Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Maury Family Papers #1788, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Mrs. Robert Billington of Savannah, Ga., in 1939; Mrs. N. M. Osborne of Norfolk, Va., in November 1950; and Maury T. Reid of Memphis, Tenn., in 1946 and 1947. Lent for filming by Ms. N. M. Osborne in October 1951.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Suzanne Ruffing, August 1996

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

Updated by: Laura Hart, July 2021

This collection was processed with support from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• American Confederate voluntary exiles--Mexico.
• Arkansas--Social life and customs.
• College students--Virginia--Social life and customs.
• Dueling--Virginia--History--19th century.
• Family--Southern States--Social life and customs.
• Harris, Carey A., fl. 1853-1854.
• Maury, Abram Poindexter, 1801-1848.
• Maury, Ann, 1803-1876.
• Maury, Matthew Fontaine, 1806-1873.
• Mexico--Emigration and immigration--History--19th century.
• Morey family.
• New York (N.Y.)--Social life and customs--19th century.
• Tennessee--Social life and customs.
• University of Virginia--Students--Social life and customs.

Maury family materials include a letter, 16 April 1849, from Matthew Fontaine Maury at the Observatory in Washington, D.C., to Reverend Edward F. Berkeley in Lexington, Ky., relating to Mr. Jackson, late of Fredericksburg, and his family; three newspaper clippings, February and March 1873, of obituary notices and comments on Maury; and a letter, 30 March 1873, to Reverend E. F. Berkeley of St. Louis, Mo., from Rutson Maury in New York, describing his cousin Matthew Fontaine Maury's last illness and public comments at his death, and quoting from his last letters and discussing efforts to raise a "testimonial fund" for the widow and family. Also included are a copy of extracts of a letter, around March 1873, of Mrs. P. Lansdale Cox to Rutson Maury in regard to the testimonial fund and a sketch of a man's head.

Letters, 1836-1870, are chiefly to and from Ann Maury in New York to members of her family, including Abram Poindexter Maury (1801-1848), a cousin and congressman from Tennessee, and Martha Harris and Sallie G. M. Reid, cousins in Williamson County, Tenn. Ann Maury discussed her father, James Maury (b. 1745), who lived for years in Liverpool, England; her book on John Fontaine and accompanying family chart; a Christmas dinner in 1868; her niece, Ann Fontaine Maury; her husband, Captain William Lewis Maury of the Confederate Navy and their affairs; and other family members and happenings. There is a letter, 1849, from M. Maury, Ann's brother, telling her of the death of their brother, William, at Windsor, England, and the state of his eleven orphan children.

Also included are excerpts from a letter, 1865, from Matthew Fontaine Maury in Mexico and a long letter from the same year from Maury to Reverend F. W. Tremlett in England, describing his plan for moving southerners to Mexico and offering details of conditions there and the positive attitudes of the Emperor Maximilliam and the Empress Carlotta towards the venture. There is also a letter, 1867, from John W. Weed of Darien, Conn., describing a big snowstorm and the difficulties of railroad travel because of it.

The papers of Abram Maury Poindexter include family and business correspondence and deeds, chiefly of Abram P. Maury of Franklin, Williamson County, Tenn., and his brother-in-law, Carey A. Harris, of Little Rock, Ark. These items include nine letters, 1853-1854, from C. A. Harris (Jr.?) at the University of Virginia to his sister Mary F. Harris and his uncle, James P. Maury, about student life, a student duel, and a trip to Monticello; five items, 1865-1871, about complaints and claims for damages against federal forces occupying private houses; and an undated legal argument in behalf of General John Ellis Wool (1784-1869) for compensation for expenditures incurred when traveling to scattered posts and buying presents for Indians in the Arkansas and Red River regions about 1820-1821.

Also includes papers relating to the testimonial fund raised in honor of Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873), astronomer, hydrographer, and author of Navigation.

• M-1788/1