Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Rives Family Papers, Accession #2532, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

The Rives Family Papers were given to the Library by Allen Rives Potts of Richmond, Virginia, on June 15, 1981.

Biographical/Historical Information

William Cabell Rives (1792 or 1793-1868) was born in Amherst County, Virginia. After attending Hampden-Sydney College he graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1809; ten years later he married Judith Page Walker. In 1814 he was admitted ot the Virginia bar and served as aide-de-camp to General John Hartwell Cocke. He represented Nelson County in the Virginia Consitutional Convention of 1816, Albermarle County in the House of Delegates in 1822, and was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Alberarle County in the 18th and 20th Congresses. Rives was also a minister to France, 1829-1832 and 1849-1852. He later served as a senator from Virginia, 1832-1845, as a member of the Peace Convention in 1861 in Washington, D.C., and as a member of the Provisional and Second Confederate Congresses, 1861-1862. He retired to "Castle Hill" in 1863 and died there five years later.

Judith Page Walker Rives (1802-1882) was born at "Castle Hill," Virginia on March 24, 1802, and she married William Cabell Rives in 1819. "Castle Hill" and 3,800 acres of land were inherited by her shortly before her marriage.

Alfred Landon Rives (1830-1903), the son of William and Judith Rives, was born in Paris, France, while his father was U.S. Minister to that country. After returning with his family to the United States, he studied at home under private tutors and later attended Concord Academy, the Virginia Military Institute, and the University of Virginia, where he remained for only one semester. After his father's reappointment as minister to France he studied at the École National des Ponts et Chaussées, the government engineering school. Following his graduation in 1854 he was employed by the Virginia Midland Railway and later, by the United States Engineering Corps. He was appointed to Robert McClelland, Secretary of the Interior under President Franklin Pierce, to work on several projects including the Washington Aqueduct. During the Civil War Rives served the Confederacy as acting chief of the Engineering Bureau; after the war he became division engineer of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. He was selected by General William T. Sherman on behalf of the Khedive of Egypt as chief engineer for that country, but declined the offer. During the years 1873-1897 he was employed by various railroad companies and worked in several states and foreign countries. Rives retired in 1897 but later resumed his career by serving as the chief engineer of the Cape Cod Canal Company and as vice-president of the Vera Cruz and Pacific Railroad Company. He held both positions at the time of his death on February 27, 1903 at "Castle Hill."

Amélie Rives Troubetzkoy (1863-1945), the daughter of Alfred Landon and Sadie MacMurdo Rives, was born in Richmond, Virginia on August 23, 1863. She was educated by private tutors, and married John Armstrong Chaloner, later a well-known Virginia eccentric, in 1888. After their divorce, she married Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy, a Russian artist, in 1896. A noted author, she published several novels, plays, poems, and short stories.

Scope and Content Information

This collection consists of ca. 500 items (2 Hollinger boxes and one oversize folder), 1777, 1816, 1822-1945, chiefly pertaining to the personal, professional, and literary activities of the four members of the Rives family of "Castle Hill," Cobham, Virginia: William Cabell, Judith Page Walker, Alfred Landon, and Amélie Louise. Their papers contain correspondence, diaries, financial and legal papers, calling cards, invitations, photographs, biographies, autobiographies, newspaper clippings, memorabilia, and genealogical papers. Topics of interest include Rives family genealogy, academic studies in France during the 1850's, and railroads and engineering durign the 1880's and 1890's. Noted correspondents include: Joseph R. Anderson, John M. Brooke, Bernard Morris, Lee Ernst, William Buel Franklin, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Winfield Scott Hancock, Richard Hovey, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jean Julien Lemordant, Robert McCelelland, Montogmery C. Meigs, Cornelia Van Rensselaer, Henry Shelton Sanford, William T. Sherman, and William G. Stanard. (It should be noted that most of the correspondence consist of copies of letters, or extracts.) Also included is an autograph note of Queen Marie Amélie de Bourbon, consort of King Louis Phillipe of France, and godmother of Amélie Rives.

Items of interest include: a document, ca. 1850, regarding arbitration by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon III) in a case involving an American ship, General Armstrong; a document, ca. 1850, pertaining to a hydrostatic canal lock invented by Canvass White; an album of verses and watercolors given to Judith Rives by Cornelia Van Rensselaer, mother of noetd American clergyman Cortlandt Van Rensselaer; Judith Rives' autobiography (two copies) which contain references to James Buchanan, Henry Clay, William Crawford, the Marquis de Lafayette, Dolley and James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and others; academic records of Alfred Landon Rives while a student at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées; and Amélie Rives Troubetzkoy's childhood diary, journal, scrapbook, marriage book, and horoscopes. Other items of interest include genealogical papers regarding the Bolling, Macmurdo (MacMurdo), Page, Stark (Starke), and Walker families, a family tree of an English branch of the Rives family, a plat of "Castle Hill," 1816, numerous calling cards and invitations from members of the nobility, ambassadors, and the French government including one from Alexis de Tocqueville, (author of Democracy In America.)

Related Material

Prints File
1894 Aug 1 Photograph of Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy
1895 Dec Photograph of a bearded man
1927 Dec 20 Photograph of Evangeline Ryves
n.d. Photograph of Pierre and Amélie Troubetzkoy
n.d. Postcard of Lady Curzon, Vicereine of India
n.d. Postcard of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India

Additional Descriptive Data