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Lewis Preston Summers Papers, 1814-1947, Accession #2781, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
These papers were purchased from Andrew R. Summers, New York City, by the University of Virginia Library on March 15, 1965.
Lewis Preston Summers (1868-1943) was the son of John Calhoun and Nannie Montgomery (Preston) Summers. John C. Summers was a captain of the "Monroe Invincibles", Company A, 3rd Virginia Regiment, and major and lieutenant colonel, of the 60th Virginia Infantry. His mother was the daughter of John F. Preston, of Locust Glen, Washington County. Summers graduated from the Wytheville Male Academy (1886), the University of Virginia (1890-1893) in common and statute law, studying with Professor John B. Minor, and Tulane (1894-1895) civil law. He married Annie Katherine Barbee of Giles County, in 1897, and they had Gay White, Jane Douglas, Lewis Preston, Katharine Barbee, John Grant, Andrew Rowan, and Olivia Wirt.
Summers served as a railway postal clerk, on the route between Lynchburg, Virginia, and Bristol, Tennessee, and as the Abingdon postmaster, 1890-1894. He began his legal practice in Abingdon in 1895, was commonwealth attorney for Washington County (1904-1905), collector of internal revenue, Western district of Virginia (1905-1913), and appointed U.S. district attorney, by President Harding, in 1922, and member of the Virginia State Bar Association and Presbyterian Church. He was a member of the Republican district committee from the ninth Virginia district from 1894-1904 and elected a member of the Republican State executive committee on March 1904. Summers was also the chairman of the Walnut Grove Cemetery Association, Washington County, Virginia. The land upon which this historic cemetery was located was originally owned by Robert Preston, Sr. of Walnut Grove, whose wife, Margaret Rhea Preston, and mother, Eleanor Fairman Preston, established the cemetery. Several bound volumes pertaining to Walnut Grove and the Preston family are present in this collection.
This collection consists of the papers of Lewis Preston Summers (1868-1943), a lawyer, genealogist, member of the Republican Party, and author of Abingdon, Virginia, containing correspondence concerning genealogy, the history of Southwest Virginia, and politics, especially local politics of the ninth Virginia district, Congressman Campbell Bascom Slemp, and applicants for political positions (1870-1943); financial and legal records for the newspaper
Other materials include photographs; news clippings and printed; World War I History Commission papers, kept by Summers, who was the chairman of the Washington County Virginia War History Commission, including correspondence, military service records of men serving from Southwest Virginia, arranged alphabetically, photographs of soldiers and scenes, and related material; bound volumes, especially several pertaining to the Preston family of Walnut Grove, Washington County; a file on the Ku Klux Klan (Box 22); lists of voters; memorabilia; speeches by Lewis Preston Summers; invitations; the original and typescript copy of the journal of Hugh Johnston (Box 25); land plots; and papers concerning the Walnut Grove Cemetery Association, for the preservation of the historic Walnut Grove Presbyterian Church Cemetery, four miles east of Bristol, Washington County, Virginia (Box 32).
Photographs of men who appear as illustrations in
This collection is arranged in seven series:
Series I: Manuscripts of Books by Lewis Preston Summers
(Boxes 1-10)
Series II: Correspondence re Genealogy (Boxes 11- 14)
Series III: Papers re
Bound Typescipt with photographs, post cards, and news clippings bound in