The John F. Armstrong Collection at the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah
July 11, 2018
Georgia Historical Society’s Research Center at Hodgson Hall in Savannah, GA
During the 1880s, Augusta, Georgia businessman John F. Armstrong (1845-1893) was well-known for his work in the Irish home rule and agrarian reform movements. A high-ranking member of both the Irish National League of America and the Clan na Gael/United Brotherhood, JF is today largely forgotten in Georgia and Irish-American history.
Some of JF’s descendants hope to change that, however, by making a collection of telegrams, postcards, and letters sent to him in 1887 available to researchers.
On May 11, 2018, the Georgia Historical Society Research Center in Savannah accepted the donation of thirty-four items of correspondence written in 1887 to JF and several letters written in 1896 to his daughter, May Armstrong Casey Morrison (1870-1950). The letters were donated by JF’s great-granddaughter, Mary Van Sant Wheeler, who inherited them from her sister, Patricia Van Sant Real (1930-2008) and her maternal aunt, Frances Armstrong Casey (1893-1988), JF’s oldest grandchild.
The Collection: Letters, Telegrams, and a Postcard
All thirty-four of the items written to JF in 1887 are published online here at Jfarmstrong.com. Thirty-one of them, made up of one telegram, one postcard, and twenty-nine letters, were sent to JF after the death of his wife, Sarah McAndrew Armstrong (c1846-1887) on January 20, 1887. One telegram was from Chicago attorney Alexander Sullivan, who was the leader of both the Irish National League of America and the Clan na Gael/United Brotherhood in the early 1880s.
Two letters and a postcard were from Mother Clemence. She was one of the original French Sisters of St. Joseph who came to St. Augustine, Florida after the American Civil War to teach freed slaves. In 1887, she was head of the Catholic school in Sharon, Georgia, where JF’s young sons, Jimmy and Johnny, were boarding students.
The rest of the condolence letters are from family, friends, business associates, and colleagues in the Irish National League of America.
Several items in the collection were sent to JF in the spring of 1887. One is a telegram from his cousin, Kate Leonard, in Brooklyn. It informed him that his two sisters from County Sligo, Ireland were leaving on the train for Augusta that evening.
There is also a letter from James Benson of Washington, Georgia about the Interstate Commission and a letter from M. F. Kennedy of the Clan na Gael/United Brotherhood in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Georgia Historical Society Research Center in Savannah
The letters were offered to the Georgia Historical Society because it is the leading repository in the state for Georgia history. After the collection is processed, it will be added to the GHS’s online catalog.
In a letter to Mary Van Sant Wheeler dated May 11th, 2018, GHS archivist Lindsay Sheldon wrote:
“On behalf of the Georgia Historical Society I would like to thank you for donating the John F. Armstrong collection. We are pleased to accept this material for preservation and research in the library and archives. We appreciate the detailed inventory and biographical information you provided with the collection.”
For more information on the Georgia Historical Society and its collections, check out it’s website at: https://georgiahistory.com/