Series 13 - John and Jane Mitchel letters

119pp

Reproductions of letters 1-6 were provided to Kerby A. Miller by the Butler Library, Columbia University. The original manuscripts are held in Box 1 of the William Brown Meloney collection, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Butler Library, Columbia University.
Miller created his transcripts of the Jane Vernor Mitchel letters (letters 7-17) from a typescript of the Jane Vernor Mitchel letters held in the New York Public Library.
Miller created his transcripts of letters 18-27 from the original manuscript held in Box 1 of the William Brown Meloney collection, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Butler Library, Columbia University.
Miller created his transcripts of letters 28 and 29 from the original manuscripts held in PRONI [reference numbers D1078/M/5A and 7A].
PRONI provided transcripts of letters 30-32 to Kerby A. Miller. The original manuscripts are held in PRONI [reference number T413].

26 transcripts and six reproductions of letters written by Irish nationalist writer John Mitchel and his wife Jane Verner Mitchel between 1851 and 1871.
John Mitchel (1815–1875) was an Irish nationalist journalist whose forceful writing helped shape revolutionary republicanism. Born near Dungiven, County Derry, to a Presbyterian minister, he studied at Trinity College Dublin and became a solicitor. In 1837 he married Jane Verner. He joined Young Ireland and wrote for The Nation, then founded The United Irishman in 1848, urging resistance to British rule during the Great Famine. Convicted of treason-felony, he was sentenced to transportation and sent to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). He escaped in 1853 and settled in the United States. There he became a fierce defender of slavery and the Confederacy—a contradiction to his Irish liberation politics which resulted in his alienation from much of Irish America. Elected as Member of Parliament for Tipperary in 1875, he was declared ineligible because of his conviction and died soon afterward in Newry.
Jane ‘Jenny’ Mitchel (c. 1820–1899), born Jane Verner near Newry, County Down, shared the consequences of her husband’s activism. She joined him in Tasmania with their children, followed him after his escape, and helped sustain the family through years of exile and upheaval. During the American Civil War, she and John supported the South; two of their sons died in Confederate service. After John’s death, Jenny lived in New York, where she managed a family business and remained connected to Irish nationalist circles. She died in Bedford Park, New York.