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No restrictions. Open for research.

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Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Josiah Simpson papers #4836-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Purchased from Terry Alford, Dealer, of Annandale, Va., in October 1996 (Acc. 96139).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

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Biographical information in the abstract was extracted from information provided by the dealer from whom the letters were purchased. This description, which is now filed in the control file, cites J. F. H. Claiborne's Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and State.., 1880, p.352.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

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• Fredericksburg (Va.)--Social life and customs--19th century.
• Simpson, Josiah.
• Taliaferro, John, 1768-1852.
• Teachers--Virginia--Social life and customs--19th century.

Josiah Simpson, born in the 1780s, had a short but successful career in law. In 1812, President Madison appointed him as United States judge for the Mississippi Territory. He served as an influential delegate to the Mississippi state Constitutional Convention in 1817, but died soon afterwards.

Three letters written by Josiah Simpson to his brother John Simpson and sister Mary Simpson in Princeton, N.J., in 1804 and 1805. Simpson wrote the second two letters from his post as a tutor in the home of John Taliaferro (1768-1852) near Fredericksburg, Va. In the first letter, Simpson gives his brother his thoughts on whether he should pursue a career in law or divinity. In the second and third letters, Simpson describes his experiences tutoring Taliaferro's two young children and his impressions of Virginia life.