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Letters, a speech, and a photograph relating to the abolitionist movement in the United States. Correspondents include: Theodore Dwight Weld (1803-1895) of Lane Seminary, Elizur Wright (1804-1885), Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Gerrit Smith (1797-1874), philanthropist and reformer, Henry Grew (1782-1862), Quaker abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879), prominent abolitionist, and Parker Pillsbury (1809-1898), abolitionist author. Subjects include abolition tactics and organizations, expressions of sympathy to Garrison on the death of his wife and publication of Pillsbury's work. Also includes a photograph of Mary Grew (1813-1896), daughter of Henry Grew and an abolitionist in her own right.

The inventory includes letters, 1851-1861, and accounts, 1840-1866, of Rufus King Fitzhugh and his wife Henrietta Ellen (Baytop) Fitzhugh of Stanardsville, Greene County, Virginia. Most letters to Henrietta are from her mother Lucy Taliaferro (Catlett) Baytop, and her sisters Rowena, Lucy Ann, and Eugenia, all of Springfield, Gloucester County, Virginia. The collection also includes letters from her sister-in-law Mary F. Fitzhugh of Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Typescript copies of letters and extracts, written by Edward Coles (1786-1868), who held the positions of secretary to President James Madison and Governor of Illinois. Subjects covered by the letters include James Madison and the War of 1812; Madison's not emancipating persons enslaved by him at his death; the claiming of public lands by individual states; the estate of James Monroe; Andrew Jackson; Thomas Jefferson's authorship of the Ordinance of 1787; and Jefferson's relationship with John Adams. Typescripts of letters written by Edward Coles to Nicholas Biddle, Joseph C. Cabell, Henry Clay, Albert Gallatin, Thomas Jefferson, Dolley Madison, James Madison, Joel R. Poinsett, Henry S. Randall, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, William Cabell Rives, Charles Sumner, Martin Van Buren and Robert C. Winthrop, among other correspondents.

The collection relates to the James River Canal and Kanawha Company, which officially gained a charter in 1835. Included are a list of subscriptions sold to private individuals, a letter to the auditors office discussing current and previous subscriptions, a letter from a prospective surveyor and a list of tollage rates along the canal. Individuals mentioned are John Hartwell Cocke, and his son John Hartwell Cocke Jr.

Papers, 1783-1862, of the Thomas Smith family of Powhatan County, Va., Kentucky, and Ohio. Includes typescripts of letters, 1841-1842, of James George Smith; typescript of letter, 1862, of Thomas E. Smith; constitution, 1798, of the Emigration Society; and letter, 1799, and address, n.d., of the Humane Society against slavery. The Marie M. and Edith W. Smith Papers are primarily the genealogical charts and notes used to trace ancestral lines to the twenty-five Sureties of the Magna Carta (Barons of Runnymede). The notes are almost all from printed sources. Research covers Huguenot settlers in Virginia and Quaker and Scots-Irish settlers of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The collection also includes genealogical charts and notes compiled by Marie M. Smith and Edith W. Smith.

Artificial collection of papers relating to various counties in the Commonwealth of Virginia.