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101

Amassed by a scholar over a period of decades

Currency:USD Category:Antiques Start Price:40,000.00 USD Estimated At:80,000.00 - 110,000.00 USD
Amassed by a scholar over a period of decades
Amassed by a scholar over a period of decades, this unique and significant collection of hundreds of original items includes manuscript maps, personal letters, plantation inventories, books, slave documents, photographs, business correspondence, and family-related documents generated by early settlers of the lower Mississippi Valley.

Although there are numerous items from other Southern states, the bulk of the collection comes from antebellum Mississippi and Louisiana, with much Natchez, New Orleans, and territorial material. Most of the items were acquired one item or lot at a time. Archivists and historians in the twenty-first century will find it challenging to assemble a comparable collection of material from this region and era in the nation's history. Many of the items herein are so rare, if not unique, that nothing comparable will likely be available at public auction again.
The Buckner Papers, sold in our catalogue several years ago, were a single component of this private collection. Now offered is a very historic and varied archive, rich in original unpublished material.
Space here only permits mention of a limited number of highlights; a detailed 70-page prospectus is available:
Pair of pre-1776 manuscript maps predating the laying out of the town of Natchez. Relating to property of Thaddeus Lyman, one of the first Anglo settlers of what became known as the Natchez District, then a small outpost in the British province of West Florida. He, his brother Phineas, Roger Enos, and Israel and Rufus Putnam organized the Company of Military Adventurers made up of other Connecticut veterans of the Seven Years' War; they received vast land grants in the Natchez District from the British crown.
Letters of Dr. Stephen Duncan, by 1850 the largest cotton planter in the world. Together with volumes from his plantation library, and a 1776 document signed by his great- grandfather. Located just outside Natchez, his land and slaves comprised a veritable empire.
Letter, 1788, of Andrew Ellicott, one of the most important figures in the history of the creation of the boundaries of the United States capital at Washington, D.C., in the establishment of the boundaries of the Mississippi Territory at its inception, and a Natchez pioneer. Embroiled in conflict with the Governor of Natchez in 1797 because of the unwillingness of the Spanish to implement transfer of the Natchez region to the Americans, he served as a leader of a self-governing group at Natchez who defied both Spanish and American authorities.
Early Mississippi Territorial era manuscripts, 1797-1817.
Papers relating to Abijah Hunt, the most prominent merchant in Territorial Mississippi. Arriving in Natchez in 1798, Hunt played a major role in shaping the economic and banking structure of the Mississippi Territory. Appointed Postmaster in 1799, he was responsible for early mail service on a 500-mile length of the Natchez Trace. The largest cotton gin operator, Hunt issued gin receipts which became the de facto paper currency of the Mississippi Territory from about 1800-1809. He was killed in a duel on the riverbank opposite Natchez. Within this group are 38 manuscript pages documenting sale of land and slaves in Mississippi Territory, including transactions as early as 1768.
Dramatic papers, 1810-22, of Nathaniel Knight Gibson, deceased at age 20. Port Gibson is named for his family. Including family document signed by Anthony Glass, the famous settler, merchant, and government official who became embroiled in controversy over allegations that he acted as a fence and informer for the Samuel Mason Gang who terrorized, robbed, and murdered travelers along the Natchez Trace.
Letter written by "Uncle Sam," Savannah, 1821, inquiring whether the recipient has been having fun in Charleston with "Whores, Yellow Girls, and Bloods."
Letter from the early capital of Jackson involving Perry Cohen, 1824, possibly Jewish.
Large manuscript volumes, including a massive 18"-high leatherbound docket book from a Mississippi Probate Court, listing hundreds of names of prominent planters and residents, and notations about estates, 1830-1833.
Numerous books from the mansions of Mississippi planters Richard T. Archer of Anchuka, S. Sprague, and Dr. Stephen Duncan, whose home Auburn still stands near Natchez. Books with provenance from the libraries of identified large slaveholding planters are rare on the private market today. Including fiction, historical, and scientific, 1832-1842. Fascinating representation of the kinds of reading material that the planter class of the Old South enjoyed during "flush times."
Complete set of encyclopædias, each volume bearing large bookplate of Duncan plantation.
Documents relating to David Hunt, arguably the largest slaveholder in the Old South.
Correspondence of the famous firm Leverich & Co., cotton factors, commission merchants, and bankers to cotton and sugar planters, 1835-1870.
Checks of estate of Francis Surget, described variously as the "nabob from Natchez" and, according to Mississippi historian J.F.H. Claiborne, "the most extensive and successful planter Mississippi had ever seen."
One of the earliest hand-drawn maps of Vicksburg in existence, 1836. With contemporary 56-pp. manuscript detailing the history of the founding of that city in the 1820s, with much information about the Vick family, and revealing details about the foundation and organization of Vicksburg.
Signed Mississippi plantation Bible, maintained from 1839-1979, with entries as early as 1811!
States represented in archive include, besides Louisiana and Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and others. Many items with covers and address-leaves bearing rare, early Southern postal markings. An exceptional collection, reflecting the richness, trials and tribulations of Southern history.
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