In 1844, William Rehum Reding married Margaret Isabelle Williamson in Tennessee, and the next year the couple moved to Houston, Texas, and then to Bastrop. Their first child, James Williamson Reding (1845-1932) attended the Bastrop Military Institute and served under Captain P. R. Turner in Terrell’s Regiment of the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Following the war, Reding and Dr. T. P. Early operated a pharmacy until the mid-1880s.
Source:
Reding Family, Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.
Composed of correspondence, financial and legal documents, and newspaper clippings, the James W. Reding Family Papers, 1837-1910, document the family’s social and business affairs primarily in Bastrop, Texas. Composed of account books and receipts, the financial documents (1840-1880) illuminate the estate of A. W. Tunnard as well as the business affairs of Bastrop Military Institute, James W. Reding, William W. Reding, and James’ partnership, Early & Reding, with Dr. T. P. Early. Correspondence (1837-1869), legal documents (1838-1904), newspaper clippings (1863, undated), and a diary (1837, 1845) concern the general economic situation in Bastrop during the 1830s, social affairs of the Reding family in the late 19th century, and depredations of Native Americans. Belle Jones’s 1910 reminiscences and correspondence discuss slavery in Bastrop, the first Methodist and Presbyterian churches in the town, and the Bastrop Military Institute. The collection also includes James W. Reding’s 1871 phrenological chart and an undated copybook for Mrs. S. J. Orgain’s school in Bastrop.
This collection is open for research use.
James W. Reding Family Papers, 1837-1910, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.
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