This post was contributed by Bella Thomas, a student worker in the Center’s public services unit.

Nestled within the Center's collections is a piece of rare United States history: a Civil War-era Wade and Ford medical kit filled with supplies that were most likely used on civilians who needed medical attention. The kit, something I was completely unfamiliar with, introduced me to a new type of history, and also made me appreciate modern surgical technology! 

During the Civil War, there were several medical achievements that paved the way for modern healthcare, such as the establishment of general hospitals and the safe use of anesthetics. Upon opening the wooden kit, I was greeted with a trephine (pictured below), a tool used to open the skull. The trephine has a sharp metal head that attaches to another wooden tool. These types of Wade and Ford kits were created starting in 1861, when William Ford and George Wade partnered with Dr. James R. Wood, a surgeon who later became one of the founders of Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City.  

Laid against the green velvet interior of the kit are several scalpels, including curved bistouries that were used for the dissection of ligaments and tissue. There are large and small amputation tools, such as a metacarpal knife and a long catlin. A traveler folding tenaculum (pictured below) was used to remove bullets or to pull out arteries to tie them off. A saw with a curved handle and serrated edges was used for lifting metacarpals, cutting fingers, and cutting tendons. Small, sharp, hooked instruments most likely used for cataract or other eye surgeries are housed next to the trephine. A lightly used bone brush accompanies these tools, as well as forceps, a straight probe tenotome used for relieving pain in tendons, and a large bone saw. Other tools were used for bullet extraction, picking up blood vessels, and neurosurgery. Only one postmortem instrument was housed in this kit - a simple, small knife.  

This kit allows us to get a glimpse of civilian life during the Civil War. It houses not only medical equipment, but stories of loss and survival. Viewing this kit allows us to appreciate modern medical technology while simultaneously studying tools that were considered revolutionary for the time. History is found in human stories, whether they are bound tightly in a stack of letters, placed in books, or within artifacts that allow for reflection, contemplation, and discovery of those who came before us.  

Special thanks to Dr. Doug Arbittier, Vice President of Atlantic Health System, for helping identify some instruments.

Sources consulted in research:

• “Antique Surgical Instrument Identification” and “Civil War Medical Books/Medical College Index”, American Civil War Surgical Antiques and Medicine, accessed August 2024, American Civil War Surgical Antiques and Medicine.
• Reilly RF. Medical and surgical care during the American Civil War, 1861-1865. Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent). 2016 Apr;29(2):138-42. doi: 10.1080/08998280.2016.11929390. PMID: 27034545; PMCID: PMC4790547.

This week's edition of our blog focuses on a document from our North Carolina state government publications entitled, A History of African Americans in North Carolina. The volume was first published by the North Carolina Department of Archives and History in 1992, with revisions in 2002 and 2011; the Library has copies of all three versions. It tells the history of African Americans in our state from the colonial origins of slavery to the rise of African American political power. 

Considering the Center's focus on southeastern North Carolina, this post will highlight topics such as the simple act of attending church in Duplin County for enslaved Black people and how they were manipulated in New Hanover County. There are many more topics that are discussed within this resource regarding the history of African Americans across the state, therefore it may warrant a visit to the Center's reading room to discover the history that is highlighted throughout this book. 

“In New Hanover County in 1763 approximately 55% of the households owned enslaved people. Enslaved people, moreover, constituted 73% of the taxables in New Hanover County in 1767 and more than 80% in (neighboring) Brunswick County.” According to the authors, the city of Wilmington commissioners were harsher on these people living in this area of the state. An example of this is highlighted by the selling of farm produce in the markets, but there was no way of ensuring enslaved people were returning any monies they may have earned back to their enslaver. Some enslaved people kept part, or even all earnings from the sale of the produce. As a result “as early as 1745, the General Assembly empowered Wilmington commissioners to monitor the role of enslaved people in the markets. To sell produce, the enslaved people needed to carry tickets, (issued to them), from their enslavers…in 1765 Wilmington commissioners promulgated a set of even stricter ordinances, including a ten o’clock curfew each night.” More instances are listed in the book regarding how these commissioners made it even more difficult for the lives of enslaved people living in the Wilmington area.

Regarding religion and church attendance, “before the War of 1812, African Americans-enslaved and free-made up about one-third of the Methodists in North Carolina. Around that same time, “separate African churches had been established in Wilmington, New Bern, Fayetteville, and Edenton." Of course, enslaved people were not allowed “to be exposed to potentially subversive information or hear the wrong kind of preaching,” especially after 1830 when the education of enslaved people became strictly prohibited. Furthermore, “all meetings of (enslaved people), even for religious purposes, were supposed to be supervised, and ministers were expected to support the system of slavery. Lizzie Baker, who grew up in Duplin County, reported that her parents were taken with the enslaver's family ‘to the white folks’ church. They said the preachers told them they had to obey their 'missus and master.’” Baker went on to describe “secret prayer meetings arranged by (enslaved people)…. even after patrollers found them and beat them.”

In 1910 the state of education for African American students began to improve somewhat as elementary schools for Black children "began receiving state funds....three years later the state established the office of supervisor of rural elementary schools to promote the education of Black (children)...with Nathan C. Newbold becoming the first state agent for these schools." Additional funds were secured from such philanthropic agencies as the "Peabody, Rosenwald, Jeanes, and Salter funds, along with the General Education Board," that all supported Newbold's work. The book goes on to state that resources from the Jeanes Fund "made possible the hiring of supervisors for rural schools, and the Rosenwald Fund financed the construction of schools." As evidenced by the accompanying photo, Newbold would go on to highlight the great discrepancies in schools for Black and white children. 

To reiterate, these are just a few examples of the long history of African Americans in the state of North Carolina. The book goes into detail regarding other areas of African American history in our state such as the effects on the practice of slavery by the American Revolution, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and Black Life in the Age of Jim Crow. Contributions to the book were made by members of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History and professors of history at Shaw University, Wake Forest University, and St. Augustine College.

This post was contributed by Hannah Gaydeski, a student worker in the Center's Public Services unit.

The Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives and History holds a mysterious manuscript item entitled “Diary (author unknown)” written from 1859 to 1864. I first consulted this diary during the Fall 2025 semester, when I researched Victorian hair jewelry for my final project for the English department’s Victorian Literature class. Given that this diary was labeled as having a significant overlap with the Civil War, I was hopeful that there might be some mention of hair jewelry or hair wreaths, which were connected to the era's mourning practices. I did come across a mention of “wreaths” on January 28, 1859. This was obviously not a focus of the diary, but it did contain some valuable insights. 

The author of the diary was a schoolteacher at the Glen Anna Seminary, and had just arrived for her first semester. The author documents her daily activities. She focuses on irregular but necessary activities, such as laundry or food preservation. My interest quickly expanded to other mentioned instances of material culture, such as wax replicas, painting, and letter-writing. As to the physical properties of the diary, it is bound in a cloth hardcover. The pages have browned and the ruling has faded. Towards the end of the diary there is a small envelope and a poem, with an accompanying dried flower wrapped between the slit envelope. At the very back there is a blotting paper. Some pages at the end of the diary have been cut out, but the final known entry is contained in its entirety on the last page. 

I was curious about the author’s identity and conducted a quick internet search for the school, as the author had not signed her name to the  book. This turned up two digitized Glen Anna Seminary catalogs, one of which dates from 1858-1859, which overlaps with the diary’s creation. The school, a girl’s seminary, was described as “not sectarian. There are nine branches of the christian [sic] church represented, and we have teachers of different denominations." I expanded my research to include instances of the author’s interpersonal relationships at this point, hoping to uncover her identity. The documentation of her friendships and the information in the catalog led me to believe that the author was one “Miss Maggie Clewell.” The diary author could not be P.L. Lathrop, Jennie Jenks, S.T. Ray, nor S.A. Burch, as the author had written about all of these women. This left the two assistant pupils, or Maggie Clewell, the “Teacher of Mathematics and English Branches” as potential authors. Clewell seemed the most likely choice as she had made mention of teaching algebra before. Furthermore, a second search turned up a related collection in our archives! The Clewell Family Collection (MS 365) contains manuscripts relating to Margaret (Maggie) Clewell Jenkins and her brother, Francis Christian Clewell. The diary’s author had mentioned writing to “Frank,” a common nickname for Francis. 

After cross-referencing with the Clewell Family collection, I determined that the diary was definitely connected to this collection. This collection contains a family history entitled Endurin’ The War and a series of letters from Francis (Frank) Christian Clewell written to his family during his service in the Civil War and up until his death in 1867. Frank’s letters are not originals, unlike the diary, but were instead transcribed on a typewriter some time afterwards. Whoever transcribed the letters included notes describing family relations, errors in the accounts, and even physical descriptions of the paper that the letters were written on! This editor confirmed that Maggie taught at the Glen Anna Seminary and was Frank’s sister. The editor also mentioned that she married a Robert Alexander Jenkins, Jr. From this, I was able to successfully cross-reference events between the letters and the diary. It would appear that the diary and letters were separated from each other at some point after being donated to UNCW Library and were never reunited, since connecting the diary to the family collection would require a familiarity with the family. Both collections state the “method and date of acquisition unknown,” but the digitization of other records has happily provided enough evidence to connect the collections back to each other. 

[Update: Thanks to Hannah's research, Special Collections staff were able to reunite this orphaned diary with its parent collection in April 2026. It can now be found as part of MS 365 Clewell Family Collection (finding aid linked below)]

Sources

• MS 365 Clewell Family Collection
• Catalogue of the officers and students of Glen Anna Seminary, at Thomasville, North Carolina 1858/1859

Further Reading

• The Church and Private Schools of North Carolina: A Historical Study, by Charles Lee Raper (1898)
• Transcripts of Clewell family letters posted to the blog Spared and Shared 7
• "Women's Colleges in North Carolina, a Postal History," by Tony L. Crumbley, from the North Carolina Postal Historian vol. 36, no. 3 (Summer 2017)

This week's edition of our blog focuses on a document from our North Carolina state government publications entitled, A History of African Americans in North Carolina. The volume was first published by the North Carolina Department of Archives and History in 1992, with revisions in 2002 and 2011; the Library has copies of all three versions. It tells the history of African Americans in our state from the colonial origins of slavery to the rise of African American political power. 

Considering the Center's focus on southeastern North Carolina, this post will highlight topics such as the simple act of attending church in Duplin County for enslaved Black people and how they were manipulated in New Hanover County. There are many more topics that are discussed within this resource regarding the history of African Americans across the state, therefore it may warrant a visit to the Center's reading room to discover the history that is highlighted throughout this book. 

“In New Hanover County in 1763 approximately 55% of the households owned enslaved people. Enslaved people, moreover, constituted 73% of the taxables in New Hanover County in 1767 and more than 80% in (neighboring) Brunswick County.” According to the authors, the city of Wilmington commissioners were harsher on these people living in this area of the state. An example of this is highlighted by the selling of farm produce in the markets, but there was no way of ensuring enslaved people were returning any monies they may have earned back to their enslaver. Some enslaved people kept part, or even all earnings from the sale of the produce. As a result “as early as 1745, the General Assembly empowered Wilmington commissioners to monitor the role of enslaved people in the markets. To sell produce, the enslaved people needed to carry tickets, (issued to them), from their enslavers…in 1765 Wilmington commissioners promulgated a set of even stricter ordinances, including a ten o’clock curfew each night.” More instances are listed in the book regarding how these commissioners made it even more difficult for the lives of enslaved people living in the Wilmington area.

Regarding religion and church attendance, “before the War of 1812, African Americans-enslaved and free-made up about one-third of the Methodists in North Carolina. Around that same time, “separate African churches had been established in Wilmington, New Bern, Fayetteville, and Edenton." Of course, enslaved people were not allowed “to be exposed to potentially subversive information or hear the wrong kind of preaching,” especially after 1830 when the education of enslaved people became strictly prohibited. Furthermore, “all meetings of (enslaved people), even for religious purposes, were supposed to be supervised, and ministers were expected to support the system of slavery. Lizzie Baker, who grew up in Duplin County, reported that her parents were taken with the enslaver's family ‘to the white folks’ church. They said the preachers told them they had to obey their 'missus and master.’” Baker went on to describe “secret prayer meetings arranged by (enslaved people)…. even after patrollers found them and beat them.”

In 1910 the state of education for African American students began to improve somewhat as elementary schools for Black children "began receiving state funds....three years later the state established the office of supervisor of rural elementary schools to promote the education of Black (children)...with Nathan C. Newbold becoming the first state agent for these schools." Additional funds were secured from such philanthropic agencies as the "Peabody, Rosenwald, Jeanes, and Salter funds, along with the General Education Board," that all supported Newbold's work. The book goes on to state that resources from the Jeanes Fund "made possible the hiring of supervisors for rural schools, and the Rosenwald Fund financed the construction of schools." As evidenced by the accompanying photo, Newbold would go on to highlight the great discrepancies in schools for Black and white children. 

To reiterate, these are just a few examples of the long history of African Americans in the state of North Carolina. The book goes into detail regarding other areas of African American history in our state such as the effects on the practice of slavery by the American Revolution, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and Black Life in the Age of Jim Crow. Contributions to the book were made by members of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History and professors of history at Shaw University, Wake Forest University, and St. Augustine College.

This post was contributed by Bella Thomas, a student worker in the Center’s public services unit.

Nestled within the Center's collections is a piece of rare United States history: a Civil War-era Wade and Ford medical kit filled with supplies that were most likely used on civilians who needed medical attention. The kit, something I was completely unfamiliar with, introduced me to a new type of history, and also made me appreciate modern surgical technology! 

During the Civil War, there were several medical achievements that paved the way for modern healthcare, such as the establishment of general hospitals and the safe use of anesthetics. Upon opening the wooden kit, I was greeted with a trephine (pictured below), a tool used to open the skull. The trephine has a sharp metal head that attaches to another wooden tool. These types of Wade and Ford kits were created starting in 1861, when William Ford and George Wade partnered with Dr. James R. Wood, a surgeon who later became one of the founders of Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City.  

Laid against the green velvet interior of the kit are several scalpels, including curved bistouries that were used for the dissection of ligaments and tissue. There are large and small amputation tools, such as a metacarpal knife and a long catlin. A traveler folding tenaculum (pictured below) was used to remove bullets or to pull out arteries to tie them off. A saw with a curved handle and serrated edges was used for lifting metacarpals, cutting fingers, and cutting tendons. Small, sharp, hooked instruments most likely used for cataract or other eye surgeries are housed next to the trephine. A lightly used bone brush accompanies these tools, as well as forceps, a straight probe tenotome used for relieving pain in tendons, and a large bone saw. Other tools were used for bullet extraction, picking up blood vessels, and neurosurgery. Only one postmortem instrument was housed in this kit - a simple, small knife.  

This kit allows us to get a glimpse of civilian life during the Civil War. It houses not only medical equipment, but stories of loss and survival. Viewing this kit allows us to appreciate modern medical technology while simultaneously studying tools that were considered revolutionary for the time. History is found in human stories, whether they are bound tightly in a stack of letters, placed in books, or within artifacts that allow for reflection, contemplation, and discovery of those who came before us.  

Special thanks to Dr. Doug Arbittier, Vice President of Atlantic Health System, for helping identify some instruments.

Sources consulted in research:

• “Antique Surgical Instrument Identification” and “Civil War Medical Books/Medical College Index”, American Civil War Surgical Antiques and Medicine, accessed August 2024, American Civil War Surgical Antiques and Medicine.
• Reilly RF. Medical and surgical care during the American Civil War, 1861-1865. Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent). 2016 Apr;29(2):138-42. doi: 10.1080/08998280.2016.11929390. PMID: 27034545; PMCID: PMC4790547.

This post was contributed by Hannah Gaydeski, a student worker in the Center's Public Services unit.

The Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives and History holds a mysterious manuscript item entitled “Diary (author unknown)” written from 1859 to 1864. I first consulted this diary during the Fall 2025 semester, when I researched Victorian hair jewelry for my final project for the English department’s Victorian Literature class. Given that this diary was labeled as having a significant overlap with the Civil War, I was hopeful that there might be some mention of hair jewelry or hair wreaths, which were connected to the era's mourning practices. I did come across a mention of “wreaths” on January 28, 1859. This was obviously not a focus of the diary, but it did contain some valuable insights. 

The author of the diary was a schoolteacher at the Glen Anna Seminary, and had just arrived for her first semester. The author documents her daily activities. She focuses on irregular but necessary activities, such as laundry or food preservation. My interest quickly expanded to other mentioned instances of material culture, such as wax replicas, painting, and letter-writing. As to the physical properties of the diary, it is bound in a cloth hardcover. The pages have browned and the ruling has faded. Towards the end of the diary there is a small envelope and a poem, with an accompanying dried flower wrapped between the slit envelope. At the very back there is a blotting paper. Some pages at the end of the diary have been cut out, but the final known entry is contained in its entirety on the last page. 

I was curious about the author’s identity and conducted a quick internet search for the school, as the author had not signed her name to the  book. This turned up two digitized Glen Anna Seminary catalogs, one of which dates from 1858-1859, which overlaps with the diary’s creation. The school, a girl’s seminary, was described as “not sectarian. There are nine branches of the christian [sic] church represented, and we have teachers of different denominations." I expanded my research to include instances of the author’s interpersonal relationships at this point, hoping to uncover her identity. The documentation of her friendships and the information in the catalog led me to believe that the author was one “Miss Maggie Clewell.” The diary author could not be P.L. Lathrop, Jennie Jenks, S.T. Ray, nor S.A. Burch, as the author had written about all of these women. This left the two assistant pupils, or Maggie Clewell, the “Teacher of Mathematics and English Branches” as potential authors. Clewell seemed the most likely choice as she had made mention of teaching algebra before. Furthermore, a second search turned up a related collection in our archives! The Clewell Family Collection (MS 365) contains manuscripts relating to Margaret (Maggie) Clewell Jenkins and her brother, Francis Christian Clewell. The diary’s author had mentioned writing to “Frank,” a common nickname for Francis. 

After cross-referencing with the Clewell Family collection, I determined that the diary was definitely connected to this collection. This collection contains a family history entitled Endurin’ The War and a series of letters from Francis (Frank) Christian Clewell written to his family during his service in the Civil War and up until his death in 1867. Frank’s letters are not originals, unlike the diary, but were instead transcribed on a typewriter some time afterwards. Whoever transcribed the letters included notes describing family relations, errors in the accounts, and even physical descriptions of the paper that the letters were written on! This editor confirmed that Maggie taught at the Glen Anna Seminary and was Frank’s sister. The editor also mentioned that she married a Robert Alexander Jenkins, Jr. From this, I was able to successfully cross-reference events between the letters and the diary. It would appear that the diary and letters were separated from each other at some point after being donated to UNCW Library and were never reunited, since connecting the diary to the family collection would require a familiarity with the family. Both collections state the “method and date of acquisition unknown,” but the digitization of other records has happily provided enough evidence to connect the collections back to each other. 

[Update: Thanks to Hannah's research, Special Collections staff were able to reunite this orphaned diary with its parent collection in April 2026. It can now be found as part of MS 365 Clewell Family Collection (finding aid linked below)]

Sources

• MS 365 Clewell Family Collection
• Catalogue of the officers and students of Glen Anna Seminary, at Thomasville, North Carolina 1858/1859

Further Reading

• The Church and Private Schools of North Carolina: A Historical Study, by Charles Lee Raper (1898)
• Transcripts of Clewell family letters posted to the blog Spared and Shared 7
• "Women's Colleges in North Carolina, a Postal History," by Tony L. Crumbley, from the North Carolina Postal Historian vol. 36, no. 3 (Summer 2017)

This week's edition of our blog focuses on a document from our North Carolina state government publications entitled, A History of African Americans in North Carolina. The volume was first published by the North Carolina Department of Archives and History in 1992, with revisions in 2002 and 2011; the Library has copies of all three versions. It tells the history of African Americans in our state from the colonial origins of slavery to the rise of African American political power. 

Considering the Center's focus on southeastern North Carolina, this post will highlight topics such as the simple act of attending church in Duplin County for enslaved Black people and how they were manipulated in New Hanover County. There are many more topics that are discussed within this resource regarding the history of African Americans across the state, therefore it may warrant a visit to the Center's reading room to discover the history that is highlighted throughout this book. 

“In New Hanover County in 1763 approximately 55% of the households owned enslaved people. Enslaved people, moreover, constituted 73% of the taxables in New Hanover County in 1767 and more than 80% in (neighboring) Brunswick County.” According to the authors, the city of Wilmington commissioners were harsher on these people living in this area of the state. An example of this is highlighted by the selling of farm produce in the markets, but there was no way of ensuring enslaved people were returning any monies they may have earned back to their enslaver. Some enslaved people kept part, or even all earnings from the sale of the produce. As a result “as early as 1745, the General Assembly empowered Wilmington commissioners to monitor the role of enslaved people in the markets. To sell produce, the enslaved people needed to carry tickets, (issued to them), from their enslavers…in 1765 Wilmington commissioners promulgated a set of even stricter ordinances, including a ten o’clock curfew each night.” More instances are listed in the book regarding how these commissioners made it even more difficult for the lives of enslaved people living in the Wilmington area.

Regarding religion and church attendance, “before the War of 1812, African Americans-enslaved and free-made up about one-third of the Methodists in North Carolina. Around that same time, “separate African churches had been established in Wilmington, New Bern, Fayetteville, and Edenton." Of course, enslaved people were not allowed “to be exposed to potentially subversive information or hear the wrong kind of preaching,” especially after 1830 when the education of enslaved people became strictly prohibited. Furthermore, “all meetings of (enslaved people), even for religious purposes, were supposed to be supervised, and ministers were expected to support the system of slavery. Lizzie Baker, who grew up in Duplin County, reported that her parents were taken with the enslaver's family ‘to the white folks’ church. They said the preachers told them they had to obey their 'missus and master.’” Baker went on to describe “secret prayer meetings arranged by (enslaved people)…. even after patrollers found them and beat them.”

In 1910 the state of education for African American students began to improve somewhat as elementary schools for Black children "began receiving state funds....three years later the state established the office of supervisor of rural elementary schools to promote the education of Black (children)...with Nathan C. Newbold becoming the first state agent for these schools." Additional funds were secured from such philanthropic agencies as the "Peabody, Rosenwald, Jeanes, and Salter funds, along with the General Education Board," that all supported Newbold's work. The book goes on to state that resources from the Jeanes Fund "made possible the hiring of supervisors for rural schools, and the Rosenwald Fund financed the construction of schools." As evidenced by the accompanying photo, Newbold would go on to highlight the great discrepancies in schools for Black and white children. 

To reiterate, these are just a few examples of the long history of African Americans in the state of North Carolina. The book goes into detail regarding other areas of African American history in our state such as the effects on the practice of slavery by the American Revolution, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and Black Life in the Age of Jim Crow. Contributions to the book were made by members of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History and professors of history at Shaw University, Wake Forest University, and St. Augustine College.

This post was contributed by Bella Thomas, a student worker in the Center’s public services unit.

Nestled within the Center's collections is a piece of rare United States history: a Civil War-era Wade and Ford medical kit filled with supplies that were most likely used on civilians who needed medical attention. The kit, something I was completely unfamiliar with, introduced me to a new type of history, and also made me appreciate modern surgical technology! 

During the Civil War, there were several medical achievements that paved the way for modern healthcare, such as the establishment of general hospitals and the safe use of anesthetics. Upon opening the wooden kit, I was greeted with a trephine (pictured below), a tool used to open the skull. The trephine has a sharp metal head that attaches to another wooden tool. These types of Wade and Ford kits were created starting in 1861, when William Ford and George Wade partnered with Dr. James R. Wood, a surgeon who later became one of the founders of Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York City.  

Laid against the green velvet interior of the kit are several scalpels, including curved bistouries that were used for the dissection of ligaments and tissue. There are large and small amputation tools, such as a metacarpal knife and a long catlin. A traveler folding tenaculum (pictured below) was used to remove bullets or to pull out arteries to tie them off. A saw with a curved handle and serrated edges was used for lifting metacarpals, cutting fingers, and cutting tendons. Small, sharp, hooked instruments most likely used for cataract or other eye surgeries are housed next to the trephine. A lightly used bone brush accompanies these tools, as well as forceps, a straight probe tenotome used for relieving pain in tendons, and a large bone saw. Other tools were used for bullet extraction, picking up blood vessels, and neurosurgery. Only one postmortem instrument was housed in this kit - a simple, small knife.  

This kit allows us to get a glimpse of civilian life during the Civil War. It houses not only medical equipment, but stories of loss and survival. Viewing this kit allows us to appreciate modern medical technology while simultaneously studying tools that were considered revolutionary for the time. History is found in human stories, whether they are bound tightly in a stack of letters, placed in books, or within artifacts that allow for reflection, contemplation, and discovery of those who came before us.  

Special thanks to Dr. Doug Arbittier, Vice President of Atlantic Health System, for helping identify some instruments.

Sources consulted in research:

• “Antique Surgical Instrument Identification” and “Civil War Medical Books/Medical College Index”, American Civil War Surgical Antiques and Medicine, accessed August 2024, American Civil War Surgical Antiques and Medicine.
• Reilly RF. Medical and surgical care during the American Civil War, 1861-1865. Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent). 2016 Apr;29(2):138-42. doi: 10.1080/08998280.2016.11929390. PMID: 27034545; PMCID: PMC4790547.

This post was contributed by Hannah Gaydeski, a student worker in the Center's Public Services unit.

The Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives and History holds a mysterious manuscript item entitled “Diary (author unknown)” written from 1859 to 1864. I first consulted this diary during the Fall 2025 semester, when I researched Victorian hair jewelry for my final project for the English department’s Victorian Literature class. Given that this diary was labeled as having a significant overlap with the Civil War, I was hopeful that there might be some mention of hair jewelry or hair wreaths, which were connected to the era's mourning practices. I did come across a mention of “wreaths” on January 28, 1859. This was obviously not a focus of the diary, but it did contain some valuable insights. 

The author of the diary was a schoolteacher at the Glen Anna Seminary, and had just arrived for her first semester. The author documents her daily activities. She focuses on irregular but necessary activities, such as laundry or food preservation. My interest quickly expanded to other mentioned instances of material culture, such as wax replicas, painting, and letter-writing. As to the physical properties of the diary, it is bound in a cloth hardcover. The pages have browned and the ruling has faded. Towards the end of the diary there is a small envelope and a poem, with an accompanying dried flower wrapped between the slit envelope. At the very back there is a blotting paper. Some pages at the end of the diary have been cut out, but the final known entry is contained in its entirety on the last page. 

I was curious about the author’s identity and conducted a quick internet search for the school, as the author had not signed her name to the  book. This turned up two digitized Glen Anna Seminary catalogs, one of which dates from 1858-1859, which overlaps with the diary’s creation. The school, a girl’s seminary, was described as “not sectarian. There are nine branches of the christian [sic] church represented, and we have teachers of different denominations." I expanded my research to include instances of the author’s interpersonal relationships at this point, hoping to uncover her identity. The documentation of her friendships and the information in the catalog led me to believe that the author was one “Miss Maggie Clewell.” The diary author could not be P.L. Lathrop, Jennie Jenks, S.T. Ray, nor S.A. Burch, as the author had written about all of these women. This left the two assistant pupils, or Maggie Clewell, the “Teacher of Mathematics and English Branches” as potential authors. Clewell seemed the most likely choice as she had made mention of teaching algebra before. Furthermore, a second search turned up a related collection in our archives! The Clewell Family Collection (MS 365) contains manuscripts relating to Margaret (Maggie) Clewell Jenkins and her brother, Francis Christian Clewell. The diary’s author had mentioned writing to “Frank,” a common nickname for Francis. 

After cross-referencing with the Clewell Family collection, I determined that the diary was definitely connected to this collection. This collection contains a family history entitled Endurin’ The War and a series of letters from Francis (Frank) Christian Clewell written to his family during his service in the Civil War and up until his death in 1867. Frank’s letters are not originals, unlike the diary, but were instead transcribed on a typewriter some time afterwards. Whoever transcribed the letters included notes describing family relations, errors in the accounts, and even physical descriptions of the paper that the letters were written on! This editor confirmed that Maggie taught at the Glen Anna Seminary and was Frank’s sister. The editor also mentioned that she married a Robert Alexander Jenkins, Jr. From this, I was able to successfully cross-reference events between the letters and the diary. It would appear that the diary and letters were separated from each other at some point after being donated to UNCW Library and were never reunited, since connecting the diary to the family collection would require a familiarity with the family. Both collections state the “method and date of acquisition unknown,” but the digitization of other records has happily provided enough evidence to connect the collections back to each other. 

[Update: Thanks to Hannah's research, Special Collections staff were able to reunite this orphaned diary with its parent collection in April 2026. It can now be found as part of MS 365 Clewell Family Collection (finding aid linked below)]

Sources

• MS 365 Clewell Family Collection
• Catalogue of the officers and students of Glen Anna Seminary, at Thomasville, North Carolina 1858/1859

Further Reading

• The Church and Private Schools of North Carolina: A Historical Study, by Charles Lee Raper (1898)
• Transcripts of Clewell family letters posted to the blog Spared and Shared 7
• "Women's Colleges in North Carolina, a Postal History," by Tony L. Crumbley, from the North Carolina Postal Historian vol. 36, no. 3 (Summer 2017)

This week's edition of our blog focuses on a document from our North Carolina state government publications entitled, A History of African Americans in North Carolina. The volume was first published by the North Carolina Department of Archives and History in 1992, with revisions in 2002 and 2011; the Library has copies of all three versions. It tells the history of African Americans in our state from the colonial origins of slavery to the rise of African American political power. 

Considering the Center's focus on southeastern North Carolina, this post will highlight topics such as the simple act of attending church in Duplin County for enslaved Black people and how they were manipulated in New Hanover County. There are many more topics that are discussed within this resource regarding the history of African Americans across the state, therefore it may warrant a visit to the Center's reading room to discover the history that is highlighted throughout this book. 

“In New Hanover County in 1763 approximately 55% of the households owned enslaved people. Enslaved people, moreover, constituted 73% of the taxables in New Hanover County in 1767 and more than 80% in (neighboring) Brunswick County.” According to the authors, the city of Wilmington commissioners were harsher on these people living in this area of the state. An example of this is highlighted by the selling of farm produce in the markets, but there was no way of ensuring enslaved people were returning any monies they may have earned back to their enslaver. Some enslaved people kept part, or even all earnings from the sale of the produce. As a result “as early as 1745, the General Assembly empowered Wilmington commissioners to monitor the role of enslaved people in the markets. To sell produce, the enslaved people needed to carry tickets, (issued to them), from their enslavers…in 1765 Wilmington commissioners promulgated a set of even stricter ordinances, including a ten o’clock curfew each night.” More instances are listed in the book regarding how these commissioners made it even more difficult for the lives of enslaved people living in the Wilmington area.

Regarding religion and church attendance, “before the War of 1812, African Americans-enslaved and free-made up about one-third of the Methodists in North Carolina. Around that same time, “separate African churches had been established in Wilmington, New Bern, Fayetteville, and Edenton." Of course, enslaved people were not allowed “to be exposed to potentially subversive information or hear the wrong kind of preaching,” especially after 1830 when the education of enslaved people became strictly prohibited. Furthermore, “all meetings of (enslaved people), even for religious purposes, were supposed to be supervised, and ministers were expected to support the system of slavery. Lizzie Baker, who grew up in Duplin County, reported that her parents were taken with the enslaver's family ‘to the white folks’ church. They said the preachers told them they had to obey their 'missus and master.’” Baker went on to describe “secret prayer meetings arranged by (enslaved people)…. even after patrollers found them and beat them.”

In 1910 the state of education for African American students began to improve somewhat as elementary schools for Black children "began receiving state funds....three years later the state established the office of supervisor of rural elementary schools to promote the education of Black (children)...with Nathan C. Newbold becoming the first state agent for these schools." Additional funds were secured from such philanthropic agencies as the "Peabody, Rosenwald, Jeanes, and Salter funds, along with the General Education Board," that all supported Newbold's work. The book goes on to state that resources from the Jeanes Fund "made possible the hiring of supervisors for rural schools, and the Rosenwald Fund financed the construction of schools." As evidenced by the accompanying photo, Newbold would go on to highlight the great discrepancies in schools for Black and white children. 

To reiterate, these are just a few examples of the long history of African Americans in the state of North Carolina. The book goes into detail regarding other areas of African American history in our state such as the effects on the practice of slavery by the American Revolution, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and Black Life in the Age of Jim Crow. Contributions to the book were made by members of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History and professors of history at Shaw University, Wake Forest University, and St. Augustine College.