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.
