Hinsdale family.

This collection centers around John Wetmore Hinsdale (1843-1921), a successful lawyer and businessman, but other major figures include: his mother, Elizabeth Christophers (Wetmore) Hinsdale (d. 1885); his father, Samuel Johnson Hinsdale (1817-1894), a pharmacist and amateur scientist of Fayetteville; his wife, Ellen (Devereux) Hinsdale, daughter of the wealthy planter, John Devereux, of Raleigh; and their six children: Margaret Devereux (Hinsdale) Englehard (b. 1872); Samuel Johnson Hinsdale (b. 1875); Elizabeth Christophers (Hinsdale) Winfree (b. 1877); John Wetmore Hinsdale, Jr. (1879-1971); Ellen Devereux Hinsdale (b. 1881); and Annie Devereux (Hinsdale) Joslin (b. 1883). The Hinsdales, in tracing their ancestry, accumulated genealogy on the following families: the Lanes, Pollocks, and Devereux of North Carolina; the Livingstons and Bayards of New York; and the Johnsons and Edwardses of Connecticut.

John Wetmore Hinsdale was born in Buffalo, N.Y., but was raised in Fayetteville, N.C. He received his education at a boarding school in Yonkers, N.Y. (graduated in 1858) and the University of North Carolina (1858-1861). His education was interrupted by the Civil War. At age 18 he joined the Confederate Army as an aid-de-camp to his uncle, General Theophilus Hunter Holmes. He served as adjutant general under General James Johnston Pettigrew, whom he admired greatly, and under General William Dorsey Pender, whom he disliked. He later rejoined his uncle's staff. Serving first in Virginia, Hinsdale participated in the Battle of Seven Pines and the Seven Days' Battle around Richmond. Transferred to the Trans-Mississippi Department with his uncle, he distinguished himself at the Battle of Helena. During the last year of the war, he was colonel of the Third Regiment of Junior Reserves, also known as the N.C. 72nd Regiment.

Immediately following the Civil War, Hinsdale attended law school at Columbia College in New York City. Admitted to the bars of both New York and North Carolina in 1866, and later to the U.S. Supreme Court, Hinsdale returned to Fayetteville to practice his profession. He married Ellen Devereux in 1869 and moved his growing family and law practice to Raleigh in 1875.

Hinsdale became an expert on insurance, corporation, and railroad law. He was a lobbyist for railroad interests both within and without the state, number among his clients Enoch Pratt and John Mitchell Robinson, both prominent businessmen of Baltimore, Md.

In the late 1890s, Ellen Devereux Hinsdale became active in various women's clubs. She was a founder of the General Pettigrew Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy in Raleigh, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and a charter member and officer of the Ladies' Hospital Aid Association of Rex Hospital in Raleigh.

John Wetmore Hinsdale, Jr., followed his father's footsteps, attending the University of North Carolina in 1896-1899, and then joining the law profession. He does not appear often in the collection until 1928 when, as president of the Capital Club of Raleigh, he became involved with plans to construct a new club and office building. He served two terms as state senator from Wake County in the 1930s. His pet projects included a reorganization of the tax structure by the introduction of a luxury tax, the reorganization of the N.C. State Board of Health and the N.C. Board of Examiners, and a proposal for the state to take over the maintenance of country roads. John Wetmore Hinsdale, Jr., died in 1971.