Hairston and Wilson Family Papers, 1750-2017

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Hairston and Wilson Family Papers, 1750-2017

1750-2017

https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/03149/

Original deposit: The bulk of the original deposit consists of letters to Elizabeth "Bettie" Perkins Hairston. Correspondents include her mother Ann Hairston, who wrote chiefly from the family plantations near Martinsville, Va. between the 1850s and 1890s; her sister, Ruth Stovall Hairston Wilson, who wrote from Danville, Va.; her brother, John A. Hairston, who wrote from school in Staunton, Va., from 1855 to 1857; and her cousin, Jeb Stuart (1833-1875), who wrote from West Point, from 1853 to 1854, and while fighting against the Comanches in Texas, 1855. During the Civil War, Bettie lived with relatives in Yalabusha County, Miss., where she received letters from her family about life on the home front. There are also letters to Bettie, written after her marriage in 1873, from her husband, J.T.W. Hairston in Lowndes County, Miss., where he was trying to run a cotton plantation without enslaved labor. Other significant family correspondence documents the westward movement of various Hairston family members and includes some papers of George Hairston of Halifax County, Va., from circa 1800 to 1820. In addition to correspondence, several account books document family life, including the involvement of family members in at least two stores in Henry County and Danville, Va., from 1800 to 1829. A household account book, dated 1831 to 1869, provides detailed information about weaving, livestock raising, gardening, and other household production. Other financial and legal materials include scattered bills, receipts, depositions, lists and other records of enslaved people, and labor contracts with freedpeople. Additions of 2015: The 2015 additions consist of letters of Anne Wilson, from Dan's Hill (1887-1892); farming contracts, indentures, and assorted sales records; 5 ledgers from the 19th century, at least three of which pertain to the Beaver Creek Plantation in Martinsville, Va.; and other related family papers. Additions of 2016: The bulk of the 2016 additions consists of financial and legal documents, including bills, receipts, accounts, tax assessments, wills, deeds, indentures, agreements, contracts, and slight, scattered correspondence. Materials pertain largely to Hairston and Wilson families' agricultural business interests and their extensive land holdings in Virginia and Mississippi. Numerous documents, including bills of sale, tax assessments, and extracts from wills, reflect the antebellum plantion economy and illustrate the families' use of and reliance on enslaved labor from the colonial period to emancipation. Post emancipation documents include tenant agreements with "colored" farmers. Documents related to land transactions often include surveys of property bought and sold. The bulk of the family correspondence in the additions dates from the 1870s to the 1920s. Bettie Perkins Hairston and Annie Marshall Wilson James are the chief recipients of the letters from this time period. Other papers relate to schools attended by family members, Virginia militias in the early national period, churches, funerals, lodges and clubs, genealogy, and Beaver Creek Plantation. A small number of photographs depict extended family members including Rorer James, Sr. However, most individuals who are pictured are not identified. Addition of 2017: The addition contains genealogical information; family charts; family histories and anecdotes; and transcriptions of nineteenth-century family letters and a household ledger. Most materials were compiled by members of the white Hairston family and related extended families in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Also includes letters written by members of the family that pertain to the book The Hairstons An American Family in Black and White by Henry Wiencek (1999).

19.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 7100 items)

eng, Latn

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 6626932

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection

Related Entities

There are 15 Entities related to this resource.

Wilson, Robert A., 1825-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6p37pwn (person)

Robert A. Wilson (born 1825) was the son of Robert Wilson (1788-1865) and Catherine Pannill Wilson (ca. 1793-1870). He married Ruth Stovall Hairston (1837-1886), daughter of Marshall Hairston (1802-1882) and Ann Hairston Hairston (1802-1888) of Beaver Creek Plantation, Henry County, Virginia. Robert and Ruth Wilson's daughter, Annie Marshall Wilson (1869-1938) married Virginia state senator Rorer James, Sr. (1859-1921)....

Beaver Creek Plantation (Va.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6qd0v35 (corporateBody)

Beaver Creek Plantation was founded in 1776 by George Hairston, a wealthy tobacco planter and one of the largest slaveholders in 18th-century Virginia. The plantation was located in Henry County, near what is now the city of Martinsville, Va....

Hairston, Elizabeth Perkins Letcher, 1759-1819

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gz26hs (person)

Elizabeth Perkins Letcher Hairston (1759-1819), widow of William Letcher (1750-1780), married Colonel George Hairston (1750-1825), of Beaver Creek Plantation, Henry County, Va. They had eleven children together....

Hairston, Elizabeth Perkins Hairston, 1836-1922

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60s9865 (person)

Elizabeth "Bettie" Perkins Hairston (1836-1922), child of Marshall Hairston and Ann Hairston Hairston. In 1873 Bettie Perkins Hairston married her cousin J.T.W. Hairston (1835-1908). They had two children, Marshall, who died in infancy, and Watt H. Hairston (1876-1916), who never married. After the death of her husband, Bettie Perkins Hairston returned to Beaver Creek Plantation in Henry County, Va....

Hairston, Ann Hairston, 1802-1888

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6327qv0 (person)

Ann Hairston (1802-1888) was the daughter of Samuel Hairston (1755-1809) and Judith Sparrell Saunders Hairston (1769-1809). She married her cousin, Marshall Hairston (1802-1882), and they lived at Beaver Creek Plantation, Henry County, Va., with their four children John A. Hairston (1840-1862), Elizabeth "Bettie" Perkins Hairston (1836-1922), Ann Marshall Hairston, and Ruth Stovall Hairston (1837-1886)....

Wilson, Ruth Stoval Hairston, 1837-1886

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6kh2dv6 (person)

Ruth Stoval Hairston Wilson was daughter of Marshall Hairston (1802-1882) and Ann Hairston Hairston (1892-1888), married Robert Anderson Wilson (born approximately 1825). Their daughter, Annie Marshall Wilson James, inherited the Beaver Creek Plantation, after the death of Elizabeth Perkins Hairston Hairston (1836-1922)....

Hairston, John A., 1840-1862

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w68d1nwb (person)

John A. Hairston (1840-1862) was the son of Marshall Hairston (1802-1182) and Ann Hairston Hairston (1802-1888). The family, including John's siblings, Elizabeth "Bettie" Perkins Hairston Hairston (1836-1922), Ann Marshall Hairston (1837-1907), and Ruth Stovall Hairston Wilson (1837-1886), lived at Beaver Creek Plantation in Henry County, Va....

Hairston, George, 1750-1827

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6q54g62 (person)

George Hairston was a captain in the American Revolution and an acting brigadier general during the War of 1812. From the guide to the George Hairston Order-Books, 1813-1814, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.) ...

Stuart, Jeb, 1833-1864

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6f1918m (person)

James Ewell Brown (Jeb) Stuart, soldier, was born 6 February 1833, on "Laurel Hill" plantation, Patrick County, Virginia. He died 12 May 1864 and is buried in Richmond, Virginia. Stuart graduated from the U.S. Military Academy (1850); received his commission (1854); and transferred to the Cavalry (1855). He married Flora Cooke, a colonel's daughter, in 1855, and the couple had three children. Stuart became Robert E. Lee's aide (1859) and resigned from the U.S. Army to be commissioned a lieutenan...

Hairston, Marshall, 1802-1882

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6p9276g (person)

Marshall Hairston (1802-1882) was the child of Colonel George Hairston (1750-1827) and Elizabeth Perkins Letcher Hairston (1759-1819). Marshall married his cousin, Ann Hairston (1802-1888), and they lived at Beaver Creek Plantation in Henry County, Va., with their four surviving children, John A. Hairston (1840-1862), Elizabeth "Bettie" Perkins Hairston Hairston (1836-1922), Ann Marshall Hairston (1837-1907), and Ruth Stovall Hairston Wilson (1837-1886)....

Hairston family.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6968j61 (family)

Hairston, Ann Marshall, 1837-1907

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w63n3w06 (person)

Ann Marshall Hairston was the daughter of Marshall Hairston (1802-1882) and Ann Hairston (1802-1888). She never married, living most of her life in Henry County, Virginia, at the family's Beaver Creek Plantation....

Wilson family.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6mh6q7p (family)

Hairston family.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6kf7cfm (family)

Colonel George Hairston (1750-1827) built Beaver Creek Plantation in 1776 just outside Martinsville, Henry County, Va. In 1781, he married Elizabeth Perkins Letcher (died 1818), widow of William Letcher. They had twelve children: Robert (1783-1852), George (1784-1863), Harden (1786 1862), Samuel (born 1788), Nicholas Perkins (born 1791), Henry (born 1793), Peter (1796-1810), Constantine (born 1797), John Adams (born 1799), America (born 1801), Marshall (1802-1882), and Ruth Stovall ...

Wilson family.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6489rf5 (family)

Colonel George Hairston (1750-1827) built Beaver Creek Plantation in 1776 just outside Martinsville, Henry County, Va. In 1781, he married Elizabeth Perkins Letcher (died 1818), widow of William Letcher. They had twelve children: Robert (1783-1852), George (1784-1863), Harden (1786 1862), Samuel (born 1788), Nicholas Perkins (born 1791), Henry (born 1793), Peter (1796-1810), Constantine (born 1797), John Adams (born 1799), America (born 1801), Marshall (1802-1882), and Ruth Stovall ...