Inventor Name
Smith, Peter Evans
Repository
University of North Carolina Library
Southern Historical Collection
CB# 3926, Wilson Library
Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890
919-962-1345
http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/shc
Physical Description
ca. 1000 items
Summary
Peter Evans Smith (1829-1905) of Halifax County, N.C., civil and mechanical engineer, inventor, surveyor, cotton planter, and railroad employee. Personal and business correspondence, business papers, and various other records of Smith and of his relatives. Much of the correspondence is about family matters, but many items relate to Smith's inventions and patents, most of which, such as his electric buoy, were related to navigation, agriculture, and railroads. Other items concern Smith's work on the Confederate ironclad "Albemarle"; navigation on the Roanoke River; planting and lumbering before, during, and after the Civil War; relations with African Americans as slaves,tenant farmers, and laborers; his work for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad; his interests in the Vine Hill Academy and the Episcopal Church in Scotland Neck,N.C.; and many other matters. There is also material relating to Smith's daughter Lena, a schoolteacher who established the Cottage Home School in Scotland Neck after her deafness caused her to lose her teaching job. The collection also includes scrapbooks and commonplace books, photographs, clippings, bills, receipts, genealogical notes, and historical sketches, mostly ofCivil War incidents and including regimental histories of the 1st and 3rd North Carolina Cavalry, by Smith and others. Also of note is a series of letters written during World War II from a woman missionary in China.
Finding Aid
http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/s/Smith,Peter_Evans
