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 Henry Alderson Ellison Papers #1432-z, 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 Mary Virginia Bonner of Mobile, Alabama, in 1948 and 1958.

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.

Processed by: Roslyn Holdzkom, April 1991

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Kathryn Michaelis, December 2009

This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.

Conscious Editing Work by: Nancy Kaiser, July 2020. Updated abstract, subject headings, biographical note, scope and content note, and container list.

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

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.

• Allen, Abram M., Active 1864.
• Beaufort County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Bonner family.
• California--Description and travel.
• Ellison family.
• Ellison, Eliza Tripp, Active 1864-1867.
• Ellison, Henry Alderson, d. 1862.
• Slave records--Alabama.
• Slavery--Alabama.
• Slavery--United States--History--19th century--Sources.
• Stanly, Edward, 1810-1872.

Henry Alderson Ellison (d. 1862) was a white farmer who enslaved people on his land in Baldwin County, Ala. He was married to Eliza Tripp Ellison (Active 1864-1867).

Abram M. Allen, who had been manumitted by Henry Alderson Ellison before the American Civil War, was living in Washington, N.C., in 1864.

The Henry Alderson Ellison Papers document people enslaved by Ellison, a white farmer in Baldwin County, Ala. A notebook contains lists of enslaved people in 1848 and 1858-1860 and records of their labor being hired out. Also included is an 1864 letter from Abram M. Allen, who had been enslaved by Ellison but manumitted before the American Civil War. Allen wrote from Washington, N.C., to Eliza Tripp Ellison, the widow of Henry Alderson Ellison, at Wilson, N.C., where she had taken refuge during the war, in which he informed her of his whereabouts and offered hope for the future. Other papers include an 1867 letter to Eliza, now living near Mobile, Ala., from Edward Stanly (1810-1872), a California politician who had been U.S. representative from North Carolina, describing conditions in California and evaluating prospects there for southerners; and five invitations to social functions in Beaufort County, N.C., 1877-1880 and undated, sent to Ellison and Bonner family member.