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Business records and correspondence of Henry Brown and Samuel P. Clayton. After the death of his brother Daniel in 1818, Brown entered into a partnership with Clayton, his son-in-law. Brown survived Clayton, who died in 1832; this box also includes papers from 1833 to 1839 made out to Henry Brown, surviving partner of Brown and Clayton Company. The accounts of Henry Brown with Hancock and Brown, Lynchburg, 1824-1833, are retained as one group. Also retained as a separate group are the papers relating to the court suits of Brown and Pleasant Murphy. All notes of the period carried a 100 percent penalty clause. This resulted in many law suits being brought to establish what would now be considered exorbitant claims. In one case (see entry for March 10, 1823) for a debt of $42.05, the debtor surrendered 1 sound filly, 2 cows, a calf, 2 feather beds, all household and kitchen furniture, all plantation utensils, and 6 hogs! 159 items.

Correspondence and business papers of Capt. Henry Brown, Revolutionary War veteran who opened a store in Bedford County, in 1793; Papers of Capt. Brown as Collector of Federal taxes on stills and real property. The Brown family papers begin with the letters and papers of Capt. Henry Brown (1760-1841), successful merchant of Bedford County and Lynchburg, who established the family fortune. He was the father of John Thompson Brown, Delegate to the Virginia Assembly, whose letters and papers are collected in the next section (Boxes 14-19). A few letters and receipts pertaining to Henry Brown, 1712-1798, the father of Capt. Henry Brown, are included. The great bulk of the material, however, relates to Capt. Brown, beginning with a map of a Revolutionary War battle, 1777, in which he was wounded. With his brother, Daniel, he opened a general store in Bedford soon after the conclusion of the war. A partnership agreement of April 1797, which brought James Leftwich into the business, is preserved and the bulk of the material in this box pertains to the business of the store. A good picture of early merchandising is given by the accounts, letters relating to buying and selling trips, and the court actions taken to collect accounts. Beginning with folder 60, there are 39 items relating to the duties of Henry Brown as tax collector in the Bedford area in the years 1800 to 1803. 160 items.

Business papers of Henry Brown, not directly connected with any of his various business enterprises, but concerned principally with court suits involving debts to him. Included is an interesting case of Mark Anthony, who took the oath of an Insolvent Debtor, making out a deed of trust of all his property to his creditors (11 April 1829 and 6 July 1833). Also includes papers concerned with the suit of Henry Brown vs. Nicodemus Leftwich, 1832-1840. Brown pays for the attendance of witnesses at the court and pays the county Jailor "for imprisoning and releasing" Leftwich.

Material related to the Brown and Tucker families after 1900. Accounts of Cary A. Adams are placed at the beginning of the box. Newspaper clippings, 1913-1915, from Nome, Alaska, relate to Judge John Randolph Tucker. Another member of the family, Captain David Tucker Brown, is represented by two letters (1918, 1919) written from France when he was serving as a member of the American Commission to negotiate peace. Seventeen undated items concerning unidentified persons are grouped at the end of the box. 85 items.

Correspondence, commissions, receipts, etc., of Colonel John Thompson Brown II, killed in action on May 6, 1864; his drafts of speeches in defense of slavery. This box contains the papers from the period after the death of John Thompson Brown, and concern John Thompson Brown II, born in 1835, some 18 months before the death of his father. One letter (November 20, 1844) lists the courses studied by boys at the ages of 9, 11, and 13; a travel book gives an interesting picture of Europe (May 4, 1857); and a draft of a letter describes the bleedings to which a tourist entering Italy had to submit. John Thompson Brown II was elected Second Lieutenant by the members of his company (December 1, 1859). Also included are notes of speeches made to rouse war enthusiasm. The receipt for a saber and belt (April 23, 1861) mark the beginning of action, and other records follow John Thompson Brown II's rise to Major, then to Colonel. His request for a transfer to a more active field of war and an extended argument with his commanding officer, Brig. General William Nelson Pendleton, are of interest. The box concludes with items which appear to have been on the person of Colonel John Thompson Brown II, when he was killed in action on 6 May 1864. 83 items.

Two speeches given before the House of Delegates, published in pamphlet form: The speech of John Thompson Brown, in the House of Delegates of Virginia, on the Abolition of Slavery; Speech of John Thompson Brown, (of Petersburg,) in the House of Delegates of Virginia, in Committee of the Whole, on the State of the Relations between the United States and South Carolina. The important and exciting national political events of the years 1832 and 1833, as they affected the people of Virginia, are seen through the eyes of John Thompson Brown in the items included in this box. A member from Petersburg in the House of Delegates of the Virginia Assembly, John Thompson Brown was placed in a position of leadership and strongly influenced the decisions taken in those critical years. His speech on the abolition of slavery was considered so important that Judge Henry St. George Tucker and others raised the money to have it printed (18 January 1832). He was a member of the Virginia delegation to the national convention of the Republican Party; his resolution of the Vice-Presidential nominee (21-22 May 1832) was the one adopted by the Virginia caucus. As Chairman of the Finance Committee of the House of Delegates, the question of President Jackson's moves against the United States Bank was of particular concern to him (9 April 1833). Great excitement was aroused by South Carolina's threat of nullification. John Thompson Brown was a member of the Committee on Federal Relations, and his substitute motion on the question is included in this box, as well as his speech on The State of the Relations between the United States and South Carolina, delivered 5 January 1833, also published in pamphlet form. John Thompson Brown was invited to be a Director of the Petersburg Railroad which he declined (7 May 1832), and was considered for the position of U.S. Senator, although he felt that he was not qualified by years or experience (December 1832). An interesting report of his meeting with President Jackson is included in a letter from John Thompson Brown to his wife (23 May 1832). Also included in this box are letters from John Tyler, William Cabell Rives, and William Segar Archer (7 February, 3 March 1833). Two poems, possibly written by John Thompson Brown, clipped from a newspaper, signed Julian are included at the end of this box. 81 items.

The correspondence between St. George T. Coalter, his wife, his sister Mrs. Elizabeth T. Bryan, and her husband John Randolph Bryan, form the core of the material in this box. It includes letters exchanged by the cousins, five Coalter children, and nine Bryan children. The controversy over the will of John Randolph of Roanoke is mentioned in several of the letters. St. George Tucker Coalter was a nephew of John Randolph, John Randolph Bryan was his godson, and both were heirs. St. George Tucker Coalter attempts to establish a new home where his late father John Coalter forced him to move (St. George Tucker Coalter was never financially independent of his father). A doctor's prescription, 28 April 1839, for the man who has been slowly dying of lung trouble and constant fever is: salts to be taken internally, salve rubbed on externally, baths at the medicinal springs and regular exercise. Four months later St. George Tucker Coalter died. The five surviving children of Mrs. Coalter and the nine children of Mrs. Elizabeth T. Bryan add to the correspondence as the years go on, for the families are very attached to one another and there is much visiting back and forth as well as letter writing. The letters of the cousins have been combined in this collection, so that an interesting picture is given of the life of this period; see a report of a traveling entertainer who visits the great houses (23 February 1847), a description of a costume ball at Warner Hall (8 February 1851) and a list of courses studied at a Girl's school (2 February 1852). There is much discussion of diseases which were prevalent: consumption, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, cholera, and influenza. 16-year-old John Coalter copied out a cholera cure sent by his aunt for use by two local doctors (13 July 1849).

Correspondence primarily of the two surviving children of John and Francis Bland Tucker Coalter: Elizabeth Tucker Coalter Bryan and St. George Tucker Coalter, and their respective spouses, John Randolph Bryan and Judith H. Tomlin Coalter. Includes genealogical material on the Tomlin family, and correspondence of Judith H. Tomlin before her marriage to St. George Tucker Coalter. Her letters form an important part of the collection from this time until her death in 1859. The last letters from their grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. St. George Tucker, are preserved, as well as letters to their uncles Henry and Beverley Tucker and John Randolph of Roanoke. Of special note is a letter of October 1831 in which St. George Tucker Coalter writes fully of Randolph during a visit to Roanoke. After his death in 1833, Randolph's will caused great difficulty and misunderstanding in the family, and appears to cast a slur on his step-father St. George Tucker. The letters of St. George Tucker Coalter to his wife and sister, especially those written from the springs which he visits each year, form the largest single group. In these letters an interesting picture of nineteenth century social life is to be found.

Frances Bland Coalter is the daughter of St. George Tucker Coalter and grandchild of John Coalter. Her correspondence gives a picture of mid-nineteenth century life and includes a near scandal in her attachment to her married schoolmaster, the Rev. Moses D. Hoge. The contents of this box end with the marriage of Frances Bland Coalter and Henry Peronneau Brown. Letters of Brown and his wife resume in Box 21. Largely papers collected by Frances Bland Coalter between February 1853, when she is preparing to leave school, and December 1858, when she married Henry Peronneau Brown. Through this marriage the Tucker-Coalter line was connected with the Brown line; thus, the papers of the two families were brought together into one. The collection gives an interesting picture of the life and interests of a young lady of moderate circumstances in the mid-l9th century. Of special interest are the letters concerning the Rev. Moses D. Hoge, whose school in Richmond Fanny Coalter had attended. Shortly after she left school, the Rev. Mr. Hoge carried on a very romantic correspondence with Fanny, although he was a married man with several children. The correspondence became more ardent in the early months of 1854 and, when Mrs. Hoge wrote that her husband had gone to Baltimore to stay with his brother who was ill, Fanny followed him there. According to the gossip of Mattie and Lizzie Morton, she went there to "entrap him." In October it was suggested that the brother, William Hoge, was the one in whom she was interested. The Rev. Mr. Hoge later sought to calm the fervours of his correspondent, as shown by his letters of 28 January 1855, 19 June 1856, and 19 March 1857. Fanny B. Coalter did not lack for other suitors, however, for she preserved a letter of 17 July 1854, a proposal of marriage from Alfred B. Tucker. A year later there are reports of her interest in the Brown brothers, John Thompson and Peronneau, of Petersburg, both of whom were courting her. She finally settled on the latter; some acceptances to the marriage invitation are included in this box. Letters of Frances Bland Coalter and her husband Henry Peronneau Brown continue in Box 21. The intervening boxes contain manuscripts of the Brown family, especially Capt. Henry Brown, grandfather of Henry Peronneau Brown (Boxes 7-13); the Hon. John Thompson Brown, father of Henry Peronneau Brown (Boxes 14-19); and Col. John Thompson Brown II, brother of Henry Peronneau Brown (Box 20).