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Collection:
P.C.
1904
Richard Seawall HINTON Letters
1918-1919
Wake County
Physical Description: 159 items, including letters, typescript, printed
matter, newspaper cuttings, and photographs
Acquisition: Gift, Mrs. Grace (Wynne) Hinton Malloy, Raleigh, N.C., 1988
Description: Richard Seawell Hinton (Dec. 1893 - Nov. 1943) was the son of
Addison C. and Elizabeth (Seawell) Hinton of Raleigh.. His paternal great
grandfather was John S. Hinton, one of the founders of the First Presby-r-
terian Church in Raleigh, and his maternal great grandfather was Judge
Henry Seawell. He studied mechanical engineering at North Carolina State
University (then North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts)
in 1912 and 1913, then entered into business with his father, a merchant
tailor, and appears to have remained in the tailoring business until about
the time of the death of his father in 1934. After a brief period as clerk
of the Raleigh City Court, Hinton was deputy clerk of Wake County Superior
Court from 1937 until his death. By his marriage to Grace Wynne of Raleigh,
he had a son, Richard S. Hinton, Jr., who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps.
Hinton was inducted into the U.S. Army on May 25, 1918, and was assigned
to Company F, 322 Infantry, a constituent element of the 8lst (or "Wildcat")'
Division, He served overseas from July 31, 1918, to March 21, 1919, and
was discharged from the service on April 25, 1919. Most of the letters in
the collection were addressed to his mother, some to his aunt, Miss Miriam
Seawell, and others to his sister Patsy (Mrs. Thaddeus Shaw Page of Charlotte)
and his sister Grissell (Mrs. John D. Cooper, Jr. of Henderson). Knowing that
his letters were subject to a censor before they could be posted, Hinton was
always circumspect in what he wrote home. His letters from Camp (now Fort)
Jackson, Columbia, S.C., written between May 27 and June 21, 1918, are pretty
much the standard fare young draftees wrote to their mothers, commenting
on innoculations, issue of a standard uniform, drilling, and, in his letter
of June 21, clearing pineland of trees and stumps at the camp. His letters
written home from Camp Sevier, Greenville, S.C., speak of a meningitis
