Jones Family Papers, 1784-1940
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State of Tennessee Department of State Tennessee State Library and Archives 403 Seventh Avenue North Nashville, Tennessee 37243-0312 JONES FAMILY PAPERS 1784-1940 Processed by: Owen B. Stratvert and Harriet Chappell Owsley Archival Technical Services Accession Numbers: 4, 1967.059, 1968.066, 863, 865, 939, 1762, 1763, 1803, 1843 Date Completed: January 16, 1967 Location: VI-E-1, 2, 3 Microfilm Accession Number: 240 MICROFILMED INTRODUCTION The Jones Family Papers (1784-1940) are centered around Calvin Jones (1775-1846), physician; North Carolina legislator, 1799-1803, 1807-1808; newspaper editor, 1803- 1815; Adjutant General of North Carolina, 1808-1812; Major General, North Carolina militia, 1812-1814; Quartermaster General, 1814; trustee of the University of North Carolina, 1803; planter, and author. The collection also contains the papers of Calvin’s grandson, James Wood Jones (1855-1934), a member of the Tennessee legislature, 1891- 1897, in addition to some papers of his sons, his father, his wife, his brothers, and some other relations. The portion of the collection for the dates 1885-1900 was a gift of Mr. Ed Knox Boyd, Bolivar, Tennessee, through the agency of Dr. G.R. Bruesch, Professor of Anatomy, University of Tennessee, Memphis, Tennessee. A large portion of the early material is in the form of photocopies of originals owned by Mr. James E. Wood, Nashville, Tennessee, and Mrs. Louise Jones McAnulty, Bolivar, Tennessee, who loaned them for copying and whose gifts make up the remainder of the collection. The materials in this finding aid measure 6.72 linear feet. There are no restrictions on the materials. Single photocopies of unpublished writings in the Jones Family Papers may be made for purposes of scholarly research. SCOPE AND CONTENT The Jones Family Papers, containing approximately 4,800 items and several volumes, cover the period 1784-1940. They are composed of accounts; correspondence; legal documents (leases, agreements, wills); medical papers; military records; material on schools and education in North Carolina and Tennessee; business records; manuscripts of articles; land records (warrants, deeds, surveys); programs; invitations; photographs; and several issues of the Raleigh Register and North Carolina Weekly Advertiser, 1799, 1800; Raleigh Register and North Carolina Gazette, 1801, 1820; North Carolina Messenger and Warrenton Patriotic Miscellany, 1805; The Raleigh Minerva, March 1, June 7, October 11, 1810; and The Reflector (Milledgeville, Georgia), December 16 and 23, 1817, January 8, 1818, January 19, 1819. The collection is largely made up of correspondence which centers around Calvin Jones and contains letters from his father, Ebenezer Jones; his wife, Temperance Boddie (Williams) Jones Jones; his brothers, Horace Jones, Andes Jones, and Atlas Jones; his stepson, Thomas C. Jones; his sons, Montezuma Jones and Paul Tudor Jones; his daughter, Octavia Rowena (Jones) Polk; his granddaughters, Frances Irene (“Fanny” ) Jones and Temperance (Jones) Tate, both daughters of Montezuma Jones; his grandsons, Robert H. Jones, Calvin C. (“Callie”) Jones, and James Wood Jones, sons of Montezuma Jones; and Paul Tudor Jones, John Houston Jones, and William Watson Jones, sons of Paul Tudor Jones. Approximately three-hundred letters were written by members of the Williams family, Temperance’s father, William Williams, and the Alstons and Burtons, families of her sisters. Montezuma and Paul Tudor both married into the Wood family and there are some letters from members of that family. Calvin wrote his son, Paul Tudor, while he was in school at LaGrange, Alabama, to preserve his letters, “they may be of useful recurrence in cases where you cannot anticipate their value and can see no possible reason to expect it.” The family seemed to follow this advice and the collection is one of the finest family collections for this period. Calvin’s family preserved the letters he wrote them and he retained copies of many of his own letters written to friends and medical associates. He had many interests due to his varied professional careers. Calvin’s family preserved the letters he wrote to friends and medical associates. He had many interests due to his varied professional careers. He was a physician, well known for his cataract operation; a member of the North Carolina Legislature; a newspaper editor (founder of the Raleigh Star); Adjutant General of North Carolina; a trustee of the University of North Carolina; founder of the Medical Society in North Carolina; Major General of the North Carolina Militia in the War of 1812; a planter; and an author of numerous articles on agriculture and other subjects. Medicine and the North Carolina Medical Society are discussed especially in the correspondence with John Beckwith, Bozabel Gillet, James M. Henderson, James Norcom, John C. Osborn, Benjamin Rush, James C. Strong, and W.H. Williams. Other important correspondents include John H. Bills, John G. Blount, Joseph Caldwell, James R. Conner, Samuel Dickens, J.A. Donaldson, R.H. Dyer, John H. Eaton, H.S. Ellenwood, J.F Farrington, Joseph Gales, Weston R. Gales, Henry L. Goodrich, J.C. Goodrich, M. Gridley, J.C. Hancock, R.H. Helme, Moses Hopkins, Phillip R. Jones, Sam J. Lambert, John C. McLemore, John MacLeod, William Peck, Peter V. Picot, Willis Reeves, Henry Seawell, Jared Sparks, James Vaulx, W.H. Vesey, and M.B. Winchester. There are fifty-one letters of Calvin Jones to members of his family, twenty-five of which were written to his wife, Temperance. These are excellent letters containing descriptions of the country through which he passed on his trips to Tennessee in 1820 and 1823; comments on education and philosophy; comments on the economy of the country; and some very fine letters written while on a European trip with his daughter, Octavia, in 1844. In one letter written from Aix-la-Chapell, August 1, 1844, he has a great deal to say about religion, Roman Catholics and Protestants, and about German education and music. Calvin’s advice to his stepson, Thomas C. Jones, about his studies and education in general, reminds one of Polonius’ advice to Laertes in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The one-hundred-fifty letters of Calvin Jones to friends and business acquaintances contain observations on the culture of Hardeman County; politics; religion; medicine; river transportation; information about lands (warrants, locations, and speculations); descriptions of the country; economic conditions; farming; military affairs; mining; the Cherokee Indians; troubles with Mexico; and other happenings during the period 1801- 1846. The seventeen letters of Calvin’s wife, Temperance, contain information about the family, some comments on political happenings and land transactions. There are thirty- seven letters written by Temperance’s father, William Williams, for the dates 1819-1836. These letters are concerned with family matters, business, Calvin’s gold mine, religion, and other subjects. Approximately seventy letters in the collection were written by Thomas C. Jones, stepson of Calvin. His earliest letters were written to his mother while on a trip to Tennessee with his stepfather in 1823 in search of lands. His descriptions of Nashville and the county along the way are most observant for a twelve-year-old boy. In the late 1820s, Thomas attended school at Shady Grove Academy, near Warrenton, North Carolina, and then for about a year he attended the University of North Carolina. He made this comment about the University of North Carolina, “I am satisfied that in point of studious habits, morality, economy, no Institution in America can compare with it….The inducements to vicious actions are few and this united to the untiring vigilance of the Faculty renders it altogether out of a Student’s power to become depraved in his morals.” During the greater part of the year 1830, Thomas managed his stepfather’s gold mines in western North Carolina. His letters home are filled with details of mining and its problems. In September 1830, he made another trip to West Tennessee. On October 1 while en route he commented on the large migration of people to the West. He wrote that the road was “traveled as much as the streets of Raleigh,” and he thought it was time to sell the western lands. There are a number of letters about the sale of lands. Calvin’s younger brother, Atlas Jones, living in Jackson, Tennessee, was handling this business for Calvin, and there are about one-hundred letters for the dates 1804-1841 written by Atlas. At the time Calvin seemed to have been very much involved financially and was forced to borrow money for his speculations. Six of Montezuma Jones’s twenty-three letters were written from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, while he was in school at the University of North Carolina and contain comments about the school and his studies. Other letters concern political matters with comments about Martin Van Buren, Henry Clay, and James Knox Polk. The subjects discussed in Montezuma’s correspondence include the Whigs, the Mexican War, the annexation of Texas, and western lands. The chief correspondents in the one-hundred letters written to Montezuma are William H. Glenn, M. Gridley, William R. Johnston, A.J. Reeves, and John L.T. Sneed. There are twenty-five letters in the collection written by Calvin’s son, Paul Tudor Jones, for the dates 1840-1895. Some of his letters were written to members of his family while he was in school at LaGrange College in Alabama, 1845-1846. In June 1850, he wrote his wife, Jane, from the Nashville Inn describing his difficulties while traveling from Bolivar to Nashville. He and his family lived at “Pontine,” the family home built by Calvin, until it was sold to the state for a hospital. After the Civil War, Paul Tudor joined with three of his sons in the operation of the Alcorn Woolen Manufacturing Company at Corinth, Mississippi. This firm was bankrupted in 1918.