Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Hannah-Barksdale family. Papers, 1807-1865. Accession 27858, Personal Papers Collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

Purchased, 2 January 1973.

Biographical/Historical Information

The Hannah and Barksdale families were prominent residents of Charlotte County and Lynchburg, Virginia; and Charleston, Kanawha County, West Virginia. Samuel Hannah (1792-1859), was the son of Andrew Hannah (1766-1826) and Ann Cunningham Hannah (b. 1761). Andrew Hannah had been a revolutionary soldier and ran an ordinary in Charlotte County, Virginia. The family owned much land, including the plantations of "Gravel Hill" and "Cliffside" in Charlotte County, Virginia. Samuel Hannah married Charlotte Ella Barksdale (1813-1886) on 1 February 1837. They lived in Charlotte County and Lynchburg, Virginia; and Kanawha County, West Virginia, where he worked as a cashier for the Bank of Virginia and traded in cotton, salt, and tobacco.

Charlotte Ella Barksdale was the daughter of Grief Barksdale (1774-1850) and Mary Allen Elliott Barksdale of Charlotte County, Virginia. Grief Barksdale was a merchant, member of the county court, and sheriff of Charlotte County, Virginia. Grief and Mary Barksdale had ten children: Charlotte Ella Barksdale (1813-1886), Claiborne Grief Barksdale (1820-1883), Sarah Ann (Barksdale) Bagwell (1811-1841), Mary Ellen Barksdale (b. 1816), William Barksdale (b. 1816), Eliza Barksdale (b. 1818), Arabella Barksdale (b. 1822), Lucy Jane Barksdale (b. 1825), Nancy Barksdale (b. 1829), and Susan Emmett Barksdale (b. 1832).

Scope and Content Information

Papers, 1807-1865, of the Hannah and Barksdale families of Charlotte County and Lynchburg, Virginia, and Kanawha County, West Virginia. Includes accounts, bills, correspondence, deeds, estate accounts, promissory notes, and receipts. There is much information on agriculture, tobacco markets, and social life of the period. The largest collection of papers are from Samuel Hannah and include accounts, bills for clothing and taxes, an estate account for his father-in-law, Grief Barksdale, and deeds for land in Madison County, West Virginia, 1834-1847. Included are personal and business correspondences concerning his numerous ventures in the sale and trade of cotton, salt, and tobacco. Also included are monthly accounts on the sales and imports of cotton, tobacco, and other items into England, 1828-1829, reports on additional duties placed on imports into England, and an annual report for the Mutual Assurance Society of Virginia, 1834.

Also included are letters to Charlotte Hannah, Kanawha County, West Virginia, from her sisters in Charlotte County and Lynchburg, Virginia, regarding family and social events. The papers of Claiborne G. Barksdale include accounts, a publication regarding Barksdale and Read, merchants in Richmond, 1854, and correspondence from family members in Charlotte County, Virginia, 1837-1859. The papers of Grief Barksdale include accounts and promissory notes, correspondence, genealogy on the Scott family of Charlotte County, Virginia, and an estate settlement of Anthony North (d. ca. 1830) of Charlotte County, Virginia.

Also included is a fire insurance policy of Nannie Barksdale from The Washington County (NY) Mutual Insurance Company, 1851; copy of the will of John Thornton Augustine Washington of Jefferson County, Virginia, 1840, and notes relating to land in Mason County, West Virginia; poetry; weather predictions; and an agreement between James Crank and Isaac Read, 1846 May, for land in Charleston, Kanawha County, West Virginia.