Records Relating to the "Boston Fund"
setName: label: See more items in
content: Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of North Carolina Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1870
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAAHC.FB.M843, Series 7
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: In 1867 a group from Boston, Mass., donated money to purchase food and cloth where the supplies offered by the Government failed to provide proper nourishment and clothing for destitute people, "Such as the Sick, Aged and Infirm, and Delicate Children" regardless of race or political persuasion. William Gray, chairman of this committee, made the arrangements for the aid and asked that he be given information about how the funds were spent in North Carolina so that he could report to the committee. Probably because of this request, a collection of the Assistant Commissioner's records relating to the "Boston Fund" was made. The fund was administered in North Carolina by Assistant Commissioner Nelson A. Miles, Gov. William W. Holden, and R. W. Pulliman and locally by subcommittees in the districts and subdistricts of the State.

Among the records of the Assistant Commissioner are two short series of records relating to the "Boston Fund": a letters sent volume, June 19, 1867–August 25, 1868, and unbound letters received, May 1867–August 1868. The letters sent volume contains fair copies of letters sent by Bvt. Col. Jacob Chur, the Assistant Adjutant General, to various agents and officers of the Bureau and private citizens explaining the fund's use and granting of money. These chronologically arranged letters begin on page 30. Pages 2 – 7 were used by the Superintendent of the District of Wilmington; pages 1 and 8 – 29 are blank and unfilmed. The series of unbound letters is arranged chronologically except for a few receipts, invoices, and communications filed together at the end of 1867 under the title "Ladies Northern Aid Society." The remainder and major part of the records include letters from Gray, from various subcommittees that helped disburse aid, and from private persons, and some receipts and invoices.