Funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Collection is open to research.
See the
Robert S. Pace Collection, Accession 10530-c, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library
This collection was given to the Library by Robert S. Pace of Troy, Virginia, on February 23, 1993, in honor of his parents, Mary Elizabeth (King) and Robert Septimius Pace.
Funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities
Montgomery Blair, lawyer and statesman, was born in Franklin County, Kentucky on May 10, 1813 and died in Silver Spring, Maryland, on July 27, 1883. He was appointed to West Point in 1831 by President Jackson; after his graduation in 1835 he received a lieutenancy in the army in time to serve in the Seminole War. The following year he resigned his commission in order to study law at Transylvania University. He settled in St. Louis, Missouri in 1837 and began practicing law; he was appointed U. S. district attorney for Missouri but removed for political reasons by President Tyler. He served as mayor of St. Louis, 1842-1843, and as judge of the court of common pleas, 1845-1849. He resigned in 1849 to resume his law practice, and in 1852 moved to Maryland where he practiced law chiefly before the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1855, President Pierce made him the first solicitor in the court of claims in the U. S. but President Buchanan dismissed him in 1858 because of his pronounced views on slavery. He gained prestige among anti- slavery people when he acted as counsel for the plaintiff in the celebrated Dred Scott case; he helped secure a defense attorney for John Brown after the Harper's Ferry incident. He was appointed postmaster general in 1861 by President Lincoln, and while in office, organized the postal system for the army, introduced compulsory payment of postage and free delivery in cities, improved the registry system, established the railway post office, organized the postal draft plan, stopped the franking privileges of postmasters, and was instrumental in bringing about the Postal Union Convention at Paris in 1863. After resigning from Lincoln's cabinet, he continued to loyally work for Lincoln. He believed in Lincoln's plan of reconstruction, and decried the disenfranchisement of the Southern whites and enfranchisement of the negroes. During the late 1860s he returned to the Democratic party.
Woodbury Blair, the son of Montgomery and Mary Elizabeth (Woodbury) Blair, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on September 1, 1852, and died on October 14, 1933. He graduated Phillips Exeter Academy, and Harvard University, 1874, and its law school, 1876. He practiced law in his father's office in Washington, D.C.; was counsel for Citizens' National Bank of Washington; trust officer and vice-president of National Savings and Trust Company; director in Columbia Title Insurance Company, Washington Railway and Electric Company, Potomac Electric Company, and Norfolk and Washington Steamboat Company; and, president of the Metropolitan Club. He was also president of the Central dispensary and emergency hospital of Washington, which he developed from a small building to an institution of nearly a block, with 280 beds, 300 employees, modern nurses' home, new interns' home, x-ray laboratory, and out-patient and emergency departments. He was married to the former Emily N. Wallach.
Francis Preston Blair, lawyer and army officer, was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on February 10, 1821, and died in St. Louis, Missouri, in July 1875. After graduating from Princeton University in 1842, he studied law in Washington, was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1843, and began to practice in St. Louis. When the Mexican War began he enlisted in the army as a private; following the war he returned to his practice in St. Louis. He was elected to congress, and in 1857, spoke in favor of colonizing the negroes of the United States in Central America. Following the South Carolina secession convention, he stressed the importance in preventing the seizure by state authorities of the St. Louis arsenal, and became the head of the military organization then formed, which occasionally guarded the arsenal. As brigadier-general in the army, he commanded a division in the Vicksburg campaign, led his troops in the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, and was at the head of the 17th corps during Sherman's campaigns in 1864-1865. After the war he served in state and government positions.
Charles Levi Woodbury, lawyer, was born in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, on May 22, 1820; and, died in 1898. He was a member
of the Suffolk, Massachusetts bar and U. S. district attorney
for that state 1858-1861. He edited with George Minot the
three-volume
This collection of Virginiana and Americana, 1669
(1830-1965) 1993, consisting of ca. 200 items, was acquired
by
The miscellaneous papers of the
Biographical and historical information on the
Newspaper clippings on the
There are autographs, 1669, 1789-1888, of prominent
Americans and other persons. These previously framed items
include: 1) ALS, May 9, 1789,
There are autographs, 1909-1965, of prominent Americans:
Among the items in the miscellaneous correspondence are:
autographs of
Correspondence, 1946-1961, of
Correspondence, 1908-1944, of the
Oversize items include: Two land grants, April 13, 1787,
to
An unpublished bound volume, 1992, entitled