Original and photocopies of correspondence between members of the related Bunting and Heacock families of Delaware County, Pa., and Talladega County, Ala., respectively consisting primarily of letters from Dr. Joseph Davis Heacock to his niece, Sarah Bunting; one letter from Dr. Heacock to his sister, Sarah's mother; and a letter from Dr. Heacock's son, Dr. John William Heacock, conveying the news of his father's death in 1867. Joseph D. Heacock's letters contain information about family matters, crop and weather conditions, the Arctic expedition of Elisha Kent Kane (2nd Grinnell Expedition, 1853-1855), and slavery. Heacock wrote a 14-page defense of slavery in response to Sarah's inquiry of his opinion of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Heacock, a slaveholder, expresses his fear that the issue of slavery may disrupt the Union, and admonishes the Society of Friends, of which his relatives are members, for their abolitionist activities. Other subjects mentioned include Baptist and Methodist religious revivals in Talladega County and environs, and the harvesting and ginning of cotton and the work and life-style of cotton merchants. John W. Heacock's letter of 1867 comments briefly on political and economic conditions in Reconstruction Alabama.
