Compare Constellations

Litchfield family. Papers, 1837-1992 (bulk 1869-1913).

Title: Papers, 1837-1992 (bulk 1869-1913).

The collection includes correspondence, 1869-1903, financial, legal, and land records of George Victor Litchfield (1837-1903) of Abingdon, Va., much of which concerns real estate development in western Virginia and the education of his children, especially his daughters at the Virginia Female Institute in Staunton. Also includes correspondence, 1865- 1892, accounts, and miscellany of his wife, Elizabeth Pannill (Peirce) Litchfield (1843-1892), including letters of Jeb Stuart and of Flora (Cooke) Stuart of the Virginia Female Institute. Also, includes correspondence, 1891-1921, of Dr. George Victor Litchfield (1877-1922) as a student at Randolph-Macon Academy in Bedford, Va., Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., and in the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., and while serving with the 58th Artillery Regiment of the U.S. Army in France in 1918; letters, 1878-1893, written to David Stuart Peirce (1846-1893) of Wytheville, Va., and records of his activities in the Democratic Party in Virginia; correspondence, 1889-1944, of Anne Stuart (Litchfield) Bolling (1869-1944) of Abingdon; correspondence, 1892-1955, of Elizabeth Peirce (Litchfield) Stuart (1873- 1956); correspondence, 1883-1936, and miscellany of Mary Litchfield (1875- 1936) of Abingdon and as a student at the Fairmont Seminary, Washington, D.C., and the Shipley School, Bryn Mawr, Pa.; and correspondence, 1937- 1944, of William Alexander Stuart (1889-1976) of Abingdon concerning the General Chemical Company of New York City and mineral deposits in Carroll County, Va.

ArchivalResource: 1,598 items.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/30891159 View

Aylett family. Papers, 1776-1945.

Title: Papers, 1776-1945.

Papers of William Roane Aylett include an account book, loose accounts, 1850-1881, and estate inventories concerning the administration of Montville plantation in King William County, Va.; correspondence, 1847- 1900, concerning college life at the University of Virginia and local politics (before and after the Civil War), and his law practice; military papers of the 53rd Virginia Infantry Regiment, which he commanded; and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about the entry of African Americans into Virginia politics and national politics. Correspondence, 1844-1860, of Judith Page (Waller) Aylett concerns social and domestic life at Montville. Correspondence, 1854-1894, of Alice Roane (Brockenbrough) Aylett deals with daily life in and around Richmond, Va., during the Civil War, hiring of a free African American woman, the sale of slaves, and letters from her daughter at the Virginia Female Institute in Staunton, Va.

ArchivalResource: 2,848 items.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/29991335 View

Harrison, Elizabeth Conrad, 1836-1907. Autograph Album, 1851-1855.

Title: Autograph Album, 1851-1855.

Notes to Bettie Harrison, mostly from her friends at the Virginia Female Institute, Staunton, Virginia.

ArchivalResource: 1 volume.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/29988550 View

Beardsworth, Ada Bantz, 1877-1965. Ada Bantz Beardsworth papers [manuscript], 1874-1953 (bulk 1897-1924).

Title: Ada Bantz Beardsworth papers [manuscript], 1874-1953 (bulk 1897-1924).

The collection consists primarily of Bantz and Beardsworth family papers, including letters, diaries, ledgers, and photographs. They reflect the life of Ada Bantz,a strongminded, artistically talented, and independently oriented Virginia woman and her husband, the musician Tom Beardsworth. Topics include Ada B. Beardworth's search for employment, family troubles, health, social life, travels,long engagement and evenutal marriage and struggle with social conventions. Of interest is correspondence with her gay godson and cousin William Baker Powell, an advertising salesman, author of home decorating articles, and friend of Gene Tunney, Noel Coward and Cole Porter. Topics also include Tom Beardsworth's positions at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind, Mary Baldwin Seminary, the Virginia Female Institute, Camp Terra Alta, the Stonewall Band Brigade and the Staunton Military Academy and tours and performances in numerous Virginia cities including Charlottesville. Other topics include current events,particularly the election of 1896, Spanish American war, World Wars I and II, and the depression; fashion trends; life in Winchester and Staunton, Va.; student life at Amherst; employment with Sherwin-Williams, advertising as a career, women owned businesses. There are also mentions of Allen Caperton Braxton, Barnett McFee Clinedinst, Lady Duff Gordon, Leonard Hanna, Jr., Cole Porter, John Powell, Maggie Teyte, Gene Tunney,and Woodrow Wilson. There are brief references to birth control and abortion, the bicycling fad, ping pong, a flood in Winchester in 1902, the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901, the inaugurations of William McKinley and Warren G. Harding, Woodrow Wilson as president, Walter Damrosch's orchestra, the Pan American Exposition, the Jamestown Expostion, the New York Worlds Fair, voyage to Europe on the RMS Mauretania, the stock market crash, Cole Porter musicals and nostalgia for the "good old days of slavery." Of interest are letters from William Glass and Sidney Moss, University of Virginia students, 1892-1895, 1912-1913, regarding student life and misbehavior, the Glee Club and the Rotunda fire and aftermath. Correspondents include: Richard E. Byrd, Henry LaT Cavenaugh, John Warwick Daniel, George Dewey, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Frank R. Gillis, William Wood Glass, Jr., Curtis Guild, James Hay, Louis E. McComas, Perry L. Miles, Alexander M. Patch, Fitz-John Porter, William Baker Powell, and Charles "Broadway" Rouss. Several of these letters are routine replies to requests for patronage.

ArchivalResource: circa 9000 items.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/648004500 View

Douglass family. Papers of the Douglass, Thorn, and Moores Families, 1822-1997.

Title: Papers of the Douglass, Thorn, and Moores Families, 1822-1997.

Papers, 1822, 1845, 1854-1922, 1997 and undated, of the Douglass, Thorn, and Moores families are comprised chiefly of letters to and from members of the family of Dr. John Douglass of Blackstock (Chester County, S.C.); topics include Civil War from the physicians viewpoint; schools and education for women in South Carolina during the 1880s; and life in Texas during later 19th century described for relatives remaining in S.C. Civil War letters document the Confederate military service of Dr. Douglass and his three surviving sons. James Rion Douglass, who organized and commanded a unit, described for son Swanson Wade Douglass what his uniform and insignia as a captain should be (8 May 1861); letter, Sept. 1864, to Susan Douglass, wife of Wade, discusses reorganization of the unit after volunteers were deployed to Virginia, which resulted in the replacement of Rion by election; a letter from Wade to the newspaper in Chester, S.C., refuting charges that he quit because his patron was ousted; as he explained to Susan Douglass, "When my patriotic motives fail, it will be when the Yankees have killed me." Wade Douglass, Captain, Co. B, Seventh South Carolina Battalion, Hagood's Brigade, died of wounds sustained in a charge near Wilcox Station on the Weldon and Petersburg Railroad in Virginia in 1864. A poignant tribute written by a comrade, 21 Nov. 1864, and printed in The Chester Standard eulogizes Capt. Douglass. Thomas James Holden Douglass, who was imprisoned at Johnson Island, Ohio, and brother Lawrence Sylvester ("Ves") Douglass survived the war and came home to struggle through Reconstruction, during which Ves Douglass operated a dry goods store in Blackstock. Tom apparently had some run-ins with the Ku Klux Klan as referenced in a letter from a friend in Warrenton, Va., 21 Nov. 1871; letter, 1883, from Henry West of Bozeman, Montana, in which he claims to be the Yankee soldier who protected the Douglass women and their household from Sherman's troops in 1865, includes a long, adventurous tale that concludes with his awaiting trial for a crime he claims he never committed and needing money to hire a defense attorney. Dr. John Douglass' daughter Mary Lunsford Douglass married William Henry Harrison Moores and moved to Texas. Her niece and namesake, Mary Lunsford Thorn, married William Henry Harrison Moores, Jr., the elder Moores' son by a previous marriage and also moved to Texarkana. A substantial share of the correspondence present in the collection consists of letters from these two Marys to their kinfolk in Blackstock. Most of the letters relate family, farming, and social news such as a New Year's eve "Dutch masquerade ball"-"Mr. Moores and Willie were masked as old women... they presented so ludicrous and frightful an appearance, that I was as silly as the children" (8 January 1883). The bulk of the correspondence relates to John Douglass' daughter, Frances Petrena Porcher Douglass, or "Pete" as she was called by her siblings. She married William Thorn in 1866 and had six daughters. Much of the correspondence relates to her daughters-trying to find good schools for them and the girls writing from school or their teaching positions around the state. On 21 November 1882, Fannie's friend Celestine Lowndes in Charleston wrote that the "Confederate Home is preferred by many for its more economical terms & more inexpensive dressing of its inmates." The daughters went to different schools, including Columbia Female College, Virginia Female Institute, Williamston Female College, and Clifford Seminary in Union. Daughter Adalize wrote her mother on 22 December 1889 that "Converse College is being built with the idea of being superior to any other college in the South." Other items include telegrams and business receipts and accounts, some of which include illustrated letterhead depicting buildings in Blackstock, S.C., and elsewhere.

ArchivalResource: 345 items.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/441342112 View

Binns family. Papers, 1763-1867.

Title: Papers, 1763-1867.

Pertains to Thomas Binns of New Kent County, Virginia, and his descendants. Includes: birth and marriage information; a list of slaves owned by various family members; a letter from C.H. Binns, Jr., a Confederate soldier from Captain A.J. Jones' Company, Virginia Artillery Regiment, who was imprisoned at Point Lookout, Maryland; and a letter from Annie Binns concerning a Confederate Memorial Day service she participated in as a student at Virginia Female Institute [later known as Stuart Hall] in Staunton, Virginia, in 1867.

ArchivalResource: 11 leaves.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/182576712 View