Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

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 James Fontaine Maury Diary #1100-z, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

All or part of this collection is available on microfilm from University Publications of America as part of the Records of ante-bellum southern plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, Series J.

Acquisitions Information

Gift of Mrs. James F. Maury of Spring Hill, Ala., a daughter-in-law of the diarist, in May 1946.

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.

Processed by: Erik D. France, April 1991

Encoded by: ByteManagers Inc., 2008

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.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Claiborne County (Miss.)--History--19th century.
• Claiborne County (Miss.)--Social life and customs.
• Diaries (Blank-books)
• Family--Mississippi--Social life and customs.
• Lucknow Plantation (Claiborne County, Miss.)
• Maury, James Fontaine, 1842-1875.
• Mississippi--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Mississippi--Social life and customs.
• Morey family.
• Nitta Tola Plantation (Claiborne County, Miss.)
• Plantation life--Mississippi.
• Plantations--Mississippi--Claiborne County.
• Port Gibson (Miss.)--Social life and customs.

James Fontaine Maury was born in Port Gibson, Claiborne County, Miss., 1 July 1842; he died 22 April 1875. His parents, James Hervey Maury (1796-1874) and Lucinda Smith Maury (1804-884), who married on 29 May 1822, owned and operated the 750-acre Nitta Tola Plantation, which was located about two miles from Port Gibson, Miss., and included as many as 57 slaves between 1856 and 1863, when it was devastated by Union troops during the Vicksburg Campaign. James Hervey Maury also owned a home and worked in a law office in Port Gibson.

James Fontaine Maury was living at Nitta Tola during most of the period covered by his diary. Subsequently, he married his first cousin, Elizabeth Owen, the daughter of Frank Owen. Lucknow Plantation, which adjoined Nitta Tola, was owned by Benjamin Grubb Humphreys (1808-1882) and Mildred Maury Humphreys (fl.1839-1851) prior to the Civil War. Members of the Maury family frequently visited and stayed overnight at Lucknow.

For additional information, see P.L. Rainwater, ed., "The Autobiography of James H. Maury," The Journal of Mississippi History V (April 1943): 87-102. This article includes a biographical sketch of James H. Maury and Maury family genealogical data.

James Fontaine Maury's diary, dated 1 January to 26 May 1861, consists of brief entries that mention the weather; his health; attendance at church; socializing with friends and guests; family and neighborhood news; visiting Lucknow plantation; reading books and newspapers; walking and horseback riding around Nitta Tola Plantation; short trips by steamship and railroad; conveying relatives and friends between Nitta Tola, Grand Gulf, and Port Gibson; and Mississippi's political and military preparations for the Civil War.

Entries of interest include: members of the Maury family spending an evening with Confederate general Earl Van Dorn (1820-1863) on 4 March 1861; attending church service at Brashear Academy on 26 April 1861; the wedding on 7 May 1861 of R. B. Maury and June S. Ellete; the "Claiborne Guards," a volunteer company (entries of 18 and 20 April 1861); and Maury's friend John Coleman leaving to join the "Fairview Rifles," another volunteer company (entries of 25 and 26 May 1861). At the beginning of the diary are emblems of Delta Psi Fraternity; one is dated 1860. Maury may have attended the University of Mississippi at Oxford.