Skinner Family Papers, 1705-1900

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Summary

Creator:
Skinner (Family : Skinner, Joseph Blount, 1781-1851)
Abstract:

The Skinner Family, including Maria Lowther Skinner (1786-1824) and Joseph Blount Skinner (1781-1851) and their children, Tristrim Lowther Skinner (1820-1862) and Penelope Skinner Warren (1818-1841), owned plantations and enslaved people in Bertie, Perquimans, and Chowan counties. The collection is chiefly correspondence that documents a wealthy white family's experiences. Women wrote about their education and reading, courtship and marriage, pregnancy and child care, household and social activities, and political opinions, especially about the War of 1812. Of note are letters documenting the relationship of brother and sister, Tristrim Skinner and Penelope Skinner Warren, and Penelope's 1840 pregnancy. Other letters describe trips to spas in North Carolina and elsewhere. Letters written by school-aged children show differences between male and female education. Letters of several male family members document their experiences at the College of William and Mary and at the University of North Carolina, 1813-1814. Family correspondence also includes scattered references to some of the enslaved people working in the house, including "Annie," "Harriet," "Aunt Eliza," and "Emmaline," and of the challenges of managing an enslaved labor force. Vital statistics about the people they enslaved and other evaluative information about their labor, as well as other aspects of plantation management at Plantation House, Mansion House, and Yeopim, such as work performed, crops, and agricultural reform, can also be found in correspondence, journals, lists of enslaved people, and other papers. Other plantations and residences mentioned include Rosewell, Belgrade, River Farm, and Eden House. Other subjects include North Carolina and Whig Party politics; life in the 1st North Carolina Infantry Regiment, C.S.A.; life on the Confederate homefront; and social conditions in Edenton and Hillsborough, N.C., and Williamsburg and Norfolk, Va.

Extent:
800 items (1.0 linear feet)
Language:
Materials in English
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

Penelope Johnston Dawson (d. 1797) married John Dawson in 1758, and they lived at Eden House in Bertie County, N.C. Their daughter Penelope Dawson (1763-1820) married Tristrim Lowther (1760-1795) and had at least two children: Maria (1786-1822) and William D. (fl. 1810). William D. Lowther attended Princeton, and Maria Lowther married Joseph Blount Skinner (1781-1851), and had two children--Tristrim Lowther (1820-1862) and Penelope (1818-1841)--before she died in 1824.

Joseph Blount Skinner, a legislator of Edenton, N.C., and his brother Joshua owned several plantations and enslaved people in Bertie, Perquimans and Chowan counties. Plantation House in Chowan County was one mile outside Edenton. Yeopim and Mansion House were in Perquimans County, the latter about 20 miles from Edenton and 12 miles from Hertford (see letter dated 5 January 1841, Subseries 1.4).

After Maria Lowther Skinner died, her children were raised in the household of Frederick Nash of Hillsborough, N.C., where they received their early education. While Tristrim was sent to school as a young boy in New Haven and Philadelphia, his sister Penelope remained in Hillsborough. He attended the College of William and Mary from 1838 to 1840, and briefly studied at the University of North Carolina in 1840. Tristrim Lowther Skinner was summoned home to manage his father's plantations in 1840, when Joseph Blount Skinner's health failed. Between 1846 and 1848, Tristrim served as a member of the North Carolina House of Commons. He married Eliza Fisk Harwood (1827-1888) of Williamsburg, Va., in 1849, and they had four children: Marian Fisk, who was a teacher; Frederick Nash, an Episcopal priest who served in South Carolina; Tristrim Lowther Jr., who moved to Mississippi; and Maria Louisa Warren, who married Robert Brent Drane. In 1860, Tristrim was commissioned captain of Company A, 1st North Carolina Infantry Regiment. He was killed at Mechanicsville, Va., in 1862.

Joseph Blount Skinner purchased from the George Blair estate the Blair family, which included an enslaved woman and her children who had been fathered by her enslaver George Blair, a merchant in Edenton. Upon Joseph Blount Skinner's death, his son Tristrim Lowther Skinner inherited the Blair family. William D. Blair (Bill), who was the great-grandfather of the musician John Coltrane, was enslaved by the Skinners.

Scope and content:

The Skinner Family Papers consist chiefly of correspondence documenting a wealthy white family in Edenton, N.C., and other parts of eastern North Carolina. Skinner and related family members generally wrote long, substantive letters containing information about a wide variety of subjects. There are several significant female correspondents who wrote about their education and reading habits, feelings about courtship and marriage, experience of pregnancy and childcare, household and social activities, and political opinions. Of note are letters documenting Penelope Skinner Warren's 1840 pregnancy, which she endured in Hillsborough, N.C., while her physician-husband was in Edenton, N.C. There are also letters documenting trips taken by family members to spas in North Carolina and other locations.

There are quite a few letters written by school-aged children, showing differences between male and female education and containing specific information about reading materials and study habits. Letters of several male family members document their experiences at universities, such as Princeton, the College of William and Mary, and the University of North Carolina.

Family correspondence also includes scattered references to some of the enslaved people working in the house, including "Annie," "Harriet," "Aunt Eliza," and "Emmaline," and of the challenges of managing an enslaved labor force. Vital statistics about the people they enslaved and other evaluative information about their labor, as well as other aspects of plantation management at Plantation House, Mansion House, and Yeopim, such as work performed, crops, and agricultural reform, can also be found in correspondence, two journals, and other papers.

Additional subjects documented in family correspondence include North Carolina politics--Joseph Blount Skinner and Tristrim Lowther Skinner both wrote letters about their work as members of the North Carolina House of Commons, Joseph in 1807 and 1814 and Tristrim in 1846-1848, and their support for the Whig Party. Letters contain a wealth of information about social life and customs in several towns--most prominently Edenton and Williamsburg, Va., but also New Haven, Conn., Hillsborough, N.C., and Norfolk, Va.

The collection also contains financial and legal papers, especially about land development in Perquimans County, N.C., Bertie County, N.C., and Chowan County, N.C. There is a deed, 1816, that documents the purchase of "Pegg," an enslved woman, and her two children.

Other papers include poetry and writings, newspaper clippings, and other items, as well as pictures of members of the Dawson and Fisk families, relatives of the Skinner family.

Acquisition information:

Received from Marian Fisk Skinner of Edenton, N.C., in January 1939; Jaquelin Drane Nash of Tarrboro, N.C., in February 1974; Elizabeth Webb Matheson of Hillsborough, N.C., in January 1975 and September 1987; Frances Drane Inglis, August 2004 (Acc. 99883) and November 2006 (Acc. 100530); Rebecca Drane Warren, March 2011 (Acc. 101513) and March 2013 (Acc. 101761).

Processing information:

Processed by: Lisa Tolbert, May 1992

Encoded by: Roslyn Holdzkom, February 2007

This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

Revisions by: Benjamin Bromley, December 2009: Nancy Kaiser, June 2020 (box-level container information added and series arrangement simplified).

Conscious Editing Work by: Nancy Kaiser, May 2020. Updated abstract, subject headings, biographical note, and scope and content note.

Updated by: Laura Hart, March 2021; Nancy Kaiser, October 2023

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.

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.

No usage restrictions.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], in the Skinner Family Papers #669, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections 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