Biographical Sketch:  This collection dates back to Reuben Sanders (1764-1829) and his second wife Keren Smith Sanders (1770-1844), who were the progenitors of a leading Johnston County family of wealthy planters, merchants, and local and state politicians. The collection relates primarily to Reuben's grandson Lucien Holmes Sanders (1823-1875), Lucien's wife Martitia Marsh Sanders (1824-1907), their two children William Marsh Sanders (1858-1924) and Keren Ann ("Kittie") Sanders (1860-1936), W. M.'s wife and cousin Lillian Lee Long (1864-1936), and Kittie's husband and cousin William Ransom Long (1862-1921).

There are also letters to Linn B. Sanders from family members in Virginia and Tennessee. Linn B. Sanders (1814-1879), a NC state legislator in the 1850s, inherited the White Oak house and plantation through marriage to Reuben Sanders' granddaughter Polly Ann Sanders and lived there from about 1845 to 1860. He died in Macon County, Alabama, where he moved in 1861.

Collection Description:  Much of the material relates to White Oak Plantation in Cleveland Township which was owned originally by Reuben Sanders in the late eighteenth century and by successive generations of the family until the 1930s (see correspondence in Box 116.1 and 116.2 and land records in 116.2). Of particular interest are letters written to Linn B. Sanders in the 1840s by family members in Virginia and Tennessee. Numerous other letters to members of the Lucien H. Sanders and William S. Long families of Johnston and Caswell Counties, NC, date from the 1840s to the early 1900s. Of interest to agricultural historians are a series of letters in 1896 between W.R. Long of White Oak and Edmund T. Daniel of Pittsylvania County, Virginia, regarding White Oak's shift to tobacco production. Other material relates to the nearby plantations of Baldy and Delia Sanders and their son Lucien in Pleasant Grove and Cleveland Townships (contract dated 1873 and numerous receipts and bills of sale in Boxes 116.1 and 116.3). A Confederate furlough to Elisha Wallace, dated 1864, was apparently given to Lillian Long Sanders during her involvement with the United Daughters of the Confederacy (116.3).