Mary Ann Irvine was born in Adams County, Mississippi, on June 10, 1836. She was the eldest of ten children born to planter Walter G. Irvine and his wife, Sarah Catherine Weeks Irvine, daughter of Natchez architect Levi Weeks. The other Irvine children were Walter Elliot (b. January 9, 1838), Margaret C. (b. ca. 1840), Elijah Steele (b. 1841), Thomas John (b. ca. 1844), Caroline Louise (b. ca. 1846), Charles A. (b. ca. 1848), Katherine Elizabeth (b. March 22, 1850), Wilbur Greenleaf (b. September 10, 1852), and Vernon Weeks (b. ca. 1855).

The Irvine family resided at Emerald Mound, near Stanton, Adams County, Mississippi, prior to 1853. Walter G. Irvine acquired the Briars in Natchez on February 11, 1853. The Briars was the former residence of the William Burr Howell family. The design of the Briars has been attributed to Levi Weeks. Sarah Catherine Weeks Irvine deeded the Briars to Mary Ann Irvine on November 2, 1906.

Mary Ann Irvine began teaching around 1865, and was later employed by the Natchez Institute. She died at the Briars on August 25, 1924, and was buried in the family plot at the Natchez City Cemetery.

This collection consists of an unsigned, annotated typescript of a letter and a fragment of an original letter (ca. 1883) that were written by Mary Ann Irvine of the Briars, Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi. There is also one page of family genealogical information. The transcription is of a letter that Irvine wrote to her nieces, Katie and Mary Donaldson, daughters of Irvine’s sister, Katherine (Kate) Elizabeth Irvine Donaldson. Irvine begins the letter by providing details of family history. She offers descriptions of each of her siblings, noting births, marriages, children, and deaths. Irvine discusses the Confederate military service of her brothers and their occupations after the war. She mentions the places where the family lived, including the Briars and a plantation owned by Walter G. Irvine in Concordia Parish, Louisiana. Of interest is Irvine’s story of how she earned extra money to buy a shawl by selling pies to Confederate soldiers in a nearby camp. The transcription contains editorial and genealogical annotations by an unknown annotator. The fragment of the original letter represents pages two and three of the transcription. The genealogical information was probably supplied by Irvine after 1913 and contains the birth, marriage, and death dates of the spouses and children of Irvine’s siblings.

1. Papers. 1883; n.d. 1 folder.