Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Papers of John E. Roller, Accession #9478 , Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

The University of Virginia Library purchased these papers from Mr. Harry Dupoy of Mt. Crawford, Virginia, on May 1, 1970.

Biographical/Historical Information

John Edwin Roller (1844-1918), a lawyer, businessman, and politician from Harrisonburg, Virginia, was born in Rockingham County, Virginia, in 1844 of parents of German and French Huguenot descent. At sixteen, he tried to join the Confederate Army but was told that he was too young. He therefore "attached" himself to the 1st Virginia Cavalry and saw action at the first Battle of Bull Run. He attended the Virginia Military Institute from 1862-1863 and was then stationed in Charleston, South Carolina, until late 1864, when he was transferred to the Richmond and Petersburg area.

After the Civil War, he attended Law School at the University of Virginia and was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1867. He soon became recognized as one of Virginia's leading land lawyers. He served in the Virginia Senate from 1869 to 1873. In 1872, he was appointed Major-General of the Virginia Militia.

Nominally a Democrat, he broke with the party in 1886 over the question of the tariff, and with Republican support, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress that year. In 1888 he ran, again unsuccessfully, as the formal Republican nominee. A man of letters, his library of over two thousand books contained numerous works in German and French.

Scope and Content Information

The collection contains personal, business, and legal correspondence of Roller. There are notes, memoranda, testimony and other court materials, as well as clippings, maps, scrapbooks, maps, ledgers, and genealogy. Two decades of Virginia politics are well represented, especially the 1886 and 1888 Congressional elections. Among the correspondents are John Paul, Berkeley Minor, Alexander R. Pendleton, the American Protective Tariff League, the Anti-Saloon League of Virginia, and the Rockingham County Historical Society.

The first series consisting of correspondence, includes six boxes of outgoing business and legal correspondence in the form of letter press books, 1878-1914, with some letters to Theodore Roosevelt; six boxes of incoming correspondence, 1856-1916, arranged chronologically, dealing with Roller's business and legal affairs; and topical correspondence containing the correspondence of O.B. Roller, letters from the 1886 and 1888 election campaigns, personal correspondence, 1852-1914, and notebooks.

The second series, business materials, contains four boxes of business ledgers, 1813-1916, bills and receipts, cancelled checks, Excellsior Oak Bark papers, and miscellaneous envelopes.

The third series, consisting of legal materials, includes three boxes of case notes and legal memoranda, 1880-1916, court testimony from various cases, subpoenas, Docket of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, 1870's-1890's, lawsuit books, a table of the Maryland family heirs, and the memo book of the Rockingham County Court.

The fourth series, four boxes of miscellaneous papers, consists of news clippings about the Mennonites, miscellaneous maps, a catalog of Roller's library, correspondence of the Rockingham County Historical Society, 1898-1901, newspapers, and scraps of paper.

The last series contains forty-nine scrapbooks and ledgers, concerning agriculture, business, Virginia politics, 1900-1908, literary materials, the Spanish-American War, copious material on Virginia genealogy, the Civil War, and a wide range of miscellanenous materials.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged in five series, including 1) Correspondence; 2) Business Materials; 3) Legal Materials; 4) Miscellaneous; and 5) Scrapbooks and Ledgers.