Series 3 - Rev. Samuel Houston memoir/Reed letters

270pp

Reproductions of the Houston memoir were provided to Kerby A. Miller by the Virginia Historical Society. The original manuscript is now held by the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. The Reed letter transcripts were excerpted from ranscript excerpted from Reid, Robert (1993), 'The Reed Letters', North Irish Roots 4, no. 2 (1993), pp. 10-12.

Materials pertaining to Rev. Samuel Houston (1758/1759-1839), a Presbyterian minister born to Ulster immigrant parents in the Upper Shenandoah Valley. Houston’s 1837 memoir preserves valuable recollections of life in the region around 1770. Written as a letter to Sidney S. Baxter, Attorney General of Virginia, the manuscript reflects Houston’s close ties to Washington College, where he was both an alumnus and trustee. After purchasing a farm called Rural Valley in southern Rockbridge County in 1797, Houston lived there until his death in 1839.
The Houston materials include: reproductions of Houston’s memoir provided by the Virginia Historical Society; transcripts of the memoir created by both Kerby A. Miller and by Richard MacMaster; and correspondence between Kerby A. Miller, researchers, and historical institutions regarding Houston.
Also included in the series are transcripts of two letters written to Andrew Reed of Antrim Township, Pennsylvania, one from John Reed in 1805 and from Thomas Reed in 1817. John Reed lived on a farm in the Towniand of Cloghan, Balteagh Parish, County Derry. His wife was named Margaret. John died in 1813, and his wife was living in 1817.
The series concludes with Kerby A. Miller’s early 1990s correspondence with the Ulster American Folk Park, historical institutions, and fellow researchers regarding Scots-Irish emigration, the Folk Park itself, and Samuel Houston in particular, and photocopies of articles on settlement of the Shenandoah Valley.