Zelotes Lee Holmes papers, 1820-1888.

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Zelotes Lee Holmes papers, 1820-1888.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/301752115

Chiefly, letters written to his aunt, Mrs. Ruth Marshall, wife of C.H. Marshall, in Buffalo, N.Y., reporting his situations at school in Ohio, Tennessee, and at the Columbia Theological Seminary. Places represented include Meadville, Pitsburg, and Oberlin in Ohio, during the 1830s; his brief relocation to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1839, and subsequent arrival in Columbia, S.C., by Nov. 1839, and remaining decades of his life in Laurens District, S.C. Letter of 15 Dec. 1836 describes his impression of Oberlin College, the curriculum of study, and the moral climate, "Oberlin Collegiate Institute is yet young, but... I believe it is adapted to wield an amount of Moral Power scarcely equaled by any institution in the government." When accepted to the Presbyterian Seminary, Holmes reports descriptions of Columbia, S.C., in letter of 27 Nov. 1830, "a very neat little city and affords many facilities of a religious, literary, and commercial character," and includes favorable comments on local institutions of higher learning, including South Carolina College, "the State College... is a popular and prosperous institution. The buildings are, I suppose, the best and most extensive in the Southern country. Indeed, I have never seen their equal. The [Presbyterian] Theo[logical] Seminary is also fine and well endowed by the Synod," and comments on James H. Thornwell; letter, 27 Jan. 1842 (Columbia, S.C.) to M.B. Hope, "Ed[itor] Bib[le] Rep[orts,]" (in Philadelphia), requesting a set of the Back vol[ume]s of Rep[or]t bound immediately" for "a Brother in the [Columbia Theological] Sem[inary]," enclosing a check with a list of subscribers, and stating, "The [Post Office] Department is becoming... rigid - - we can get them to send no more money as agents." Other topics include his ordination as a Presbyterian minister and his duties at Spartanburg, S.C., marriage to Catherine Nickels, changing views on slavery, commenting on the annexation of Texas, predicting in 1851 that South Carolina would eventually secede from the Union, and in 1852, analyzing the South's position on politics as affecting slavery. Discussion of new technologies and popular culture of the day includes report of his sitting for a Daguerreotype taken by a traveling vendor, "the Dauguerian Car having arrived in Laurens," commenting on the novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and discussing education for his children. In 1855, Holmes reported on labor experiments and his effort to operate his plantation without an overseer and to pay money saved to the African American slaves. In 1857, Holmes wrote of building a house in the town of Laurens in 1857 and inquiring re a furnace; teaching at the Laurens Female Academy; educating a son abroad following the Civil War; opening a school on the plantation in 1869; discussing religious practices among African Americans in Laurens and social and economic difficulties of life in 1870 during Reconstruction; and letters of a son, Joseph Austin Holmes, as a student at Cornell University, ca. 1880-1881, and as a Professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, beginning in 1881, teaching Natural History (geology, zoology, and botany), including his provisional acceptance of the offer conditional upon confirmation that he would be allowed to teach the sciences as he saw fit.

181 items.

University of South Carolina, System Library Service, University Libraries

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SNAC Resource ID: 7284123

University of South Carolina, System Library Service, University Libraries

Related Entities

There are 10 Entities related to this resource.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 1811-1896

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6qw4dg2 (person)

Harriet Beecher Stowe (b. June 14, 1811, Litchfield, Connecticut – d. July 1, 1896, Hartford, Connecticut) was an American abolitionist and author. She is the daughter of Rev. Lyman Beecher who preached against slavery. She is best known for writing Uncle Tom's Cabin. It became an instant and controversial best-seller, both in the United States and abroad. The novel had a major impact on Northerners' attitudes toward slavery and by the beginning of the Civil War had sold more than a million copi...

Oberlin College

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6204wg0 (corporateBody)

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second-oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of higher learning in the world. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. In 1835, Oberlin became one of the first colleges in the United States to admit African Americans, and in 18...

Holmes, J. A. (Joseph Austin), 1859-1915

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Joseph Austin Holmes (1859-1915) was professor of geology and natural history, University of North Carolina, 1881-1903; state geologist, first head of the North Carolina Geological Survey, 1891-1905; director of the department of mines and metallurgy, Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904 : Saint Louis, Mo.), 1903- 1904; chief of the technological branch, United States Geological Survey, 1905- 1910; chief, United States Bureau of Mines, 1910-1915. From the guide to the J. A. Holmes Pap...

Thornwell, James Henley, 1812-1862

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6bz6dtk (person)

Cornell University

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Holmes, Zelotus Lee, 1815-1885.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65h9bkq (person)

Presbyterian minister of Laurens, S.C., from 1840s until his death in 1885; native of Sheridan (Chautauqua County, N.Y.); name sometimes appears at "Zelotes"; in 1844, married Catherine Nancy Nickels in Laurens, S.C., a union that produced twelve children, including Joseph Austin Holmes (born, 1859 in Laurens, S.C. - died, 1915 in Denver, Colorado), and J. Nickles Holmes (who became a leader of the Pentecostal movement in the South). From the description of Zelotes Lee Holmes papers,...

University of North Carolina (1793-1962)

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The University of North Carolina was chartered by the state's General Assembly in 1789. Its first student was admitted in 1795. The governing body of the University, from its founding until 1932, was a forty-member Board of Trustees elected by the General Assembly. The Board met twice a year; at other times the business of the University was carried on by the Board's secretary-treasurer and by the presiding professor (called president beginning in 1804). Other faculty members later assumed the r...

Holmes family.

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Columbia theological seminary

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Laurens Female Academy (S.C.)

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