Patrick Henry Winston was a prominent lawyer of Windsor, N.C. The Williams family of Bertie and Martin counties, N.C., included H. S. (d. 1858?), Samuel (d. 1855?), Joseph J. (d. 1865?), John P. (d. 1860?), and William A. K. (fl. 1861-1873). Winston was counsel for William A. K. Williams and executor of the estate of Joseph J. Williams. The collection includes business papers of Winston, including Williams family estate papers; Winston's private business correspondence and financial and legal papers; and scattered legal items for several other clients. The papers document the management of the estates of H. S., Samuel, Joseph J., and John P. Williams; Winston's legal efforts in a case against John Williams's estate; slave sales in several North Carolina counties; medical care given slaves; the Norfolk cotton market, especially the Civil War's effect on it; and the postwar legal and financial difficulties of planters. Financial and legal items include slave bills of sale; accounts; tax and other receipts; deeds and surveys for Bertie, Franklin, and Martin County lands; loan notes; affidavits; a warrant; and a court petition. Of note is a volume, 1850-1853, containing the constitution, by-laws, and minutes of the Bertie Lyceum. There are also two letters addressed to Winston's sons in the 1930s, one from Jeff W. Lamar, who claimed to have played baseball for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1875-1876.
