Wellborn Family Papers
Scope and Contents
This collection contains correspondence (1860-1891) and financial records (1836-1891) of John Horry Dent; plantation journals (1876-1891) in which Dent recorded weather conditions and daily activities; biographical information on Wellborn's maternal great-grandfather, Commodore John Herbert Dent, who served aboard the U.S.S. Constitution. Correspondence (1853), farm journal (1873-1880), and biographical information of Charles Iverson Graves; genealogical and biographical information on the Wellborn, Dent and Graves families; family and business correspondence and personal financial records (1880-1957), diaries (1928-1953), biographical information, articles and clippings of M.B. Wellborn.
Dates
- 1836 - 1957
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
Biographical / Historical
John Horry Dent, Wellborn's maternal grandfather who came to Alabama in 1836, was a prosperous Barbour County planter. In 1866, he sold his plantation and bought a farm in Floyd County, Georgia, where he died in 1892. Charles Iverson Graves, Wellborn's father-in-law and a Georgia native, served as a midshipman aboard the U.S.S. Minnesota of the East India and China Squadron in 1853, spending several months in China. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1857. In 1861 he resigned his commission and entered the Confederate Navy. After the war, he farmed in Newton County, Georgia, until 1875, when he accepted a commission in the Egyptian Army. He returned to Georgia in 1878, dividing his time between farming and civil engineering until his death in 1896. Maximillian B. Wellborn, raised and educated in Eufaula, Alabama, was in the insurance, real estate and banking business in Anniston, Alabama, from 1887 to 1914. When the Federal Reserve System was organized in 1914, he was named Chairman of the Board of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, and was selected governor of the bank in 1919. After retiring in 1927 and returning to Alabama, he served as Calhoun County's state senator from 1934 to 1937.
Extent
2 Cubic Feet (One record center box, two document boxes, and one reel of microfilm.)
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement
This finding aid is organized by accessions. Each accession represents an addition to the collection. Each accession also represents a transfer of physical and legal custody of archival materials from the donors to Auburn University Special Collections and Archives.
Processing Information
Original processor not recorded for Accession 12-1964.
HTML finding aid listed by Peter H. Branun, September 1, 1992.
Finding aid entered into ArchivesSpace by Tori Buchanan, 2022. Revised by Joanna Ashley, 2025.
- Agriculture
- Anniston (Ala.)
- Banks and banking
- Barbour County (Ala.)
- Farm life
- Farm management
- Farmers
- Graves, Charles Iverson (1838-1896)
- Legislators
- Plantations -- Alabama
- Plantations -- Georgia
- Prohibition -- United States
- United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives, Confederate
- Wellborn, Maximilian Bethune (January 22, 1862-November 28, 1957)
- Title
- Guide to the Wellborn Family Papers
- Subtitle
- Record Group 50
- Status
- Completed
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Auburn University Special Collections and Archives Repository
Auburn University
Ralph Brown Draughon Library
231 Mell Street
Auburn Alabama 36849
334-844-1732
archives@auburn.edu