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Collection Number: 02993

Collection Title: Lester-Gray Collection of Documents Relating to Joseph Glover Baldwin, 1838-1949

This collection has access restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.

This collection has use restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.

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 items
Abstract Joseph Glover Baldwin (1815-1864), was born in Virginia and lived in Alabama from 1836 to 1854, when he moved to San Francisco, Ca. He was author of Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi (1853), Party Leaders (1855), and Flush Times of California (1966), and was a justice on the California Supreme Court. The collection includes a reel of microfilm of papers, 1838-1949, of Joseph Glover Baldwin and the Lester and Baldwin families; an audiodisc; and a photograph album. The microfilm is a copy made from the Joseph Glover Baldwin papers at the New York Public Library in 1949. Microfilmed materials include correspondence relating to family life in California and Alabama, an 1863 meeting with Abraham Lincoln, and mining interests in Nevada Territory; clippings; writings; and other materials. Also included is some correspondence with Millard Fillmore and much correspondence of Robert M. Lester in connection with gathering Baldwin material for a biography (never completed) and the administration of the material collected beginning in the 1920s. Lester received the bulk of the Baldwin family papers from Joseph Glover Baldwin's daughter, Cornelia Baldwin Gray, of California. An original audiodisc of WJZ coverage of part of a 24 June 1939 symposium relating to Robert M. Lester's address "Is the Library Doing Its Job?" and an original photograph album labeled "Negroes, born and Bred on Gen. Lee's Land, 1862" are also included. The photograph album holds 17 tintypes and one carte-de-visite picturing African Americans--women, men, and children--well-dressed and formally posed. Despite the label on the album, most of the images appear to date from 1880-1900, and there is no direct evidence of connection with Robert E. Lee.
Curatorial Unit University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
Language English
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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Information For Users

Restrictions to Access
The Photograph Album (PA-2993/1) is not available for immediate or same day access. Please contact staff at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu to discuss options.
Restrictions to Use
Contact New York Public Library for permission to quote extensively from microfilmed materials.
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 Lester-Gray Collection of Documents Relating to Joseph Glover Baldwin #2993, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Alternate Form of Material
Originals of microfilmed materials at the New York Public Library at the time of microfilming.
Acquisitions Information
Received from and lent for filming by Robert M. Lester of Chapel Hill, N.C., in February 1954 and received from Memory A. Lester of Chapel Hill, N.C., in December 1969.
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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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Processing Information

Processed by: Suzanne Ruffing, August 1996

Encoded by: Roslyn Holdzkom, November 2006

Updated by: Laura Hart, June 2018

See control file available at repository for researcher notes on photograph album dates.

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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

Joseph Glover Baldwin (1815-1864), was born in Virginia and lived in Alabama from 1836 to 1854, when he moved to San Francisco, Ca. He was author of Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi (1853), Party Leaders (1855), and Flush Times of California (1966), and was a justice on the California Supreme Court.

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Scope and Content

The collection includes a reel of microfilm of papers, 1838-1949, of author, lawyer, and California Supreme Court justice Joseph Glover Baldwin and the Lester and Baldwin families; an audiodisc; and a photograph album. The microfilm is a copy made from the Joseph Glover Baldwin papers at the New York Public Library in 1949. Microfilmed materials include correspondence relating to family life in California and Alabama, an 1863 meeting with Abraham Lincoln, and mining interests in Nevada Territory; clippings; writings; and other materials. Also included is some correspondence with Millard Fillmore and much correspondence of Robert M. Lester in connection with gathering Baldwin material for a biography (never completed) and the administration of the material collected beginning in the 1920s. Lester received the bulk of the Baldwin family papers from Joseph Glover Baldwin's daughter, Cornelia Baldwin Gray, of California. An original audiodisc of WJZ coverage of part of a 24 June 1939 symposium relating to Robert M. Lester's address "Is the Library Doing Its Job?" and an original photograph album labeled "Negroes, born and Bred on Gen. Lee's Land, 1862" are also included. The photograph album holds 17 tintypes and one carte-de-visite picturing African Americans--women, men, and children--well-dressed and formally posed. Despite the label on the album, most of the images appear to date from 1880-1900, and there is no direct evidence of connection with Robert E. Lee.

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Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Collection, 1838-1949 and undated.

3 items.
Reel M-2993/1

Introduction, explanation of the composition of the collection, and restrictions

Memorials, 1864, of the United States Circuit Court and San Francisco Bar

Baldwin's license to practice law, 1843

Newspaper accounts of Baldwin and a notice of Mrs. Baldwin's death

Title pages of Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi and Party Leaders

Photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin

Newspaper accounts of John Brooks Felton, Kate Baldwin Felton, and other Feltons

Newspaper accounts of Alexander W. Baldwin (Sandy)

Check list cards of all materials in the Lester-Gray Collection

Letters of Robert M. Lester and Baldwin family members, 1924

Letters of Robert M. Lester and various persons, 1922-1934, 1924-1934, 1949

Baldwin family letters, 1838-1865, typed copies, and various letters of a later date

Robert M. Lester's notes, typed, on Baldwin biography

Robert M. Lester's notes, handwritten, on Baldwin biography

Newspaper account of the Pyramid Lake Indian Troubles

Typed copy of fragmentary original and original handwritten copy of Flush Times in California

Memoir of Baldwin and notes by his brother, C. C. Baldwin, with typed copy of fragmentary original and original handwritten copy

"The Duel" by Baldwin with typed copy of the incomplete original and original handwritten copy

"A Trip to Washoe," "The Unlucky Boy," "The Hog with Eagle's Wings," "To Fred Billings," and "On Henry Clay" handwritten originals in various handwritings

"On Peace, Labor, Taxes, Patriotism, etc." by Baldwin with incomplete handwritten originals

Legal document by Baldwin regrading Rhodes, Herzo, and others

Legal documents of Felton, Morris, Whitman, and Stanly

Photocopy of a newspaper report of a sketch of Aaron Burr

McConnell Book List, 1861, Dear Citizen, 1861, and Editor Express

Baldwin family letters, 1838-1865

The earliest letters are to Baldwin's wife, Sidney White at Talladega and Mardisville, Ala., from friends in Huntsville and from Baldwin, who was in Sumter County, Ala. They married in 1839. The couple continued to correspondence whenever he traveled to New Orleans, New York, Mobile, Winchester, Va., and other locations. There are also letters of the immediate family and W. H. and Alexander M. Garber of Sumter County, Ala. From July to October 1854, Baldwin moved to San Francisco and wrote to his wife until she traveled out there to be with him. Correspondence continues with other members of the family back in Alabama. There are letters, 1860-1863, of Baldwin and his son, Joseph G. Baldwin Jr., who was in Virginia City, Nevada Territory, where the family had mining and other interests. Baldwin traveled to New York in 1863 and visited with Abraham Lincoln. Other correspondents in addition to members of the Baldwin family are Reverdy Johnson, Alexander H. H. Stuart, Milliard Fillmore, John B. Felton, and others

Audiodisc D-2993/1

WJZ, 24 June 1939

WJZ coverage of a symposium relating to Robert M. Lester's address "Is the Library Doing Its Job?"

Photograph Album PA-2993/1

"Negroes, born and Bred on Gen. Lee's Land, 1862"

Restriction to Access: The original item is not available for immediate or same day access. Please contact staff at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu to discuss options.

Photograph album holding 17 tintypes and one carte-de-visite picturing African Americans--women, men, and children--well-dressed and formally posed. Despite the label on the album, most of the images appear to date from 1880-1900, and there is no direct evidence of connection with Robert E. Lee.

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