Stuart, Alexander H. H. (Alexander Hugh Holmes), 1807-1891. Papers of Alexander H. H. Stuart and the related Stuart and Baldwin families [manuscript], 1776-1878 (bulk 1850-1861).
Title:
Papers of Alexander H. H. Stuart and the related Stuart and Baldwin families [manuscript], 1776-1878 (bulk 1850-1861).
The collection contains the political correspondence of Alexander H.H. Stuart, particularly from 1850-1853, when he served in Fillmore's cabinet and from 1857-1861, when he was in the Virginia State Senate. The Whig Party is a major topic. Other topics include national and Virginia politics, the presidential elections of 1848, 1852, and 1868, the reestablishment of a national bank, the Virginia Reform Convention of 1850, the American Know-Nothing Party, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Also slavery, abolition, Southern conservative opposition to secession, Virginia elections of 1831, 1851, 1859, 1867, the aftermath of Nat Turner's rebellion, the use of statistics in government, the Confederate Congress, sectional reconciliation after the Civil War, the Readjustor controversy, political patronage, and internal improvements. Also mentioned are Revolutionary War pension claims, migration of free blacks to Liberia, affairs at the Chickasaw and Choctaw Indian Agency in 1851, California politics and Indians in 1851, the Tehuantepec Isthmus route, Iowa in 1851, San Francisco in 1854, New Orleans in 1861, West Virginia in 1861, the U.S.S. Princeton explosion, Dorothea Dix's efforts to establish hospitals for the mentally ill, building of the U.S. Capitol, the Virginia Central Railroad and the University of Virginia. Many letters convey local news in Staunton and Augusta County, Va., such as the development of Alum Springs, the establishment of the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind, smallpox cases and land sales and controversies in Virginia and Kentucky. Others refer to legal cases handled by Stuart, including suits involving the Bath Iron Works and Buffalo Forge, and the Wheeling Bridge. Several letters discuss family affairs including plans by a cousin to run a boarding house for young women in Athens, Greece. Only a few letters mention the Civil War and Reconstruction and include references to the military movements of Confederate general Robert S. Garnett. Topics in earlier Stuart and the related Baldwin family papers include ratification of the U.S. constitution, Jeffersonian party politics, political events during the administration of George Washington, Washington Academy, the University of Virginia and its honor system, Washington College, and William Wirt's biography of Patrick Henry. The papers also contain an architectural drawing of an unidentified house, an engraving of Alexander H.H. Stuart, insurance policies, stock certificates, indentures, wills, land plats, and speeches by Alexander H.H. Stuart. Military papers of Captain George M. Cochran, Jr., Quartermaster, 52nd Virginia Infantry, consist chiefly of requisitions and receipts. There are also two printed pamphlets, 1849, in French and German, on the potato blight.
ArchivalResource:
800 (ca.) items.
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