Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Papers of the Anderson Family, Accession #38-96, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

The Anderson Family papers were loaned to the University of Virginia Library by Miss Ellen G. Anderson, Lexington, Virginia, in 1931 and 1934.

Biographical/Historical Information

Francis Thomas Anderson (1808-1887) was a lawyer, legislator, Rector of Washington and Lee University (1879-1887) and Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. He was born at Walnut Hill in Botetourt County, Virginia, to William Anderson and Anna Thomas Anderson, one of ten children. Francis Anderson graduated from Washington College in 1827, read law with Fleming B. Miller and Allen Taylor, and was admitted to the bar in 1830. He was married to Mary Ann Alexander Anderson on December 8, 1830 and they had nine children. In 1856, they moved to Rockbridge County, Virginia, where he operated a large iron foundry at Glenwood for twelve years. Anderson belonged to the Whig Party, opposing secession until after the firing on Fort Sumter. He represented Rockbridge County in the House of Delegates from December 1861 until March 1863. He resumed his law practice in Lexington, Virginia, in 1869.

His brothers, John Thomas Anderson and Joseph Reid Anderson, were both prominent politicians and iron manufacturers. Joseph Reid Anderson took charge of the Tredegar Ironworks, Richmond, Virginia in 1841, eventually purchasing Tredegar on April 4, 1848, for $125,000. After the incident with John Brown at Harper's Ferry, Tredegar got the bid for equipping the Richmond State Armory and became very important to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Tredegar continued to produce munitions during two world wars and became the oldest surviving iron works south of the Potomac River.

William Alexander Anderson (1842-1930) was a lawyer and politician, Attorney General of Virginia, and Rector of Washington and Lee University, 1914-1923, and member of its Board of Trustees from 1884 until his death. Anderson was the son of Judge Francis T. Anderson and Mary Ann Alexander Anderson.

While a student at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), William Anderson served in the Liberty Hall Volunteers as an orderly sergeant during the beginning of the Civil War, April 1861. He was seriously wounded at First Manassas on July 21, 1861, as part of the Stonewall Brigade, Company I, 4th Virginia Infantry. After being discharged, he entered the University of Virginia in 1863 and received his law degree in 1866. His first wife was Ellen Graham Anderson, of Richmond, who died in January 1872. After her death, he married Mary Louisa ("Maza") Blair, Lexington, on August 9, 1975, and they had five children.

He became a lawyer in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1867, and was nominated and elected state senator from the Rockbridge-Botetourt district, 1869-1873. In 1870, Anderson was credited with introducing the bill establishing the public school system of Virginia as put forth by Dr. William Henry Ruffner. He also served in the House of Delegates for three terms and was a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention, 1901-1902, becoming the first attorney general under Virginia's new constitution, 1902-1910. Other types of service include his work as a member of the state Democratic executive committee for six years, as one of the United States commissioners to the Paris International Exposition in 1878, and his election as president of the Virginia Bar Association in 1899.

Scope and Content

These files constitute a large volume of personal, legal and business correspondence, legal and financial papers, ledgers and daybooks, ca. 7,000 items (41 boxes, ca. 17 linear feet), 1771 to 1952, primarily from the legal careers of Francis Thomas Anderson (1808-1887) and William Alexander Anderson (1842-1930) of Lexington and Rockbridge County, Virginia. The papers are largely comprised of documents concerning coal, tin, iron and agricultural lands in Virginia and West Virginia as well as the activities of major iron companies, including the Tredegar Company in Richmond.

There are also numerous court cases including the Virginia-West Virginia debt controversy. As attorney general of Virginia, William A. Anderson prepared the briefs and arguments in the famous debt controversy case, which ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court.

Some letters of note include: a letter from Socrates Maupin from the University of Virginia discussing the number of students attending, and the professor of law, John A.G. Davis (October 10, 1830); a resolution written on the back of a letter, December 4, 1832, disapproving of South Carolina's nullification of the tariff; letter from the Virginia Military Institute academic board praising Robert Lewis Madison (1828-1878) upon his death (May 27, 1878); an "In Memoriam" for Mary Anne Alexander Anderson, wife of Judge Francis T. Anderson, containing some biographical data (November 30, 1881); Governor Fitzhugh Lee writing about the business of Rockbridge Company (1890 Fall); Governor William Hodges Mann to Samuel W. Williams about retaining William A. Anderson to argue the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad Case (November 4, 1910); and undated social letters from Thomas Nelson Page.

Also present is a twenty-five page document by William A. Anderson with historical facts about the Arlington Case and the passing of the Arlington Estate from the Lee family (with correspondence in 1920).

Arrangement

The papers are organized in two series: Series I, the papers of the Anderson family; and Series II, Anderson family ledgers. The files are organized alphabetically by subject and in chronological order within their respective subjects.

Printed material concerning the Virginia-West Virginia debt case has been removed and cataloged separately.