Biography/History:

Susan Ann Ragland Hewell was probably born in Halifax County, Virginia, on December 29, 1825 (or 1827). She was the daughter of Dr. Dabney Camp and Ann Bolling Vaughan Hewell. The Hewell family was residing in Marengo County, Alabama, in 1840. The Hewells, including children Mary Louisa Artemisia (b. ca. 1829), Amanda Melvina FitzAllen (b. ca. 1831), John Alfred Ragland (b. ca. 1833), Virginia Ingram (Puss) (b. ca. 1840), and Maria Bressie Vaughan (Pocahontas) (b. July 16, 1841), had moved to Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, by 1850. Dr. Hewell was engaged in farming in near Tuscaloosa.

Between 1850 and 1856, Susan Hewell was employed as a teacher, possibly at a female academy in Shuqalak, Noxubee County, Mississippi. She married William Potts at her father’s home in Tuscaloosa on December 17, 1856. He died not long after their marriage.

Susan Hewell Potts married Mississippi governor John Jones Pettus in Tuscaloosa County on August 13, 1861. For the next three years, Governor Pettus was concerned with defending the Mississippi state capital, moving it twice during the Civil War. For safety reasons, he sent Susan Pettus and her stepchildren, Alice, Ginnie, Mary W. (Willie), and William Pettus, to his plantation near Scooba, Lauderdale County, Mississippi.

Governor Pettus left his family and went into hiding in Arkansas in May 1865. Susan Pettus and her stepchildren continued living on the plantation near Scooba until January 1866, when they moved to a Sumter County home owned by Alabama governor John Anthony Winston. Governor Winston was probably the brother of Pamela Winston Pettus, the first wife of John Jones Pettus. Susan Pettus and her stepson, William, were briefly reunited with Governor Pettus at the Arkansas home of a friend, John Jones, on January 6, 1867. Governor Pettus died on January 25, 1867, and was interred in a field near the Jones home in Arkansas. Susan and William Pettus were residing in Prairie County, Arkansas, in May 1867.

Susan Pettus had moved to Cadiz, Kentucky, by July 1888 to live with her widowed sister, Amanda Hewell Street. They visited their sister, Pocahontas Hewell Whitt, at Wood Lawn, a home located near Selma, Dallas County, Alabama, in December 1888. Susan Pettus was living with her sister, Pocahontas, in March 1889 but had returned to Tuscaloosa by 1901. She probably died in Tuscaloosa on July 18, 1909.

Scope and Content:

This collection consists of two diaries of Susan Ann Ragland Hewell Potts Pettus of Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi, and a bound typescript of both diaries by Carol Whitt Jones Carlisle.

The first diary contains daily entries from January 1 to March 21, 1866. Pettus describes her family’s preparations to move from Lauderdale County, Mississippi, to Sumter County, Alabama. She mentions packing, selling possessions, and saying good-bye to former servants. Pettus later describes establishing a household in a home owned by Alabama governor John Anthony Winston. She also relates her concerns over the lack of correspondence from her family in Alabama and Kentucky and from her husband, John Jones Pettus, who was in hiding in Arkansas. The last entry of Pettus is dated May 10, 1867, at Prairie County, Arkansas. It describes a typical day in her life and mentions that her stepson, William, is living with her. The diary also contains several unsigned poems and quotations of a romantic or spiritual nature.

The second diary contains daily entries from October 3, 1888, to March 7, 1889. Pettus describes life with her widowed sister, Amanda, in Cadiz, Kentucky. She notes the weather and such daily events as attending church, conducting Sunday school, visiting friends, and working in a flower garden. Pettus and her sister, Amanda, traveled to Dallas County, Alabama, in December 1888 to assist their sister, Pocahontas, and then-ill brother-in-law Claiborne P. Whitt in managing their household. Pettus expresses her concern for the emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being of her sister and brother-in-law. In the January 1889 entries, Pettus recalls the twenty-second anniversary of her brief reunion with her husband in Arkansas, his death from pneumonia, and her feelings during this time. In the back of the diary is an unsigned poem entitled “What is a Letter?”

Carlisle’s 1995 bound typescript contains complete transcriptions of both diaries, supplemented with an introduction and footnotes. The sixteen-page introduction includes a brief genealogy of the Hewell family, as well as biographical material on Susan Ann Ragland Hewell Potts Pettus and her siblings. Both transcriptions are prefaced with a physical description of the diary. Each transcription contains footnotes with extensive biographical and genealogical information on various members of the Hewell family and some of their friends and acquaintances. This information was taken from recollections of Carol Whitt Jones Carlisle and from papers still in possession of the family.

Series Identification:

1. Diaries. 1866-1867; 1888-1889. 2 bound volumes.

   Box 1 (restricted)

2. Typescript. 1995. 1 folder.