Joseph Jeptha Norton papers 1791-1978 ; (bulk, 1845-1897).

ArchivalResource

Norton, Joseph Jeptha, 1835-1896. Joseph Jeptha Norton papers 1791-1978 ; (bulk, 1845-1897).

Joseph Jeptha Norton papers 1791-1978 ; (bulk, 1845-1897).

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38499617

Correspondence, receipts, and other papers document the activities of the Norton family and friends in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas, including letters written by Miles Moore Norton while traveling with his partner, Samuel Reid, through the lower South and old Southwest region to sell enslaved African-Americans. Other antebellum papers document participation in the Temperance movement by the Norton family and others, including Joseph Grisham of Canton, Ga., father-in-law of Miles Norton; efforts to attract Germans and other white farmers to the upcountry; volume, 1847, documenting cost of trip fromPickens, S.C. to Pontotoc, Miss.; a pocket diary, 1853, re the family's move to Athens, Ga., and Joseph Jeptha Norton's freshman year at Franklin College, now University of Georgia. Civil War items reflect Norton's Confederate military service in [James L.] Orr's Regiment of Rifles on Sullivan's Island, S.C., and in Virginia, including letters of Joseph Norton to his wife re daily activities of garrison duty, and letter, 14 Nov. 1861, Sullivan's Island, S.C., re arrest of "a supposed spy" at Fort Sumter. Account book, 1861-1862, contains Norton's accounts with officers and enlisted men in Company C, including account with William Jones, "free man of color"; pocket diary, May-Dec. 1862, documents Norton's service in Virginia, including an account of the Second Battle of Manassas; descriptive book of Orr's Regiment of Rifles, 1861-1865, 1891, contains a regimental history, an historical sketch, and a record of casualities. Reconstruction and post-war era materials discuss social conditions, race relations, debts, land for sale, widespread hopes for railroad expansion, and politics, including Norton's ideas to promote free schools, election reforms and suffrage, including letters from Benjamin Franklin Perry. Norton describes social life as circuit judge, ca. 1880s-1890s, including descriptions of Abbeville, Aiken, Barnwell, Beaufort, Bennettsville, Charleston, Chester, Colmbia, Edgefield, Florence, Georgetown, Greenville, Greenwood, Hampton, Kingstree, Lancaster, Laurens, Lexington, Manning, Mt. Pleasant, Newberry, Orangeburg, Pickens, Spartanburg, Sumter, Union, Walterboro, Winnsboro, and York. Collection also includes materials re the tobacco industry in Oconee County and the Ohalga Tobacco Company; genealogical data and correspondence of Mrs. W.L. Norton and others includes information re Norton, Watt, Lesley, Burdine, Grisham, Lawrence, Dowlin, Cason, Mills, Moore, Holbert, and Hill families.

1,086 items and 13 v.

University of South Carolina, System Library Service, University Libraries