Maunsell-White Family Papers 1800-1888

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Summary

Extent:
1.50
Language:
English

Background

Scope and content:

This collections contains materials pertaining to Maunsell White Sr. and his family up until 1888. Contents include business letters and records, personal letters, photographs, miscellaous legal documents, and Civil War memorabilia. Highlights include a handwritten note and hair from Confederate President Jefferson Davis and handwritten letters from United States Presidents Zachery Taylor and Andrew Jackson.

Biographical / historical:

The Maunsell-White family can be traced back to the era of Oliver Cromwell in Ireland in the seventeenth century. Mausell White Sr. was born near Clonwell, Tipperary county, about 1776. His mother and father died when he was quite young and left for the United States shortly after.

When he was 13 years old, he settled in New Orleans. He later married Celeste de la Ronde, who was of French descent. Celeste did not live very long and after her death, Maunsell White married her sister, Heloise. With his first wife, Celeste, he had one child, a daughter Eliza. With his second wife, Heloise, he had three more children: Anne, Maunsell Jr., and Clara (Mrs. Carl Kohn).

Maunsell White Sr. was actively engaged in commerce in New Orleans and eventually accumulated an estate of about two million dollars. He owned a large sugar plantation about 10 miles south of New Orleans with as many as two hundred slaves. Towards the end of his life, White suffered severe financial losses which diminished his holdings considerable. At the battle of New Orleans, Maunsell White Sr. was made an aid-de-camp to General Andrew Jackson and thereafter was known as Colonel Maunsell White. He died in 1863.

Maunsell White Jr. attended Mandeville College in Mandeville, Louisiana and the University of Virginia. He married Bettie Parker Bradford in 1855. They had six children and one of their sons, Maunsell White III, earned a distinguished reputation as a metallurgist in the iron and steel industry in the late nineteenth century.

Arrangement:

Correspondence in box 1 is arranged alphabetically. Box 2 contains misc. family records and box 3 contains photographs.

Access and use

Location of this collection:
SFSU - J. Paul Leonard Library
1630 Holloway Ave, Room 610
San Francisco, CA 94132-4030, US
Contact:
(415) 469-6100
sutro@library.ca.gov
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