This collection is open for research.
This collection was purchased from Garrett Scott by the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia Library on November 20, 2020.
Branch Jones Epes (1832-1911) was a prominent citizen, lawyer and judge. He was born in Nottoway County, Virginia on August 13, 1832 to Colonel Travis Harris Epes and Elizabeth Branch Epes. He attended Hampden-Sydney College from 1850 to 1851 and then attended the University of Virginia Law School in 1852. Epes was a Unionist before secession but captained an artillery battery for the Confederate Army. Epes later became a judge in Dinwiddie County. He was also the Commonwealth's Attorney. He served as Dinwiddie's representative to the 1901-1902 Constitutional Convention in Richmond, Va. He married Louisa (Lula) May Doyle on 11 October 1886 in Weiland, Dinwiddie, Virginia. They had the following children: Travis Fletcher in 1887, Martha Elizabeth in 1891 and Branch Pegram in 1893. Judge Epes died at the 11th minute past the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year of the century and remarked upon this as he passed.
Sources: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Epes-90 https://www.findagrave.com
MSS 16469, Branch J. Epes lecture notebook, Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library
This collection contains one notebook with handwritten notes on lectures at the University of Virginia Law School, with some earlier lectures during his enrollment at Hampden-Sydney College. These notes seem to be lectures on philosophy and ethics rather than law, perhaps taken at different stages of Epes's matriculation, with reference to Locke, Hobbes, Bentham, and Stewart. One early lecture may be attributed to "McGuffie" suggesting possibly William Holmes McGuffey (of McGuffey Reader fame), who finished his career as an educator as a professor at UVa. With various ink ownership inscriptions to the front endpaper and miscellaneous attempts at a fancy signature, notes, and scribbles in the rear pages.