Daniel Moreau Barringer of Cabarrus County and Raleigh, N.C., was a lawyer; North Carolina state legislator; United States representative, 1843-1849; minister to Spain, 1849-1853; active Whig and later Democrat; and member of the North Carolina Democratic Party state executive committee, 1860, and chair, 1872. The collection includes family, business, and political correspondence and other papers of Daniel Moreau Barringer and members of his family. Included are letters, 1830s-1870s, from numerous North Carolina politicians and public officials, including Daniel Laurens Barringer, David F. Caldwell, Thomas L. Clingman, William Gaston, James Graham, William Alexander Graham, Willie P. Mangum, David L. Swain, and Calvin H. Wiley. Letters concern such issues as state and national politics; positions to be filled by President Zachary Taylor, 1848-1849; slavery; railroads; the University of North Carolina; and gold mining in Cabarrus and Mecklenburg counties, N.C. Papers for the period of Barringer's diplomatic service in Spain are especially full and include material relating to Americans taken prisoner after an expedition against the Spanish in Cuba. Letters, 1844-1860, from Barringer's brother, Paul Brandon Barringer, cotton planter near Oxford, Miss., discuss agricultrual, economic, social, and political affairs in Mississippi. There are also letters from Franklin L. Smith, a student at the University of North Carolina, 1827 and 1829; about politics during the Civil War; about race relations just after the Civil War; and about student life at Washington College, Lexington, Va., 1867-1869. Papers of Barringer's wife, Elizabeth (Wethered) Barringer (1822-1867) of Baltimore, Md., document her life, including treatment she received for cancer, 1866-1867, and the lives of members of the Wethered family. There are also two color photographs of oil portraits of Daniel Moreau Barringer and Elizabeth Barringer painted by Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz during the Barrigers' stay in Madrid.
