DAVIS : GRAY : NEWBERRY : Genealogy Query


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Date Posted:

16-May-2005

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Surname(s):

DAVIS : GRAY : NEWBERRY

Query Text:

Reconstruction stories about Arkansas following the Civil War have been exploited from A to Z, except for G (Virginia L GRAY)! Copy of an 845-page manuscript/diary written 1872-1874, by Virginia L (Davis) GRAY (1834ME-1886AR), she sent her brother Raymond C Davis (1836ME-1919MI) the original. This has for over forty-years been listed as "letters", --- but now uncovered at the Arkansas History Commission (AHC) files, 11 May 2005, by Russell Baker for us! Brother Raymond spent winter 1872/3 with sister in Little Rock, later became Librarian at University of Michigan from 1877 to 1905, where he had served as assistant Librarian until 1868. Virginia was wife of Colonel Oliver Crosby GRAY (1832ME-1905AR), president at Masonic St Johns' College, and in whose name the Arkansas School For The Blind in 1869 dedicated their first brick building at "Rosewood" (18th & Center Street) (<http://www.arkansasschoolfortheblind.org>(history) under re-construction), --- years later, in 1906, GRAY HALL at University of Arkansas was dedicated in his honor, --- where Mullins Library has been since1966. GRAYs removed from Holly Springs, MS to Princeton, AR for Princeton Female Academy's 1860/1 school year. Oliver and others, then enlisted with Colonel Solon Borland, M.D., 29 Jul 1861, served as Captain of Company A, (Princeton Light Horses), of 3rd Ark Cav Regt, CSA, allowed to resign at Sandtown, GA, 19 Aug 1864, to join CSA Navy, captured 16 Nov by Fed's blockade at Choctaw Bend on Mississippi River, imprisoned at Ship Island (Biloxi, MS) until exchanged 2 Mar 1865, back home 3 Apr 1865, unscathed by war, but familiar with bloody battles, defeat/victories, death, suffering and prison. <http://www.rootsweb.com/~arwashin/pics/grays.html> Oliver helped to re-open St Johns' College in 1867/8 following its service as a hospital during civil war. The GRAYs witnessed, first hand, the effects of reconstruction amongst their friends of whom she writes. Oliver was also personally involved with "The Brooks-Baxter War" of 1874, before the two of them removed to Fayetteville where offered 1st Chairs of "Drawing & Painting", & "Civil Engineering" Departments in1874. This 1872-1874, 845-page work will no doubt reveal much interesting, here-to-fore, unknown facts, --- as did her published 1863-1866 diary (1983, spring & summer, Arkansas Historical Quarterly), and her unpublished forty or so letters between 1857 Hamburg, Germany and 1886 Fayetteville, AR transcribed for family use, or her unpublished 1867-1872 diary (transcribed March 2005, also for family) concerning 1st five years of son, Carl Raymond GRAY's (1867AR-1939DC) ending as Vice-Chairman, Union Pacific RR. Carl began a railroad career at age 15 (20 Mar 1883), in Rogers, AR for the "Frisco" RR, whose Fayetteville station and tracks were on land his parents deeded (east portion of their Dickson Street homestead), purchased from LaFayette and Mary Gregg, February 1877 where Carl paid $5/mo to learn telegraphy. We need someone to review then transcribe this 845-page piece of history, --- its said to be to fragile, in its three 1937+/- bindings, for photo-copying and was never micro-filmed nor indexed when donated to AHC about 1964 by Farrar Clinton Newberry, Sr,(1887-1968) who received it from Virginia's grandson Russel Davis GRAY (1899KS-1975NJ). Bill Boggess, raised in Carthage, MO