Rufus Reid (1797-1854) of Rowan and Iredell counties, N.C., was a planter and merchant and also served in the North Carolina House of Commons in the 1840s. The collection includes business and legal papers, family papers, account books, and other items relating to Rufus Reid; members of the Reid family; and members of related families, including the Davidson, Guy, Morrison, Smith, and Torrance (Torrence) families, chiefly of Rowan and Iredell counties, N.C. Business papers relate to the planter and merchant activities primarily of members of the Guy, Reid, and Davidson families, and include bills, tax receipts, merchandising licenses, magazine subscription receipts, cotton sales receipts, accounts, and promissory notes. Included in business correspondence are references to a runaway slave and to economic conditions in Tennessee and Mississippi. Legal materials relate primarily to Rufus Reid and include several documents granting powers of attorney. Family papers include land records relating to Iredell County land and to land in Tennessee and Mississippi, family correspondence, and other items. Family correspondence includes letters from Franklin L. Smith, a student at the University of North Carolina, to his mother, 1825 and 1827; several letters from Rufus Reid to his daughter and stepdaughter attending school in Salem, N.C.; and several letters from J. R. Satterfield describing an extended trip to Europe, 1866-1867. There are also letters from W. I. Brawley, Frank Davidson, George F. Davidson, and Robert Hall Morrison. Volumes include a detailed account book of a merchant, 1854-1855; an account book of James F. Torrance showing work done by his slaves on the Mississippi Central Railroad, 1852-1861; and an account book of Isabella Torrance Smith Reid that lists slaves' names and clothes and blankets distributed to them, 1845-1855.
