Among the papers are multiple letters from William Hooper,
John Penn, Joseph Hewes — all represented the State of North Carolina as signers of the
Declaration of Independence; plus all of North Carolina’s Constitutional signers; all of the
Revolutionary War generals and a sizeable collection of New Hanover County historical
documents.
Bound volumes contain original documents of Carolina’s Lord Proprietors dating from
1663, all of North Carolina’s governors, including the royal governors, and governors from
South Carolina and from Tennessee, the territory of which North Carolina ceded to the
federal government in 1790.
Some of the earliest books printed in North Carolina include four from William
Hooper’s library, with his signature; a first edition of Benson John Lossing’s 1850 Pictorial
Field Book of the Revolution; John Lawson’s 1709 A New Voyage to Carolina, a first edition
account of North Carolina American history and Southern travel; and rare broadsides from
South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee.
The research library is scheduled to open in May 2013 and the North Carolina Civil
War collection will be named for fellow historian Dr. Chris E. Fonvielle Jr., an associate
professor in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
The rare book collection will never be complete, nor will this lineage of stewardship
likely ever end.
Above: Original engraving of Lord Spencer
Compton, Earl of Wilmington. Edmund
Fanning documents from southeastern
North Carolina, circa 1770, are but part
of a large Revolutionary and Civil War
collection, all representing Wilmington
and Fort Fisher histories.
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WBM january 2013