Fontaine-Maury Papers 1710-1874

Access and use

Location of collection:
Colonial Williamsburg
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
P.O. Box 1776
Williamsburg, VA 23187
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Douglas Mayo
Phone: (757) 565-8521
Phone: (757) 565-8520
Fax: (757) 565-8528

Summary

Creator:
Fontaine, John (1693-1767), Maury, Ann (1803-1876).
Language:
English

Background

Scope and content:

The Fontaine-Maury Papers include the journal, 1710-1719, of John Fontaine (1693-1767), soldier, traveler, and clockmaker, including his military service in Portugal and Spain, 1710-1711; travels in England, 1713; an attempted trip to Virginia turned back by bad weather; and his trip to Virginia, 1715, to purchase land for his family. While in Virginia Fontaine traveled to Germanna and Ft. Christanna; participated in and described Governor Spotswood's Trans-Montane Expedition; and journeyed to New York City, returning through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. The journal was seemingly written after John's return to England in 1719, and was copied by Miss Ann Maury in 1840. At that time the original was in the possession of descendants in England, but it has since disappeared. Miss Maury also copied letters into the journal from John Fontaine's brother, the Rev. Peter Fontaine (1691-1757), John's sister, Mary Ann Fontaine Maury (1690-1755), and John's nephews, Peter Fontaine (b. 1721) and the Rev. James Maury (1717-1769), to John and Moses Fontaine and Daniel Tobin in England. The letters relate family news and occasionally touch on conditions in Virginia. The collection also includes a few original eighteenth-century letters and nineteenth-century copies of other Fontaine and Maury letters to and from Virginia, and nineteenth-century letters of Ann Maury and her brother James regarding James Fontaine's memoir and family news. Persons mentioned in the journal and letters include Mr. Baylor, Mr. Beverley, Mr. Clayton, Philip Ludwell, Austin Moor, Andrew Freneau, Col. Morris, William Fontaine Alexander, Edmund Fontaine, Matthew Maury, and William A. Maury. The journal and most of the eighteenth-century letters were published in Ann Maury, Memoirs of a Huguenot Family (New York, 1853), and later editions.

Acquisition information:
Purchase, 1968.
Arrangement:

Items are arranged chronologically.

Physical description:
1 vol., [366] pp., and 30 pieces.