White family papers

This collection contains correspondence, documents, and ephemera belonging to the White family of Beaver Dam, Hanover County, Virginia. The bulk of the materials date from 1867 to 1898, and includes a document from 1854 and a few early 20th century documents. 110 letters sent to Malmon White, a farmer in Beaver Creek, as well as Harriet White, his mother, Elvira Terrell White, his wife, and Alice White, his daughter. Subject matter includes correspondence about family inheritances, some disputed inheritances, inheritance of land in Salem, Va., and vivid descriptions of farming in Kentucky. One group of 31 letters are from a relative, Edmund T. White, a tobacco farmer in Owensboro, Kentucky.

Among this group are also numerous receipts (many on the letterheads of Virginia businesses), as well as accounts, pay documents, legal documents, tax documents, and ephemera including illustrated Virginia Fire and Marine Insurance Policies, and an 1875 broadsheet of Richmond Grain and Tobacco prices.

There is an 1882 document about Malmon's Confederate Army Service in which he was prisoned at Forte Delaware prison and Pointe Look Out. He was in the West Building Hopsital at Baltimore and at Fort McHenry.

Some of the letters from his wife ELvira White and daughter Alice White describe life in Virginia and fears about Diptheria.