Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Virginiana, 1876-1937, Accession #11059, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Processing Information

This material was transferred to the Manuscripts Division from William Runge of the Rare Books Division on September 24, 1992.

Scope and Content Information

The majority of the material in this collection is loose in a scrapbook entitled "Augusta Military Academy/1874/Ad Astra Per Aspera," kept by William P. Tannehill while a student there during the 1920s. The scrapbook contains signatures and comments of friends, memorabilia, advertisements, athletic schedules, programs for various activities, two AMA insignia, an ROTC shoulder patch, art work on envelopes sent to Tannehill, photographs of AMA and the cadets and friends, and logos of various educational institutions.

Correspondence of the Bowling family includes letters to Miss Gertrude E. Bowling from G[ivens] B[rown] Strickler (1840- ), March 28, 1877; Alexander Sprunt (1852-1937), October 18, 1880; and, Lytie Crawford in Henderson, North Carolina, n.d. [ca. 1885], concerning Alexander Sprunt and family and personal news.

Correspondence of William P. Tannehill include a letter, September 28, 1931, from Hunter B. Blakely, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Staunton, Virginia, welcoming him into the membership of the church; correspondence, July 1937, from Holly Stover, Washington, D.C., enclosing letters of introduction for Tannehill who has been engaged to make some coal contacts for Holly Stover, Inc.; and, letters, July 1937, concerning the Grand Caverns sign.

There is also a letter, December 1, 1876, from M. M. Walker, surgeon at the Virginia State Penitentiary, to James Lawson Kemper, Governor of Virginia, providing a detailed report on the amount of space available per inmate, indicating that the measurements of the main building are less than appropriate.

Other material removed from the scrapbook pertain to Augusta Military Academy, Fort Defiance, Virginia, and include programs for dances, dinners, and commencement and final exercises, baseball and football schedules, postcards of AMA, copies of The Bayonet (school publication), and a list of [cadets]. In addition, there is a three-page debate speech on "the raising of a bonus for the ex-soldiers" by Cadet Corporal Drum Major Tannehill. There are also miscellaneous items including advertisements (cards, pamphlets); a report, November 1, 1888, of Cadet Tannehill at Virginia Military Institute; a pamphlet, "Female Influence and Obligations..." by Rev. Nathan S. S. Beman; a two-page AMs of verse from Cowper's translation of The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer; and, unidentified photographs. Social memorabilia contains programs for a meeting of the Virginia State Union American Society of Equity for July 26 & 27, 1906, for Mary Baldwin College graduates' recitals for May 20-25, 1925, and for "Monsieur Beaucaire," a comedy in three acts by Booth Tarkington, performed on May 22, 1925.