Simpson and Biddle Family Papers, PC.1533
Descriptive Summary
- Title
- Simpson and Biddle Family Papers
- Call Number
- PC.1533
- Creator
- Unknown
- Date
- 1721-1928, 1944
- Repository
- State Archives of North Carolina
Collection Overview
Papers of merchant-planters and legislators John (1728-1788) and Samuel (1765-1836) Simpson of Pitt and Craven counties; of Rev. William P. and Mary Simpson Biddle; of their son Samuel Simpson Biddle (1811-1873); and of his children and his Carraway in-laws. Letters to John and Samuel Simpson concern shipping, cotton, and other interests; churches in Raleigh (1811-1821); Columbian College (later George Washington University) in 1826; and Samuel S. Biddle at UNC. Correspondence of S. S. Biddle and his family includes letters about his campaign for legislature (1838); an acrostic by slave poet George Moses Horton of Chapel Hill; letter from Thomas Meredith of the Biblical Recorder (Raleigh), concerning his Baptist theology and Campbellism (1849); and letters about Wake Forest College (1851-1861) and early days of the Civil War there and in New Bern and Virginia. Letters from Capt. S. S. Biddle, Jr., Co. C, 61st Regt. NCT, from James W. Biddle, Co. H, 9th Regt. NCST (1st Regt. N.C. Cavalry), and from J. M. Taylor, sharpshooter, describe the battles of Seven Days and the crossing into Maryland (1862). Postwar letters concern financial problems, condition of Ft. Barnwell plantation, friends at Louisburg College and Raleigh, and revival in Philadelphia under Moody and Sankey (1876). Also letters to Rosa Biddle Smith from her husband Samuel about business and events in Charlotte and New York.
Land papers (1721-1888, 1932-1933) include Craven and Pitt county grants and deeds (1721-1870) for land in Ft. Barnwell area, for town lots in Martinsborough (later Greenville) in 1779, and for Shady Grove Meeting House in Jones Co. (1806). Business papers of the Simpsons (1772-1833) include accounts with merchants and with Capt. Anthony Degge for cargoes in several vessels (1785-1791) and distilling license and regulations (1814); and those of the Biddles (1835-1882) include receipts, bills of lading, overseer accounts, and papers of S. S. Biddle and Company steam mill at Ft. Barnwell (1850-1867). Business papers of Samuel P. Smith of Charlotte (1869-1907, 1944) concern a variety of investments. There are family wills including a legal opinion by James Iredell, Jr., and John H. Bryan (1834); guardian papers of Sarah F. Simpson Norcott for her daughter (1845-1854); and estate papers of Rev. William P. Biddle (d. 1853) with instructions about Baptist Convention funds and manumission of a slave, B. F. Biddle (d. 1853) with list of slaves and books, Samuel Simpson Biddle, Sr., Snoad B. Carraway (d. 1859), and others. Also tax papers, slave papers, tenant agreements and an apprentice bond with freed slaves (1865-1872), and Baptist material, including antiabolitionist essay and theological writings (n.d.) and typescript history of First Baptist Church in New Bern.
Miscellaneous items include description of Mexico City (ca. 1772) by mate of captured vessel from New Bern; copy of settlement for claims of the state against the federal government, Abishai Thomas, agent (ca. 1789); minutes of stockholders' meeting and detailed contract for building Neuse River Bridge at Ft. Barnwell (1857); and printed material, including pro-secession address by Marcus Erwin and W. W. Avery (Feb. 12, 1861). Other papers of Samuel Simpson Biddle are in the Manuscript Dept., Duke University Library.