THE ALSTON COLLECTION
Collection Overview
This collection of more than 500 letters
and assorted documents records the activities of one segment of the extensive
Alston-Williams-Tunstall-Crichton family connection that was centered in
Warren and Franklin counties in North Carolina. The central figures
in the correspondence are Philip Guston Alston (1839-1924), his wife, Jane
Elizabeth Crichton (1840-1891), and their daughter, Lucy Tunstall Alston
(1869-1940), wife of Archibald Davis Williams, Jr. (1856-1911). The
papers wereamassed and preserved initially by Lucy Williams then by her
daughter, Mary Lewis Williams (1894-1979) at their residence in Warrenton.
At the death of Mary Williams they were placed in the custody of her nephew,
Henry Wilkins Lewis, who has prepared this survey.
The younger Philip Guston Alston was sent to an academy in Ridgeway, N.C., and in 1855 to the University of North Carolina, where he acquired a lifelong taste for history and English literature. (An autograph album that dates from his college years is preserved in the collection.) In 1857, apparently with the approval of his one surviving guardian, Alston left the University to begin life as a farmer on the plantation left him by his uncle-guardian for whom he had been named, the land on which the young man's great grandfather Philip Alston, the first of that name, had settled before the middle of the eighteenth century. On 2 February 1864, while still in uniform,
Philip Guston Alston was married in Louisburg, N.C., to Jane Elizabeth,
daughter of Hugh and Lucy Henry (Tunstall) Crichton. Jane, born on
22 April 1840, was twenty-four and, due to financial necessity
Philip and Jane settled on the land he had
acquired from his uncle and built a house they called Maple Cottage to
replace an older house that had been destroyed by fire. The first
of their eight children, a son, was born two days after Christmas in 1864
and named for his father. Although Alston attempted to adjust to
a system of free labor, he was not a successful farmer. Eventually he lost
the land on which Maple Cottage had been
Late in the decade of the 1880s the family
rented Buxton Place near Cherry Hill and were living there in July 1890
when the eldest daughter, Lucy Tunstall Alston (1869-1940), was married
to her cousin, Archibald Davis Williams, Jr. (1856-1911). For the
seventeen-month period that Jane Crichton Alston survived her daughter's
marriage, the two women maintained constant communication through the exchange
of notes carried by members of
Indeed, it is with this period that the bulk of the papers have their beginning. One of the most interesting groups is the set of letters written by Hugh Randolph Crichton (1841-1909) from Galveston and Mobile, for it reflects not only his efforts to make his way in the business world but also his financial aid to his sister and brother-in-law as they struggled to continue farming. When Jane (Crichton) Alston died in December 1891 at the age of fifty-one, leaving seven unmarried children, Lucy Williams was thrust into the role of foster mother as well as advisor and confidant for her financially-inept father, who disbanded his household, sending his four older sons to find work where they might and placing his sixteen-year-old daughter, Ella, and his younger sons, Samuel (age thirteen) and Louis (age seven) with Mrs. Williams at Linwood. The collection contains letters from each of the older sons, Philip Guston (Pegie), George, Hugh, and Henry, that give useful insight into their struggle to make their way in business in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, and even Turkey. Later letters and documents attest their success. By the time he was sixty years old Philip
Guston Alston had left Warren County and had initiated an effort to sell
life insurance in South Carolina. There he was married to the widowed
Lucy McColl Roper and made his home at her residence near Tatum in Marlboro
County. The letters that he wrote to Mrs. Williams in the period
from 1898 to 1908 and her letters to him, as well as those of several of
his grandchildren, give informative glimpses of family life and interests
but contain only rare references to politics and events outside the domestic
circle.
Folder 7 Letters of Philip
Guston Alston to his daughter, Lucy Tunstall Williams written during the
period 1898-1908 from a farm near Tatum in Marlboro County, S.C.
In reading the letters it is helpful to know something of the McColl-Roper
family connection to which Alston's second wife belonged: John W.
Roper first married Henrietta McLaurin and had one child; following his
first wife's death, Roper married Lucy McColl by whom he had four children;
the Roper children were Daniel C. (by his first wife) and Eula, Thomas,
Dell, and John (called Jack) (by his second wife). After Roper's
death his widow, Lucy McColl Roper was married to Philip Guston Alston
as his second wife, and it was on her farm that he was living when these
letters were written. In addition to the Roper children, Alston mentions
his wife's sister, Elizabeth (Lizzie) McColl, and his own children, in
particular Louis Watson Alston. The letters record Alston's work
as an
The papers of Daniel C. Roper, later Secretary
of Commerce in the cabinet of Franklin D. Roosevelt, are deposited in the
library of Duke University and should be consulted for information on the
family life of the South Carolina group into which Alston married.
Folder 8 Letters to Philip
Guston Alston from several members of his family: Dr. Edgar Williams
of Myrtle Lawn plantation, Fork Township, Warren County, N.C., in 1891;
his grandson, Archibald Davis Williams, III, in 1905 and 1906; his daughter,
Lucy Tunstall Williams in 1906; his daughter Ella Lee Thorne, undated and
1905; his granddaughter, Mary (Mamie) Lewis Williams, describing student
life at the new East Carolina Teachers Training School at Greenville, N.C.,
and her first position as a teacher in the public school in Hookerton,
N.C., in 1909, 1910, and 1914; his granddaughter, Crichton Alston Thorne,
in 1912; his granddaughter, Lucy Alston Williams, 1915; his son, William
Henry Alston, 1909; his daughter-in-law, Laura June (King) Alston, 1910
and 1912; his daughter-in- law, Rowena (Watson) Alston, wife of William
Henry Alston, 1912; his daughter-in-law, Annie Branch Alston, 1915; and
a letter to Lucy McColl Alston from Alston's granddaughter, Jane (Jennie)
Crichton Williams, 1905. (19 items)
Folder 9 Miscellaneous Business Papers of Philip Guston Alston. All of these items were found in Alston's wallet, one that he apparently used many years before his death. (31 items) Notable items include: 1 January 1867, a document settling executorship and guardianship of John Buxton Williams he had served as executor of George W. Alston and as guardian for his two younger sons, William Henry Alston and George W Alston, Jr.; George W. Alston was father also of Philip Guston Alston. 20 May 1868, assumption of debt by William Henry Alston of Philip Guston Alston to Henry Blount Hunter as guardian of the children of Charles Kennedy. 1 January 1869, "Agreement of Labor" form
made out in the name of Philip Guston Alston but left blank. One
of the provisions of the form requiring the landowner- employer to "encourage
the establishment of schools" for the children of his employees was stricken
out.
Folder 21 Birth Announcements,
Wedding Invitations, and Graduation Invitation (1908-1970s) (22 items)
Folder 22 Miscellaneous Letters
from 1827-1937 including: Eliza P. Johnston to her daughter Mary
(Polly) Hardee Alston written from Warren County, N.C., and addressed to
Hayes, near Edenton, Chowan County, N.C., 29 February 1827; Temperance
Boddie Williams to her sister, Marina Priscilla Alston upon the birth of
her first child, Philip Guston Alston, from near the Jones plantation near
Bolivar, Tenn., to Alston at the post office address of their recently-widowed
mother, Elizabeth Kinchen Williams, Reuben Town (now Centerville), Franklin
County, N.C., 3 August 1839; Robert Lewis Williams to his sister, Hartwell
Hodges Williams written from Brownsville, N.C., while he was in school,
and refers to the local reaction to Abraham Lincoln's election, 12 November
1860; Robert L. Williams again to his sister Hartwell (Hodgie) as a lieutenant
in the Confederate Army from camp near Taylorsville, Va., 3 May 1864; Nathaniel
Richard Tunstall to his father George Tunstall from General Hospital, Petersburg,
Va., with an appended note to his daughter, probably Mary (Polly) F. Tunstall,
15 June 1864; Mary (Polly) F. Tunstall to her aunt Jane Elizabeth Crichton
lamenting the death of her brother George Dudley Tunstall and concern for
her remaining brothers, Nathaniel Richard and Landon Clanton Tunstall,
and her uncle, Hugh Randolph Crichton, 30 November 1864; Sarah (Tunstall)
Block in Pass Christian, Miss., to her cousin, Molly (Mary L. T. King?)
in Louisburg, N.C., 2 December 1891; Samuel Williams Alston to his sister,
Lucy Tunstall (Alston) Williams from Texarkana, Ark., where he had just
begun work, 22 August 1900; Mary (Mamie) Lewis Williams to Delle (Roper)
McColl, step-daughter of the writer's grandfather, Philip Guston Alston,
18 July 1907; Lucy Alston Williams in Warrenton, N.C., to Mrs. Pleasants,
a former neighbor near Centerville, N.C., 1912; S. H. Vance to Samuel Williams
Alston, 12 December 1936; and P. F. Cleaver to F. E. Wilson in regard to
Samuel Williams Alston who had recently died, 31 March 1937. (12 items)
Folder 23 Miscellaneous Items
consisting of: a handwritten copy of a poem, "Oh Did I Love Three
Less!" to Pattie Tunstall (Martha Frances?); partial draft of a Memorial
to John Graham, Jr. (1874-1892), who died in Ridgeway, N.C., 8 June 1892;
an unsigned postcard addressed to Jennie C. Williams, East Carolina Teachers
Training School, Greenville, N.C., with a hand-lettered copy of the toast
to "The Old North State"; and an undated postcard with a picture of the
town of Alston in England from Jane Crichton Alston to her father, William
Henry Alston. (4 items)
Folder 24 School Records from
1874-1909 including: a report on Philip Guston Alston, Jr., by John
Graham while at the Fork Institute, Warren County, N.C., 1 April 1874;
John Graham's bill to Philip Guston Alston for tuition (George Warren Alston's?)
for 1878 and 1879; "Cards of Approbation" awarded to Lucy Tunstall Alston
from Miss Lucy Hawkins' School, Warrenton, N.C., 1879 and 1882, and to
Hugh Crichton Alston, 1880; a report on Hugh Crichton Alston by Manuel
Fetter from the Warrenton (N.C.) High School, 2 June 1884; report on Louis
Watson Alston's first (1897) and fourth quarter (1898) by Graham and Watkins,
principal of the Warrenton High School; report on Jane Crichton Williams'
first quarter (1908-1909) by John Graham, principal of the Warrenton High
School. (10 items)
Folder 25 Genealogical Records
including: a notebook kept by Lucy Tunstall (Alston) Williams containing
data concerning the Alston, Barker, Crichton, Savage, Shaw, Tunstall, Williams,
and Lewis families; worksheets for Colonial Dames ancestry of Grace Jackson
Alston; typed copy of the will of Thomas Barker, 1786; Bennett ancestry
of Temperance Boddie Williams, written by Rie Alston Williams; inscriptions
from the Davis family cemetery at Columbia Farm, Franklin County, N.C.;
Gloster family Bible records, 1763-1828; memorandum regarding Colonel Philemon
Hawkins (1752-1833) and Colonel Benjamin Hawkins (1754-1816); Hilliard
ancestry of Elizabeth Hilliard, wife of Archibald Davis; typed copy of
the will of Hartwell (Hodges) Davis-Drake, 1796; typed list of the children
of William Kinchen Kearney; essay on Thomas Barker, 1960; list of ancestors
of Mary Lewis Williams qualifying for Colonial Dames, Daughters of the
American Revolution, etc.; final papers for Daughters of the American Revolution
of Mary (Mamie) Lewis Williams; and miscellaneous coats-of-arms.
(19 items)
Folder 26 Pamphlets and Other
Printed or Typed Items including: three copies of "The Power and Excellence
of Religion, Exemplified in the Happy Conversion and Triumphant Death of
Miss Ruina J. Williams" by Joel Rivers published for the Tract Society
of the methodist Episcopal Church, New York, 1809, with a silhouette of
Ruina Williams; an Address at Presentation of the Portrait of Judge Walter
A. Montgomery to the Supreme Court of North Carolina by T. T. Hicks, 1923;
"In Memory of Lucy Williams Perry" by William Willis Boddie, 1925; "The
Attitude of the Church Towards Dissection before 1500" by Mary Niven Alston
for the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. XVI, No. 3, October,
1944; announcement of the publication of Marian Niven (Alston), The Altar
and the Crown, The University Press, Sewanee, Tennessee, 1972; "An Easter
Card-Letter" by Tasker Polk, undated; "Warren County" by Fred A. Olds,
undated; and a list of the North Carolina Historical Highway Markers in
Warren County compiled with additional information by Warren County Chapter
of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, undated. (8 items)
Folder 27 Album of Jane Elizabeth
Crichton (1840-1891) (later Mrs. Philip Guston Alston) while a student
at Louisburg College, Louisburg, N.C., circa 1858 and later.
Folder 28 Autograph album of
Philip Guston Alston (1839-1924) while a student at the University of North
Carolina, 1855-1857.
Folder 29 Autograph album of
Lucy Tunstall Alston (1869-1940) (later Mrs. Archibald Davis Williams,
Jr.), ca. 1886-1890.
SHELF LIST Box 1 Folders 1-15
Folder 2 Letters of Hugh
Crichton Alston to various members of his family and others including his
mother, Jane (Crichton) Alston, his father, Philip Guston Alston, his brother,
Philip (Pegie) Guston Alston, his brother, Lewis (later spelled Louis)
Watson Alston, his sister, Lucy Tunstall Alston, his sister, Ella Lee Alston,
his uncle, Hugh Randolph Crichton, Harry Guston Williams, his wife, Elizabeth
McDuffie Williams, and John Buxton Williams. The correspondence covers
the years 1888-1893 and tells of the writer's experience as a young man
in his first employment in Keyser, N.C., from 1888-1890 in the lumber business,
and in Beard's Creek, Ga., from 1890- 1896, working for J. R. McDuffie
Co., dealers in naval stores and lumber. (38 items)
Folder 12 Letters of Hugh Randolph
Crichton to various members of his family and two miscellaneous items:
a clipping from a Petersburg, Va., newspaper dated 25 December 1864 reporting
Crichton's imprisonment at Fort Delaware and a typed extract from a memorial
address on Crichton by Judge Saffold Berney, Mobile, Ala., 6 December 1909.
The letters are addressed to the writer's sister, Jane (Crichton) Alston,
his brother- in-law, Philip Guston Alston, his mother, Lucy Henry (Tunstall)
Crichton, his nephew, George Warren Alston, and his nephew, Hugh Crichton
Alston. (14 items)
Folder 18 Letters to Lucy Tunstall
Alston from the following: her niece, Marion Frances Alston, from Tarboro,
N.C.; her brother, Philip Guston Alston, Jr.; her cousin, Lucy Tunstall
Crichton (sometimes referred to as her "aunt"); her cousin, Della Pope
Hunter from Louisburg, N.C.; her cousin, Mary T. King, from Louisburg,
N.C.; J. W. Jenkins, a Methodist minister asked to perform her marriage
ceremony; her sister-in-law, Charlotte Niven McKinney from Binghamton,
N.Y., and Morganton, N.C.; her sister-in-law, Hartwell Hodges (Hodgie)
Williams, from Baltimore, Md.; her granddaughter, Jane Crichton Lewis,
from Jackson, N.C.; her grandson, Philip Alston Lewis, from Jackson, N.C.;
her cousin, James H. Dent from Franklinton, N.C.; her sister-in- law, Eloise
(Ella) Williams from Baltimore, Md.; her sister-in-law, Rowena Watson,
from White Plains and Bronxville, N.Y.; her cousin, Sallie Crichton Watson,
from near Ridgeway, N.C.; her son, Archibald Davis Williams, III, from
New York, N.Y.; her cousin, Buxton Barker Williams, a lawyer in Warrenton,
N.C.; her husband's sister-in-law, Mamie Ridley Watson, from Spring Hope,
N.C.; and her daughter, Mary (Mamie) Lewis Williams, from Goldsboro, N.C.
A substantial number of the letters are concerned with family events of
importance: the death of her mother, Jane (Crichton) Alston, in December
1891; her marriage to Archibald (Baldie) Davis Williams, Jr. in July 1890;
and the births of three children to William Henry and Rowena (Onie) (Watson)
Alston: William Henry Alston, Jr. (1915), William Watson Alston (1916),
and Philip Guston Alston (1921). This folder also contains a portion
of a letter from Mary (Mamie) Lewis Watson, her cousin. (29 items)
Folder 20 Letters to Mary (Mamie) Lewis Williams and miscellaneous items that she collected. The letters span the period from 1933 to 1978 and were written by: Frances Buckner Kemper, wife of her cousin,
from Izmir, Turkey; Jane Alden (Durfee) Alston and her husband, Philip
Guston Alston, her cousin, from Bronxville, N.Y.; Lucy Alston Williams,
her sister; Louis Watson Alston, her uncle, from Binghamton, N.Y., and
Baltimore, Md.; Mary Niven Alston, her cousin from New York, N.Y.; Matilda
Alston, her cousin, from Greenwich, Conn.; William Henry Alston, her uncle,
from Bronxville, N.Y.; Henry Wilkins Lewis, her nephew, from Cambridge,
Mass., and Camp Beauregard, La.; Philip Alston Lewis, her nephew, from
the United States Navy; George A. Manderioli, President of the Salesman
Club of the Austin Nichols Co., N.Y.; Fairfax (Polk) Mitchell and her husband
John G. Mitchell, from Jacksonville, Fla.; Mary Dancy Battle from Butner,
N.C.; Dr. Claiborne Thweatt Smith, Jr., from Butner, N.C. and Rebecca Drane
from Edenton, N.C. Miscellaneous items in the folder include: John
Philip Sousa Band Concert Program, Raleigh, N.C., 4 March 1924; Mary Lewis
Williams' confirmation certificate from Chapel of Christ Church, Raleigh,
N.C., 23 November 1942; a humorous poem, "Attention, First Aiders," undated
and unsigned but from the period of World War II; a poem, "As It Looks
to Me," copied by Margaret (Peggy) Gill; two "sent-off" poems, "Memo to
Mamie-O" and "Tune: Silver Threads Among the Gold," from employees
of the Citizens Bank, Warrenton, N.C., at the time Mamie Williams was leaving
for a European vacation; Cathedral Columns, a leafletpublished in December
1958, by the Cathedral of the Incarnation, Baltimore, Md., picturing and
describing the great Resurrection Window given to that church by Louis
Watson Alston in memory of his wife, Charlotte Nevin (McKinney) Alston;
"In Memoriam, Louis Watson Alston, 28 June 1884-18 January 1960," a typed
copy of a memorial written by Edward W. Phifer, M.D., Morganton, N.C.,
1960; a 1967 Christmas card from her nephew Henry Wilkins Lewis; program
of a chamber recital, 14 November 1970, Morganton, N.C., by Mary Niven
Alston, Soprano, her cousin, and others; program from St. John's Episcopal
Church, Williamsboro, N.C., 11 October 1970; map of Williamsboro Area for
Colonial Dames visit, 21 October 1970; program booklet of the Granville-Warren
Committee of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the
State of North Carolina, 1967-1969; an article by Robert B. House entitled
"The Poetry of Our Lives" from The Chapel Hill Weekly, 18 July 1971; "A
Song of Seven Sisters" by Williams' nephew, Henry Wilkins Lewis for Christmas,
1977; "A Thorn(e)y Fault Corrected" by Henry Wilkins Lewis sent to Williams
early in 1978; and a leaflet from the Church of the Resurrection, New York
City, with a picture of the McManis organ given as a memorial to Charlotte
Niven (McKinney) Alston and Louis Watson Alston by their daughter Mary
Niven Alston, together with a description of the instrument and program
recital by David Hewlett, 13 January 1963. (65 items)
Folder 6 Letters of Louis
(originally spelled Lewis) Watson Alston to his sister, Lucy Tunstall Williams
and two miscellaneous items: a note, 1886, from his mother, Jane
Crichton Alston enclosing a cutting of the child's hair at age 2 and a
copy of an executor's
Folder 20a Letters to Lucy Tunstall Crichton Sneveley, including: Mary (Mamie) Lewis Watson Burwell (Warrenton,
N.C.) to Lucy Tunstall Crichton Sneveley (Mobile, Ala.), 9 January 1923;
Fred A. Olds (Raleigh, N.C.) to same, 21 July 1926; Ivey Watson (Enfield,
N.C.), 14 September 1942; 4 April 1947; 21 June 1949; Whit Morris (San
Antonio, Tex.) to same, 12 August 1949; S. Porter Myers (Richmond, Va.)
to same, 20 June 1951; and Sallie Davis Daniel (Santa Fe, N.M.) to same,
16 May
Folder 15 Letters of Ella Lee
Alston written from Littleton, N.C., to her sister Lucy Tunstall (Alston
Williams) in the summer of 1900. A letter (unsigned) dated Brinkleyville,
N.C., 25 January 1891, apparently to Jane (Crichton) Alston, her mother,
and a letter from
Undated: letter from Crichton to his mother, Mrs. Hugh Crichton (Lucy Henry Tunstall) is almost illegible. (Folder12) On11 August 1864: Hugh Randolph Crichton wrote from near Petersburg to his sister, Jane. (Folder 12) 28 August 1864: Hugh Randolph Crichton "on skirmish" near Petersburg wrote to Captain and Mrs. Philip Guston Alston (his sister, Jane). (Folder 12) 15 June 1864: Nathaniel Richard Tunstall, from a General Hospital in Petersburg, VA., wrote to his father, GeorgeTunstall, in Louisburg, NC (Folder 22 Alston Papers) 15 June 1864: Nathaniel Richard Tunstall, from a General Hospital in Petersburg, VA., wrote to his father, George Tunstall, in Louisburg, NC (Folder 22) 9 February 1863: Hugh Randolph Crichton
wrote to his sister, Jane (soon to be wife of Philip Guston Alston)
from camp on the Rapidan twelve miles from Gordonsville, VA., reporting
on the skirmishes there. (Folder 12) Undated: letter
from Crichton to his mother, Mrs. Hugh Crichton (Lucy Henry Tunstall) is
almost illegible. (Folder12) Indeed, it is with this period
that the bulk of the papers
Folder 10 Letters and Notes
of Philip (Pegie) Guston Alston, Jr. to his father, Philip Guston Alston,
his mother, Jane (Crichton) Alston, and sister, Lucy Tunstall (Alston)
Williams in the period 4 August 1884 to 20 May 1891. They deal with a young
man's initial work experience away from home (at Palmyra, Halifax County,
NC), his religious commitment, and his understanding of the stress generated
by the death of his mother and the consequent need to make provisions for
his youngest sister, Ella Lee Alston, and younger brothers, Samuel Williams
Alston and Louis Watson Alston. (10 items.)
Folder 1 Letters of George
Warren Alston to Various members of his family including his mother, Jane
(Crichton) Alston, his father, Philip Guston Alston, and his sister, Lucy
Tunstall Alston. The correspondence covers the years 1881-1907 and
deals largely with the writer's attempts to find employment. He was
in Warrenton, NC, from 188-1890, Fort Payne, Ala., in April 1890, Anniston,
Ala., in April and May 1890, and Texarkana, Ark., from June 1890 to 1907.
(51 items)
. Folder 17 Letters of
Lucy Tunstall Alston to various members of her family: her mother,
Jane Elizabeth (Crichton) Alston, undated written in 1890-1891; her father,
Philip Guston Alston, while he was a resident of Marlboro County, S.C.,
1904 and 1918; her brother, Philip Guston Alston, Jr., 4 April 1905; her
cousin, Lucy Tunstall Crichton in Mobile, Ala., 17 September
1923, with a typed commentary written by the writer's grandson, Henry Wilkins
Lewis, 13 September 1981; and her husband, Archibald Davis Williams, Jr.
(52 items)
Folder 13 Letters of Jane (Jennie)
Crichton Williams to members of her family including: her mother,
Lucy Tunstall (Alston) Williams; her grandfather, Philip Guston Alston;
her aunt, Ella (Nettie) Lee (Alston) Thorne; her step-grandmother, Lucy
(McColl) Roper; her sister, Mary (Mamie) Lewis Williams; her sister,
Lucy Alston ,Williams; her son, Henry Wilkins Lewis; and her cousin,
Crichton Alston Thorne. The letters were written from Cherry Hill
plantation, 1903; Linwood farm near Centerville, Franklin County, NC, 1904-1907;
Warrenton, NC, where the writer was attending Graham School, 1908; Townsville,
VAnce County, NC, where the writer held her first position as a school
teacher, 1913; Washington, D.C., where the writer was on her honeymoon,
1915; and from Jackson, NC, where she lived after her marriage, 1915-1924.
This folder also contains letters from two of her children, Henry Wilkins
Lewis and Philip Alston Lewis, to their grandmother, Lucy Tunstall (Alston)
Williams, and to their aunt, Lucy Alston Williams. (69 items)
Folder 16 Miscellaneous Items of Jane (Jennie) Crichton Williams.
The first is a poem entitled "Centerville" in which the writer attempts
to describe the Franklin County, NC, near which she lived with her family.
The second is the program of Music Recital in which the subject was a participant
at East Carolina Teachers Training School, Greenville, NC, 20 December
1910. The third is a letter from the subject postmarked Greenville,
NC, 9 January 1912, to her mother, Lucy Tunstall (Alston) Williams and
her aunt, Ella Lee (Alston) Thorne, who were then living in Warrenton,
NC; this letter describes in detail the writer's visit to the Tarboro,
NC, home of Edwin Cherry, one of her suitors. (3 items)
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