W.S. Hamilton (b. 1789) studied at Princeton College, served as a United States Army officer, 1808-1817, and was a planter and legislator in Louisiana. His father, John Hamilton, studied law in Scotland before moving to the United States to be a lawyer, state legislator, and active Baptist in Edenton and Elizabeth City, N.C. John Hamilton later moved to Louisiana. W.S. Hamilton and his stepmother became involved in a controversy over property due to him from his mother's estate after John Hamilton's death. Collection materials pertain to John Hamilton's education, emigration, life in North Carolina, and move to Louisiana. Later papers detail W.S. Hamilton's education, his friendship and correspondence with Samuel Stanhope Smith, president of Princeton, his service as a United States Army officer, and his controversy with his father and stepmother over property due him from his mother's estate. Volumes, 1785-1802, are irregular diaries and brief memoranda books of John Hamilton. Also available are military papers and orderly books of W.S. Hamilton and his later papers as a planter and legislator in Louisiana; correspondence with his sons, especially Douglas M. and William B. Hamilton, students in Louisiana and at the University of Virginia and soldiers in the Confederate Army in Virginia; and a Louisiana cotton plantation journal, 1861-1862. Pages from a record of daily work performed by slaves are available on microfilm.
