Crenshaw Family Papers, PC.2016
Abstract
Papers include original documents and letters and two oversized manuscript volumes, with the papers spanning the 19th and 20th centuries and relating to the Crenshaw Family and related families, who lived primarily near Wake Forest, Wake County, N.C.
Descriptive Summary
- Title
- Crenshaw Family Papers
- Call Number
- PC.2016
- Creator
- Crenshaw family
- Date
- 1833-1944
- Extent
- 1.100 cubic feet
- Repository
- State Archives of North Carolina
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], PC.2016, Crenshaw Family Papers, 1833-1944, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, N.C., USA.
Collection Overview
Correspondence of Mattie (Williams) Jones, Louisa James (Crenshaw) Norman, Sarah E,
(Norman) Williams, and Thomas Plummer Jones. Financial records, chattel mortgaes,
estate and land records, account books and ledgers for tennants and cotton sales.
Especially notable aspects of the papers are the following elements that reflect changing
social customs and manners: a couple of courship letter from the 1850s written by
John Martin Crenshaw to Louisa James Crenshaw while she was the widow of Thomas Norman;
courtship letters written during the 1890s to Louisa's granddaughter, Mattie Williams;
then these are followed by letters from Iris Fuller to Thomas Plummer Jones Jr. during
World War II. The letters also reveal information useful for local history, such as
entertainments in Raleigh before the Civil War; and troop entertainment events in
Wake Forest and Camp Butner during World War II. Additionally, one can glean some
ideas about the effect of the war on Wake Forest.
Biographical/Historical
The Crenshaw family can trace part of its history in Wake County to Sarah Brody Martin
and William Crenshaw (1783-1861). William was a prominent planter and store keeper
who became the first treasurer of Wake Forest College. John Martin Crenshaw (1822-1910),
the couple's youngest child, eventually took over the family enterprises then expanded
them and entered the cotton brokerage business. In 1860 he married his widowed cousin,
Louisa James Norman, a daughter of Samuel (b. 1794) and Eliza White Harris Crenshaw
(b. 1794).
At first Louisa and John Martin lived at Horse Creek Planation, then moved at Louisa's
request to her former home, Crenshaw Hall. (The homeplace had been built by Eliza
and Samuel Crenshaw on land given Eliza by her father.) Louisa and Martin had no children,
but Louisa had a daughter by her first marriage, Sally Norman Williams (1846?-1903
or 1904), who later married Benjamin Craven Williams. She became the mother of several
children, including Mattie Marvin Williams. It was Mattie who inherited the Crenshaw
Hall homeplace from her grandmother.
Mattie was married to Thomas P. Jones and had four children, but only three, Tom (Thomas
Jr.), Martin and Edward, survived into adulthood. Mattie died in 1961
Contents of the Collection
Subject Headings
Acquisitions Information
Gift