Lewis Thompson was the owner of plantations near Woodville (also called Hotel), Bertie County, N.C., and at Bayou Boeuf, near Alexandria, Rapides Parish, La. Thompson was also a political leader in North Carolina, serving in the House of Commons and State Senate, 1831-1852, and as a member of the General Convention of 1865. He was a University of North Carolina trustee from 1848 until his death. The collection includes business Papers, circa 1840-1871, of Lewis Thompson, consisting chiefly of correspondence, accounts, bills, receipts, slave lists, sharecropping contracts, and other documents relating to the production of cotton and wheat in Bertie County, N.C.; to sugar in Rapides Parish, La.; and to the sale of crops through factors in New York, Norfolk, New Orleans, and Baltimore. There is also a considerable amount of correspondence relating to Lewis Thompson's role as executor of many estates, particularly that of his father-in-law, William M. Clark, and to Thompson's investments with brokers in New York. Papers before 1840 consist chiefly of land grants, deeds, and estate papers of Thompson's Pugh, Williams, Clark, Thompson, and Urquhart relations. There is also a group of papers relating to land controlled by the Tuscarora Indians. Few papers relate to Thompson's political career or to his involvement in University of North Carolina. Papers after Thompson's death in 1867 relate chiefly to the activities of his son, Thomas W. Thompson, who took over his father's North Carolina business affairs. The plantations in Louisiana had been run by Thomas's brother William for many years before their father's death.
