Walter Clark (1846-1924) Papers, PC.8
Abstract
Walter Clark (b. Halifax County, N.C., 1846; d. 1924), Confederate soldier, jurist, editor, and historian. Judge, N.C. Superior Court, 1885-1888; Supreme Court, 1889-1924, of which Chief Justice, 1902-1924). Papers include five bound volumes, 15 black boxes; 11 fibredex boxes, consisting of letters, arguments and briefs, accounts, affidavits, notes, commissions and appointments, muster roll, sketches, licenses, certificates, addresses, articles, opinions, miscellaneous materials such as clippings, political ephemera, photographs, and variety of items such as a sharecropping contract, 1900, a program, N.C. Negro Tailors' Convention, 1917, etc.
Descriptive Summary
- Title
- Walter Clark (1846-1924) Papers
- Call Number
- PC.8
- Creator
- Clark, Walter, 1846-1924
- Date
- 1783-1924
- Extent
- 8.200 cubic feet, 0.010 gigabytes
- Repository
- State Archives of North Carolina
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], PC.8, Walter Clark Papers, Private Collections, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC, U.S.A.
Collection Overview
Correspondence and papers of Walter Clark, editor and historian, judge of N.C. superior
court and supreme court, chief justice of the latter (1902-1924), including Civil
War letters from friends and family, a militia commission for his father Brig. Gen.
David Clark, and a letter (1863) from General Clark about steam traffic on the Roanoke
River. Early political correspondence (1878-1879) primarily concerns the welfare of
the Democratic party in North Carolina and includes letters from and about Albion
W. Tourgee. Later correspondence (1892-1919) with many influential people concerns
Clark's campaigns for chief justice (1901, 1902, 1910) and his unsuccessful campaign
for the U.S. Senate (1912); questions of law, constitutional reform, court reform,
and the failure of courts to punish lynching; and his advocacy of such causes as women's
property rights, woman suffrage, regulation of the railroads, "trust-busting," and
William Jennings Bryan. Many letters relate to his writings--his sketches of the Revolutionary
War and Civil War periods; his regimental history of North Carolina troops in the
Civil War; his writings on the law and reforms; and his editorship of The State Records
of North Carolina (1895-1907, 16 volumes), including letters and transcripts from
researchers in the United States and Great Britain. Others concern portraits and statues
for buildings in Raleigh, farming and textile manufacture, and service on the National
War Labor Board during WWI. There are letters from his sons in Europe (1905, 1918-1919)
and in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution (1911). Miscellaneous items include a
muster roll of Co. K, 38th Regt. NCT (1863); and drafts of letters and speeches. Correspondents
include Graham Daves, Lyman C. Draper, A. W. Graham, Mrs. Thomas J. Jackson, Claude
Kitchin, William H. Kitchin, William W. Kitchin, Augustus S. Merrimon, J. M. Mullen,
Lee S. Overman, W. Noel Sainsbury, Furnifold M. Simmons, and Gertrude Weil. About
200 of the letters are published in A. L. Brooks and H. T. Lefler (eds.), The Papers
of Walter Clark, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill, 1948-1950).
Collection also includes many papers of David L. Swain (Clark was executor of Mrs.
Swain's estate), including a 1799 militia return of eastern North Carolina counties;
letters relating to the Ellsworth-Davie-Murray mission to France (1799-1800); correspondence
and briefs relating to suit (1804) for recovery of Granville District lands, with
William Gaston and Duncan Cameron as counsels for the opposing sides; letters to John
Steele from Alfred Moore on the circuit court, from Richard Dobbs Spaight, Sr., on
a slave conspiracy (1802), and from David Stone and William Hawkins about boundary
commissions (1810, 1813); descriptions of mineral springs resorts (1809-1811, 1855);
information on land in Tennessee; report (1824) to the General Assembly on the Indian
treaties of 1817 and 1819; statement (1823) on Cherokee fighting (1776), Tories, and
settlers in Surry Co. and southern Virginia; correspondence (1825-1826) of Archibald
D. Murphey concerning North Carolina history; letters (1821-1828) from Congressman
Romulus M. Sanders to Bartlett Yancey, discussing presidential contests of 1824 and
1828; and affidavits (1853, 1858), copy of survey, and map relating to birthplace
of Andrew Jackson.
Swain's personal papers (1826-1877) relate to land, house, slaves, farming, and salt
production in Buncombe Co.; the Mecklenburg Declaration (1849); opportunities in Texas
(1853); Crawford W. Long's claim to discovery of ether as an anesthetic (1853); Cherokee
Indian cases in court (1860); and his resignation as president of UNC, death, and
settlement of his estate. Letters from UNC trustees Charles Manly and Thomas Ruffin
concern the financial status of the university, its curriculum, and struggles to meet
obligations after the war. Other UNC papers concern books purchased (1842), meetings
of the Board of Trustees, exemption of students from Confederate conscription, and
visits of James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson. Also included are an exchange of letters
with General Sherman and descriptions of Swain's and William A. Graham's meeting with
Sherman at the end of the war; letters concerning his postwar negotiations in Washington
on behalf of North Carolina; reports of postwar conditions in the countryside; Swain's
appointment to Board of Visitors for West Point; and letters concerning the Peabody
Fund.
An addition to the Clark papers in 2002 supply lacunae in, or augment the body of
papers given between 1911 and 1924. As with the earlier materials, these very nearly
all relate to Clark as a public figure, and not as a family man, though some amount
of correspondence with his family and friends, and with his bookseller in London,
Benjamin F. Stevens, is included among them.Some of the papers relate to party politics
and others to political principles.Some reflect Clark's personal interests and others
his judicial, social, and economic philosophy.The range of correspondents is as great
in this additional group of papers as it was in the original group.Letters from many
of the correspondents represented in the original group of papers will be found in
this addition, and the list of correspondents reported for the oririginal group of
papers ought to be consulted.Some, but by no means all, of the additional correspondents
whoe letters will be found in this present addition to the Clark papers include S.S.
Alsop, Dossey Battle, George F. Edmunds, Samuel J. Fall, Jesse Johnson Finley, Augustus
Washington Graham, George W. Graham, Robert Davidson Graham, Alfred Williams Haywood,
J. Allen Holt, William Jeanneret, Benjamin Avery Lavender, Edward Jackson Lowell,
Zachariah Inge Lyon, H.G. McCall, Adolphus Williamson Mangum, Hugh F. Murray, John
Nichols, Leonidas Lafayette Polk, William McKendree Robbins, Charles H. Smith, Peter
Evans Smith, Benjamin Franklin Stevens, W.W. Stringfield, William Worrell Vass, Zeb
Vance Walser, A.D. Watts, and William Richard Wood.
A transfer to the Clark papers from the N.C. Museum of History consisted of the following:
Letter, 25 February 1901, from Emily Benbury Haywood to Justice Clark.
In March 2014 the following was added to the papers, PC.8.31. Series: Addresses, Articles,
Opinions, 1892-1922: a commencement speech by Walter Clark, Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of North Carolina, St. Augustine's School, Raleigh, N.C., 26 May 1920, on "The
Negro in North Carolina and the South" (1920), printed in the ST. AUGUSTINE RECORD
(Raleigh: Edgar H. Goold, editor, principal, 1920), Vol. 15, No. 5. It was transferred
from the Daniel H. Hill Jr. Papers, PC.94.
Contents of the Collection
-
• DS_200106195 (7 files, 97.4 MB)DS_200106195
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• Manuscripts (mounted volume)PC.8.01
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• Manuscripts (mounted volume)PC.8.02
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• Manuscripts (mounted volume)PC.8.03
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• Manuscripts (mounted volume)PC.8.04
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• Manuscripts (mounted volume)PC.8.05
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• CorrespondencePC.8.06-07
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• CorrespondencePC.8.12-14
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• CorrespondencePC.8.14-16
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• Correspondence; Civil War; Appointments and CommissionsPC.8.16-18
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• Revolutionary War; Miscellaneous; Typescripts of lettersPC.8.18-20
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• Addition of 2001: CorrespondencePC.8.21
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• Addition of 2001: CorrespondencePC.8.22
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• Addition of 2001: CorrespondencePC.8.23
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• Addition of 2001: CorrespondencePC.8.24
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• Addition of 2001: CorrespondencePC.8.25
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• Addition of 2001: CorrespondencePC.8.26
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• Addition of 2001: CorrespondencePC.8.27
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• Addition of 2001: CorrespondencePC.8.28
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• Addition of 2001: CorrespondencePC.8.29
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• Addition of 2001: Miscellaneous MaterialsPC.8.30
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• Addition of 2001: Addresses, Articles, OpinionsPC.8.31
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• CorrespondencePC.8.08-10
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• CorrespondencePC.8.10-12
Subject Headings
Acquisitions Information
Gift