Willis G. Briggs Papers, PC.355
Descriptive Summary
- Title
- Willis G. Briggs Papers
- Call Number
- PC.355
- Creator
- Briggs, Willis G. (Willis Grandy), 1875-1954
- Date
- 1794-1955
- Extent
- 7.400 cubic feet
- Repository
- State Archives of North Carolina
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], PC.355, Willis G. Briggs Papers, Private Collections, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC, U.S.A.
Collection Overview
Papers of the family of Briggs, Raleigh newspaper editor (1897-1907), postmaster, lawyer, and active Republican. Briggs's correspondence (1883-1954) includes letters about the Raleigh post office, his law practice, and local history. Family letters are from daughter Sarah as graduate student at Cornell University (1931-1935) and teacher, dean, and president of Penn Hall Junior College in Chambersburg, Pa. (1935-1945); letters to Sarah from Briggs (1925-1953) about clubs, speeches, politics, WWII, and visits to Raleigh of Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt; and from daughter Eliza B. Culberson, a navy wife in Rockingham, Florida, and Washington State (1934-1946). Other letters (1909-1938) concern Republican politics, party organization, and elections (especially 1916, 1921, 1938) with statement of contributions and expenditures in his campaign for Congress (1938). Political correspondents include Marion Butler, D. C. Downing, Clifford Frazier, Charles A. Jonas, Frank A. Linney, and John A. Park. A few speeches and articles by Briggs are political but most concern local history, including Negro history. Other papers include family deeds and financial records, his legal files, notes on family history, and pamphlets, including a Wake Forest College catalog (1893-1894). A few papers relate to the local draft board (1917).
Correspondence of Briggs's parents, Thomas Henry Briggs, Jr. (1847-1928), and Sarah Grandy Briggs, include family letters from Oxford, Nags Head, and Raleigh (1873-1892), some concerning the Briggs Hardware Company and the First Baptist Church of Raleigh; letters from cousin in Washington, D.C., describing election of 1884 and President Cleveland's inauguration (1885); and letters from Raleigh schoolteacher Eliza Pool describing her travels in U.S. and Europe. A post office receipt book for registered letters (1857-1858) contains clippings of marriages and deaths (1868-1904).
Papers of Willis Briggs's brother-in-law, Judge Thomas M. Pittman, include letters (1895-1926) about book collection, historical matters, and biographies, especially Nathaniel Macon, with copies of letter, instructions, and will of Macon (1828-1835). Correspondents include Samuel A. Ashe, Kemp P. Battle, R. D. W. Connor, William E. Dodd, Charles Van Noppen, Stephen B. Weeks, and George T. Winston.
Papers of Briggs's grandmother, Sarah Elizabeth Ferebee Lamb Grandy of Camden Co., include her diploma (1841) from Wesleyan Female Collegiate Institute, Wilmington, Del., and part of diary (1844) of return visit to the school and to New York and Boston. Her other papers include letter about election of 1844; letters from son making tide tables in Massachusetts (1871); scrapbooks of clippings, poetry, and stories, some by her; and Camden Co. deeds (1794-1859). Miscellaneous items include a broadside on "The Holden-Kirk War" (n.d.).