Biographical Note

Addressed to W.A. Stuart (and, in one case, Stewart), the letters were likely sent to William Alexander Stuart, brother of James Ewell Brown (J.E.B.) Stuart. Genealogical records link William Stuart to Saltville, Virginia, which is mentioned on the letterhead of the August 21, 1891 letter. Additional papers on William Alexander Stuart can be found at the Kegley Library in Wytheville, Virginia, including another letter between Stuart and his business partner, George W. Palmer.

Born on May 3, 1826, William Alexander was the son of Archibald Stuart and Elizabeth Pannill Stuart of Patrick County, Virginia. Stuart was one of eleven children and older brother to the Confederate States Army general J.E.B. Stuart. Following the Civil War, William became the patriarch of the family. As a lawyer and businessman, William Stuart was admitted as a deputy clerk of the Circuit Superior Court of law and chancery in Wytheville. He eventually owned several businesses including companies in Saltville, Virginia.

With his first wife, Mary Taylor Carter of Russell County, Stuart had six children, the eldest of whom (Henry Carter Stuart) would go on to be governor of Virginia. His second wife was Ellen Spiller Brown whom he married when he was thirty-seven, producing five children. William Alexander Stuart died on February 6, 1892 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is buried in Elizabeth Cemetery in Wytheville, Virginia.

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