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For preservation purposes, please use microfilm (Misc. reel 6197-6200)
Executive letter books of Governor Andrew J. Montague, 1902-1906. Accession 35358, State government records collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.
Also available on microfilm (6197-6200)
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Andrew Jackson Montague was born 3 October 1862 in Campbell County, Virginia. The son of Robert Latane Montague, lieutenant governor under John Letcher, and Cordelia Eubank, Andrew graduated from Richmond College in 1882 and from the University of Virginia law school in 1885. He married Elizabeth Lyne Hoskins in 1889 and they had three children. Montague established a private law practice in Danville, serving as the local attorney for the Richmond and Danville Railroad. He was appointed to the state Democratic executive committee in 1892, and selected by President Grover Cleveland as U.S. Attorney General for the Western District of Virginia in 1893. Montague later served as Attorney General of Virginia from 1898 to 1902. His political views were increasingly aligned with the Progressive movement, casuing him to break with the Martin Organization, the Democratic party machine led by Thomas Staples Martin.
Montague defeated Republican candidate J. Hampton Hoge for governor of Virginia, serving from 1902 to 1906. While in office, progressive-minded Montague promoted good roads and public schools. An opponent of fellow Democrat and incumbent senator Thomas Martin, Montague lost his bid as senatorial candidate in 1905. Following his governorship, Montague served as dean of the Richmond College law for three years before returning to practicing law in Richmond, from 1909 to 1913. Elected to the U.S. Congress in 1913, Montague served until his death on 24 January 1937 in Urbana, Virginia. He is buried in Christ Church Cemetery in Middlesex County, Virginia.
The executive letter books contain the outgoing correspondence of Governor Andrew Jackson Montague between January 1902 and February 1906, arranged chronologically. Letters were written by Governor Montague, private secretary D. A. Ritchie, executive clerk J. Bigger, and Lt. Governor Joseph E. Willard during his brief tenure as acting governor. There are also copies of messages to the Senate and House of Delegates, including explanations for bills that the governor returned without approval. Many letters concerned appointments or requests for executive pardons. Governor Montague also issued proclamations designating Arbor Days, Labor Days, and days of Thanksgiving.
Each volume includes an alphabetical index of correspondents by surname labeled with relevant page numbers. The volumes are marked as Official, unlike the letter books under accession 45102 which are marked as Personal even though many items in the personal letter books are related to government matter.
Subjects include Virginia colleges and schools such as VMI, William and Mary, the University of Virginia, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Hampden Sydney, and the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind; delegates from Virginia to such events as the South Carolina and West Indian Exposition, the Southern Interstate Good Roads Convention, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the Jamestown Exposition Company and Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition, and the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition; the Grand Army of the Republic and the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans. Correspondence also referred to the state militia and the Militia Act of 1903, the compilation of muster rolls of Virginia Confederate soldiers, the death and burial of General Fitzhugh Lee, Confederate Soldiers Homes, the Richmond Howitzers, Confederate relics such as a set of battle flags returned by the Federal Government and housed in the Confederate Museum, the Stuart Monument Association, and state pensions. Other topics include the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, disputes about the Virginia-Tennessee boundary, the ownership of Libby Prison, quarantines, the appropriation of funds for the Jefferson Memorial, the street-car strike of 1903, the recovery of Stafford County records held by the New York State Library, the Virginia Constitution of 1902, and concerns about lynching and its prevention.
Notable correspondents include the governors of numerous other states, Senator John W. Daniel, Col. William Lamb, Benjamin L. Blackford, Secretary of State John Hay, Clara Barton, Acting Secretary of State F. B. Loomis, former Virginia governor William E. Cameron, Robert Shaw Oliver, Secretary of War and future president William H. Taft, Richard L. Maury, Roland P. Falkner from the Library of Congress, Kate Pleasants Minor, General Adna Chaffee, Charles G. Bennett, Henry B. F. Macfarland, Morton Marye, Scott Ship of the Virginia Military Institute, Col. Sidney Sheltman, Secretary of the Navy Paul Morton, Richmond mayor Carleton McCarthy, Malvern H. Omohundro, and Isabel Maury, custodian of the Confederate Museum.
This collection is arranged into the following series: I. Executive letter books of Governor Andrew J. Montague, 1902-1906.
The items are arranged chronologically.
Chronological