Item #7509 [Manuscript daybooks for Forest Mills in Loudoun County, Virginia.]. Asa Moore Janney.
[Manuscript daybooks for Forest Mills in Loudoun County, Virginia.]
[Manuscript daybooks for Forest Mills in Loudoun County, Virginia.]
[Manuscript daybooks for Forest Mills in Loudoun County, Virginia.]
[Manuscript daybooks for Forest Mills in Loudoun County, Virginia.]
[Manuscript daybooks for Forest Mills in Loudoun County, Virginia.]
[Manuscript daybooks for Forest Mills in Loudoun County, Virginia.]
[Manuscript daybooks for Forest Mills in Loudoun County, Virginia.]

Sign up to receive email notices of recent acquisitions.

[Manuscript daybooks for Forest Mills in Loudoun County, Virginia.]

Loudoun County, Virginia, 1861–1875. Three 4to ledgers (13” x 8.5” to 15” x 6”), full blind-stamped calf: 316 pp. of manuscript, followed by numerous blank leaves; 724 pp. of manuscript; 206 pp. of manuscript. 4to notebook (13” x 8”), marbled covers with black paper spine. 34 pp. of manuscript entries, 1 partial/torn page. CONDITION: Overall good, spines of two volumes cocked, losses to spine of one ledger and the notebook; contents good, no losses to the text.

A substantive group of daybooks documenting the activity of a Virginia Quaker and mill-owner who supplied families of the Confederate soldiers early in the war. Janney’s mill was destroyed by the Union Army in 1864.

Asa Moore Janney (1802–1877) was a Quaker miller who operated Forest Mills in Loudoun County, Virginia. These ledgers contain accounts of flour and other commodities Janney provided to families of volunteers in the rebel army and others; keep track of his daily business sales and transactions, and document the labor expenditures for the mill operation. In November 1864, Janney’s mill was burned by Gen. Sheridan’s cavalry in an effort to suppress rebel guerrilla activities in the area, A period note on a pastedown of one of the present ledgers reads: “Mill burned by the Federals 10 mo 30th 1864.” This was a common practice that continued throughout the Civil War: both Southern and Federal troops would often make raids on Quaker fields, barns, businesses, and households. Another paste-down note reads: “Robbed 12 mo 9, 1863, of $135.” Before the War, Janney moved his family from Richmond, near where he ran the Gallego flour mill (also destroyed during the war), to the community of Goose Creek (present-day Lincoln) in Loudoun County. Staunchly abolitionist, the Janney family is said to have played a role in changing Goose Creek's name to Lincoln in defiance of the state's vote in favor of secession.

As recorded here, in the first few years of the war Janney provided flour for "volunteer families." Entries from two ledgers kept in 1861 and 1862 feature individuals such as B. F. Taylor and John Aldridge procuring Forest Mills’s flour on the stated behalf of named volunteer families, including many named women. In numerous entries recording Taylor and Aldridge receiving flour, there is no corresponding charge, perhaps suggesting these were donations. African Americans (whether enslaved or free is unclear), sometimes appear in the pages of these ledgers and are identified as such. An ardent Unionist who opposed the war, Janney was nevertheless also a citizen of the newly-formed Confederacy and his Unionist beliefs would have been unpopular among the majority of his fellow Virginians. In order to stay on good terms with his neighbors, Janney likely felt compelled to sell or donate flour to the families of those fighting for the Confederacy.

Following the war, the U.S. government allowed loyal Southerners to make claims for property lost to Union troops during the war. Many Southern Quakers who supported the Union during the war successfully made claims, including Janney, who received $7,536 for his destroyed mill. After the war, Janney rebuilt Forest Mill and in 1869, at the age of 67, he took the position of Indian agent on the Santee Sioux Reservation in Nebraska, serving there until 1871. Asa’s older brother, Samuel Janney—a noted Quaker minister, author and abolitionist—served during the same years in Omaha as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the state of Nebraska. Janney moved to the Santee Sioux reservation along with wife Lydia and daughters Cosmelia and Thamsin. A study of the history of the Sioux tribe associated with Asa Janney is found in Roy Meyer’s History of the Santee Sioux (1967). Both Janney brothers left their Indian Bureau posts in 1871, a year before their appointments expired. Janney’s daughter Cosmelia and his brother’s daughter-in-law stayed on to work as Santee Sioux teachers and Indian Bureau office staff for a while after other family members left in 1871. Asa Janney died in 1877 and his mill came under new ownership. In 1899, twenty-two years after his death, the mill burned down again in an accidental fire and this time was not rebuilt.

An interesting document of a Virginia Quaker’s activities during the Civil War.

REFERENCES: Jewett, Christina. “A Fitting Sendoff for Asa Moore Janney” (2002) at washingtonpost.com; Lawrence, Lee. “Asa M. Janney, from Virginia miller to Indian Agent” and “Civil War ‘Volunteers’ and a Quaker Mill” at lincolnquakers.com; Asa M. Janney family papers at archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu

Item #7509

Sold

See all items in Autographs & Manuscripts
See all items by