Records of ante-bellum southern plantations - LexisNexis

common schools of Vance and Warren counties, North Carolina; and letters from agricultural
agents in Virginia and North Carolina. Other material includes advertising circulars; report cards
of the Burwell children; genealogical material; and thirty-eight volumes of church, school, and
farm records and account books.
The collection is arranged as follows: Series 1. Correspondence, 1792–1923—Subseries 1.1.
1792–1860, Subseries 1.2. 1861–1923 [not included], and Subseries 1.3. undated; Series 2.
Financial and Legal Materials, 1750–1923—Subseries 2.1. 1750–1860, Subseries 2.2. 1861–
1923 [not included], and Subseries 2.3. undated; Series 3. Writings, 1816–ca. 1862 and undated;
Series 4. Other Papers, 1812–1943 and undated; and Series 5. Volumes, 1805–1910—Subseries
5.1. 1805–1860 and Subseries 5.2. 1861–1910 [not included].
Biographical Note
The Burwell family was prominent in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, and Vance, Warren, and
Granville counties, North Carolina, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Colonel Lewis
Burwell, son of Armistead and Christina Blair Burwell, was born 26 September 1745, in
Williamsburg. He moved to Mecklenburg County, Virginia, fought in the American Revolution, and
served in the Virginia Assembly. With his first wife, Anne Spotswood Burwell, he had twelve
children, including Armistead (d. 1819), Lewis (fl. 1792–1848), and Spotswood (1785–1855), all
farmers in Mecklenburg County.
Spotswood Burwell married Mary (“Polly”) Green Marshall (1792–1856), and had nine
children, including William Armistead (1809–1887), Lewis D. (b. 1813), and Blair (1815–1848).
Spotswood Burwell lived in both Granville County, North Carolina, and Mecklenburg County,
Virginia.
Spotswood’s son William Armistead Burwell moved to Burke County, North Carolina, in the
1830s to attempt a gold-mining venture, and later returned to Granville County to continue
farming. He married Mary Graves Williams (1810–1896) and had one child, William Henry (1835–
1917). William Henry attended the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, graduating in 1856,
and then returned to Warren County, where his father had settled, to work on the farm. He was
drafted into the Confederate army in 1861, but left the army upon purchasing a substitute in 1862,
and moved to Alabama to marry Laura T. Pettway (1841–1871). He stayed in Alabama until the
end of the war, when he returned to Warren County to resume farming. In later years, he
continued to grow tobacco, cotton, and other crops, living at various times in Warren, Vance, and
Granville counties in North Carolina and at his Berry Hill plantation in Mecklenburg County,
Virginia. He married three times and had sixteen children.
Series 1. Correspondence (1792–1923 and undated)
This series comprises correspondence of the Burwell family of Mecklenburg County, Virginia,
and Granville and Warren counties, North Carolina, and of the Williams family of Warren County,
North Carolina.
Subseries 1.1. (1792–1860) This subseries consists chiefly of personal and business
correspondence of Armistead Burwell, his brothers Lewis Burwell and Spotswood Burwell, and
Spotswood’s son William Armistead Burwell of Mecklenburg County, Virginia, as well as some
correspondence of the Williams family of Warren County, North Carolina.
From 1792 to 1819, the correspondence of Lewis and Armistead Burwell includes items
concerning tobacco farming and sales, horses, slave purchases, agricultural concerns, and the
disposition of the estate of their father, Col. Lewis Burwell, including two letters to Armistead from
Patrick Henry (1736–1799) concerning beef and slave sales.
After Armistead’s death in 1819, his wife Lucy (Crawley) Burwell assumed the running of their
plantation. The papers for 1820–1831 include correspondence on the settlement of Armistead
Burwell’s estate, tobacco and cotton, relations with Lucy Burwell’s tenants, and Spotswood
Burwell’s land grants in Tennessee. Correspondence for the Williams family in this period
includes items describing family news and finances, the War of 1812, tobacco farming, and hiring
of slaves. There are also letters regarding the establishment of local academies in North Carolina,
and letters from the 1830s of a student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill,
describing his everyday life and his friends.
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