Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Cocke and related families Papers, Accession 2433-t, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library

Acquisition Information

This collection was made a gift to the Library on December 9, 1986 by John Page Elliott of Charlottesville, Virginia.

Funding Note

Funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Scope and Content

Four letters, 1846-1860, chiefly concerning the family of Philip St. George Cocke . In her letter of February 9, 1846, Courtney Barraud of Norfolk writes her cousin, John Bowdoin Cocke , that she has heard about "the big house" being begun and knows that "cousin Philip" will be very busy as "no one ever was more totally emersed in building." This refers to the onset of the construction of " Belmead " in Powhatan County , designed by architect Alexander Jackson Davis , based on a suggestion by Philip St. George Cocke . From the newly erected " Belmead , " a letter dated March 15, 1848 from Sally Elizabeth Courtney Bowdoin Cocke to her son, John Bowdoin Cocke , who was enrolled at Bremo Academy in Fluvanna County , mentions his father's meeting with "a Committee appointed to make arrangements for building a new Ct House." Richard F. Wilson 's letter on March 23, 1857 is in answer to a request from [ John Hartwell Cocke ] in Green County, Alabama , concerning the replanting of cedar trees according to Cocke's direction and clearing the graveyard at Mount Pleasant . He mentions a cenotaph, designed by Alexander Jackson Davis , on which was inscribed the names of members of the Cocke family buried at Mount Pleasant in Surry County . In an undated letter to her father, Philip St. George Cocke , Louisiana Barraud Cocke is apparently defending Richard Byrd Kennon , whom she married on June 21, 1860; she relates that she "asserted my pride & dignity as a woman should" by speaking to Kennon about the conversation between him and her father, and that she is satisfied that he is sincere and that she has not been "the dupe of anybody." This letter may have been written in September 1860 as it seems related to the letter dated September 19, 1860 by Kennon ( >#640 , Box 63) in which he refers to a resolution "taken at the request of one whom I now hold dearer than life itself."