About the John Irvine & Willie Scott Letters, Callaway County, Mo.

   The letters and newspaper article transcriptions contained in these first of these two archives
are a collection of letters written to Mr. John E. Irvine of Callaway County and Pike County,
Missouri in the period of time 1868 through 1874.  They are letters among first cousins, originally
from the Halifax County, Virginia area, and document family ties as they spread out among the
various states in the United States.  One of the letters, written by Mr. Wm. L. Owen in 1868 of
Black Walnut, Virginia, was written upon his return from Richmond in which he was a member of
the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1867-1868.  Mr. Owen was also a member of the
Virginia House of Delegates in the post-Civil War period and the contents of his 1868 letter is
most descriptive of the conditions in Virginia during the Reconstruction Period.  The second of
these two archived contain a letter written by William (Willie) Samuel Scott in December 1864
from Alton Military Prison, Alton, Illinois, to his Mother Sarah Jane (Scott) Jones.  At the time
Willie left home in October 1868 to join the forces of Sterling Price's Expedition of 1864
encamped just East of Jefferson City, Mo; the time the letter was written in December 1864;
and the time when he was murdered by Union Sympathizers on March 31, 1865 following his
release from Alton Military Prison; Willie was only fifteen (15) years old.  The balance are
transcriptions of articles from local newspapers and transcriptions from personal interviews in the
1940's and 1950's with the exception of the article by Edward B. Johnson written in 1992 shortly
before his death.  William S. Scott was the Nephew of John E. Irvine to whom the first collection
of letters were written.
 
If additional documentation should be required, I can produce images of the original newspaper
articles and I am owner of the original copies of all letters for which I am presenting the
transcriptions for the MOGenWeb Archives.Much work has gone into documenting the Willie Scott murder and I feel that
the support documents are essential to the Willie Scott story.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Wayne E. Johnson <johnsonwe@earthlink.net>
(© 2003 Wayne E. Johnson)  http://www.rootsweb.com/~mocallaw/

USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free genealogical
information on the Internet, data may be freely used for personal research
and by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all
copied material.

These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or
presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations
desiring to use this material for profit or any form of presentation, must
obtain the written consent of the file submitter, or their legal
representative, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of
this consent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------