Raynors HCA 2019-05
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/30/2019
A great Reconstruction era letter concerning Virginia's re-admission back into the Union, 4pp. 8vo., written by Virginia General Assembly member Job Hawxhurst (1823-1906), Fairfax C. H., Va., Nov. 22, 1869, to his sister, reading, in part: "…I have not got off to Richmond yet for the permanent session. We have had two short sessions for completing the preliminary work of reconstruction and are now awaiting the action of Congress. At one time it appeared that the state would be admitted without any difficulty…now…obstacles are daily raised by interested parties. The Republican party in the state has again divided and nearly all the most intelligent and respectable part of it have come over to the side I espoused in the late election, including Gov. Wells himself…the remainder of the party still hold out and are doing all they can to keep the state out. They are constantly hanging round congress and filling the ears of the members with all sorts of falsehoods respecting the situation of affairs in Virginia. This has delayed, but I do not think can ultimately defeat the restoration of the state…sometime during the winter I shall have to take up my residence in Richmond…some years ago the people here would have given me a very different position in that city from what they have now thought proper to accord me. Their reasons then to send me to Libby are the same as they now send me to the Capitol, because of my loyalty to the U. S. and devotion to Republican principles. They have been more thoroughly whipt by the wise legislation of congress since the war than they were by the army…and now if the state is promptly admitted Virginia may be counted upon as a strong Republican state, but delay is dangerous…Job Hawxhurst…". Job Hawxhurst (1823-1906) New York born Quaker who moved to Fairfax County, Va. in the 1840's where he became a well-respected businessman. Staunch Unionist beliefs caused him to temporarily flee the city at the beginning of the Civil War, but he soon returned after Union troops occupied Fairfax County. In 1862, loyal Union election commissioner for Fairfax Co. In 1863, he presided over the Unionist Constitutional Convention at Fairfax and then became a representative in that legislature. In 1864, he was noted for pushing for the abolition of slavery in Virginia as part of Virginia Loyalist legislature. In 1865, he became postmaster, a post he would hold for the next thirty-six years. In 1869, he was elected to the Virginia General Assembly as a member of the "True Republican" Party by his fellow neighbors of Fairfax. He worked hard to get his adopted state admitted back into the Union. Minor soiling, else VG.
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