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This collection contains correspondence, deeds, estate indentures, account books, receipts notebooks, photographs, carte-de-visite, genealogical research and trees, clippings, a tintype, and ephemera, including wallets, a metal box, and a lock of hair documenting the Rose, Redd, and Claiborne families of Virginia. Names frequently appearing in papers include Eugene M. Redd and his son James Redd. Also included are Ezra Morrison, Mattie Tompkins, Clarence Redd, Jessie Redd McCarthy, Rachel Ayers, Blaine McCarthy Willett, John McCarthy, and the Blain family. The papers document genealogical research and track land purchase and holding, including the Bellevette, a Robert Rose property that has passed down to his descendants, in Nelson County. Also included is correspondence from the turn of the century regarding the Central Virginia Electric Cooperative, a private, not-for-profit cooperative that has provided electricity to customers.
The Redd family's Virginia origins trace to William Rufus de Redde, who immigrated to Virginia from England with Governor Alexander Spottswood during the reign of Queen Anne (approximately 1702–1714). Upon settling in Spotsylvania County, he adopted the anglicized surname Redd, married a niece of Governor Spottswood (Miss Moore), and had three sons: John Rufus, Thomas, and George.
His eldest son, Col. John Rufus Redd, was born in Spotsylvania County, educated in Virginia and England, served in the House of Burgesses, participated in the French and Indian Wars, and subsequently moved to Buckingham County. He married a granddaughter of Governor Spottswood and daughter of Captain Nathaniel Dandridge. He and his wife had eleven children – six sons and five daughters – and Col. Redd was wounded at the Battle of Camden (1780) during the Revolutionary War.
Major John Redd (b. October 20, 1755, Buckingham County, Virginia; d. August 11, 1850, Henry County, Virginia), the eldest son of Col. John Rufus Redd, relocated to Henry County (then part of Halifax County) at approximately age seventeen. He volunteered for military service at the outset of the Revolutionary War under Captain Bryce Martin, rose to the rank of Major of Cavalry, and was present at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. He married Mary Waller, daughter of Col. George Waller, a fellow Revolutionary officer, and had ten children. He served as a representative of Henry County in the Virginia Legislature for approximately twenty years, including the 1798–1799 session. He resided at a property called Marrowbone in the southern portion of Henry County, where he was interred in a family cemetery. His will and estate documentation establish activity in the county from approximately the 1780s through his death.
Eugene Mason Redd (fl. c. 1835–1926) and James M. Redd (J.M. Redd) are the principal family figures documented in the later portions of this collection. Both are represented through agricultural account books (c. 1871–1915, 1901–1906, 1909–1919), receipts (c. 1896–1926), and papers related to the Virginia Electric Cooperative (c. 1899–1943). Estate documentation for James Redd extends the record to 1971.
Ethel Blaine Tompkins Redd connected the Redd family to the Tompkins and Blaine families. Her father, Metellas Woods Tompkins, is represented by papers dating to approximately 1890. Dr. Hamilton L. Blaine, whose documents and certificates span 1850–1917, is documented in association with the Blaine family line. The Redd and Tompkins family records (c. 1835–1948) reflect the combined households and shared property interests of these families.
The Redd family held the Bellevette home tract, for which a chain of custody is documented from approximately 1745 to 1972. Family members also participated in the United Daughters of the Confederacy, evidenced by a 1943 application in the collection.
Miscellaneous materials including Heads of Families First Census of the United States: 1790, postcards, ephemera, photocopies of maps, plots, and notes.
This folder contains a photograph of a 1957 "Naval Review of Fleets" in Virginia, a hand-drawn coat of arms for the Claiborne family, an 1803 land deed signed by Governor John Page, a page of 1924 graduates of the Washington College of Law with Mattie Thompkins circled, and two manuscript indentures frome the 1771 and 1792.