Charles Dewey was born in New Bern, N.C. He began his banking career in 1820 with the New Bern branch of the State Bank of North Carolina. In 1827, he was elected cashier of the main branch in Raleigh. After the Civil War, he was elected cashier and later president of the Raleigh National Bank. In 1837, Dewey married his third wife, Julia Ann Haylander (1804-1886), a native of Philadelphia. One of Charles Dewey's children was Charles Francis Dewey (b. 1825), an 1844 graduate of the University of North Carolina, who became a physician in Goldsboro, N.C. The collection is chiefly correspondence, miscellaneous papers, and two volumes relating to Charles Dewey and members of his family. Many of the items are business papers, 1828-1879, of Charles Dewey while he was a banker in Raleigh with the State Bank of North Carolina, the Bank of North Carolina, and the Raleigh National Bank. Among these are papers, 1839-1866, concerning the finances of the Cameron family, including letters from Paul C. and Duncan Cameron, and other papers relatingto European investments in the United States. There is also family correspondence, 1854-1886, chiefly between Julia Ann Haylander Dewey and her children, nieces, and nephews. In 1886, there are letters describing a trip to Naples, Italy. Volumes are an 1833 travel diary of Julia Ann Haylander on a journey to England to visit her ill sister, and a book containing lists of books read, quotations, and copies of writings by Shakespeare, Byron, and others that Charles Francis Dewey compiled in 1842-1843.
