Stuart W. Jackson collection of Marquis de Lafayette manuscripts
Scope and Contents
Collection of manuscripts by, to and about the Marquis de Lafayette, as well as research materials, writings about Lafayette, and collector’s files of Stuart W. Jackson. Most of the collection consists of correspondence from and to Lafayette that documents his engagement in French and international politics including the American and French Revolutions, his interest in the abolition movement, and financial and business matters, estate management, and family life.
The manuscripts concerning Lafayette were collected by Jackson over many years and consist chiefly of correspondence documenting Lafayette’s career from the American Revolution through the French Revolution, the Napoleonic era, the Bourbon restoration, and the Second French Revolution, and to some extent his legacy. The collection reflects Lafayette’s ongoing engagement with America, including letters to Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams, and his prominent role in French politics particularly during the Revolutionary period, including documentation of his service as Commandant of the National Guard and several letters to Charles César de Faÿ, comte de La Tour Maubourg, during the campaign preceding their imprisonment in Austria. A group of letters from Lafayette to Charles Nicholas Fabvier demonstrates his interest in the Greek Revolution; another group of letters to Thomas Clarkson documents his engagement with the international abolition movement. In addition to prominent political figures of his times, Lafayette’s correspondents also include friends and business associates including M. Olavarria and M. Hamilton, with whom he discusses the management of his sheep. Multiple letters are also present from Lafayette to Auguste Levasseur, his secretary during a visit to the United States in 1824-1825, and to Bernard Sarrans, his aide-de-camp during the July Revolution of 1830.
The collection additionally includes documentation of Jackson’s research and writings about Lafayette, including drafts and other material related to his 1930 bibliography of Lafayette, and material related to his involvement with the American Friends of Lafayette. Jackson’s translations, transcripts, research notes and correspondence are also filed throughout the collection with individual manuscripts to which they pertain.
More information about the collection may be found in the following early published description of the collection:
Bell, Whitfield J., Jr. “The Stuart W. Jackson Lafayette Collection.” The Yale University Library Gazette, Vol. 33, No. 2 (October 1958), pp. 49-56.
Dates
- circa 1700-1956
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
The Stuart W. Jackson Collection of Marquis de Lafayette Manuscripts is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Bequest of Stuart W. Jackson, 1958.
Arrangement
Organized into three series: I. Manuscript collection, 1700-1923. II. Research and writings, 1929-1955. III. Collector’s files, 1931-1956.
Extent
10.88 Linear Feet (22 boxes)
Language of Materials
French
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Abstract
Collection of manuscripts by, to and about the Marquis de Lafayette, as well as research materials, writings about Lafayette, and collector’s files of Stuart W. Jackson. Most of the collection consists of correspondence from and to Lafayette that documents his engagement in French and international politics including the American and French Revolutions, his interest in the abolition movement, and financial and business matters, estate management, and family life.
Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834)
French aristocrat and politician, general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, leader in the French Revolution.
Stuart W. Jackson (1867-1957)
Stuart Wells Jackson (Yale 1898) was an insurance broker and collector of books and manuscripts related to the Marquis de Lafayette and Abraham Lincoln. He was a trustee of the Yale Library Associates, president of the Institut Français de Washington, and a founder of the American Friends of Lafayette. His published work includes Lafayette: a Bibliography (New York: W. E. Rudge, 1930). As a result of his efforts to promote Lafayette’s legacy he was made a chevalier in the Légion d’Honneur in 1933, and an officer in 1953.
Jackson was born in 1867 in Richmond, Virginia, the son of the Reverend Augustus Jackson and Mary Tuley Neilson Jackson. He married Elizabeth Underwood Cox in 1905; they had no children. Jackson died in Gloucester, Virginia, on November 21, 1957.
Custodial History
Items in the collection were purchased by Jackson over many decades, and there is limited information present concerning their provenance. The purchase of Lafayette’s letters to his secretary Auguste Levasseur in 1937 is documented by a letter from Levasseur’s granddaughter. Jackson’s annotations on his original folders document his purchase of Lafayette’s letters to General Lawson from the Lawson family in 1937, and his purchase, at the Parke-Bernet Galleries sale of William Randolph Hearst’s collection in 1938, of Lafayette’s letters to his aide-de-camp Bernard Sarrans as well as letters to Thomas Jefferson, DeWitt Clinton, and Arthur Lee, among other items. An annotated auction catalog in the collection documents the purchase of 9 Lafayette letters to General Pelet at a Pierre Cornuau sale in 1936. A fragment of Lafayette’s writing (1825) was purchased from Goodspeed’s circa 1939, as evidenced by a letter filed with the item. A letter to Richard Peters was purchased at the sale of the Alexander Biddle papers, Parke-Bernet Galleries, 1943.
Processing Information
Former call number: Uncat MS Vault Lafayette.
Names and dates in the listing are based primarily on Stuart W. Jackson’s description of the items, and corrected or updated in some cases for accuracy, clarity, and consistency. Items dated with French republican calendar dates have been listed by their corresponding Gregorian calendar dates as found in Jackson’s notes or translations that accompany the material. Brackets denote information not present in the original but supplied by Jackson or by library staff.
A significant portion of this collection was, at an unknown date, interfiled with the Yale Collection of Benjamin Franklin Manuscripts, or Mason-Franklin Collection (now GEN MSS 1457). The Jackson Collection items were removed during processing of the Franklin Collection in 2019 and reunited with the rest of the Jackson Lafayette collection.
Jackson’s heavily annotated folders are retained in the collection, stored separately from the manuscripts which have been rehoused into acid-free folders for their long-term preservation. Photocopies of the annotations on the Jackson folders are stored within the new folders for reference; many of these copies bear a note indicating that the original folders are restricted. This is no longer true: the original folders are not restricted and may be accessed for research.
Four items owned by Jackson are not present in the collection but are represented by copies and by Jackson’s annotated folders. Three of these items were displayed in frames in his home and likely did not come to Yale when the rest of the collection was transferred. They are Lafayette letters to unidentified, 1823 June 5; to Charles Wilkes, 1827 November 28; and to George Bumford, 1828 October 29. The fourth, a letter from Lafayette to Jackson’s grandfather William H. Neilson, 1826 January 27, was not part of the bequest to Yale, as documented by Jackson’s note on the folder, “This letter to remain in my family.”
A small volume containing twentieth-century letters authenticating a portrait of Lafayette by Carpentier was deaccessioned in 2022 and given to the Williams Center for the Arts at Lafayette College, to which Jackson donated the portrait during his lifetime.
- Title
- Guide to the Stuart W. Jackson collection of Marquis de Lafayette manuscripts
- Author
- Ellen Doon and Diane Ducharme
- Date
- January 2022
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.