Collection Title: John Anderson Memoir
Series Number: MS14-03
Processed and Cataloged by: Processed by Dieter C. Ullrich on April 28, 2014.
Date Listed: April 28, 2014
Date Span: 1818-1838
Size of Collection: 1 item; 0.10 linear feet.
Number of Boxes: 1 letter size file folder.
Type of Material: Memoir.
Condition of Material: Fair; damaged and worn leather binding, pages foxing and minor water damage.
Arrangement: Chronological arrangement.
Biographical / Historical Information: John Anderson was born in the Greenville District of South Carolina on December 11, 1794. His family migrated from South Carolina and settled near Princeton, Kentucky in 1798. John's older brother Crawford Anderson moved to what later would become Graves County, Kentucky in 1818. John and his family followed his brother the following year and built a cabin near where the City of Mayfield presently exists. He and four settlers surveyed and laid out the village of Mayfield on March 27, 1824. He was appointed the county's first circuit clerk in July of 1824, a position he held until his death. In 1825, he was granted a license to keep a tavern in Mayfield. In 1832, he served on a committee which drafted the plans for the first county courthouse. That same year he was named as one of the first elders of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Mayfield. He died on November 24, 1844 and is buried in the family plot in Mayfield.
Scope and Content: Collection consists of a memoir written by John Anderson of Mayfield, Kentucky circa 1838. The memoir recalls Anderson's travels to Graves County and settling in what would become the City of Mayfield in 1819. The bulk of the memoir is a biography and heartfelt description of the death and funeral of Rollin Lee Anderson, his son, in 1838. Included with the memoir are a few financial records and a remedy for lockjaw.
Subject Headings / Descriptors:
Anderson, John, 1798-1844.
Anderson, Rollin Lee, 1818-1838.
Anderson family.
Mayfield (Ky.) – History.
Graves County (Ky.) – History.
Additional Sources: See Histories and Biographies of Ballard, Calloway, Fulton, Graves, Hickman, McCracken and Marshall Counties, Kentucky by J. H. Battle, W. H. Perrin and G. C. Kniffin and The Lochridge/Anderson Family of Graves County, Kentucky from 1819 to the Present by William Lochridge Wells.
