Timeline extended for launch of Wilson Library facilities work.

Collection Number: 00748

Collection Title: Thomas George Walton Papers, 1779-1897.

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.


This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Collection Overview

Size 1.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 500 items)
Abstract The collection includes family correspondence, 1830s to 1890s, deeds, indentures, and other papers of Thomas George Walton, his wife Eliza Murphy Walton, and other members of the Walton and Murphy families, all of Morganton, Burke County, N.C. Included are letters from John H. Murphy, student at the University of North Carolina, 1843-1847; correspondence between Thomas George Walton and Eliza Murphy Walton while he was serving with the Confederate Army in Virginia and Tennessee; earlier land grants, deeds, and family letters; postwar correspondence of Walton concerning law and politics; and a typed transcription of his historical sketch of Burke County, N.C., containing biographies of early pioneers. Correspondents include Tod R. Caldwell, Kemp P. Battle, and Bishop Theodore B. Lyman.
Creator Walton, Thomas George, 1815-1905.
Curatorial Unit University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
Language English
Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Information For Users

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 Thomas George Walton Papers #748, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Alternate Form of Material
All or part of this collection is available on microfilm.
Additional microfilm: All or part of this collection is also available on microfilm from University Publications of America as part of the Records of ante-bellum southern plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, Series J.
Acquisitions Information
Received from William C. Ervin before 1940.
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.
Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Processing Information

Processed by: Rebecca Hollingsworth, October 1992

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

Back to Top

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.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Related Collections

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Biographical Information

Thomas George Walton (1815-1905) was the son of Thomas Walton, a Morganton, N.C., merchant. He married Eliza Murphy (1820-1886), daughter of John Hugh Murphy and Margaret Avery Murphy of Willow Hill Plantation, Burke County, N.C. For several years, he also served as the guardian of his wife's younger siblings, the grandchildren of Captain James Murphy.

Thomas George Walton was appointed president of the board of directors of the Morganton Branch of the Bank of North Carolina in 1859. During the Civil War, he served in the Confederate Army in Virginia and Tennessee. Hw was appointed vice president of the North Carolina Agricultural Society in 1871, director for the Eastern Division of the Western North Carolina Rail Road in 1873, and trustee of the State Hospital for the Insane in 1897.

Lucy Walton, daughter of Thomas George and Eliza Murphy Walton, married Rev. Neilson Falls.

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Scope and Content

Family correspondence, 1830s to 1890s, deeds, indentures, and other papers of Thomas George Walton, his wife, Eliza Murphy Walton, and other members of the Walton and Murphy families, all of Morganton, Burke County, N.C., Included are letters from John H. Murphy, student at the University of North Carolina, 1843-1847; correspondence between Thomas George Walton and Eliza Murphy Walton while he was serving with the Confederate Army in Virginia and Tennessee; earlier land grants, deeds, and family letters; postwar correspondence of Walton concerning law and politics; and a typed transcription of his historical sketch of Burke County, N.C., containing biographies of early pioneers. Correspondents include Tod R. Caldwell, Kemp P. Battle, and Bishop Theodore B. Lyman.

Back to Top

Contents list

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series Quick Links

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 1. Murphy Family and Thomas George Walton, 1779-1860.

About 240 items.

Arrangement: chronological.

Deeds, indentures, and family letters of Thomas George Walton of Morganton, N.C., his wife Eliza Murphy Walton, and other members of the Murphy and Walton families. Early papers, 1779-1833, consist of deeds, records of land surveyed, land grants from the state of North Carolina, and other papers concerning property in Burke County. Most of these papers pertain to Captain James Murphy, grandfather of Eliza Murphy Walton.

Letters consist of those written to Eliza Murphy while a student in Pittsboro, N.C., mostly from her mother, Margaret S. Collett, and stepfather, John Collett; correspondence between Eliza Murphy and her sister Lauretta, who married Alexander F. Gaston; letters, 1843-1847, from John H. Murphy at the University of North Carolina; correspondence among Eliza Murphy Walton, Thomas George Walton, and his sister Harriet, mostly concerning family news, the health of family members, and local events; and a few letters about state politics, 1859, to Thomas George Walton from Tod R. Caldwell, then serving in the state legislature.

Folder 1

1779-1797

Folder 2

1798-1805

Folder 3

1806-1814

Folder 4

1815-1818

Folder 5

1820-1824

Folder 6

1825-1833

Folder 7

1834-1835

Folder 8a

1836-1840

Folder 8b

1841-1843

Folder 9

1844-1847

Folder 10

1848-1853

Folder 11

1854-1858

Folder 12

1859-1860

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 2. Walton Family, 1861-1897 and undated.

About 260 items.

Arrangement: chronological.

Postwar papers of Thomas George Walton and his children. Correspondence consists mostly of business letters of Walton, his sons John M. "Jock", George, and E. S., and his son-in-law Neilson Falls, the husband of Walton's daughter Lucy. There are a few family letters from Walton's sons to their father and to each other; routine letters from Kemp P. Battle, concerning the preparation of a biographical sketch of Governor Tod R. Caldwell; many business letters addressed to Thomas George Walton from various merchants; and letters to Neilson Falls from Theodore B. Lyman, Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina.

Other papers include certificates appointing Thomas George Walton vice president of the North Carolina Agricultural Society, 1871; director for the Eastern Division of the Western North Carolina Rail Road, 1873; and trustee of the State Hospital for the Insane, 1897.

Volumes are an account book, 1868-1869, of Thomas George Walton, and a typed copy of "Sketches of the Pioneers in Burke County History," Walton's reminiscences, prepared in 1893 for the Morganton Herald.

Folder 13

1861

Folder 14

1862

Folder 15

1863-1867

Folder 16

1868-1872

Folder 17

1873-1876

Folder 18

1877-1880

Folder 19

1881-1883

Folder 20

1884-1891

Folder 21

1892-1897

Folder 22-23

Folder 22

Folder 23

Undated

Folder 24

Volume 1: Thomas George Walton account book.

Folder 25

Volume 2: "Sketches of the Pioneers in Burke County History"

Back to Top

expand/collapse Expand/collapse Series 3. Microfilm.

Reel M-748/1

Microfilm

Back to Top