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 L. C. Glenn Papers #3052, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

Microfilm copy available: University Publications of America Series J. Part 13, reels 35-36.

Alternate Form of Material

Typed transcriptions of many early letters were provided by L. C. Glenn.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Mrs. L. C. Glenn of Nashville, Tenn., in July 1954.

Additional Descriptive Resources

Original finding aid is filed in folder 1a.

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: Brooke Allan, 1961, and Roslyn Holdzkom, 1992

Encoded by: Nancy Kaiser, October 2007

Finding aid updated for digitization by Kathryn Michaelis, November 2009 and March 2011

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.

• Account books.
• Chillicothe (Ross County, Ohio)--Social life and customs.
• Confederate States of America--Social conditions.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Medical care.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Military life.
• Cumberland County (Pa.)--Social life and customs.
• Diaries.
• Families--North Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Families--Ohio--Social life and customs.
• Families--Pennsylvania--Social life and customs.
• Families--South Carolina--Social life and customs.
• Gaston County (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
• Glenn family.
• Glenn, L. C. (Leonidas Chalmers), b. 1871.
• Gold mines and mining--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Greene County (Tenn.)--Social life and customs.
• North Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• North Carolina--Politics and government--1775-1865.
• Pennsylvania--Social life and customs.
• Pope County (Ark.)--Social life and customs.
• Presbyterian Church--Southern States--History.
• Slavery--South Carolina.
• Soldiers--Confederate States of America--Correspondence.
• Soldiers--Confederate States of America--Diaries.
• Southern States--Description and travel.
• Torrence family.
• Travelers--Diaries--History--19th century.
• Tryon, William, 1729-1788.
• Union Theological Seminary in Virginia--History.
• United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Personal narratives, Confederate.
• Virginia--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Wilson family.
• York County (S.C.)--Social life and customs.

L. C. (Leonidas Chalmers) Glenn, a professor of geology at Vanderbilt University, collected papers of extended Glenn, Torrence, and Wilson (sometimes spelled Willson) families. His grandfather, John F. Glenn, of the Crowders Creek sections of North Carolina and South Carolina, married Jeanette Scott. Their children included William Davis Glenn (b. 1833), who married Sarah Priscilla Torrence (1851-1906) in 1870, and is the father of L. C. Glenn; and Robert N. Glenn (d. 1864), who served in the Confederate Army.

L. C. Glenn's mother, Sarah Priscilla Torrence, was the daughter of William Wilson Torrence (1808-1875) and Sally Ann Wilson Torrence (1813-1880). Her brother, Leonidas Torrence (d. 1863), served in the Confederate Army and was mortally wounded at the battle of Gettysburg. The Torrence family, chiefly of the piedmont of North Carolina, intermarried with the Wilsons and Glenns of Gaston County, N.C. (formerly Lincoln County, N.C.). Members of the Torrence family included Edwin B. Torrence (fl. 1840) of Rutherford County, N.C. (later Cleveland County, N.C.); his daughter, Mary Ellen Torrence (fl. 1850-1886); his sons, Luther B. Torrence and Thomas O. Torrence (d. 1862), both of whom fought with the Confederate Army; and his sister Mary B. Torrence (1799-1879) and her husband Nathan Mendenhall of Gaston County, N.C.

The patriarch of the Wilson family was John Wilson, who died in Pennsylvania in 1773. John Wilson had five sons: John Wilson (1742-1799), who was married to Mary Wray (1737-1830) and migrated to North Carolina; Samuel Wilson (1754-1799), who was a graduate of Princeton University, a pastor at Big Spring Presbyterian Church in Cumberland County, Pa., and married to Jane Mahon (who later married John Heap); Hugh Wilson, who migrated to Georgia; James Wilson, who settled in Ohio; and William Wilson (d. 1778), who died unmarried.

John Wilson (1742-1799) and Mary Wray Wilson had ten or eleven children, including Robert G. Wilson (b. 1768), William Joseph Wilson (1777-1854), and Samuel Blain Wilson (1783-1869). Robert G. Wilson was a Presbyterian pastor in Abbeville, S.C., until he migrated to Chillicothe, Ohio, because of his opposition to the institution of slavery. He served as the third president of the Ohio University, 1824-1839. William Joseph Wilson was married to Sarah Baird Wilson (1773-1851) in 1799. They lived in Lincoln County, N.C., and Gaston County, N.C., and had ten children, including Lawson Wilson (1809-1876); Sally Ann Wilson (1813-1880), who married William Wilson Torrence; and Mary Wilson ("Polly") (1811-1900), who married Ephraim Torrence. Samuel Blain Wilson was a Presbyterian pastor at Fredericksburg, Va., for about 35 years. In 1841, he became a professor at the Union Theological Seminary at Hampden-Sydney College in Prince Edward County, Va. Among his six children was the Reverend Samuel Blair Owen Wilson (1809-1899), who served the presbyteries in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and was a professor at Davidson College, 1841-1853. Samuel Blair Owen Wilson died at Woodville, Tenn.

The region where the Wilson, Torrence, and Glenn families came together was in what is now Gaston County, N.C., and York County, S.C. Their lands were chiefly on Crowders Creek, which originally was in Tryon County (later in Lincoln County until Gaston County was formed) and always partly in South Carolina. From this neighborhood, they spread out into neighboring counties. The Wilsons kept in touch with kin in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio, and the Torrences with their kin in Pope County, Ark. (the families of one or more brothers of Edwin B. Torrence) and Illinois.

The collection consists of family correspondence, chiefly 1788-1871, of L. C. Glenn (Leonidas Chalmers Glenn)'s Wilson (Willson), Torrence, and Glenn ancestors, including three letters, 1766-1768, from William Tryon, then governor of North Carolina. Letters from relatives in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Pope County, Ark., Green County, Tenn., Illinois, Ohio, and other locations discuss family news and social activities; the Presbyterian Church; 19th century politics and economic affairs; slavery; gold mines of Kings Mountain, N.C.; the Union Theological Seminary in Hampden Sydney, Va.; the New Madrid earthquake of 1811; and life in Ohio. Civil War materials include letters from Confederate soldiers describing camp life and hospitals in Virginia and eastern North Carolina and to a lesser extent in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and battles at Seven Pines, Fredericksburg, Wilderness, and Gettysburg; Leonidas Torrence's small diary, 4 June-4 July 1863, recording his march from Guinea Station to Gettysburg; and letters from the homefront describing desertion problems in Gaston County, N.C. Later correspondence, 1901-1927, concerns family history. William Davis Glenn's diary, 1864-1869, includes descriptions of trips through Mississippi and to Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia. His journal records expenses for the 1866 Mississippi trip. Glenn's volume of reminiscences, written in 1907, describes social activities and business ventures in the Carolinas before, during, and after the Civil War. Also included are a general merchandise store account book, 1794-1797, a mid 19th-century cipher book, and several photographs, circa 1880-1900, of Glenn family members.

Some oversize items are housed separately.

• Pictures (P-3052/1-6; SF-P-3052/7)
• Oversize paper folder (OPF-3052/1)