Information Sheet
R Chadwell, Gideon, 1813-1881.
883 Chadwell/Leavenworth family papers, 1837-1944.
Five folders, photocopies.
These are the correspondence
and business papers of the Chadwell and Leavenworth
families of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.
The papers concern family news and business
matters, and include the Civil War letters of Alexander H. Chadwell, a
Confederate soldier, and Joseph H. Leavenworth and N. H. Leavenworth regarding
the lumber business in Mississippi
in the 1870s and 1880s.
Gideon and
Lucinda (Whittemore) Chadwell, natives of Davidson City,
Tennessee, came to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, in 1839. By the time of the Civil War, Gideon was a
successful merchant and head of a family that included five children:
Alexander, Nancy, Martha, Mary, and Richard.
Franklin Leavenworth and his family were also residents of Ste. Genevieve. The two families became connected with the
marriage of Joseph H. Leavenworth and Martha Chadwell.
The
Chadwell/Leavenworth collection contains correspondence and business papers reflecting
both families and multiple generations.
The earliest correspondence is addressed to Gideon Chadwell and concerns
family and estate matters in Tennessee. Likewise, the business papers in folders 4-5
pertain mostly to Gideon Chadwell’s business affairs. Later correspondence was addressed largely to
Nancy Amanda (“Aunt Mandie”) Chadwell at Ste. Genevieve. The principal correspondents are Gideon
Chadwell’s oldest son, Alexander Henderson Chadwell; Joseph H. Leavenworth and
his wife Martha (Chadwell) Leavenworth;
and Joseph’s brother, N. H. Leavenworth.
Later correspondents include George and Mattie Leavenworth, children of
Joseph H. Leavenworth, who attended schools in Columbia
and St. Charles, Missouri, in the 1890s.
Alexander
Henderson Chadwell served in the Missouri State Guard at the beginning of the
war, and later was commissioned lieutenant in Company E of the 2nd
Missouri Cavalry (CS). His letters to
his family from Bloomfield and New Madrid, Missouri, Vicksburg, Buck Hill, and
Wyatt’s Ferry, Mississippi, contain a wealth of information on family and
friends from the Ste. Genevieve area who served first in the Missouri State
Guard and, later, in the 2nd Missouri Cavalry (CS). Following the war, Alexander H. Chadwell was
a surveyor and schoolteacher. By August
1881, he was teaching school in Conway
County, Arkansas. Later he moved to St. Louis where he engaged in the grocery
business, including the sale of apples from the family farm near Ste. Genevieve. The collection also includes wartime letters
to Gideon Chadwell from J. Bellissime, a Ste. Genevieve man at Memphis,
Tennessee, and Joseph Brooks of the 76th
Ohio Infantry at Vicksburg,
Mississippi.
Brothers Joseph
H. and N. H. Leavenworth operated sawmills and engaged in the lumber business at
Lake Washington, Leota Landing, and Greenville, Mississippi, in the 1870s and
1880s, buying logs from Cypress Bayou and from rafts brought down from the
mouth of White River. Sawed lumber went
to new homes and buildings around Leota,
Mississippi. In their letters home, the brothers noted the
scarcity of laborers in some parts of Mississippi, the “Negro Exodus” to Kansas
and elsewhere, the health of Joseph’s children (at Ste. Genevieve with Nancy
Chadwell), the sawmill and lumber business, the health of the country (he
mentioned a smallpox scare on 24 February 1882), stages of the Mississippi
River, and business and property matters in both Missouri and Mississippi.
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