HAMILTON BROWN PAPERS, #1090, 1752-1907
Extensive and varied business and personal papers of three generations of the prominent
Brown family of Wilkes County, North Carolina, and the related Gwyn, Gordon, and Finley
families. Antebellum papers dating from the 1770s contain a number of slave bills of sale and
documents concerning the hiring-out of slaves in Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee; a series
of letters from William Gwyn concerning arrangements to hire a particular slave couple (1835); and several letters from Indiana residents responding to runaway
slave notices posted by Hamilton Brown (1835-1839). Also included are letters from slaves negotiating terms of hire
(1830s-1840s) and contracts for hiring freedmen
(1871-1907). Microfilm available.