Correspondence

The papers begin with an 1803 indenture of sale of land from Elizabeth and John Hamilton, Sr., to John Hamilton Jr. An 1834 document awards a $53.33 annual pension to a Kentucky veteran of the Revolutionary War. Also included is a will written in 1844 by John Hamilton, dividing his estate and declaring at what age which of his slaves are to be awarded their freedom.

August 16, 1852, is the date of the first letter from Joseph Burwell Ficklen to his wife, Anna Eliza Churchill Fitzhugh Ficklen. Their home was Belmont at Falmouth, VA, near Fredericksburg. J.B. Ficklen owned Bridgewater Mills and frequently mentioned the mill, the price of wheat, and other business problems.

Frequently, Joseph or Anna traveled, either to visit relatives or to stay at various springs for their health. J.B. Ficklen frequently had his children with him, either on his travels or at home while his wife journeyed. He wrote affectionate letters to his wife and to his children, assuring them of his love and his loneliness for them. Included also is a notebook Anna Ficklin used occasionally to record her travels and those of her family, as well as listing the deaths of friends and close relatives.

Joseph B. Ficklin’s letters were written between 1852 and 1873. There appears, however, a conspicuous gap in the dates of these letters. As can be noted in the inventory, there are no letters here that were written during the Civil War years. A 1959 letter from Julian B. Ficklen to Conway Ficklen, informs the latter that Julian Ficklen had deposited five of Joseph Burwell Ficklen’s letters – written from 1857 to 1867 – in the Manuscripts Room of the Alderman Library, University of Virginia.

A helpful guide is a family tree compiled by Fitzhugh Ficklen in 1933 (with later additions penciled in). This record begins with William Fitzhugh and Sarah Tucker of the 1600s and continues through Fitzhugh Conway Ficklen, born in 1957. Only in this tree is a connection between the Hamilton and Ficklen families made: in the middle names of two Ficklens of the 1900s.