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Preferred Citation

Charles Fenton Mercer Letters, Accession #1471-b , Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This material was purchased by the Library from Jerry Showalter -- Bookseller of Ivy, Virginia, on April 22, 1997.

Scope and Content Information

There are ten items, chiefly letters, 1810-1856, from Charles Fenton Mercer (1778-1858) of Leesburg, Virginia, to John Janney and Richard H. Henderson, both of Leesburg, Loudon County, Virginia. Correspondence, 1836-1855, with Henderson and Janney pertains to a dispute with Peter and Nathan Skinner over a boundary line. Letters of October 1856 to Janney provide a discussion of the political and historical unrest during that time.

Charles Fenton Mercer was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on June 16, 1778, the son of James and Eleanor (Dick) Mercer. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1797, and did his postgraduate in law from 1797-1800. He was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1802 and was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1810-1817. He was an advocate for increased banking capital of Virginia, the colonization of free United States African-Americans in Africa, and the building of roads and canals. He served as lieutenant colonel of a Virginia regiment and as major in command of Norfolk, Virginia during the War of 1812; he was appointed inspector general in 1814, aide-de-camp to Governor James Barbour, and brigadier general in command of the 2nd Virginia Brigade. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia from 1817 to December 1839, during which time he served on the committee on canals and roads and the committee on the District of Columbia, and gave a speech, 1819, attacking Andrew Jackson's maneuvers in the Seminole War. He was the first president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, 1828-1833, and a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention, 1829-1830. He advocated male suffrage, the popular election of important officers, and equal representation. Mercer died on May 4, 1858, in Howard, Virginia, and is buried in Union Cemetery, Leesburg, Virginia.

There are six letters, 1810-1856, from Charles Fenton Mercer to John Janney and others. There is a letter, November 18, 1810, to an unknown recipient, which refers to a claim on the estate of Matthew Harrison. A letter, February 21, 1820, from the House of Representatives, to Addison H. Clark, Occoquan, Virginia, provides assurance "that every attention shall be given to this petition of the poor old soldier which I can render --" and further explains that the number of pensioners is so great that a prejudice exists against further extension of the pension lists. He comments that the Missouri question occupies the time of the congress and that most other business will be delayed until another session. A letter, January 29, 1839, from Washington, D. C. to John Janney, Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia, discusses Mercer's suit against Peter and Nathan Skinner for the establishment of a boundary line between their lands which affects several acres, commenting on the patents and the survey and relating that Mr. Harrison is the counsel for the Skinners. The following letter, May 16, 1841, from Boston, Massachusetts, to Janney, reveals that the boundary dispute has been referred to arbitration and mentions Theodore S[tanford] Garnett. In his letter of October 6, 1856, from "The Healing Springs," Hot Springs, Virginia, to Janney, Mercer mentions his plans to go to Clarksburg, Virginia, where he has some affairs to settle, lands to sell, and debts to collect; comments on Janney's name and speech being in the newspaper; mentions the speeches of [Henry Alexander] Wise (1806-1876) and others; comments that although he is pleased to see the movement at Wheeling [West Virginia] he does "sincerely and deeply sympathize with my slave holding friends..."; states that he is no advocate for slavery and discusses further his beliefs and views toward slavery and emancipation, mentioning the latter in relationship to apportionment of representation; comments on the possible effects if John Charles Fremont (1813-1890) should be elected president over James Buchanan (1791-1868); and, discusses the impending civil war between the Confederacy and the Union. In the following letter, October 23, 1856, from "The Healing Springs," Mercer discusses his thoughts on an address from the county to the United States reviewing the state of Virginia and the Union; refers to the incidents which led to "the call of a convention to amend our constitution of state government and the very large and respectable assembly which gave birth to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal"; comments on the madmen and South Carolina statesmen "who desire to establish the seat of a new Confederacy at Columbia and to make Charleston the great emporium of the South"; and, further comments that they "would dissolve the union now as they would have done to defeat a protective tariff..."

There are four letters and documents, 1836-1855, of Charles Fenton Mercer and Richard H. Henderson, which pertain to the dispute over a boundary between Mercer and Peter and Nathan Skinner. On March 15, 1836, Mercer writes from Washington, D. C. to Henderson, Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia, concerning the suit against the Skinners, enclosing a copy of the original patent and a copy of the deed used by the Skinners (not with the letter). There is a letter of November 8, 1836 concerning the issuance of a writ against Peter and Nathan Skinner to buy the title to the piece of land and the writ, November 22, 1836, to the sheriff of Loudoun County commanding Nathan Skinner and Peter Skinner to render unto Charles F. Mercer one tenement containing sixteen acres of land... There is a draft, [June 1855], of a similar document which includes references to the survey lines and contains notes on the verso dating February 1838 to June 1855.