Indiana Historical Society - Manuscripts and Archives Department

MAXWELL FAMILY
PAPERS, 1845-1944

Collection #
M 0201
OM 0355

Table of Contents

Collection Information
Historical Sketch
Scope and Content Note
Folder Listing
Cataloging Information

Processed by
Charles Latham
3 May 1996

COLLECTION INFORMATION

HISTORICAL SKETCH

This collection concerns four generations of the Maxwell family, which originated in Kentucky and were early settlers in Jefferson County, Indiana. The first generation represented is Edward Franklin Maxwell (1816-1868), who married Melissa Wiley. An 1845 tax receipt shows him owning 78 acres in Jefferson County. His sister Lucinda married Preston P. Wiley, who wrote an 1849 letter in the collection about the death of his brother Edward.

Edward F. Maxwell had two children: Orintha Harriet Maxwell (1839-ca 1915) who married David A. Robertson; and John Anderson Maxwell (1841-1904). John Anderson Maxwell, born near Kent in Jefferson County, attended Moore's Hill College, but before graduating enlisted in Company K of the 26th Indiana Volunteers. He later was promoted to first lieutenant in the 1st Arkansas Cavalry, and saw action mainly in Arkansas. After the Civil War, he graduated from Moore's Hill College (1868), earned an A. M. and a D. D. degree, and taught Latin and Greek there for ten years. He was vice president of the college for the last two years. In 1878 he resigned to go into the Methodist ministry, but after a year he went to Purdue University to teach Latin and history. In 1883 he resigned to work full time in the Northwest Indiana Conference of the Methodist church, in which he held several important positions.

John Anderson Maxwell's first wife, Rosanne Pierce, died in 1865 after a year of marriage. By his second wife, Mary Alice Wilson, he had three children: Leah Belle, who married C. N. Chamberlin; Rose, who married Raymond B. Dickey in 1901 and had three children; and Lillian Willey, who married William Frank Holman.

Rose Maxwell Dickey (born 1878) is the center of the material in the last four folders of the collection. During the Spanish-American War, living in Goodland, Newton County, she received letters from a friend, Frank J. Walsh, who was serving in Georgia and then in Cuba. During World War I, living with her husband in Washington, D. C., she received over thirty letters from her nephew, J. Maxwell Chamberlin, serving in the Navy, and one from Harold Bigelow, a Marine who at sixteen had already served thirteen months. During World War II, living in Maryland, she heard from Preston Marshall, serving in the Pacific, and John W. Affleck, serving in the Air Force.

Sources: Materials in collection
Florence Amelia Houston, A Maxwell Genealogy (1915), 70-74
W. H. H. Terrell, Report of Adjutant General, III and IV

SCOPE AND CONTENT

This collection, filling one manuscript box and one oversize folder, contains correspondence, one tax receipt, and one photograph, dated between 1845 and 1944. Correspondence concerns members of the Maxwell family, and dates mainly from the war years from the Civil War to World War II.

In Folder 1 are an 1845 tax receipt of Edward F. Maxwell, and an 1849 letter of condolence from his brother-in-law, Preston P. Wiley.

Folders 2-10 contain material from the period of the Civil War. This mainly concerns John Anderson Maxwell, writing to his mother and sister and to his fiancée, Rose Pierce. He also kept a diary, 1861-1865. Thomas L. Haymon, a friend who was killed in 1863, also figures in the correspondence.

In Folder 11 are 1898-1899 letters to Rose Maxwell from Frank J. Walsh, serving in Georgia and Cuba; in Folders 12-13 letters to Rose Maxwell Dickey from her nephew in the Navy during World War I; and in Folder 14 letters to Mrs. Dickey from a sailor and an airman during World War II.

FOLDER LISTING

CATALOGING INFORMATION

For additional information on this collection, including a list of subject headings that may lead you to related materials:

1. Go to the Indiana Historical Society's online catalog
2. Click on the "Local Catalog" icon.
3. Search for the collection by its call number, using the letter or letters designation and four digits (e.g., M 0715, SC 2234).
4. When you find the collection, go to the "Holdings" screen for a list of headings that can be searched for related materials.

END