Information
Sheet
R Roller family.
310 Papers, 1866‑1871.
One folder,
photocopies and typescripts.
These are papers, mostly correspondence,
of the Roller family of Christian and Douglas counties in Missouri
and Scott County,
Virginia. With one exception the letters are addressed
to Jacob Roller, in Virginia, from his
relatives in Missouri. The exception is a letter from General R.
Johnson, an in‑law to the Rollers, of Douglas County,
to his mother, Sarah (Bowen) Johnson.
Elias Roller (1812‑1887), a native
of Virginia, moved with his household to Missouri prior to the Civil War, probably in 1858, and
settled in Christian
County. About 1831 he had married Elizabeth Payne
(1819?‑1882). They had at least
twelve children. The oldest child, Jacob
(1832‑1934), served in the 24th Missouri Volunteer Infantry
during the Civil War, but returned to Virginia
in 1866 to look after his mother’s inheritance and the family property. Despite
the insistent pleas of his relatives, Jacob never returned to Missouri, but lived and died along the Clinch River in Scott County,
Virginia. He and his wife, Letty Margaret Neely, are
buried in the backyard of their original home.
The collection consists largely of
letters from the family, still in Missouri,
to Jacob. The majority are from Jacob’s
brother, Henry H. Roller (1848‑ ), but some are from his parents and his
brother‑in‑law, James E. Bunyard.
The papers deal with such matters as family news, estates, debts,
commodity prices, land acquisition, postwar politics, Jacob’s military service
“bounty,” economic development (including highway and railroad construction),
religion, education, and crime (the family distilled “moonshine” whiskey, and
Bunyard was arrested for this activity).
Taken as a whole, the letters reflect the normal concerns of an extended
family leading an agricultural lifestyle on the post‑bellum Ozark
frontier.
The spelling, punctuation, and grammar of
the letters are very poor, and the intentions of the writers are sometimes
obscure. All of the items have been
typescripted for the convenience of researchers.
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