Series 2. Manuscripts and Correspondence, 1788/1925

Scope and content:

This series contains the correspondence and papers of the Strother family covering the years 1778-1925 (bulk 1827-1888). Correspondence includes letters to and from friends, family, and business associates, as well as telegraphs from David Hunter Strother's service in the American Civil War. Topics discussed in correspondence include personal and family matters, business matters, the Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, the military as a profession, education, health, finances, politics, prohibition, art and illustration techniques, D. H. Strother's travels in Italy, John Brown's raid, the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty, and D. H. Strother's work as consul to Mexico. Correspondents include various members of the Strother family, John Marshall (U.S. Chief Justice), Alexander Stephens (U.S. Congressman and Vice President of the Confederacy), Edmund P. Hunter (Virginia lawyer and politician), J. E. Heath (U.S. Commissioner of Pensions), Charles J. Faulkner (U.S. Congressman), George W. Mumford (Secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia), Howard Sutherland (U.S. Senator), and William Ravenel (Administrative Assistant, Smithsonian Institution).

Personal papers include memoirs, notebooks, sections of diaries, essays, short stories, poems, song lyrics, enlistment documents, military commissions, legal documents (including a land grant and will), diplomas, receipts, account books, newsletters, newspaper clippings, and genealogies of the Strother family and their slaves. Subjects covered in these manuscript materials include religion, education, politics, the War of 1812, the United States Navy, the American Civil War, the Peekskill Military Academy, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and D. H. Strother's work as consul to Mexico.

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