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This collection was a gift from Peggy Brooks on July 27, 2010.
The collection is arranged alphabetically by type of material: Correspondence, Essay on Suffrage, Photographs, Scrapbook and Commonplace book. Thomas Catesby Jone's law license and diploma are housed separately from the collection due to their large size.
Thomas Catesby Jones was born on December 6, 1880, in Petersburg, Virginia, the son of Walter Nelson and Ada Vaughan Jones. He was a descendant of Mark Catesby, a naturalist who immigrated to Virginia in 1712.
Thomas Catesby Jones attended McCabe's University School in Petersburg, and received a bachelor's degree from Hampden-Sydney College, after entering the college at the age of fourteen. He received a Master's degree from Princeton University, and a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1903. For nine years he practiced admiralty law in Norfolk before moving in 1912 to New York to join the firm of Harrington, Bigham & Englar (64 Wall St.) After one year, he became a partner in the firm and remained there until his death. In 1944 he was appointed Prize Commissioner in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, which was given jurisdiction of the entire Atlantic Ocean and tributary waters.
His first wife was Olga Hasbrouck. They married on May 6, 1911 and had one son, Catesby Thomas Jones. Olga Jones died on February 6, 1913, and on September 2, 1916, Jones married Louisa Brooks, a close friend of Olga's. They had two daughters, Mary Virginia Catesby and Frances Key.
Thomas Catesby Jones began his hobby of collecting art from modern artists, such as Matisse, Braque, Ernst, and Picasso during a trip to Paris in 1924. The focus of this collection is on his early correspondence with his family, and his first wife.
T. Catesby Jones Papers, 189 items, 1 Hollinger box, and less than 1 linear foot, contains correspondence from 1875 to 1925 of Thomas Catesby Jones in Poughkeepsie, New York and Norfolk, Virginia with his parents, brothers, and first wife, Olga Hasbrouck. There are also photographs of his family (unidentified), the University of Virginia, Monticello; and his University of Virginia diploma and Virginia law license.
There is also a commonplace book of quotations and clippings, from 1893, compiled by A. [V. V.?] Jones; and a scrapbook of notes taken by Benjamin B. Vaughan from Albert B. Dod's lectures on architecture, with clippings of sentimental and Confederate poetry pasted on blank pages.
Of interest are the letters from his fiancé, Olga Hasbrouck who wrote him every day after they were engaged in February of 1911 until they were married in May of that year. Her letters reveal her enthusiasm, playfulness, and excitement about getting married to "Tommy Jones," and they also show that she was often tired of the demands of social responsibilities. She also mentions her friends getting jobs and that Thomas Catesby Jones supported Women's suffrage.
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A friendly letter from Olga to Louisa and several years later a letter from Thomas Catesby Jones to Louisa Brooks, his wife, after Olga died
Essay by an unidentified writer in support of the suffrage movement; a photocopy of an article from the