MOSES ASHLEY CURTIS PAPERS, #199, 1825-1929
Personal and professional papers of Curtis, an Episcopal minister, teacher, and noted
mycologist of Wilmington, Raleigh, and Hillsborough, North Carolina, and of Society Hill,
South Carolina. The collection includes comments on Dearest family slaves (1841-1842); a receipt for the sale of a slave (1846); letters discussing a Dearest family neighbor charged with
murdering a slave and the white community's outrage at the accused (1811); the acquisition of a preacher to minister to slaves (described as "a godless
set") (1841); and the reception of Uncle Tom's Cabin in England
(1853). Curtis's personal diary contains entries that describe the
panic and activities relating to the Nat Turner insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia,
and the threat of an uprising in the vicinity of Wilmington, North Carolina (1831).