Photocopies of papers related to an Anson County, North Carolina, family including correspondence (1859-1860, 1867, 1901), and a diary (1869) written in Salina, Kansas.
Amos Haynes Richardson was born circa 1847 near Ansonville, North Carolina, to Haynes and Sarah Richardson. He lived in Ansonville until he volunteered as a cavalryman in the Civil War. Following the war, he moved to Mississippi in 1868 where he lived until 1906. Richardson married twice, first to Ida Roberta Gunn who died in 1897, and then again to Lucy Ann Gillis. He had at least four children with his first wife, Ida, and another child with either Ida or Lucy. In 1912, Richardson passed away in his home from a form of cancer.
Written March 2024
Amos Richardson kept a highly reflective and detailed diary of his stay in Salina, Kansas, selling trees to frontier farmers between September and November, 1869. The author describes much of the frontier life including farming practices, the structure and furnishings of prairie homes, and the general attitudes of the people. Similarly, Richardson recounts the social, cultural, and economic life of Salina. He notes in his diary the wild and unruly nature of Texas cattlemen (Oct. 3, Nov. 3), peculiar Kansas idioms and bargaining practices (Oct. 30), the intelligence of a frontiersman (Sept. 27), prairie wildlife, the difficulties he encountered in understanding immigrant settlers, and a number of interesting and amusing stories and incidents.
In addition, the author comments on death- its quickness, its grief, and in a few instances in western Kansas its casual everyday acceptance (Sept. 23, Oct. 6, 21, Nov. 2, 4, 5).
Richardson also narrates the response of Kansans and former Union soldiers to himself, an ex-Confederate (Oct. 1, 9, 16, 17, Nov. 1, 3) as well as accounts of Indigenous person (Oct. 20), eating habits (Oct. 22), and suspected arson in connection with numerous vast, uncontrollable prairie fires (Oct. 25, 27).
Correspondence (July, 1859-Sept., 1859) of Mrs. S. L. Garrett of Ansonville, N.C., to her sons, Amos H. and John R. Richardson, attending the Bingham Select School in Oaks, N.C., reflect her concerns respecting diligence in their studies, church attendance, good company, the poor wisdom of John buying a pistol (July, 1859), their brief and infrequent letters to her, and the respect and appreciation due their instructors.
Two letters (Mar., Apr., 1860) addressed to John R. Richardson in Ansonville and Mebanesville from his brother, Amos Richardson, discuss his new semester at school; and a letter to Amos H. Richardson from W. J. Richardson of Sumter, S.C., mentions an impending law suit and his thoughts about leaving the country due to abuses of the Reconstruction government.
A 1901 letter from Amos H. Richardson in Egypt, Miss., to a Maj. William Smith of Ansonville recounts his recent visit to Ansonville and the present poor crops and livestock diseases of Mississippi.
Gift of Tyler B. Dunlap, Jr.
Processed by S. McKenzie, February 1981
Encoded by Apex Data Services
Descriptions updated by Ashlyn Racine, May 2023
Literary rights to specific documents are retained by the authors or their descendants in accordance with U.S. copyright law.