T.D. McDowell Papers, 1735-1925 | WorldCat.org (original) (raw)

Summary:The collection includes correspondence, financial and legal papers, and other items, chiefly of Thomas McDowell and his father Alexander. Business and political papers document Bladen County court business, particularly from 1735 to 1844, and include tax lists, slave lists, petitions for road work and mill construction, lists and expenses of jurors, and correspondence about court matters. There is also some information about Alexander McDowell's medical practice, including holograph cures. Papers after 1845 document Thomas McDowell's political career and business interests in the Cape Fear region, especially Elizabethtown, Fayetteville, and Wilmington. They relate to management of Purdie Plantation, which produced naval stores, and activities of the Democratic party in the Cape Fear region. A small group of family materials includes Civil War letters from McDowell's brother John, who was on active duty in Virginia, and from the homefront in Columbus, Miss., to McDowell family relative Lucy Ann Brown, who moved from Columbus to the Owen Hill Plantation in Bladen County during the war. Also included is correspondence in the 1850s that documents the McDowell family's close ties to the Carr family in Ireland