A portion of this collection is available on microfilm. (MF Roll # 36340)

 

Biography:

John McFarland, III

John McFarland, III, born in Strabane, Ireland, October l9, l8l9. He emigrated to the United States at age seventeen and joined an Irish acquaintance in Manchester (now Yazoo City). Shortly after his arrival, he was made clerk of the court at Benton. He became a partner with Mr. Barksdale and engaged in the cotton business with offices in New Orleans and Yazoo City. On September 20, 1850, he married Lucy Virginia Blanton of Frankfort, Kentucky, and they had three children: Mary Lizzie (b. 07.30.l85l), Frank Powell (b. l853) and John, IV (b. l862). The family moved to New Orleans in the fall of l859. After the outbreak of the Civil War, McFarland gave his attention to the war effort. When General Butler came to New Orleans in l862, the family moved back to Yazoo City and became refugees in Georgia when Yazoo City was occupied. McFarland returned to Yazoo City and wrote to his wife on October 9, 1863, complaining of the flux. There was a prize of $l0,000 for his capture, and he was "run out of town" by another Yankee raid. He contracted pneumonia from exposure in the swamps and died some days after on October 24, l863.

After McFarland's death, the family moved back to New Orleans. The baby, John IV, had died while in Georgia, leaving only two children, Mary Lizzie and John Powell. Mrs. McFarland supported herself by keeping a boarding house. Mary Lizzie was educated by private tutors in languages, literature and music and continued these interests throughout her life. On July l4, l874, she married William Thomas Blakemore, and they purchased a home in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Here the family spent their summers, wintering in New Orleans from October to April until 1906.

Mary Lizzie McFarland Blakemore

Mary Lizzie McFarland Blakemore was a prolific writer and for a time acted as a newspaper correspondent., She also authored a novel based on her wartime experience as a child, but the manuscript was never published. She kept up correspondence with her childhood friend, Senator John Sharp Williams, until his death. She kept a voluminous scrapbook which her son, Bruce, presented to the Tulane University Library. She was a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, served as Kentucky State President for one term, and was most active in promoting the monument to Jefferson Davis, erected at his birthplace in Fairview, Kentucky. Lizzie McFarland Blakemore died on June 25, 1938.

 

Scope and Content Note: 

This collection contains some of the papers of two members of the McFarland Family of Yazoo City. John McFarland and his daughter, Lizzie McFarland Blakemore. The McFarland portion deals with the Civil War. Letterpress copies of letters written to sympathetic English cotton factors defend slavery and the South's political stance, and letters written to various Confederate figures detail his involvement in the Civil War. The Blakemore portion includes three Civil War letters written from Mobile to her in Yazoo City. Also included are forty-four letters to her from John Sharp Williams. These Williams-Blakemore letters reflect the life-long friendship of the two and provide information on Williams' last years. There is also some reminiscing of their Yazoo City childhood.

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Correspondence. 1864–1865; 1922–1932; n.d. 49 items.
Incoming correspondence of Lizzie McFarland Blakemore; includes three Civil War letters from Mobile, two letters regarding the Jefferson Davis Birthplace Monument, and forty-four letters from John Sharp Williams. Arranged alphabetically, thereunder chronologically.

Series 2: Correspondence. 1932. 1 item.
Outgoing cover letter with Blakemore's memoir of John Sharp Williams.

Series 3: Correspondence. 1861; n.d. 1 item.
One letter written to McFarland and Barksdale regarding food needs for the plantation; copy (by Blakemore?) of McFarland letter (1861) to the editor of the Yazoo Democrat regarding the death of Mose Phillips.

Series 4: Correspondence. 1860–1861. 1 volume.
Letterpress copies of McFarland correspondence to English cotton factors and various Confederate figures, written from New Orleans.