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This collection has access 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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Collection Overview
| Size | 7.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 3,300 items) |
| Abstract | Ruffin, Roulac, and Hamilton family members resided chiefly in eastern and central North Carolina, but also in Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama. Prominent among them were Thomas Ruffin (1787-1870), Anne M. Kirkland Ruffin (b. 1794), Joseph Blount Gregoire Roulhac (1795-1856), Catherine Ruffin Roulhac (b. 1810), and Daniel Heyward Hamilton, Jr. (b. 1838). The collection includes correspondence, financial and legal papers, account books, photographs, and other items, chiefly 1823-1890, relating to members of the Ruffin, Roulhac, and Hamilton families and their friends and associates. The papers relate to routine family matters and everyday life, and, to a lesser extent, to business matters, including the Ruffin plantations in North Carolina and Joseph Blount Gregoire Roulhac's career as a merchant in Raleigh, to the Civil War and Reconstruction, and to various public concerns. There are few items relating to Thomas Ruffin's legal and judicial career. The collection also contains photographs, carte-de-visite photographs, ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, tintypes, and sketches of members of the Ruffin and Roulhac families, friends, unidentified people, buildings, and Civil War naval engagements. There is also a mid-1850s daguerreotype of the sophomore class at the University of North Carolina, the earliest known image of a group of students at UNC. |
| Creator | Hamilton (Family : Hamilton, Daniel H., Jr. (Daniel Heyward), 1838-1908)
Roulhac (Family : Raleigh, N.C.) Ruffin (Family : Hillsborough, N.C.) |
| Curatorial Unit | Southern Historical Collection |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Processing Information
Processed by: Mictchell Ducey, 1980s
Encoded by: Jackie Dean, July 1998
Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, March 2021
Special format images (SF-P-643/1-13) added to finding aid, March 2011.
Diacritics and other special characters have been omitted from this finding aid to facilitate keyword searching in web browsers.
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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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Related Collections
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Biographical Information
Thomas Ruffin (1787-1870), a lawyer who became chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, settled in Rockingham County in 1807. He was married to Anne Kirkland in 1809 and settled in Hillsborough, where her family's home, Ayr Mount, was located. Ruffin also became a leading planter who operated two plantations--one in Rockingham County and the Hermitage in Alamance County. Ruffin's oldest daughter, Catherine, married Joseph Blount Gregoire Roulhac (1795-1856), a merchant in Raleigh who frequently traveled to the Northeast and Middle Atlantic states on business. Catherine and Joseph had seven children, one of whom, Frances Gray, married Daniel Heyward Hamilton, Jr. (b. 1838), a Confederate soldier during the Civil War who owned a naval stores business in Madison County, Florida, in 1865-1866.
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Scope and Content
This collection consists of family correspondence and other documentation of members of the Ruffin, Roulhac, and Hamilton families and their friends and associates, who lived chiefly in eastern and central North Carolina, but also in Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama. The papers relate to routine family matters and everyday life and, to a lesser extent to business matters, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and various public concerns.
Papers are basically those of the following persons and their immediate families: Thomas Ruffin, Anne M. Kirkland Ruffin, Joseph B.G. Roulhac, Catherine Ruffin Roulhac, Daniel Heyward Hamilton, Jr., and Frances Gray Roulhac Hamilton. There is little information on Thomas Ruffin's legal and judicial career.
The collection also contains photographs, carte-de-visite photographs, ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, tintypes, and sketches of members of the Ruffin and Roulhac families, friends, unidentified people, buildings, and Civil War naval engagements. There is a mid-1850s daguerreotype of the sophomore class at the University of North Carolina, the earliest known image of a group of students at UNC.
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Series Quick Links
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Series 1. Correspondence, 1784-1951 and
undated.
Arrangement: chronological.
Chiefly correspondence of the Roulhac family and members of the related Ruffin and Hamilton families, all of North Carolina. The early correspondence includes letters to and from Catherine Ruffin and her father, Thomas Ruffin, mostly in Hillsboro. They wrote of personal and family matters, and some political and business concerns. Other topics covered in the early letters include the weather; health and family news; news of marriages, births, and deaths of friends; plantation and farming news; and news of travel along the East Coast.
Beginning in late 1836, when Catherine Ruffin married Joseph B. G. Roulhac, there begins to appear a large number of letters between Catherine and Joseph. Matters covered in this correspondence include, in addition to those mentioned above, plantation news of crops, slaves, and sale of property; and accounts of Catherine and Joseph's children.
Other topics of interest in the correspondence of the period from the late 1830s through the 1850s include army and navy appropriations bills; duties on iron, salt, and coal; the Texas question; John C. Calhoun's possible appointment as Secretary of State; difficulties with slaves and fear of abolitionists; discussions of North Carolina state politics; the election, as opposed to appointment, of judges; the Whig party, the prospects of a Fillmore presidency, and growing sectionalism, in a letter from David Outlaw on 23 April 1852; and much family news, including Joseph's death in 1856, and the marriage of Fannie Roulhac and D.H. Hamilton, Jr., in 1859.
During and after the Civil War, the correspondence focuses on D. H. Hamilton, Jr., and his family. Topics of interest in the correspondence of this period include a 28 April 1860 letter from D. H. Hamilton to his son on financial problems; August 1860 letters on behalf of D. H. Hamilton, Jr., as he sought appointment to an instructorship at the State Seminary of Florida in Tallahassee; a 10 November 1860 letter from D. H. Hamilton to his son about growing sectional tension in South Carolina; D. H. Hamilton, Jr.'s mother's account of the ratification of the Ordinances of Secession in Charleston, 21 December 1860; D. H. Hamilton, Jr.'s appointment in May 1861 as a Major in the Third Regiment of North Carolina Volunteers; postwar mercantile records of D. H. Hamilton and Sons, some of which were transferred to Series 2; a 4 October 1863 letter from Jefferson Davis written to Hannah Gaston Manly of Hillsboro; and a 25 June 1868 letter from H. A. Chambers detailing the political situation in North Carolina.
Other correspondents in Series 1 include John Roulhac, A. D. Murphy, Henry Eustace McCulloh, Willie Blount, Paul Cameron, F. Nash, Duncan McRae, Anne Cameron, Tod R. Caldwell, Thomas Ruffin, Jr., Kenneth Rayner, Jason A. Bryan, Joseph Blount, D.L. Swain, C.H. Wiley, John Manly, Lewis Thompson, Will A. Graham, Joseph Blount Cheshire, Charles Manly, James Hamilton, Bishop Thomas Atkinson, Edward Stanly, General Pemberton, Lieutenant General Longstreet, James A. Seddon, William Cain, Frank G. Ruffin, Peter W. Hairston, Bishop T.B. Lyman, Charles S. Bryan, Walter H. Page, John W. Ellis, and L.P. Walker.
| Folder 1 |
1784-1786; 1798; 1806-1816 |
| Folder 2 |
1817-1822 |
| Folder 3 |
1823 |
| Folder 4 |
1824 |
Folder 5-6
Folder 5Folder 6 |
1825 |
| Folder 7 |
1826 |
| Folder 8 |
1827 |
| Folder 9 |
1828 |
Folder 10-11
Folder 10Folder 11 |
1829 |
| Folder 12 |
1830 |
| Folder 13 |
1831 |
Folder 14-15
Folder 14Folder 15 |
1832 |
Folder 16-17
Folder 16Folder 17 |
1833 |
Folder 18-19
Folder 18Folder 19 |
1834 |
Folder 20-21
Folder 20Folder 21 |
1835 |
Folder 22-25
Folder 22Folder 23Folder 24Folder 25 |
1836 |
Folder 26-27
Folder 26Folder 27 |
1837 |
Folder 28-29
Folder 28Folder 29 |
1838 |
| Folder 30 |
1839 |
Folder 31-32
Folder 31Folder 32 |
1840 |
Folder 33-34
Folder 33Folder 34 |
1841 |
Folder 35-36
Folder 35Folder 36 |
1842 |
Folder 37-38
Folder 37Folder 38 |
1843 |
Folder 39-40
Folder 39Folder 40 |
1844 |
| Folder 41 |
1845 |
Folder 42-43
Folder 42Folder 43 |
1846 |
Folder 44-45
Folder 44Folder 45 |
1847 |
Folder 46-47
Folder 46Folder 47 |
1848 |
Folder 48-49
Folder 48Folder 49 |
1849 |
| Folder 50 |
1850 |
Folder 51-52
Folder 51Folder 52 |
1851 |
Folder 53-54
Folder 53Folder 54 |
1852 |
Folder 55-56
Folder 55Folder 56 |
1853 |
Folder 57-58
Folder 57Folder 58 |
1854 |
Folder 59-62
Folder 59Folder 60Folder 61Folder 62 |
1855 |
Folder 63-64
Folder 63Folder 64 |
1856 |
Folder 65-67
Folder 65Folder 66Folder 67 |
1857 |
Folder 68-69
Folder 68Folder 69 |
1858 |
Folder 70-71
Folder 70Folder 71 |
1859 |
Folder 72-73
Folder 72Folder 73 |
1860 |
Folder 74-78
Folder 74Folder 75Folder 76Folder 77Folder 78 |
1861 |
Folder 79-83
Folder 79Folder 80Folder 81Folder 82Folder 83 |
1862 |
Folder 84-87
Folder 84Folder 85Folder 86Folder 87 |
1863 |
Folder 88-91
Folder 88Folder 89Folder 90Folder 91 |
1864 |
Folder 92-95
Folder 92Folder 93Folder 94Folder 95 |
1865 |
Folder 96-101
Folder 96Folder 97Folder 98Folder 99Folder 100Folder 101 |
1866 |
Folder 102-106
Folder 102Folder 103Folder 104Folder 105Folder 106 |
1867 |
Folder 107-110
Folder 107Folder 108Folder 109Folder 110 |
1868 |
Folder 111-112
Folder 111Folder 112 |
1869 |
Folder 113-115
Folder 113Folder 114Folder 115 |
1870 |
| Folder 116 |
1871-1873 |
| Folder 117 |
1874-1876 |
| Folder 118 |
1877-1879 |
| Folder 119 |
1880-1883 |
| Folder 120 |
1884-1889 |
| Folder 121 |
1890-1893 |
| Folder 122 |
1894-1899 |
| Folder 123 |
1901;1903; 1908;1933;1951 |
Folder 124-144
Folder 124Folder 125Folder 126Folder 127Folder 128Folder 129Folder 130Folder 131Folder 132Folder 133Folder 134Folder 135Folder 136Folder 137Folder 138Folder 139Folder 140Folder 141Folder 142Folder 143Folder 144 |
Undated |
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Series 2. Financial and Legal Papers, 1787-1879 and
undated.
Indentures, wills, contracts, summonses, receipts, and accounting records that document many of the business activities of the families. Business records include those of Joseph B. G. Roulhac and D. H. Hamilton and Sons.
| Folder 145-151. |
1787-1879 and undated |
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Series 3. Other Papers, 1812-1926 and
undated.
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Subseries 3.1. Schools.
| Folder 152 |
University of North Carolina |
| Folder 153 |
St. Mary's School |
| Folder 154 |
Schools of Misses Nash and Miss Kollock |
| Folder 155 |
University of the South |
| Folder 156 |
Other Schools |
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Subseries 3.2. Church Items.
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Subseries 3.3. Military Items
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Subseries 3.4. Business Items.
| Folder 159 |
Prices current and other items. |
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Subseries 3.5. Invitations.
Folder 160-161
Folder 160Folder 161 |
Invitations sent to members of the Ruffin, Roulhac, and Hamilton families. Invitations are to parties, dances, weddings, and other social affairs. |
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Subseries 3.6. Death Notices.
| Folder 162 |
Obituaries, memorials, and funeral notices. |
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Subseries 3.7. Family Records.
| Folder 163 |
Lists of births, marriages, and deaths, including pages from a family Bible, and other items. |
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Subseries 3.8. Miscellaneous Items.
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Series 4. Volumes, 1829-1917 and undated.
Account books, journals, and diaries. Most of the merchandise ledgers and account books were kept by Joseph Blount Gregoire Roulhac. The volumes are roughly arranged by type, then chronological order. An "S" preceding a volume number indicates that the volume is oversized.
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Subseries 4.1. Plantation Records.
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Subseries 4.2. Merchant Records.
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Subseries 4.3. Diaries.
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Subseries 4.4. Women's Auxiliary Minutes.
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Subseries 4.5. Autograph Albums.
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Subseries 4.6. Miscellaneous.
| Folder 181 |
Volume 16: Bible lecture book of Frances Lee Roulhac (1799-1880). Entries in this volume refer to Biblical passages. 25 pages, 1851 (formerly volume 4). |
Folder 182-185
Folder 182Folder 183Folder 184Folder 185 |
Volume 17: "Manuscrit de Roulhac-Monthely,"A history of the family descended from Gregoire de Roulhac, written in French and including notices on the American branch of the family. The volume includes copies of documents dating from 1568 and continuing over three centuries. The volume was compiled by several generations of the family. This typed compilation, in four parts (tomes), includes a supplement, notes, and an index added by L. G. Roulhac. 517 pages, undated (formerly volume 1). |
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Series 5. Pictures, 1862-1916 and undated.
Photographs, carte-de-visite photographs, ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, tintypes, and sketches of members of the Ruffin and Roulhac families, friends, unidentified people, buildings, and Civil War naval engagements. SF-P-643/11 is a mid-1850s daguerreotype of the sophomore class at the University of North Carolina, the earliest known image of a group of students at UNC. Unless otherwise indicated, each item is a photograph.
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Series 6. Oversize Papers
| Extra Oversize Paper Folder XOPF-643/1a |
Oversize papers |
| Oversize Paper Folder OPF-643/1b |
Oversize papers |
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Series 7. Microfilm
| Reel M-643/1 |
Microfilm |
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Items Separated