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Special Collections, University of Virginia Library
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Frederick W. Neve Papers, Accession #10505, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
These papers were a gift to the Library through D. Ralph Davison, Jr., of Charlottesville, Virginia, on May 10, 1982.
This collection consists of 744 items (5 Hollinger boxes, ca. 1.7 linear feet), four bound volumes, and two oversize items, covering the years 1854 (1900-1940) 1981. The collection contains very little correspondence; many autograph and typed manuscripts form the bulk of the papers. Also included are publications, reprints, pamphlets, minutes, newspaper clippings, church records, receipts, sermons, brochures, a scrapbook, films, photographs, and miscellaneous printed items. Major areas of interest are the history of education in the Ragged and Blue Ridge Mountains, the history of public education in Virginia, the history of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, and the life of Frederick W. Neve (1855-1948), the founder of the mountain mission movement of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, 1888-1948, as well as a poet and prolific writer.
Frederick William Neve, born in the county of Kent, England, was educated at Merton College, Oxford, and ordained a deacon in 1880 at the abbey church of St. Albans (his certificate of ordination is in this collection). In 1888, the vestries of St. Paul's (Ivy) and Emmanuel (Greenwood) Churches asked Neve to come to Virginia, and he accepted. In 1890 Neve built his first church in the Ragged Mountains, St. John the Baptist. Ten years later he began supporting a teacher at Simmon's Gap, an isolated community in the Blue Ridge Mountains. This was the beginning of his work with the mountain people that eventually embraced seven Virginia counties and became the Archdeaconry of the Blue Ridge.
This collection amply documents Neve's early struggles with establishing mission schools in this area. There are two of his own accounts (typescripts) - his memories [1914] and an autobiography [1940]; in addition, there are ca. 365 issues of Our Mountain Work , 1909-1954, a monthly publication edited by Neve and published by the Advisory Board of the Archdeaconry of the Blue Ridge. Our Mountain Work features detailed accounts and stories regarding the various mountain missions, and includes Neve's poetry, most of which was written between 1917 and 1930. Other items in the collection illustrating Neve's poetical aspirations are a book of published poems and a printed poem-hymn, "Gentleness".
In addition to writing for and editing Our Mountain Work , Neve also wrote a weekly column ("The Thousandfold Page") for the Southern Churchman between 1930 and 1940. This collection contains ca. 33 of these printed columns.
In 1917, when more mission schools were serving more students than at any time in the history of the Archdeaconry of the Blue Ridge, Neve focused on a new project: the founding of the "Order of the Thousandfold," his formalized movement designed to unite the world in prayer. In 1921, the Theological Seminary of Virginia awarded Neve an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree. Until his death in 1948, Archdeacon Neve worked vigorously, through both the spoken and printed word, trying to turn the thousandfold idea into a world-wide movement.
For further biographical information on Neve, see the following: Special Collections Department accessions #9115 and #9970, Neve's Autobiography published in The Magazine of Albemarle County History , XXVI (1967- 1968), and Dexter Ralph Davison's dissertation, Frederick W. Neve: Mountain Mission Education in Virginia, 1888-1948 , which is also available in the department.
In 1963, as a retirement project, the Rev. Dennis Whittle, who had worked with Neve as a missionary between 1922 and 1948, began collecting material on Neve and his mountain work. Due to his efforts, most of the manuscripts and published material relating to the mountain work of the Archdeaconry of the Blue Ridge are preserved in this collection. Whittle had planned to write a book on Neve, but he soon felt he was too old to complete the project. This collection contains Whittle's extensive notes for his intended biography, his unpublished articles about Neve, letters to him regarding the compilation of Neve material, and even some of his own family correspondence, including a letter from Francis McNeece Whittle, bishop of the Diocese of Virginia, 1876-1902.
The manuscripts describing life in the mountain missions and Neve's work there are of special interest. Written by various individuals who performed a direct role in the arcdeaconry, they provide valuable descriptions of mountain home and church life. Some noteworthy examples are Susan Preston's "Life in Pocosan Hollow," H. H. Williams' "Missionary Recollections," Dr. George Mayo's "Early Experiences in the Blue Ridge," and Elizabeth E. Winegar's "Some Incidents in My Life in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia." In addition, these manuscripts are complemented by two scrapbooks of photographs, as well as many individual photos, giving a good picture of the Virginia mountain missions during the early twentieth century.
Official records, too, are extensive in this collection. There are minutes of the Advisory Board of the Archdeaconry of the Blue Ridge, extracts from the register of St. Paul's Parish, 1887-1928, resolutions pertaining to Archdeacon Neve's death, a record book of St. Paul's and Emmanuel Churches, 1859-1876, a minute book of St. Paul's, 1867-1947, a minute book of the Albemarle Convention of Churches, 1897-1912, and various receipts, legal and financial records, and correspondence of St. Paul's Church (53 items, 1854-1945).
Peripherally, there is also research material of D. Ralph Davison, Jr., who wrote his dissertation on Neve with the aid of the Rev. Whittle's collection. This consists of some correspondence, notes, articles, and printed material.
There was no discernible order to the collection when it was received by the Library. It was organized into series by type of material and arranged within each series chronologically: I. Correspondence, II. Manuscripts and Writings, III. Printed Material and Miscellaneous, IV. Photographs, V. Bound Volumes, VI. Oversize and VII. Motion Picture Films. The material in Series III has been divided into two Subseries: A. Printed Material, and B. Miscellaneous, each with a chronological arrangement.
Issues of Our Mountain Work were removed and cataloged separately.
The three reels of 16 mm black-and-white film have been spliced together and duplicated on safety film, reel F-279.
a. St. Anne's Preventorium, ca. 1932
b. Mountain people, cabins, etc.
c. School children
d. Blue Ridge Industrial School
e. First Chapel of Remembrance
f. Mountain farming
a. Mountain churches, Roy Mason, fiddler and
children dancing
b. Second Chapel of Remembrance, Pine Grove
Hollow (construction)
c. Tanner's Ridge (highest church in the
Diocese)
d. [Tanner's Ridge] School
e. Mountain scenes and construction
a. Neve, Mason, Mayo, etc. Blue Ridge
Industrial School
b. Mission House-Quiet day at Bris
c. St. John the Baptist [Church] - 1st
mission church, Holy Cross Clinic, Neve Hall, Good
Shepherd, Red Hill, Blackwell Hollow Mission Home
- the first mission settlement
d. Mountain workers and children
e. Deaconess Mary Sandys Hutton (crippled)
and [Lucy or Mary] Gibson (daughter of R. A.
Gibson)