Duncan and Blackwell Family Papers

Collection

Identifier: MSS-726

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection includes the papers of various family members stemming from the Duncan and Blackwell family line. This includes materials from the Bias, Beane, Fontaine, Mitchell, and Tardy families as well as other connections. Materials include correspondence, diaries, family bibles, business papers (e.g., sale of cotton receipts), ledgers, estate records, bills of sale for enslaved persons, photographs, and other miscellaneous objects. The bulk of these materials come from the middle- to late-nineteenth century (1837-1888), but early-nineteenth and early-twentieth century items are also represented.

Dates

1800-1950

Creator

Bias, Elizabeth Duncan, 1858-1937 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

None.

Biographical / Historical

Andrew Jackson Duncan was born December 30, 1821 in Montgomery, Alabama, to William Lane Duncan and Sarah Horton. He and his brother, William M. (1816-1858), eventually settled in the area of present-day Union and Pontotoc County, Mississippi, following the Chickasaw cessions of land to the government in the early 1830s.

Andrew Duncan married Mary Thurston Philpot Blackwell (1832-1918), the daughter of Nicholas Darnell Blackwell and Sarah E. Baldwin, in 1848. Their home was “The Oaks,” located in present-day Union County. After Andrew Duncan’s death in 1865, Mary T. P. Blackwell married her widowed brother-in-law, Dr. Charles Grider Mitchell (1817-1894).

Of the ten children of Andrew Duncan and Mary Blackwell, only two daughters survived to adulthood. Sarah Amanda “Dallie” Duncan (1849-1940) married John Dabney Fontaine, and they settled in Pontotoc County. Elizabeth Malinda Duncan (1858-1937) married Warwick Gatewood Bias (1853-1921) of Virginia. Their daughter, Mary Gatewood Bias, was born at The Oaks in 1887 and married William Sterling Roberts Beane (1886-1940) there in 1911.

Extent

5.23 Cubic Feet

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

This collection is arranged into nine distinct series. These are listed below along with their individual organizational schemas.

1. Correspondence: organized alphabetically by author, then ascending chronological order. 2. Business Papers: organized alphabetically by material type, then ascending chronological order. 3. Legal Papers: organized alphabetically by material type, then ascending chronological order. 4. Enslaved Persons Records: organized alphabetically by material type, then ascending chronological order. 5. Genealogy Papers: organized alphabetically by material type, then ascending chronological order. 6. Miscellaneous Papers: organized alphabetically by material type, then ascending chronological order. 7. Bound Materials: grouped by subject, then by size. 8. Photographs: organized alphabetically by subject, then ascending chronological order. 9. Oversized Materials: organized by size.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This collection was donated by Gay Lord on October 6, 2016.

Accruals

No further accruals are expected.

Processing Information

Metal fasteners were removed. Letters were plasticlipped to their envelopes. Highly acidic papers were interleaved between acid-free paper; further, photographs and vellum paper were interleaved with unbuffered, acid-free paper. Newspaper clippings were photocopied on acid-free paper and isolated from collection.