WILLIAM HENRY WILLS PAPERS, #792, 1712-1921
Family, religious, plantation, and business papers of Wills family members in Halifax
County, North Carolina, where Wills was a general merchant, Methodist Protestant minister,
and cotton planter, and of relatives in Washington and Edgecombe Counties, North Carolina.
Correspondence discusses race relations within the Methodist Protestant and Methodist
Episcopal churches (1840- 1890; slaves in Florida (1835-1847); an attempt to purchase a slave
girl in order to keep her with her family (1839); and justifications of slavery
(1861-65).