urn:taro:utexas.cah.01867 A Guide to the Reuben G. White Family Papers, 1819-1929 Original EAD encoding by Jessi Fishman according to TARO 2 EAD 2002 Editing Instructions. August 2010 Finding aid written in English. Descriptive Summary White, Reuben G. Family White, Reuben G. Family Papers 1819-1929 Materials are written in English. 1930 3 ft. Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin Reuben Grayden White and his wife, Mrs. Rachel Peebles White, lived in Hempstead, Texas, around 1927, where they owned a cotton plantation. The White and Peebles families were founders of the town. Letters, a diary, legal papers, financial papers, an exercise book, and clippings concerning members of the White and Peebles families comprise the papers. Biographical Sketch

Reuben Grayden White and his wife, Mrs. Rachel Peebles White, lived in Hempstead, Texas, around 1927, where they owned a cotton plantation. Rachel Peebles White was the daughter of Dr. Richard Rodgers Peebles, a pioneer Texas physician, and Mary Ann Calvit Groce. Dr. Peebles established a large medical practice in Texas, tended to the wounded during the battle of San Jacinto, and led successful mercantile ventures including the construction of the Washington County Railroad. He helped rent Independence Hall for the Convention of 1836, and was therefore the recipient of a gift of The Ark of the Covenant of the Texas Declaration of Independence. This relic of the Republic of Texas was handed down, and the Whites donated it to the people of Texas, via the University of Texas in 1927. In 1961 the relic was delivered to Governor Price Daniel and placed under the care of the Texas Library and Historical Commission.

Dr. Peebles was responsible for the routing of the Houston and Central Texas Railway through what would become Hempstead, Texas, and the White and Peebles families were founders of the town.

Sources: Shuffler, R. Henderson. The Ark of the Covenant of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 1 (July 1961).

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. Peebles, Richard Rodgers, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/PP/fpe10.html (accessed August 4, 2010).

 Scope and Contents

Letters, a diary, legal papers, financial papers, an exercise book, and clippings concerning members of the White and Peebles families comprise the Reuben G. White Family Papers, 1819-1929. The papers relate to early Texas history, conditions during the Republic period and the Civil War, and the founding of Hempstead, Texas. Additionally, the collection contains letters to Richard M. Bozman while a student at the University of the South, 1895-1899; Rachel Peebles White’s correspondence with the Daughters of the Republic of Texas about the protection and restoration of the Alamo; and Sarah M. Peebles’s diary and book on exercises in writing and arithmetic. The papers also concern Reuben G. White’s cotton plantation, the development of cotton fertilizer and insecticide, and personal affairs. Finally, the collection contains T. H. Pointer’s account book, 1914-1917.

 Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research.

 Index Terms Subjects (Persons) White family--Archives. Peebles family--Archives. Bozman, Richard M. Baker, William R. Subjects (Organizations) Daughters of the Republic of Texas University of the South Subjects Cotton plantations--Texas Cotton--Fertilizers--Texas Places Alamo (San Antonio, Tex.)--History Texas--History Hempstead (Tex.)--History--Sources Austin (Tex.) Galveston (Tex.) Preferred Citation

Reuben G. White Family Papers, 1819-1929, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

 Related Material

See also the Childers (George Purl) Papers, 1856-1919.

See also the Peebles (Richard Rodgers) Papers, 1841-1845, ca. 1870-1880.

 Processing Information

Basic processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with funds from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) for the Briscoe Center’s History Revealed: Bringing Collections to Light project, 2009-2011.

 Detailed Description of the Papers Inventory 2H363 Record books, 1879-1918 2H363 Correspondence: 2H363 1819-1879 2H364 1900-1916 2H365 1880-1905 2H366 1916-1929, undated 2H367 White-Peebles correspondence and legal documents, [ca. 1835-1925] 2H367 White-Bozman correspondence, 1886 2H367 Unclassified miscellany 2H368 White-Peebles family papers, newspaper clippings 2H368 Family records and miscellaneous papers 2H368 M. A. Peebles diary, 1854 2H368 S. M. Peebles exercise book, 1860 2H368 Peebles family notebook 2H368 T. H. Pointer account book, 1914-1917 3L185 White-Peebles family papers, family scrapbook 3Y197 Unidentified studio portraits, ca. 1880s-1890s