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Collection Number: 03687

Collection Title: William Audley Couper papers , 1795-1955.

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.


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Size 3.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 1700 items)
Abstract William Audley Couper, son of John Couper (1759-1850) and younger brother of James Hamilton Couper (1794-1866), married Hannah Page King (d. 1896), daughter of Thomas Butler King (1800-1864) and Anna Matilda (Page) King (d. 1859). Couper managed Hamilton, a plantation on St. Simon's Island, Ga., from the early 1840s until 1861, and later lived at Carteret's Point and in Ware County, Ga. The collection includes correspondence and other Papers, chiefly 1850-1900. Included are scattered early 19th-century business papers of Georgia planters John Couper (1759-1850) and William Page (d. 1827), maternal grandfather of Hannah Page King Couper; numerous letters in the 1850s between Anna Matilda (Page) King and her daughter, Hannah Page King Couper; letters of other King relatives, some of which deal with the slavery issue; letters from Henry Lord Page King, a student at Yale University, 1849-1852, to his sister, Hannah Page King Couper; Civil War letters from King family women on the homefront and men in the Confederate army in Virginia; post-Civil War letters from Hannah Page King Couper's sisters and from the children of Hannah and William Audley Couper; and papers and diaries of the family of Anna Couper Marshall, Hannah and William's daughter, who lived in Rome, Ga.
Creator Couper, William Audley, 1817-1888.
Curatorial Unit University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
Language English
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Restrictions to Access
No restrictions. Open for research.
Copyright Notice
Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], in the William Audley Couper Papers #3687, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Alternate Form of Material
All or part of this collection is available on microfilm from University Publications of America as part of the Records of ante-bellum southern plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, Series J.
Acquisitions Information
Received from MacLean Marshall of Rome, Ga., in August 1964.
Sensitive Materials Statement
Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.
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Processed by: Carolyn Wallace, March 1965, Tim West, Buck Beasley, and Marla Miller, June 1990

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Dawne Howard Lucas, December 2021

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subject Headings

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Biographical Information

William Audley Couper was born in 1817, the youngest child of John and Rebecca Maxwell Couper, and brother of James Hamilton Couper (1794-1866). In 1845, Couper married Hannah Page King. From the time of his marriage or earlier, Couper managed Hamilton, a plantation on St. Simon's Island, Ga., owned by Isabella Corbin. Couper's wife was the daughter of Thomas Butler King (1800-1864) and Anna Matilda Page King (d. 1859) of Retreat Plantation, also on St. Simon's Island. The Couper's children were Anna, King, Butler, William Page, John Audley, and Rosalie.

The Coupers lived at Hamilton until 1856, when they moved to Savannah for approximately two years. In Savannah, Couper was in business with his nephew, John Fraser. The family then returned to Hamilton and stayed there until 1861, when St. Simon's Island was taken over by Federal troops. They moved, with their relatives the Kings, to Carteret's Point and then to Ware County, both in Georgia. After the war, the Coupers returned to Carteret's Point and later lived in Marietta, Ga. William Audley Couper died in 1888, Hannah Page King Couper in 1896.

In 1871, the Coupers' daughter Anna married Charles MacLean Marshall (1847-1911). Marshall was born in Danzig, then in Prussia, of British parents. The Marshalls apparently lived abroad until 1883 when they moved to Rome, Ga. The Marshalls' children were William Audley, Helen, and Percy. William Audley Marshall and Helen Marshall did not marry. Percy Marshall was the father of MacLean Marshall, the donor of these papers.

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Early correspondence, 1804-circa 1820, consists largely of scattered letters received by William Page (d. 1827), maternal grandfather of Hannah Page King Couper. There is scattered correspondence of Anna Matilda Page King in the 1830s. The bulk of the correspondence consists of family letters from the 1840s and 1850s between Hannah Page King Couper and her King relatives, especially her mother at Retreat Plantation. There are also letters in this period to William Audley Couper from his father, and from Henry Lord Page King, a student at Yale University, 1849-1852. In addition, there are letters from members of the King family in the Confederate army in Virginia. Post-Civil War letters are chiefly from Hannah Couper's sisters and from the children of Hannah and William Audley Couper.

Financial and legal material consists of bills, deeds, receipts, and account books, and dates largely from the last half of the nineteenth century. Pre-1865 material pertains chiefly to the purchase of land and shipping of goods to and from St. Simon's, but also includes an 1858 packing list of Anna King Couper; an 1866 estate inventory of Anna Matilda King, including an itemized list of slaves noting age and value; and material regarding the estate of Mary Scott. Post-Civil War material includes several late nineteenth-century account books relating to personal and business expenses of the Couper family.

Other material includes items related to Couper family history; miscellaneous domestic writings, including poems and children's stories as well as recipes and household advice; three diaries from the first half of the twentieth century; and six photographs dating from 1860 to 1920.

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Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series Quick Links

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 1. Correspondence, 1795-1945.

About 1200 items.

Arrangement: chronological.

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 1.1. 1806-1839.

About 80 items.

Chiefly correspondence of William Page, father of Anna Matilda Page King, including several letters relating to the marketing of Sea Island cotton. Other letters discuss plantation management and the effect of political events on cotton prices. Family correspondence in this period includes letters to Anna Matilda Page King from sisters Caroline and Catherine and a number of letters from Anna Matilda Page King to Jane Johnston, discussing the deaths of children and acquaintances, illnesses, family finances, and other plantation, family, and neighborhood news.

Folder 1

1795-1809

Folder 2

1810-1814

Folder 3

1815-1818

Folder 4

1819-1831

Folder 5

1832-1839

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 1.2. 1840-1851.

About 90 items.

Correspondence of William Audley Couper begins and includes several letters to Hannah Page King during their courtship. Letters from John Couper to John Cunningham discuss the purchase of various household and farm items, as well as social life on St. Simon's. Of particular interest is a letter, 7 April 1846, written by John Couper in a Scottish dialect. Other letters of John Couper, largely to his son William, describe horse racing, cotton production, and various planting and farming methods, including the raising of strawberries, olives, oranges, and other fruit trees. Family news in these letters includes lively discussions of various social events and courtships, other neighborhood gossip, and some genial commentary on Couper's aging.

In 1849, Henry Lord Page King wrote William Audley Couper of his difficulties as a freshman at Yale University. Letters from Anna Matilda Page King to Hannah Page King Couper discuss details of plantation life, especially illnesses, and make scattered comments regarding political affairs, including Thomas Butler King's campaigning for Zachary Taylor. Of particular interest is a 3 March 1842 letter from Anna Matilda Page King to her trustee, James Hamilton Couper, requesting protection of property willed to her by her father, including fifty slaves, as creditors were seizing the property of her husband.

Folder 6

1840-1844

Folder 7

1845

Folder 8

1846

Folder 9

1847-1848

Folder 10

1850-1851

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 1.3. 1852-1859.

About 300 items.

During this period, correspondence consists largely of letters from members of the King family to the Coupers, especially from Anna Matilda Page King to her daughter, Hannah Page King Couper, often called "Tootee" by her parents. A voluminous correspondence between Anna and her daughter began during Anna's summer 1852 trip north for her health, and continued until Anna's death in 1859. These letters, largely from Anna to Hannah, discuss Anna's travels, including her stays in various northern boarding houses; encounters with black servants there; descriptions of various cities and towns, such as New Haven, Conn. (including the 1852 graduation ceremony at Yale University), Allentown, Pa., and New York City; illnesses and medical treatments; the effects of a fire on a ship docked at the Couper's plantation; social life in the antebellum North; and miscellaneous business affairs, including the possible purchase of Hamilton Plantation. Several letters describe trips to dressmakers, shopping for clothing and accoutrements, and the contents of trunks King requested shipped from home. Over the course of her letters, Anna King reveals a growing desire to leave the South, first suggesting that her family join her in the North, and then urging her husband to move the family permanently to California, as she is anxious to cease holding slave property.

Frequent and detailed correspondence between Anna and Hannah upon Anna's return home documents the daily routine of the plantation, the care of black children, and the relationship between slaves and the Couper family. Hannah and William lost a child during this period, and they received several letters of condolence; William Audley Couper also seems to have been sickly, as Anna expressed a great deal of concern for her daughter, whose life is "wrapped up in his" (25 December 1856). Other letters in this subseries are chiefly from Thomas Butler King, Jr., and describe his experiences in San Francisco, where he was working in the office of his father, then a customs collector, and attending college.

Folder 11

1852 January-May

Folder 12

1852 June

Folder 13

1852 July-August

Folder 14

1852 September

Folder 15

1852 October-December

Folder 16

1853-1855

Folder 17

1856 January

Folder 18

1856 February

Folder 19

1856 March-April

Folder 20

1856 May-December

Folder 21

1856 Month unknown

Folder 22

1856 or 1857

Folder 23

1857 January

Folder 24

1857 February

Folder 25

1857 March

Folder 26

1857 April

Folder 27

1857 May

Folder 28

1857 June-December

Folder 29

1858-1859

Folder 30

1859

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 1.4. Month unknown, 1840s-1850s.

General correspondence from various family members, datable to roughly the 1840s and 1850s, including many letters to Hannah Couper from her parents.

Folder 31-33

Folder 31

Folder 32

Folder 33

1840s-1850s

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 1.5. 1860-1865.

About 30 items.

Letters to Hannah Couper from her brother, Lord, in New York, chiefly giving family news; letters to Hannah from her father; and correspondence relating to the Civil War experiences of the Couper family. Included are spring 1862 letters from Thomas Butler King in Richmond, on business with Confederate president Jefferson Davis, mentioning difficulties in getting constructive action from Congress; and letters from Lord King, then on the staff of General Lafayette McLaws, while stationed at camps near Richmond, Harper's Ferry, and Savannah. Other letters announce Lord's 1862 death at Fredricksburg and Thomas Butler King's death in 1864.

Folder 34

1860-1865

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 1.6. 1871-1955.

About 600 items.

Letters from the early part of this period relate to the 1871 wedding of Anna Couper and Charles MacLean Marshall; the business interests of William Audley Couper and Charles MacLean Marshall, who seem, by 1873, to have been farming in partnership; and Charles Marshall's 1879 plan to settle in Rome, Georgia, and his desire that the Coupers join him there. Other 1879 letters reveal difficulties of John Audley Couper, indicted for murder in Florida. Correspondence in the late 1880s is dominated by William Audley Couper's letters to his grandson and namesake William Audley Marshall, then attending the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama (now Auburn University); these letters are almost weekly from 1886 to 1889, and largely contain family news, as well as some grandfatherly advice from Couper to his grandson. In 1892, Charles MacLean Marshall wrote from Germany, where he went to visit his family. Continued correspondence with William Audley Marshall documents his teaching experiences at the Marion Military Institute in Alabama and his 1894 application to study at Harvard, which he attended as a senior. Notebooks in which Hannah Couper recorded dates of letters sent and received are included for 1888 and 1893-1896. These notebooks also include very brief diary entries and names and addresses (see also Subseries 3.3).

Letters in 1900 and 1902 document Charles Marshall's pleasure trip to England and John Audley Couper's business trip to Mexico, respectively. Other 1900-1910 letters about this time discuss Percy and Audley Marshall's work for the Massachusetts Mills in Lindale, Georgia. Correspondence regarding World War I is limited to two letters from Horace Kephardt, a writer in Washington, D.C., to one of the Marshalls. Of particular interest in the letters of this period is a highly romanticized account of the 1845 wedding of Hannah King and William Audley Couper, written in 1915 by John Floyd King, the last living witness, celebrating the glory of the Old South.

Interwar correspondence contains scattered letters to and from William Audley Marshall about his scientific hobbies, botany and navigation, and a 64-page letter from Julia King regarding Maxwell family history (for further genealogical material, see the 23 October 1902 letter from Julia King to Rebecca Couper Wylly regarding the Maxwells, and also Subseries 3.1). Correspondence in the 1940s contains letters from Sergeant MacLean Marshall to his father, Percy Marshall, from Calcutta, India, which comment on living conditions in Calcutta and the role of the United States in world leadership, and a lengthy letter from B. King Couper describing his trip to the British Isles.

Folder 35

1871-1877

Folder 36

1878-1879

Folder 37

1880-1882

Folder 38

1883

Folder 39

1884-1885

Folder 40

1886-1887

Folder 41a

1888-1889

Folder 41b

Hannah Couper Record of Correspondence, 1888

Folder 42

1890-1892

Folder 43a

1893

Folder 43b

Record of Correspondence, 1893

Folder 44a

1894

Folder 44b

Hannah Couper Record of Correspondence, 1894

Folder 45a

1895

Folder 45b

Hannah Couper Record of Correspondence, 1895

Folder 46

1896 January-June

Folder 47a

1896 July-December

Folder 47b

Hannah Couper Record of Correspondence, 1896

Folder 47c

Undated, circa 1871-1896

Folder 48

1897-1899

Folder 49

1900-1901

Folder 50

January-August 1902

Folder 51

September 1902-1904

Folder 52

1905-1907

Folder 53

1908-1909

Folder 54

1910-1915

Folder 55

1917-1920

Folder 56

1921-1930

Folder 57

1943-1945

Folder 58

1955

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 2. Financial and Legal Materials, 1790-1935.

About 270 items.

Arrangement: roughly chronological.

Bills, receipts, deeds, account books, and other financial and legal material relating to William Audley Couper and his family, chiefly 1870-1900. Included are several account books relating to the family's expenses with various merchants. Also included are items relating to the estates of Mary Scott and Anna Matilda Page King, and to expenses at Harvard University, 1894.

Material typically consists of receipts for loans and purchases, bills of lading, deeds, listings of accounts paid, and estate inventories. The account books chiefly record expenses for household and farming supplies.

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 2.1. 1795-1872.

About 60 items

Scattered receipts of William Page, some dealing with cotton sales or shipments; deeds from the 1840s of William Audley Couper and Thomas Butler King; an inventory of the estate of Anna Matilda King (1860); Confederate bonds; papers dealing with a lawsuit "for the recovery of Mr. Abrahams Negroes willed to Mrs. Mary Scott," chiefly Wayne County, Ga., 1832-1866; account books (1869-1870) of William Audley Couper and M. P. King, "in account with [probably D.H.B.] House" and other merchants, and other items.

Folder 59

1795-1830

Folder 60

1831-1840

Folder 61

Abraham/Scott lawsuit, 1832-1866

Folder 62

1841-1859

Folder 63

1860-1865

Folder 64

Anna M. Page King estate material, 1861-1872

Folder 65

1866-1872

Folder 66

1869-1870 account book

Folder 67

1870 account book

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 2.2. 1878-1935.

About 210 items.

Scattered bills, receipts, and statements of account of the families of William Audley Couper and Charles MacLean Marshall. Volumes include records of various household expenses (1878 and 1890-1895), a store account of William Audley Couper from March 1884 to November 1887, and William Audley Marshall's record of expenses while attending Harvard University in 1893-1894. Legal material includes a copy, dated 1895, of the will of Hannah Page Couper.

Folder 68

1878 account book

Folder 69

1880-1889

Folder 70

1884-1887 store account book

Folder 71

1890-1894

Folder 72

1890-1895 account book

Folder 73

1893-1894 Harvard expense book

Folder 74

1895-1899

Folder 75

Hannah Couper will, 1895

Folder 76

1900-1904

Folder 77

1905-1935 and undated

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 3. Other Papers, 1848-1944.

About 190 items.

Arrangement: by type, then roughly chronological.

Material related to Couper family history, poems and stories, clippings, and other material relating to William Audley Couper and his relatives, chiefly 1890-1925. Included are late 19th century remembrances of John Couper (d. 1850) written by various friends and relatives; school material, chiefly of Helen Marshall; Anna Couper Marshall's diaries, 1925-1927; an 1848 annotated almanac; and a diary of an American soldier's passage to Europe, 1944.

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 3.1. Family History Materials, circa 1860-1911 and undated.

About 60 items.

Clippings, including obituaries, death notices, and a number of articles on the decline and sale of the Couper plantation, the history of St. Simon's Island and plantations there, and history of churches; a group of anecdotal remembrances written by relatives and acquaintances of John Couper some years after his death in 1850; lists of birth, death and marriage dates; discussions of John Floyd King, members of the Maxwell family, and Coupers in the Lochwinnoch Parish, Scotland; and other genealogical materials. For other genealogical information, see subseries 1.6.

Folder 78

Obituaries and death notices

Folder 79

Miscellaneous clippings

Folder 80

Family remembrances regarding John Couper

Folder 81

Other genealogical material (Couper, King, Page, Maxwell, Stevens, and Marshall families)

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 3.2. Domestic Writings, circa 1841-1892 and undated.

About 75 items.

Dated and undated poems, most probably copied, but some perhaps composed, by various members of the Couper family; stories for children (authors unknown) based partially on recollections of St. Simon's Island; and household tips, including recipes, descriptions of illnesses and cures, and advice on the planting and canning of vegetables.

Folder 82

Poems

Folder 83

Children's stories

Folder 84

Farming directions, recipes, and cures

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 3.3. Diary Material, 1871-1944.

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Subseries 3.4 Miscellaneous Materials, 1848-1929 and undated.

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 4. Pictures, 1860-1920 and undated.

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Items Separated

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