13. James Alexander McHatton Family Papers, 1837-1959
- Scope and content:
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Series 13 contains the private papers of the McHatton family for a period of over a century. Materials include correspondence, deeds, licenses, travel logs, and diaries. Some material relates to the Thomas McHatton's grandparents' trek across Texas during the Civil War. Correspondence in this series also relates to a claim brother against the United States Government by the heirs of Stephen A. Douglas. (The Douglas family was seeking compensation for a plantation in Mississippi which was destroyed by Federal troops during the Civil War; the plantation was jointly owned by Stephen Douglas and James McHatton.)
Other correspondence in this series pertains to Henry McHatton's education at a private academy in Norwich, CT, and the management of his deceased father's plantation in Cuba, called Desengano. There is also considerable information regarding relations between the McHatton, Ripley, Chinn, Hubbard, and Lustrat familes. Because of the McHatton family's twelve year residence in Cuba following the Civil War, some material in this series is written in Spanish. File arrangement is chronological.