carolina's fourth congressional district. Slight family correspondence is primarily with Bunn's daughters. Legal documents include deeds, indentures, contracts, a will, and court documents, such as summons for relief, depositions, reports of referees, and criminal and civil case dockets. Of note are court documents for Hilliard v. Rowland which originated in Nash County, N.C., and was heard by the State Supreme Court of North Carolina in 1873. Financial materials are chiefly receipts and account balance sheets. Other items include an essay on "Bootlicking" (circa 1855) by Bunn's brother William, a University of North Carolina student, notebooks with remedies and pharmaceutical uses for various substances, certificates of membership to masonic temples, a wedding invitation, and a genealogical file compiled by descendants.
Creator	Bunn, Benjamin Hickman, 1844-1907.
Curatorial Unit	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
Language	English

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Restrictions to Access: No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to Use: No usage restrictions.

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 Benjamin Hickman Bunn Papers #5677, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information: Received from Nan Bayless and William B. Brantley in 2016 (Acc. 102514) and October 2019 (Acc. 103732).

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: Laura Hart, March 2016

Encoded by: Laura Hart, March 2016

Revisions by: Nancy Kaiser, Gillian McCuistion, and Biff Hollingsworth, October 2019

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.

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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

Benjamin Hickman Bunn (1844-1907), a white lawyer, legislator, and Democratic Party politician, served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1889 to 1895 for North Carolina's fourth congressional district. He chaired the Committee on Claims. Prior to his election to Congress, Bunn practiced law in Nash County, N.C., as the county attorney and the attorney for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. Following the incorporation of Rocky Mount, N.C., in 1867, Bunn became the town's first mayor. He was elected to North Carolina's constitutional convention in 1875 and was a delegate to the 1880 Democratic National Convention. In 1882, he was elected to the North Carolina General Assembly and chaired a joint committee on the code. Following his congressional service, Bunn was postmaster for Rocky Mount and had a brief term as head of Rocky Mount Mills.

Bunn was born 19 October 1844 to Redmond Bunn and Mary Hickman Bryan Bunn of Nash County, N.C., and was educated at Rocky Mount Academy. Prior to his matriculation at The University of North Carolina, the American Civil War started, and Bunn enlisted in the Confederate States of America Army, serving as a lieutenant in the 47th North Carolina Regiment and later as captain for a company of sharpshooters with the Army of Northern Virginia. He was wounded at the battles of Gettysburg and Petersburg. His two brothers, William Henry Bunn and Elias Bunn, died in the war. After the war, he read law in Goldsboro, N.C., and received his license to practice in 1866.

Bunn married Harriet Philips of Edgecombe County, N.C. in 1871, and the couple had nine children James, Mary, Benjamin, Jr., Annie Lee, Laura-Maude, Catherine, Hattie, Bessie, and Redmond. Bunn died on 25 August 1907 at his home, Benevenue, near Rocky Mount.

For more biographical information, see Claiborne T. Smith, Jr.'s 1979 article in the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright 1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press.

Expand/collapse Scope and Content

Papers of lawyer, white North Carolina state legislator, congressman, and Democratic Party politician, Benjamin Hickman Bunn (1844-1907) include correspondence, legal documents, financial materials, and some items related to the Bunn family of Nash County, N.C. Political correspondence chiefly concerns congressional elections and North Carolina Democratic Party conventions in the 1880s and 1890s and contains frequent references to the North Carolina Farmers' Alliance.

Slight family correspondence is primarily with Bunn's daughters.

Legal documents include deeds, indentures, contracts, a will, and court documents, such as summons for relief, depositions, and reports of referees, for superior courts in Nash, Edgecomber, and Wilson counties. Of note are court documents for Hilliard v. Rowland which originated in Nash County, N.C., Superior Court and was heard by the State Supreme Court of North Carolina in 1873.

Political materials are speeches, petitions to the North Carolina General Assembly and to U.S. Representative Bunn who represented North Carolina's fourth congressional district.

Financial materials are chiefly receipts and account balance sheets.

Other items include an essay on "Bootlicking" (circa 1855) by Bunn's brother William Henry Bunn, a University of North Carolina student, notebooks with remedies and pharmaceutical uses for various substances, certificates of membership to masonic temples, a wedding invitation, and a genealogical file compiled by descendants.

The Addition of October 2019 consists of 5 legal dockets belonging to Bunn. Dockets range from 1893 to 1903 and were created in Nash County, N.C. There are 2 civil issues dockets, 2 criminal, and 1 summons.

Contents list

Expand/collapse Series Quick Links

1. Correspondence
2. Legal and Political Materials
2A. Legal Materials (Addition of October 2019)
3. Financial Materials
4. Other Materials

Expand/collapse Series 1. Correspondence

circa 350 items.

Folder 1

1882-1883

Of interest is a letter dated 12 February 1883 addressed to the United States House of Representatives and the Senate from the "one armed and one legged soldiers of North Carolina." The letter's authors decry the appropriations for free schools, "which the many journals of the state seem to howl over as the greatest blessing or the savior of the next generation" and the lack of aid given to "the claims of the most miserable and destitute class of people of the state- the negro children or the white children not excepted for they are able to work." Other letters pertain to pension claims and taxes for building a jail.

Folder 2

1886-1888

Includes a letter dated 4 January 1888 from a member of the Nash County, N.C., Commissioners pertaining to the county jail which had burned down. Other letters concern elections and Bunn's political rivals.

Folder 3

1889

Of interest is a letter dated 20 June 1889 from Charles N. Hunter editor of the The Progressive Educator to the Superintendent of the Census. Hunter writes that the "results of Negro emancipation in the United States as evidence in the material, moral and intellectual advancement of the race during the past twenty-five years, is a subject of deepest interest to all the people of the Republic." He seeks census information including figures for farm land, town lots, horses, mules, stocks, churches, and schools owned by African Americans, cash in hand, invested, and saved by African Americans, and the amount of "taxes realized" from said property and "Negro Polls."

Folder 4

January-February1890

Of interest is a circular letter dated 28 February 1890 to "the Working People of North Carolina" from the Knights of Labor pertaining to the shared demands--including abolition of the national bank and coinage of silver--of the Knights of Labor and the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union.

Folder 5

March-April1890

Topics addressed include congressional nominations, political support, the Farmers' Alliance, and the national cemetery.

Folder 6-7

Folder 6

Folder 7

May1890

Of interest is a letter dated 4 May 1890 from Josephus Daniels editor of The State Chronicle about a letter he reluctantly published from a "prominent [Farmers'] Alliance man of this county."

Folder 8

June1890

Chiefly letters concerning the North Carolina Farmers' State Alliance.

Folder 9-10

Folder 9

Folder 10

July1890

Chiefly letters concerning candidates and the political convention.

Folder 11

August-September1890

Includes a circular letter dated 16 September 1890 to the voters of the fourth congressional district in North Carolina from George L. Tonnoffski running as an independent for Congress.

Folder 12

November-December1890

Includes a letter of congratulations dated 7 November 1890 for Benjamin Bunn's electoral victory.

Folder 13

1891

Folder 14

January-February1892

Chiefly concerning the North Carolina Farmers' State Alliance.

Folder 15

March 1892

Chiefly letters concerning political topics. Includes a letter dated 18 March 1892 warning that "Unless the Democratic convention incorporates into its platform measures of radical financial reform sufficient to satisfy the urgent demands of the masses there is no use for it to nominate a ticket."

Folder 16-19

Folder 16

Folder 17

Folder 18

Folder 19

June1892

Chiefly letters concerning the political convention and nominations.

Folder 20

July-November1892

Chiefly letters concerning politic topics including post office appointments.

Folder 21

February-March1894

Includes a family letter dated 4 February 1894 from Bessie to Hattie.

Folder 22-25

Folder 22

Folder 23

Folder 24

Folder 25

May1894

Chiefly letters concerning the political convention and nominations.

Folder 26-30

Folder 26

Folder 27

Folder 28

Folder 29

Folder 30

June1894

Chiefly letters concerning the political convention and nominations.

Folder 31-32

Folder 31

Folder 32

July1894

Chiefly letters concerning the political convention and nominations.

Folder 33

August-December1894

Folder 34

1895

Includes a family letter dated 3 February 1895 from Mary to Hattie.

Folder 35

1896

Folder 36