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Biography:
James Alexander Ventress (1805-1867), a son of Lovick and Elizabeth Stewart Ventress, was born in 1805 in Robertson County, Tennessee. His paternal grandfather emigrated from England about 1760 to the area of Norfolk, Virginia, and then moved to North Carolina. Elizabeth Stewart Ventress was a descendant of the Stewarts of Scotland and was said to be of royal descent. By 1796, Lovick Ventress had moved to Tennessee. In 1809, he and his family accompanied other family members to Wilkinson County, Mississippi, where he acquired a plantation. In 1822, Lovick returned to Tennessee where he died. Elizabeth Ventress lived on in Wilkinson County and died there two years later.
W. C. S. Ventress, the elder brother of James Alexander Ventress, moved to Louisiana, where he established sugar plantations and served in the state legislature. He had a family of two sons and two daughters. Eliza A. Ventress, younger sister of James, married Major A. M. Feltus of Wilkinson County. From their large family, four of their sons served in the Confederate army.
James Alexander Ventress attended Wilkinson County schools, a New Orleans academy, and then spent nine years in Europe pursuing various courses of study. He was a student at the University of Edinburgh, at the Academie in Paris, and at the University of Berlin. Ventress's interests included both science and the humanities. He is credited with a number of scientific drawings and inventions that were well received in their day; he also wrote and translated several plays. Toward the end of his European education, he turned to the study of law. Upon returning to Wilkinson County, he was admitted to the Mississippi state bar.
Ventress was active in state and local politics. He served as a state senator from 1842 to 1846, and as a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1836 to 1842, of which he was elected speaker for the years 1841 to 1842. He was a presidential elector and was at one time offered the nomination for governor. Ventress was instrumental in the founding of the University of Mississippi and served on its Board of Trustees from its founding until his death. He preferred devoting time to planting on his lands in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas; to the study of literature; and to the development of his interest in mechanics. Ventress perfected measuring instruments and weapons and made cotton machinery improvements. Some of his inventions were patented, including a patent bullet that was presented to the Confederacy.
In 1848 James Alexander Ventress married Charlotte Davis Pynchon, daughter of Stephen and Sarah Trask Pynchon of Brimfield, Massachusetts, who had lived in Woodville with her uncle, James L. Trask, for a number of years. James and Charlotte had five children, three of whom lived to adulthood: Lawrence Trask Ventress (b. 1850); James Alexander Ventress (1853-1912); and William Pynchon Stewart Ventress (1854).
Scope and Content:
The documents in the Ventress family papers cover the years 1804 to 1923 and are predominantly personal in nature. They complement the Trask-Ventress Family Papers (Z/0607.000/M; Z/0607.001/M), a collection from the same family that primarily contains business documents.
Series Identification:
The correspondence for the years 1804 to 1807 was written to Stephen Pynchon; the bulk of the correspondence between 1819 and 1867 was written to James Alexander Ventress; the correspondence from 1867 to 1911 was written to James Alexander Ventress II, with the remaining correspondence written to Ventress II's widow, Sallie; arranged chronologically.
Boxes 1-4
Box 7 (folders 1-8)
Box 9 (folders 1-2, including a letter written by James Alexander Ventress to Jefferson Davis, June 18, 1861, in folder 1)
Various information relating to Ventress's nine years of study in Europe, 1826-1835; Ventress's scientific writings; and his political activities.
Box 5 (folders 1-6)
Box 8
Box 9 (folders 1, 3)
Diaries and school compositions written by Ventress.
Box 5 (folder 7)
Box 8
Box 9 (folder 2)
Maps (maps: False River / Benjamin Farar; T55 R10E / Unknown; South Eastern Dist., La.: False River, plat T5S R10E / Surveyor General's Office, Louisiana), deeds, and legal papers used by the Ventress family in a court case involving land on the False River in Louisiana.
Box 5 (folders 8-10)
Box 7 (folders 9-10)
MA/Z1813/B2/F4/no. 3
Copy prints of photographs of Ventress and Galloway family members and of historic buildings dating from the late 1800s and early 1900s (all are 5”x7” except for no.23 which is 8”x10”).
Box 5 (folder 11)
Newspaper clippings (1851-1912; n.d.)
Box 6 (folders1-3)
Box 9 (folder 3)
Broadsides collected by the Ventress family
"A Table Showing the Delegates to the Convention of the State of Mississippi, Assembled in Jackson on the 2d Monday in
November, 1851"
“Norwood School, Norwood, Nelson County, Virginia, Session, 1871-72”; political address by J. Alex Ventress [fragment, n.d.]
Box 9 (folder 3)
Newspapers
Connecticut Courant, Hartford, Connecticut, August 21, 1811.
The True Witness and South-Western Presbyterian, Jackson, Mississippi, May 11, 1854.
The Wilkinson Whig, Woodville, Mississippi, September 1, 1855.
The Democrat, Huntsville, Alabama, May 18, 1859.
Woodville Republican, Woodville, Mississippi, July 27, 1867.
Springfield
Daily Republican, [Springfield, Massachusetts], May 26, 1886.
Springfield Daily Republican, [Springfield, Massachusetts], May 27, 1886.
Springfield Daily Republican, [Springfield, Massachusetts], June 15, 1886.
Brann's Iconoclast, Waco, Texas, May 1895.
The Woodville Republican, Woodville, Mississippi, November 25, 1911.
Box 9 (folder 4)
Photocopies of genealogical material concerning the Ventress family.
Box 6 (folders 4-5)