There are no restrictions.
See the
Duke Family Papers, Accession #9521-h, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottessville, Va.
The Duke family papers were given to the Library by Mrs. Gerald Kinne of Setauket, New York, and Mr. William E. Duke of Richmond, Virginia, on August 20, 1985.
Slaughter Family
Edith Ridgeway married Charles M. Harker (d. 1876), and their daughter Mary Haines Harker (d. 1897) married (1853) John Flavel Slaughter, Sr. (1828-1893), son of Robert Harrison Slaughter , and Mary Rice Garland , whom he married in 1818. Seven of Mary Harker and John Flavel Slaughter 's children survived to adulthood. The following genealogical information is incomplete.
Duke Family
Richard Thomas Walker Duke, Sr. (1822-1898), son of Richard Duke and Maria Walker , married (1846) Elizabeth Scott Eskridge (1820-1896), daughter of William Scott Eskridge and Margaret Frances Brown . Their children were:
This addition to the
Duke family papers contains ca. 10,400 items
(38 Hollinger boxes, 12 linear shelf feet), 1764-1983, chiefly
personal and topical correspondence, business papers, and
legal papers of this prominent
The overwhelming bulk of the correspondence consists of letters to and from R. T. W. Duke, Jr. , Edith Slaughter Duke (1863-1921), his wife, and their children, Mary Willoughby Duke (1885-1966); Richard Thomas Walker Duke, III (1887-1960); John Flavel Slaughter Duke , "Jack" (1889-1933); William Eskridge Duke (1893-1959); and Helen Risdon Duke (1895-1984).
The correspondence subseries devoted to letters written to R. T. W. Duke, Jr. contains three different groups of material: 1) letters from his wife, Edith Slaughter Duke ; 2) an alphabetically arranged group of miscellaneous correspondents; and 3) a group of individual correspondents, each with his own folder.
The letters from Edith to Tom Duke , 1882-1921, were written whenever they were separated during their courtship, family visits, vacations, and business trips. As could be expected, most of these letters contain plans for furnishing their new home, family news, and personal messages, all of which chronicles the growth of the Duke family .
The alphabetical miscellaneous correspondence file has letters from college, fraternity and Masonic friends, business associates, and other acquaintances and includes merchandise orders, requests for speaking engagements, business matters, literary concerns, letters of sympathy and personal news.
Letters of note in this group include the following
correspondents and topics:
S. A. Duke (Dec. 9, 1908) re
reconstruction and "the great negro question;"
A. Ranken Ford (Nov.23, 1914) re America's
Civil War,
The group of individual correspondents to R. T. W. Duke, Jr. include the following people: B. Johnson Barbour , Mary Carey , J. E. Creary , John Singleton Diggs , Elizabeth Eskridge Duke , Maymee R. Slaughter Duke , Myrtle Judson Duke , R. T. W. Duke, Sr. , William R. Duke , Eugene Ellicott , fraternity brothers, Kate Gunther , Lizzie Gunther , and Maude Gunther , Paul Jones and Peter Tudor Jones , Luther Kountze , Nancy Leary , Thomas Nelson Page , Thomas D. Ransom , Schele De Vere , John F. Slaughter, Sr. , John F. Slaughter, Jr. , Mary Harker Slaughter and Mary Willoughby Duke Slaughter .
The letters to Edith Duke include correspondence from Myrtle Judson Duke , R. T. W. Duke, Jr. , Susan Harker Risdon and miscellaneous letters from friends and family, excluding her children.
A third subseries of correspondence consists of letters
from
R. T. W. Duke, Jr. and
Edith Duke to their children, Mr. and Mrs.
R. T. W. Duke, Sr. and miscellaneous
correspondents. Of note in this group is a volume of
R. T. W. Duke, Jr. 's letters from
The fourth subseries contains letters to and from the children of R. T. W. Duke, Jr. , including correspondence with their parents and with each other. The sons of R. T. W. Duke, Jr. , Walker, Jack, and Eskridge, were all in the armed forces during World War I, and their letters that decribe camp life and their war experiences are in the correspondence to their parents, 1917-1919.
Jack
(John Flavel) Duke was an Air Service
officer stationed at
R. T. Walker Duke 's letters to his
parents from 1908-1911 describe his experiences in
Montana as a cowboy, his interest in
homesteading, bronco riding, and his work as a printer. In
1917, Walker was assigned to the
5th Illinois Company ,
Mary Duke 's letters to her parents, 1918-1926, and no date, describe her nursing experiences and other charitable work in the Archdeaconry of Southwest Virginia with Mrs. Hugh F. Binns at Nora, Dickinson County, Virginia .
Another interesting group of letters in this subseries are
those of
William Eskridge Duke, Jr. to his family
and to his aunts,
Mary Duke and
Helen Duke .
Bill Duke served in the navy during the
Korean War and his letters describe the places which he
visited on his tours of duty, such as
The correspondence of the Duke brothers and sisters to each other consists almost entirely of carbons or originals of letters concerning the personal business transactions of the family. It also reveals the financial difficulties of various family members during the Depression years.
The
Slaughter family correspondence comprises
the fifth subseries of correspondence and contains letters to
and from members of
Edith Slaughter Duke 's family, including
her parents,
Mary Harker and
John Flavel Slaughter, Sr. , and her
brothers and sisters. The letters from Dr.
Blanche Rosalie Slaughter Morton , a
graduate of the
Women's Medical College of
Pennsylvania (1897) and practicing surgeon, form one
of the most interesting sections of this correspondence. She
describes her travels in
Most of the Slaughter correspondence concerns either
business matters or family news with a few exceptions.
Charles Slaughter, Sr. writes concerning a
strike and riot in
Of note among the miscellaneous correspondence are two
letters from
John Singleton Mosby , one to
R. T. W. Duke, Jr. (September 27, 1915)
acknowledging Duke's letter of sympathy on the loss of Mosby's
son, and another to Captain
Sam Chapman (September 30, 1919)
concerning the manifesto of the "Stonewall Jackson Camp" at
Also of interest are the letters, 1895-1954, from
Mary Lee and
Claude Lee , an Episcopal medical
missionary family in
The last subseries of correspondence consists of topical files concerning the American Legion and World War I; business correspondence of R. T. W. Duke, Jr. ; the publication of the poetry of R. T. W. Duke, Jr. ; the rental of the Duke's Park Street house; the will of R. T. W. Duke, Jr. ; and the St. Paul's Memorial Building Fund .
The other six non-correspondence series comprise about a third of the collection and include: manuscripts and miscellaneous papers, photographs, bound volumes and notebooks, postcards, papers from the Duke and Duke law firm and oversize items.
The manuscripts and miscellaneous papers series contain the personal business papers of the Duke and related families, especially the Slaughter family . There is also a sizeable amount of family financial material in the Papers of the Duke and Duke Law Firm at the University of Virginia Law Library .
Other types of material in this series include; genealogical material, with a typescript about Mary Harker Slaughter by her son, William A. Slaughter ; invitations; legal papers, including indentures, deeds, agreements, land surveys, etc.; manuscripts by R. T. W. Duke, Jr. , both poetry and prose, including "Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville in War Time," "Libraries and Their Contents," "Pearls and Pebbles," typescripts of portions of his "Recollections," (the whole five volumes of Duke's "Recollections" of his life can be found in 9521-i); printed material, including Masonic items and an undated political pamphlet entitled "Mahoneism Unveiled!"; and Duke family school records and papers.
The photographic series consists of both identified and unidentified photographs. Identified photographs contain the following categories: Judge R. T. W. Duke, Jr. , R. T. W. Duke, Sr. , men and women in the Duke and related families, Rosalie Slaughter Morton , miscellaneous men and women, European scenes, places, photographs of a trip, University of Virginia , and Zeta Psi Brothers and University of Virginia friends. Unidentified photographs have been placed in the following groups: animals, children, groups and families, men, places, and women.
Series four, consisting of bound volumes and notebooks,
contains primarily diaries and notebooks of the immediate
Duke family members. The fifth series has
The papers of the Duke and Duke law firm contain incomplete case files handled by the family law firm. Among these are Maria Carter v. Roy Brown ; J. E. Costan v. Downing L. Smith ; Dr. Funsten v. W. Ed. Pickering ; Insurance Company of Charlottesville v. V. W. F. Carter, Jr. ; the Kentucky Coal Company , Pike County Coal Company , and Ohio and Big Sandy Coal Company ; Jefferson M. Levy Legal Papers; Piedmont Gas and Oil Corporation v. R. S. Duncan ; and Snyder v. University of Virginia . Most of the law firm's papers are located in the University of Virginia Law Library .
The last series consists of oversize documents and photographs.
Because this collection was not received by the Library in any discernible order, the material has been arbitrarily placed into seven different series. These include: I) Correspondence; II) Manuscripts and Miscellaneous Papers; III) Photographs; IV) Bound Volumes and Notebooks; V) Postcards; VI) Papers from the Duke and Duke law firm; and VII) Oversize Items.
Due to the large amount of correspondence present in this collection, the correspondence series has been further broken down into seven subseries: A) Letters to R. T. W. Duke, Jr. (boxes 1-9); B) Letters to Edith Duke (boxes 10-11); C) Letters from R. T. W. Duke, Jr. and Edith Duke (box 12); D) Letters to and from the children of R. T. W. Duke, Jr. (boxes 13-20); E) Slaughter Family Correspondence (boxes 20-22); F) Miscellaneous Correspondence (box 23); G) Topical Correspondence (box 24)