Edwin Robeson MacKethan was born in Fayetteville, N.C., on 7 September 1869. He was graduated from University of North Carolina in 1891. During the 1890s, MacKethan spent several years in Savannah, Ga., but later returned to Fayetteville where he lived and practiced law for the remainder of his life. During the campaign of 1900, MacKethan was elected president of the White Supremacy Club of Fayetteville and served as Cumberland County's representative to the state legislature. A Democrat, he served in the state senate, 1925-1929, and was later elected mayor of Fayetteville. The collection includes correspondence, financial material, legal papers, and other items of Edwin R. MacKethan and family of Fayetteville, N.C. Included is correspondence among MacKethan brothers in North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and between the MacKethan children at college, in New York City, and aboard United States Navy ships and their parents. There are letters and other papers pertaining to MacKethan's legal practice and other businesses in Fayetteville and to his political career in the North Carolina legislature and as mayor of Fayetteville. Other business papers from the 1840s and 1850s refer to the Clarendon Bridge Company, the Fayetteville and Northern Plank Road Company, and the Dobbin Horse Company. Some materials relate to disfranchisement of African Americans; to students and teachers at the United States Naval Academy and at the University of North Carolina; to the Civil War experiences of a relative stationed near Wilmington, N.C.; and to the stock market crash of 1929. Also included are printed items pertaining to White Supremacy and Prohibition, poems, essays, maps, photographs, and genealogical material.
