Reeves Collection of Stuart Family Papers Added to BDC Archives

The Beaufort District Collection relies upon the generosity of its donors to add items to the Research Room. In January of this year, Isabella Stuart Reeves offered us photocopies of some family letters that she had inherited. My plans for my former assistant to process this collection of almost 350 items came to naught so I had to work it into my list of tasks to accomplish. I finally got it done in late June. 

The Reeves Collection of Stuart Family Papers consists primarily of family correspondence between Claudia Smith Stuart (1802-1876) about family matters, social affairs in Beaufort and Charleston, SC, schooling at Harvard, West Point and seminaries in Spartanburg, SC and Alexandria, VA, secession and the Civil War. Reconstruction Era documents mostly refer to family poverty and difficulties post-war. Related families include Heyward, Rhett, Taber and Walker. Three original items were discovered during processing.  The Finding Aid to the Reeves Collection of Stuart Family Papers is posted on our WordPress blog: Links, Lists, and Finding Aids. 

I like how the City University of New York (CUNY) describes Archival Research and defines the term "Finding Aids" and explains the diversity one may find from one Finding Aid to another for the layman: 

Archival materials are described in documents called finding aids or collection guides.  These are detailed guides to the contents and arrangement of collections.

• Finding aids are written to give the repository intellectual and physical control over their holdings and to help researchers find what they are looking for within collections.

• Finding aids can take many forms and range in detail from a brief summary of a collection to an itemized list of its contents, to a card catalog, but most finding aids will fall somewhere in between. The level of detail and description depend on the resources of the repository and the collection itself.  Not all finding aids are online.

Finding Aids are wonderful documents that describe collections of items in general terms as pointer files to additional information. Sometimes, though, a particular item or set of items captures the attention of the processing archivist and she just has to share more than the Finding Aid allows. As an example, I enjoyed working with the contents of Folder 9: Stuart Family, 1858-1859 and did a little more research about the people writing and being mentioned in the letters.  

News of love, betrothals and weddings abound in Folder 9. Thomas Middleton Stuart writes of his engagement to Josephine Cay to his sister on 2 March 1858. Mentions are made of social visits with the Thomson daughters by Claudia Stuart. Whether she was first friends with the Thomson girls or had her eye on their brother remains to be uncovered, Claudia would marry Dr. Charles Robert Thomson on 9 April 1860. There is a letter of condolence from Benjamin Rhett Stuart dated 28 December 1862 to his sister Claudia upon the death of her infant child. None of the Thomson's three children survived infancy. Claudia's younger brother Benjamin Rhett Stuart married Charles' younger sister, Emma Virginia Thomson three weeks later. (I'm a practical woman - and given to cutting unnecessary costs. I wonder why they didn't have a double-wedding. Odds are the same guests would have attended the two separate weddings.) Benjamin and Emma would have ten children, eight of whom would survive into adulthood. 

I was also struck by the despair in a letter dated 1 September 1865 in Folder 10. It was a whole new world that former Masters and former enslaved had to learn how to negotiate. Thomas Middleton Stuart rails against post-war economic and social conditions in a letter to his mother:

I find it almost impossible to extend the hand of fellowship when my heart burns with vindictiveness to those who are now the “high water” among us – the yankees—great God damn them eternally! … The negro must die, or work, or leave the country – this last is impossible. He must work or die. We, the whites must live…. The low-country is inexpressibly tangled, shackled, crippled – a howling wilderness – a negro sack or net – idleness, vice, sickness and starvation…Unsafe to plant seed in the ground. At harvest robbed and plundered as we will be. Gunpowder, that’s the only pacifier! We must burn it! My dear Mother.

You are welcomed to set up an appointment to explore this collection and other holdings in the Research Room. Contact me gracec@bcgov.net or call 843-255-6446 to make the necessary advance arrangements. 

Because the Assistant position has yet to be filled, we have to agree upon a mutually acceptable date and time for your research appointment. In general, there are now three separate two-hour appointment slots per day, Mondays through Fridays that can be reserved in advance. Over the past 8 months, most of my customers stayed an average of 1.5 to 2 hours per visit. I learned that lesson and began offering three slots a day on 1 July. If you are coming from out of town or think that you will need two or all three slots on a particular day, we can discuss your needs and figure out how best to accommodate your needs and what may already be on my schedule.

Please note: As you are planning your research trip, be aware that I do not monitor incoming messages outside of scheduled business hours or while on leave. Ask at least several weeks ahead so that we can coordinate your schedule and mine.