Manuscript Collection: MC016

Publication Rights:   Copyright has not been assigned to the San Jacinto Museum of History. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Library Director. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the San Jacinto Museum of History as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.

Citation:  [Identification of Item], Cook – Maddrey Family Papers, MC016, San Jacinto Museum of History, Houston, Texas.

Creator Sketch:

One of four children born to Demsey and Mary Cook, Sarah Adaline Cook was born in Christian County, Kentucky, on March 15, 1831, and died on October 10, 1924, in Bonham, Fannin County, Texas.  The longest surviving of her siblings – Robert Watkins Cook (1828 – March 3, 1893), James Monroe Cook (March 8, 1833 – January 12, 1869), and Mary Jane (Mollie) Cook (December 10, 1838 – May 28, 1870) – Adaline married P. B. Maddrey on February 17, 1853 in Sumner County, Tennessee.  In 1855 they followed Adaline’s brother, Robert, to Fannin County, Texas, and settled on the Red River. In 1856 the Maddreys moved to Bonham, Texas, where they resided for sixty-eight years.  Adaline gave birth to ten children, three of whom died in infancy and three preceded her in death, leaving four to survive their mother:  Alma Maddrey Clendenen, Will S. Maddrey, James D. Maddrey, and Kate Maddrey.

A number of relatives and friends from Sumner County migrated to Fannin County during the 1850s and 1860s including Adaline’s mother, Mary Cook, Adaline’s siblings Robert, James, and Mollie, and her father-in-law, Peter B. Maddrey, Sr.  Neither Robert nor James Cook married. Circa 1864 Mollie married Harvey Wise, a man with extensive family ties in both Sumner and Fannin Counties.  They had two children before Mollie’s death in 1870. 

Scope and Content Note:

Correspondence, financial documents, legal documents, printed materials, photographs, an autograph album and a personal journal were collected and preserved by Sarah Adaline Cook Maddrey and later her daughter, Alma Maddrey Clendenen. The correspondence (103 letters) received by siblings Robert Watkins Cook (7) and Mary Jane (Mollie) Cook (59), Mollie’s husband Harvey Wise (8), Adaline’s husband P. B. Maddrey (14), her father-in-law Peter B. Maddrey, Sr. (11), and his family (4) comprises the bulk of the Cook - Maddrey Papers and documents the friendships and family connections which existed between Sumner County, Tennessee, and Fannin County, Texas, between 1843 and 1895. 

The letters fall into three categories:  letters written to Mollie during the Civil War, correspondence between friends and relatives in Tennessee and Texas, and the business and legal correspondence of Peter B. Maddrey, Sr., and his son, P. B. Maddrey.  Of particular interest are the letters written by Jimmie S. Boon (19) to Mollie between 1861 and 1863 posted from Memphis, Murfreesboro, Shelbyville, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, the Big Black River, Iuka, Meridian, and Yazoo City, Mississippi, and Bridgeport, Alabama, while Boon served in the Confederate Army. Subjects covered in the Boon correspondence include slavery, illness and hospitalization, states rights, soldier’s life, loneliness, military deployments, General Edmund Kirby Smith, and General Ulysses S. Grant.   The personal correspondence between family and friends include discussions of family life, farming, illness and death, a Negro insurrection in 1856, relocation, slavery, horse thievery and outlawry, Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan, and economic hardships. This rich source of genealogical information, place names, and social history includes letters written from Lydia Hearne (9), Tennie Taylor Rawlins (6), E. V. Martin (5), Albert J. Duggen (4), W. J. Thomas (4), and Elizabeth Wise (3). 

Ninety-four financial documents consisting primarily of tax receipts (1860 – 1914) and personal receipts (1859 – 1890) of P. B. Maddrey record the finances of a middle class family in North Texas.  Also of interest are Robert W. Cook’s military commission in the Fannin Cavaliers (1861), the “By-laws of King Solomon’s Lodge” (1851), and his Masonic demit (1854).  Alma Maddrey Clendenen’s Autograph Album (1883) records the names of school friends from the Maple Hill Seminary.  Kate Maddrey’s journal, kept from 1901 – 1952 is a compendium of information including the minutes of the Art League in Bonham, Texas 1901, genealogical notes of the Cook family, her personal poetry and that of others, and numerous lists and notes recording her life over a 50 year period both in Bonham and Waco, Texas.

COOK – MADDREY FAMILY PAPERS, 1843 - 1952 (Bulk: 1851 - 1914 )

Manuscript Collection:  MC016

Size:  .4 linear feet

Boxes:  1

Inventory

     Series:  Correspondence:  Robert W. Cook

     Series:  Correspondence:  E. C. Maddrey

     Series:  Correspondence:  P. B. Maddrey

     Series:    Corresondence:  Peter B. Maddrey, Sr.

     Series:  Correspondence:  Harvey Wise

     Series:  Correspondence:  Mary Jane (Mollie) Cook Wise

     Series:  Correspondence:  General

     Series:  Financial

     Series:  Legal

     Series:  Printed Materials

     Series:  Photographs

     Series:  Album

     Series:  Register / Journals