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Special Collections, University of Virginia Library
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Papers of the Minor and Wilson Family, Accession #38-602, 3750, 3750-a, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
The Minor and Wilson Family Papers were a bequest of Susan Colston Wilson of Charlottesville, Virginia, on December 14, 1981.
The Minor and Wilson family papers consist of ca. 25,000 items (57 Hollinger boxes and one oversize folder, ca. 20 linear shelf feet), 1764, 1783, 1797, 1800-1936, primarily correspondence, diaries, financial and legal papers, speeches, essays, manuscripts, memorabilia, bound volumes, and miscellaneous related papers of the family. Other families represented include Blackford, Colston, Davis, Maury, and Trueheart. Topics of interest in the correspondence include: the Whig Convention of 1844, free public education in Virginia, the temperance movement in Virginia, the American Colonization Society, the Virginia Secession convention of 1861, the Civil War, the University of Virginia, the Virginia Female Institute, 1879, and World War I.
Prominent correspondents include William Alexander Anderson, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Kemp Plummer Battle, Benjamin Lewis Blackford, Charles Minor Blackford, Launcelot Minor Blackford, Mary Berkeley (Minor) Blackford, William Mathews Blackford, Montgomery Blair, Charles Bonnycastle, John Albert Broadus, Albert Gallatin Brown, Joseph Bryan, George Craighead Cabell, James Lawrence Cabell, Joseph Carrington Cabell, Clement Claiborne Clay, Henry Clay, John Hartwell Cocke, Ellas Nelson Conway, Edward Henry Courtenay, John Warwick Daniel, John Anthony Gardner Davis, John Staige Davis, Theodore Dwight, Thomas Harding Ellis, Charles James Faulkner, William Fleming, William Frazier, Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett, Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Thomas Walker Gilmer, Edward Christian Glass, Armistead Churchill Gordon, T.M. Gunter, Ralph Randolph Gurley, James Guthrie, Gessner Harrison, C.P. Hastings, James Philemon Holcombe, Frederick William Mackey Holiday, George Frederick Holmes, Marmaduke Johnson, George Junkin, James Keith, James Christian Lamb, Shelton Farrar Leake, Robert Edward Lee, William Minor Lile, James Russell Lowell, Cyrus H. McCormick, William Holmes McGuffey, Dabney Herndon Maury, Richard Lancelot Maury, Socrates Maupin, Richard Kidder Meade, John Singleton Mosby, William Barclay Napton, George Wharton Pepper, George Wythe Randolph, John Randolph, Wilson Cary Nicholas Randolph, Alexander Rives, William Cabell Rives, William Joseph Robertson, Wyndham Robertson, William Barton Rogers, John Edwin Roller, William Henry Ruffner, Maxmilian Schele deVere, James Alexander Seddon, Eli S. Shorter, Philip Slaughter, Campbell Bascom Slempt, Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart, James Joseph Sylvester, John Reuben Thompson, George W. Trueheart, Henry St. George Tucker, Charles Scott Venable, Richard N. Venable, Frank N. Watkins, Egbert Reed Watson, Daniel Webster, Woodrow Wilson, William Wirt, James Wood, and William Edward Woodruff.
The bulk of the collection consists of papers of John B. Minor (1813-1895), which cover the period ca. 1828-1895. Minor, a University of Virginia law professor, was a son of Launcelot and Mary O. Minor (nee Tompkins). During 1829-1831 he studied at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, and later, at the University of Virginia, and was graduated in 1834 with a Bachelor of Law degree. He began his legal practice in Charlottesville. Minor became professor of law at the University of Virginia in 1845, marrying Nannie F. Colston in 1859 after the death of his first wife. From 1870-1878 he taught a summer course of law lectures that became extremely well-known and respected, and published Institute of Common and Statute Law , as well as Exposition of the Law of Crimes and Punishments in 1894. After the death of his second wife, Minor married Ellen Temple Hill. After fifty years of teaching he died on July 12, 1895.
His papers consist of correspondence, financial and legal papers, essays and speeches, law school papers, printed material, clippings, notebooks, a certificate from Kenyon College, and a University of Virginia diploma.
Most of the remaining papers pertain to Minor's daughters, Susan Colston, Martha (Mattie), and Mary. Susan Colston married John Wilson; her papers, ca. 1890-1931, consist of letters, accounts, printed material, clippings, bound volumes and an unfinished genealogy of her family. Mattie Minor married Conway W. Sams; her papers, ca. 1888-1895, consist of letters to her from friends and relatives, as do Mary Minor's papers, 1865-1907. Other family members with miscellaneous papers include: Lucian Minor, John D. Minor, Kate Temple Minor, Raleigh Colston Minor, Lucy Walker Minor, and Benjamin Blake Minor.
Items of interest in this collection include a copy of a letter from Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, to Matthew F. Maury, 1866; a 1797 land grant in Albemarle County, Virginia; a reminiscence by William Wertenbaker about Edgar Allan Poe; a copy of the 1878 Students of the University of Virginia catalogue; and an 1853 safe conduct pass for a U.S. ship, Levant .
The various accessions (38-602, 3750, and 3750-a) have been interfiled in the collection which is arranged chronologically into seven series: I. Correspondence, II. Financial and Legal Papers, III. Speeches and Writings, IV. Law and Miscellaneous School Papers, V. Miscellaneous Papers, Printed Material and Photographs, VI. Bound volumes, and VII. Oversize Material. Items are arranged chronologically within the series. Series I (boxes 1-49) is the largest series and consists of four subseries: general correspondence; correspondence of Susan Colston Minor; letters to Mattie Minor; and miscellaneous single-foldered letters. Series III (Boxes 49A-50) consists chiefly of John B. Minor's writings. Series IV (Boxes 50-51) consists of Minor's papers pertaining to his teaching career in law. Series V (Boxes 51-54) is arranged into four sub- series: miscellaneous papers; printed material; newspaper clippings; and photographs. The bound volumes in Series VI (Boxes 54-56) were numbered and filed chronologically; loose materials in the volumes were placed in numbered paper folders and filed in three manila folders directly after the bound volumes. Item listings of the bound volumes and oversize material are included in the container list appended to this guide.