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Collection Number: 05094-z

Collection Title: Mary McNeill McEachern Letters, 1871-1876

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 22 items
Abstract Mary McNeill McEachern (1847-1933) grew up near Fayetteville, N.C., and moved in 1894 to Red Springs, N.C. While attending school in the antebellum South, McEachern became friends with many transplanted northerners. The collection consists primarily of letters written by Mary McNeill McEachern during an 1876 visit to an old friend from the Episcopal Rectory School at Rockfish Factory, N.C., who was living in the Hudson River Valley in New York. Once McEachern arrived in Fishkill-on-Hudson, N.Y., she wrote to her family with details about her trip. She described traveling by train through Baltimore and New York City, explaining problems with the railroad and expressing her feelings about buildings and cities in the North. McEachern provided vivid pictures of life and customs in the post-war North as compared to those of the South, noting sectional differences in language, food, women's clothing, and the household. She also described visits to Vassar College, West Point, and George Washington's Revolutionary War headquarters in Newburgh, N.Y. Letters from one of McEachern's former teachers and one of her old classmates are also included.
Creator McEachern, Mary McNeill, 1847-1933.
Curatorial Unit 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 Mary McNeill McEachern Letters #5094-z, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Provenance
Received from Judith B. Nisbet of Charlotte, N.C., in April 2002 (Acc. 99245).
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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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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Mary McNeill McEachern was born 1 July 1847, the eighth of 15 children of Hector and Mary McNeill of Ardulusa, N.C. She attended the Episcopal Rectory School at Rockfish Factory, N.C., where she met teacher Caroline Benton and close friend Edna Van Amburgh, both of whom were transplanted northerners. With the beginning of the Civil War, the Benton and Van Amburgh families returned to the North. The McNeill family remained in North Carolina and strongly supported the Confederacy. Mary McNeill attended Floral College in 1866-1867 and then became a teacher. Escorted by her brother James, she visited her old friend Edna Van Amburgh in Fishkill-on-Hudson, N.Y., in July 1876.

Mary McNeill married Daniel Purcell McEachern (9 May 1836-19 October 1917), a Confederate veteran and graduate of the University of North Carolina, on 26 August 1880. The couple had three children: Beatrice (1881-1970), Mary (1883-1974), and Archibald (1885-1886), and lived in Red Springs, N.C., south of Fayetteville.

Biographical information provided by Judith B. Nisbet.

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expand/collapse Expand/collapse Scope and Content

The collection consists primarily of letters written by Mary McNeill McEachern of Fayetteville, N.C., during an 1876 visit to an old friend from the Episcopal Rectory School at Rockfish Factory, N.C., who was living in the Hudson River Valley in New York. Once McEachern arrived in Fishkill-on-Hudson, N.Y., she wrote to her family with details about her trip. She described traveling by train through Baltimore and New York City, explaining problems with the railroad and expressing her feelings about buildings and cities in the North. McEachern provided vivid pictures of life and customs in the post-war North as compared to those of the South, noting sectional differences in language, food, women's clothing, and the household. She also described visits to Vassar College, West Point, and George Washington's Revolutionary War headquarters in Newburgh, N.Y. Letters from one of McEachern's former teachers and one of her old classmates are also included. There are typed transcriptions for all of the letters.

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Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Letters, 1871-1876.

22 items.

Arrangement: chronological.

The collection consists primarily of letters written by Mary McNeill McEachern of Fayetteville, N.C., during an 1876 visit to an old friend from the Episcopal Rectory School at Rockfish Factory, N.C., who was living in the Hudson River Valley in New York. Once McEachern arrived in Fishkill-on-Hudson, N.Y., she wrote to her family with details about her trip. She described traveling by train through Baltimore and New York City, explaining problems with the railroad and expressing her feelings about buildings and cities in the North. McEachern provided vivid pictures of life and customs in the post-war North as compared to those of the South, noting sectional differences in language, food, women's clothing, and the household. She also described visits to Vassar College, West Point, and George Washington's Revolutionary War headquarters in Newburgh, N.Y. Letters from one of McEachern's former teachers and one of her old classmates are also included. There are typed transcriptions for all of the letters.

Folder 1

Letters

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