A new book, titled “The Letters of Kate Duncan Smith and John Harrington, 1894-1907” has been donated to the genealogy collection in the Moore County Library.

These letters were transcribed by Lillie Frances Harrington Davis of Poquoson, Va. Davis was born and raised in Moore County and has spent much time with relatives in Harnett, Lee and Moore counties.

While Davis was researching the genealogy of the Harrington family, she had the privilege of meeting a “new” cousin, Dixie Nell Harrington Perez. Perez is the great-granddaughter of John Harrington and Janet McLean. She donated the entire Kate Duncan Smith and John Harrington collection of letters for publication.

For over 100 years these letters were carefully preserved in an antique trunk in the charming historic home of Charles Glenn Harrington and Delilah Bragg McLeod in a community once called Harrington. In the late 1800s the community had its own post office. The collection of letters includes 78 pages of original handwritten correspondence written and signed by Kate Duncan Smith, after whom the Kate Duncan Smith DAR School in Alabama was named, to John Harrington and his son, State Sen. Thomas W. Harrington.

Also included in the new book are 82 legal pages of handwritten and eloquently phrased material, written by John Harrington in response to Smith’s inquiries. These documents contain valuable genealogical data on other central North Carolina families as well as the Harrington lineage. Many individuals resided in Moore, Chatham (now Lee), and Harnett counties.

John Harrington was a grandson of Sion Hill Harrington and Elizabeth Watts, and the fifth of nine children born to Thomas Harrington and Ann Stephens. John Harrington was born on Aug. 17, 1816 and died on March 15, 1898. He married Janet McLean on Nov. 25, 1841 and they became parents of 11 children. Janet McLean Harrington was born in 1825, died on Jan. 15, 1887, and was the daughter of Duncan McLean.

On April 21, 1995, the nine original Kate Duncan Smith letters were donated to and received by Mrs. Wayne G. Blair, president general, and Mrs. Dale Kelly Love, Historian General of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, by Lillie Frances Harrington Davis while she was Regent of the Kate Waller Barrett Chapter in Virginia. They are now preserved in the NSDAR Americana Collection in Washington, DC.

Davis said that transcribing these documents has deeply enriched her knowledge of the family and has resulted in tremendous admiration and respect for her ancestors who have given so much that we might have a life of freedom and choice.

“When these letters were presented to me,” she said, “I vowed they would be published so future generations of the Southern Harrington families would have knowledge of their ancestors — to be aware of their perseverance, resourcefulness, joys, hardships, and above all their love of God and freedom.”

Davis said I am indebted to my cousins, Dixie Nell Harrington Perez, her late sister Gloria Harrington, Gladys Fields Lloyd Weaver, and James N. McFarland, whose love, confidence, and friendship have been a constant encouragement. Without these thoughtful and sharing individuals, these valuable papers may have been lost or destroyed.”