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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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Collection Overview
| Size | About 50 items |
| Abstract | James M. Parks was a surveyor, farmer, school teacher, and moneylender who lived on Jonathan Creek in Haywood County, N.C. The collection includes letters written by Parks to his adult son, William M. Parks, between 1858 and 1896. In addition to details about family, health, children, and recent events, Parks's letters delve deeply into the realities and practices of his various vocational interests, including agriculture, surveying, money lending, and teaching. These activities, especially land surveying and money lending, caused Parks to be quite interested in political and economic matters, and his specific concerns about money, the courts, and Haywood County politics are reflected in extensive passages in his letters. Parks also wrote about some of the difficulties he had raising young children as a widower. Some family history materials are also included. |
| Creator | Parks, James M., 1810-1897. |
| Curatorial Unit | Southern Historical Collection |
| Language | English. |
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Information For Users
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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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Biographical Information
James M. Parks (1810-1897) was a surveyor, farmer, school teacher, and moneylender. In 1832, he married Mary Matilda McCulloch (1812-1838), and they had three children: Jane McCulloch Parks Grey (1833-1883), William M. Parks (1835-1919), and Mary E. Parks Hunter (1838-1876). In 1854, Parks married Louise Rowann Parks (1830-1865) and, shortly thereafter, they moved to Jonathan Creek in Haywood County, N.C. Parks and his second wife had two children: Sarah H. Parks Boyd (1854-1933) and James A. Parks (1855-1945).
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Scope and Content
These letters were written by James M. Parks to his adult son, William M. Parks, between 1858 and 1896. James Parks, who lived on Jonathan Creek, N.C., was an acute observer, and these letters contain a wealth of detail about the lives that were lived in Haywood County, N.C. In addition to details about family, health, children, and recent events, Parks's letters delve deeply into the realities and practices of his various vocational interests, including agriculture, surveying, money lending, and teaching. These activities, especially land surveying and money lending, caused Parks to be quite interested in political and economic matters, and his specific concerns about money, the courts, and Haywood County politics are reflected in extensive passages in his letters. Parks also wrote about some of the difficulties he had raising young children as a widower.
Also included is a photocopy of "A Record of Births, Marriages, and Deaths for the Family of James Parks" and typescript copies of letters relating to family history.
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Letters and Other Papers, 1858-1896.
Arrangement: chronological.
These letters were written by James M. Parks to his son, William M. Parks, between 1858 and 1896. James Parks, who lived on Jonathan Creek, N.C., was an acute observer of Haywood County, N.C., and these letters contain a wealth of detail about the lives that were lived there. In addition to containing the usual details about health, children, and recent events that family letters typically demand, Parks's letters delve deeply into the realities and practices of his various vocational interests, which included agriculture, surveying, money lending, and teaching. These activities, especially land surveying and money lending, caused Parks to be quite interested in political and economic matters, and his specific concerns about money, the courts, and Haywood County politics are reflected by extensive passages in his letters. He wrote often of the scarcity of money and the need to encourage the circulation of currency, and as a confirmed conservative, the few intemperate lines that he penned involve a recounting of the political ploys and "tricks" of the Radicals and Republicans.
Parks also wrote about some of the difficulties he had raising his children, James and Sarah, as a widower, his methods of cultivating roses, and astronomy. He offered a retrospective account of the famous Leonid meteor shower of 1833 that he had witnessed as a young man.
Also included is a photocopy of "A Record of Births, Marriages, and Deaths for the Family of James Parks" and typescript copies of letters relating to family history. These were written by Parks in 1893 at the request of his grandaughter, Lula J. Grey.
| Folder 1 |
Letters, 1858-1875 |
| Folder 2 |
Letters, 1876-1892 |
| Folder 3 |
Letters, 1892-1896 and undated |
| Folder 4 |
Record of the births, marriages, and deaths of the family of James Parks |