William P. Maxey, youngest child of Zenas and Sarah Maxey, was born in Powhatan County, Virginia, in 1834. Maxey, who came to Mississippi about 1860, was raised by his eldest brother, Major Robert Maxey, in Brandon, Rankin County, where he was a clerk in his brother’s dry goods and cotton store. In April of 1861, William P. Maxey enlisted in Company A, Eighteenth Regiment, Mississippi Infantry, as a second lieutenant. He saw action at Leesburg and Ball’s Bluff, Virginia, where he was wounded in October of 1861. Maxey was voted out of Company A in April of 1862, and he subsequently raised his own unit, Captain Maxey’s Company, Mounted Infantry (state troops), in April of 1863. He served as a captain until the end of the war. Maxey returned to Brandon where he assisted his family in running the mercantile firm. He left the firm around 1882. Maxey was elected as an alderman of Brandon in 1878.

Robert Samuel Maxey, third child of Major Robert and Harriet Virginia Maxey, was born in Rankin County in January of 1843. Robert Samuel and Napoleon Maxey and their uncle, William P. Maxey, assisted Major Maxey in operating R. Maxey and Sons, a mercantile firm that handled dry goods and cotton in Brandon until the Civil War. In March of 1862, Robert Samuel Maxey enlisted as a private in Company G, Twenty-eighth Regiment, Mississippi Calvary, and he served in the Confederate army until the end of the war. Maxey returned to Brandon in May of 1865, and he resumed his duties at the mercantile firm until 1878, when R. Maxey and Sons was dissolved according to the terms of Major Maxey’s will. Robert Samuel Maxey and William P. Maxey were operating R. S. and W. P. Maxey Staple and Fancy Dry Goods in Brandon by 1880. Robert Samuel Maxey married Betty C. Henry of Brandon in 1887. The couple had seven children: Irene G., Bessie Henry, Robert, Virginia, Louis Clifton, Margie B., and Beatrice (Trix). Maxey retired from the mercantile business after 1882. He continued to reside in Brandon until his death at the age of eighty on October 28, 1923.

This collection consists of a cashbook and some miscellaneous papers from the mercantile firm, R. S. and W. P. Maxey Staple and Fancy Dry Goods, of Brandon, Mississippi, for the years 1881 to 1891. In the cashbook, Maxey lists the names of account holders and the amount of money each owed, various goods purchased, and the prices of items. Also listed are the goods Maxey bought from farmers and suppliers. Among the goods Maxey purchased and sold were cotton, fabric, and molasses. The miscellaneous papers consist of receipts for goods bought from farmers and suppliers and loose ledger sheets with accounts. Among the miscellaneous papers is an invoice for the R. S. and W. P. Maxey Staple and Fancy Dry Goods store.

1. Cashbook. 1881-1891. 1 folder.
2. Papers (Miscellaneous). 1881-1891. 1 folder.