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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Am 2297

Thaddeus Asbury Jones papers

Overview

Letters and documents relating to American Civil War Confederate prisoner, Thaddeus Asbury Jones and some materials concerning the Jones family of New Hampshire.

Dates

  • Creation: 1863-1926

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material.

Extent

.5 linear feet (1 box)

Collection includes letters from Jones to his wife and others while held prisoner at Castle Thunder and documents (especially military passes) from the Civil War. Also includes: letters from others, written on his behalf, to help Jones secure employment after the war, letters between Jones family members concerning the war, and genealogies on the Jones extended family.

Biographical / Historical

Thaddeus Asbury Jones was born in East Washington, New Hampshire, on March 18, 1828, the son of Nathaniel G. Jones and Asenath Graves Jones. He eventually moved to Nashua, New Hampshire, and worked for the Boston & Maine Railroad. During the Civil War he served as an engineer and was taken prisoner by the Confederates in West Virginia on October 12, 1863, having been arrested as a spy in the service of the Union forces. He was sent to Richmond, Virginia and held for three years in Castle Thunder prison. On February 22, 1865 he was part of a prisoner exchange at Old Point Comfort and then sent to Annapolis and on to a hospital in Washington, D.C. He eventually secured a job as a chief engineer in Washington, a position he held until his death on January 28, 1900. Jones was married to Emilie Magee Jones (b.1836; married in 1860) and the donor of these papers, Wallace St. Claire Jones (b.1879), was their son.

Arrangement

Arranged alphabetically by author.

Physical Location

b

Immediate Source of Acquisition

*50M-407. Deposited by Wallace St. Clair Jones, HC S.B. '05, 81 Washington Ave., Cambridge, MA; c/o William B. Berry Co., 98 North St., Boston 13, MA; received: 1951 June 27.

Processing Information

Processed by: Bonnie B. Salt

Title
Jones, Thaddeus Asbury, 1828-1900. Thaddeus Asbury Jones papers: Guide.
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou00182

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

Contact:
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440