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 Green Nicholson Cipher Book and Receipt #5221-z, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from James Haverson Bradley of Elizabethtown, N.C., in June 2005 (Acc. 100104).

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: Elise Allison, July 2005

Encoded by: Elise Allison, July 2005

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.

• Mathematics--Problems, exercises, etc.--History--19th century.
• Nicholson, Green, 1811-1880.
• Orange County (N.C.)--History.
• Teachers--North Carolina--History--19th century.

Green Nicholson was born on 24 November 1811 and appears to have been a traveling school teacher in Orange County, N.C., during the late 1820s and early 1830s. He married Mary Sharp on 4 October 1832, and they had four children before she died on 15 April 1841. His second marriage was to Mary Phillips on 16 November 1842, and they had six children. Nicholson's second wife died on 18 November 1873, and he died on 20 November 1880.

The collection consists of a cipher book produced by Green Nicholson and containing rules for various mathematical operations, examples of the use of these rules, and scattered genealogical notes. The mathematical content of the book appears to have been written around 1829 to 1832. The genealogical notes were added at various times through the 1850s and record the births, marriages, or deaths of Nicholson's first wife, Mary Sharp, and many of his children. These notes also include the birth dates of five Payne children born between 1821 and 1832 and of uncertain relation to Green Nicholson. The collection also contains a receipt, 13 January 1832, from Benjamin Sharp to Green Nicholson for farm labor.