Elisha Mitchell was a native of Connecticut, student and tutor at Yale College, Presbyterian minister, and professor of geology and chemistry and bursar at the University of North Carolina, 1818-1857. The collection includes family correspondence, scientific notes, manuscript articles, and sermons of Elisha Mitchell, for many years connected with the University of North Carolina. Mitchell's correspondence pertains to his varied religious, academic, and scientific activities, including mountain exploration in North Carolina. Among the correspondents are George E. Badger, William Gaston, Francis L. Hawkes, N. M. Hentz, William Hooper, Levi Silliman Ives, Archibald D. Murphy, James H. Otey, John Stark Ravenscroft, and David L. Swain. Included is correspondence with the North family of Mitchell's wife, Maria North Mitchell, in New Haven, Conn., and from the Mitchell children after they had married and moved to Salisbury, N.C., California, and Texas. Volumes include Mitchell's diary, 1813-1816, begun at Yale and kept irregularly while he was teaching at various places in the North, containing mainly religious reflections and slight personal comment; his private notebook, 1818-1847, containing miscellaneous comments on mathematics, musicology, electricity, the natural sciences, and history, and personal accounts and notes on reading and letters received; the diary, 1878, of Mitchell's grandson, J. N. Howard Summerell, on a voyage to Scotland; Mitchell's journal, letter book, and account book, 1818-1842; and by Kemp P. Battle, published as part of the by the University of North Carolina in 1905. Diary of a Geological Tour by Professor Elisha Mitchell in 1827 and 1828 with Introduction and Notes James Sprunt Historical Monograph Series
