Box

Thomson Letter, Picture, Booklet, and Biographical Information

• 1832; circa 1940-1980 (Creation)

4 Items

1/1: Letter, August 5, 1832

• One handwritten letter in ink on both sides of a sheet of paper (measuring 31 cm by 37 cm).
• Originally folded in half to form four pages, each measuring 31 cm by 18 and a half cm. When further folded the fourth page became the address area and is postage stamped in red: "Little Rock Arks, Sep 6." Traces of the red sealing wax remain on this page.
• This is the only original letter referred to in the booklet of transcriptions [see Item 1/4.] for which the location was known by the family as of its donation to the repository in March 2002.

1/2: Photographic reproduction of an oil painting portrait of Alexander Thomson (probably in his old age). "Alexander Thomson" is written in pencil on the back of the cardboard on which the picture is pasted. Undated

1/3: Thomson Biographical Note, handwritten in pencil on a sheet of St. Louis Southwestern Railway Lines letterhead, undated and unsigned. circa 1940s-1950s

• Discrepancies such as referring to Washington, TX as Old Washington, indicate the information must have been composed at least after the American Civil War, and at least as late as 1885 since Yellow Prairie was renamed Chriesman in that year.
• Furthermore, if the present note was either composed or copied down contemporary with the stationary, then it may have been written sometime during the period 1947-1951, when F. W. Green served as President of the Cotton Belt Line of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Lines, as indicated on the letterhead.

1/4: Photocopies of Booklet by Ralston P. Haun, circa 1980

• The photocopies include the booklet cover featuring an image of the Alamo, a flyleaf printed with "Ana Gardner Thomson," the original owner of the booklet, the Contents page, pages 1-55 of text, transcriptions of five other letters and two memoirs, and a typed letter dated May 1, 1980 (signed Jim Glass, Houston, Tex.) which details the authorship and provenance of the original booklet, and as much as is known in the family about the subsequent disposition of the documents transcribed therein.
• Glass states that only three copies of the booklet were produced around 1936. Of the transcribed letters, one is dated 1833, the rest in the 1840s to 1860s. The memoirs are by James Monroe Hill and Jane Hallowell Hill.

The digitized image of the letter is accompanied by a transcription composed directly from the letter held by the repository, by Don Dyal, Director of Cushing Memorial Library in October 2001.