Bocock, Thomas S., 1815-1891. Papers of Bocock and of the Bocock, Thornhill Christian, Stephens, Flood, Patteson, and Diuguid families of Buckingham and Appomattox counties, 1760-1897.
Title:
Papers of Bocock and of the Bocock, Thornhill Christian, Stephens, Flood, Patteson, and Diuguid families of Buckingham and Appomattox counties, 1760-1897.
Correspondence, financial and legal papers, ledgers, and speeches. Letters to Bocock, 1840-1887, comprise almost half the collection. Most are from his constituents and concern routine matters such as pension and bounty claims, academy appointments, mail routes, requests for copies of documents and speeches, and for legal assistance. Topics of interest include a contested 1847 election with Henry P. Irving; the admission of California, and the Compromise of 1850; the Nashville Convention of 1850; slavery, abolition, and the ante-bellum South; the Whig, Democrat and American (Know Nothing) parties; the presidential elections of 1848, 1852, and 1880; and local Appomattox Co. politics. Many prominent figures of the day are mentioned including Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Cass, Douglas, Polk, Taylor, Pierce, Fillmore, Buchanan, Hayes, and Louis Kossuth. Speeches on the tariff of 1842, the Wilmot Proviso, slavery, the Confederacy, and William Wilson Corcoran are included, as are a memorandum book, 1861-1866, of personal finances, papers from his chairmanship of the House Committee on Naval Affairs, a printed report on the Confederate Navy, and some legal and financial papers. The family papers contain correspondence, financial and legal papers. Topics of interest include Buckingham Co. politics, slavery, the Civil War, the tanning business, the American Tract Society, pioneer life in Alabama and Missouri, and the administration of several estates. Letters of note mention the confiscation of arms in Appomattox Co. for naval use, the gift of McCormick Observatory to the University of Virginia, the California gold rush, and the use of slaves on military fortifications. Also included are a minute book of the New Hope Baptist Church, Augusta Co., Va. with many references to blacks, an 1830s physician's ledger, a Buckingham Co. tax register, 1832, and an 1830s diary / journal listing family events and home remedies.
ArchivalResource:
3000 (ca.) items.
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