Elisha Mitchell Papers, 1816-1905

Summary

Creator:
Mitchell, Elisha, 1793-1857.
Abstract:

Elisha Mitchell was a native of Connecticut, student and tutor at Yale College, Presbyterian minister, and professor of geology and chemistry and bursar at the University of North Carolina, 1818-1857. The collection includes family correspondence, scientific notes, manuscript articles, and sermons of Elisha Mitchell, for many years connected with the University of North Carolina. Mitchell's correspondence pertains to his varied religious, academic, and scientific activities, including mountain exploration in North Carolina. Among the correspondents are George E. Badger, William Gaston, Francis L. Hawkes, N. M. Hentz, William Hooper, Levi Silliman Ives, Archibald D. Murphy, James H. Otey, John Stark Ravenscroft, and David L. Swain. Included is correspondence with the North family of Mitchell's wife, Maria North Mitchell, in New Haven, Conn., and from the Mitchell children after they had married and moved to Salisbury, N.C., California, and Texas. Volumes include Mitchell's diary, 1813-1816, begun at Yale and kept irregularly while he was teaching at various places in the North, containing mainly religious reflections and slight personal comment; his private notebook, 1818-1847, containing miscellaneous comments on mathematics, musicology, electricity, the natural sciences, and history, and personal accounts and notes on reading and letters received; the diary, 1878, of Mitchell's grandson, J. N. Howard Summerell, on a voyage to Scotland; Mitchell's journal, letter book, and account book, 1818-1842; and Diary of a Geological Tour by Professor Elisha Mitchell in 1827 and 1828 with Introduction and Notes by Kemp P. Battle, published as part of the James Sprunt Historical Monograph Series by the University of North Carolina in 1905.

Extent:
550 items (1.5 linear feet)
Language:
Materials in English
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

Elisha Mitchell (19 August 1793-27 June 1857) of Connecticut was a graduate of Yale who taught at Jamaica, Long Island, N.Y. and at New London, Conn., and was a tutor at Yale before becoming a professor at the University of North Carolina in January 1818. Before leaving Connecticut, he was licensed to preach by the Congregational Church, and, in 1821, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. He married Maria Sybil North of New London, Conn., in November 1819.

At the University of North Carolina, Mitchell first taught mathematics and natural philosophy, but later shifted to chemistry, geology, and mineralogy. He continued the geological survey of North Carolina begun by Denison Olmstead and made botanical and geological excursions through all of North Carolina, publishing the results in pamphlets and periodicals. He measured the height of the mountain now known as Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, but his claim to priority in the measurement of the peak was disputed by Thomas Lanier Clingman, who declared that he and not Mitchell had found the highest point in the range. To settle the controversy, Mitchell went again to the mountains in 1857, andm in the course of this activity, fell down a steep bank into a creek and was drowned. He was buried in Asheville, N.C., and later reinterred on Mount Mitchell.

Mitchell had four daughters: Ellen, who married Joseph John Summerell; Mary, who married Richard Ashe; Eliza, who married Richard Grant; and Margaret, who never married; and one son, Charles, who died in Mississippi without issue. The Summerells lived in Salisbury, N.C., where J.J. Summerell practiced medicine; the Ashes lived in California; and the Grants lived in Texas.

Scope and content:

The collection includes family correspondence, scientific notes, manuscript articles, and sermons of Elisha Mitchell, for many years connected with the University of North Carolina. Mitchell's correspondence pertains to his varied religious, academic, and scientific activities, including mountain exploration in North Carolina. Among the correspondents are George E. Badger, William Gaston, Francis L. Hawkes, N. M. Hentz, William Hooper, Levi Silliman Ives, Archibald D. Murphy, James H. Otey, John Stark Ravenscroft, and David L. Swain. Included is correspondence with the North family of Mitchell's wife, Maria North Mitchell, in New Haven, Conn., and from the Mitchell children after they had married and moved to Salisbury, N.C., California, and Texas. Volumes include Mitchell's diary, 1813-1816, begun at Yale and kept irregularly while he was teaching at various places in the North, containing mainly religious reflections and slight personal comment; his private notebook, 1818-1847, containing miscellaneous comments on mathematics, musicology, electricity, the natural sciences, and history, and personal accounts and notes on reading and letters received; the diary, 1878, of Mitchell's grandson, J. N. Howard Summerell, on a voyage to Scotland; Mitchell's journal, letter book, and account book, 1818-1842; and Diary of a Geological Tour by Professor Elisha Mitchell in 1827 and 1828 with Introduction and Notes by Kemp P. Battle, published as part of the James Sprunt Historical Monograph Series by the University of North Carolina in 1905.

Acquisition information:

Gifts, 1903-1962; 2015

Processing information:

Processed by: Staff, 1993

Encoded by: Peter Hymas, December 2004

Funding from the State Library of North Carolina supported the encoding of this finding aid.

Updated because of addition, September and December 2018

Updated by Amy Morgan and Jodi Berkowitz, March 2019

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.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to use:

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 Elisha Mitchell Papers #518, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
wilsonlibrary@unc.edu