The correspondence includes incoming and outgoing letters, a small amount of which is personal and the bulk from Fox's tenure as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Some of the originals were rearranged and annotated by Virginia Woodbury Fox. Her notes indicate that she destroyed those she believed to be too personal. Marie Bayless, librarian of the Naval History Society, may have typed the transcripts as part of the letters' editing by Col. Thompson. Also included are letters received by James Paulding, Assistant Secretary of the Navy before Fox. No explanation is given for their presence in the collection.

The early letters received (1838-1860) are mostly orders to report to ships for duty, and include Fox's recommendation as a midshipman, signed by John Quincy Adams when he served as a representative from Massachusetts after his presidency. Among those in 1861 is one from Abraham Lincoln. Fox's other correspondents include John Ericsson (see Series 16) and General Ulysses S. Grant. The Civil War-era letters document routine activities of the Navy: orders, reports of activities, discussion of policy, personnel, and maneuvers. The later letters include correspondence regarding Fox's donation to St. John's Episcopal Church, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, of a credence table (to hold items required to celebrate Communion) made from the oak timbers of Admiral David Farragut's flagship Hartford.

Arrangement

Some of the correspondence was arranged by month within a year and some by last name of recipient within a year. The original order has been retained.

The series includes Fox's diaries, naval and civilian commissions, naval record of service, record of the sale of property, and other personal papers. His naval commissions are signed by Presidents Martin Van Buren (1838), John Tyler (1844), and Millard Fillmore (1851).

The materials up to 1862 document Fox's interests and activities including his plans for the reinforcement of Fort Sumter, and the value of steam battleships culminating in his support of Ericsson's design and construction of Monitor, as well as its battle with Virginia (originally Merrimack) at Hampton Roads in 1862. These papers appear to have been collected after the fact and include correspondence from John Ericsson and the draft of an unnamed publication on the subject. They are annotated by Virginia Woodbury Fox and document requests she received for information on the subject.

Papers dating after the Civil War document Fox's 1866 mission to the court of Tsar Alexander II, his attempt to purchase the Southwest Pacific Railroad, his 1883 publication "The first landfall of Columbus: Is there extant evidence enough to prove the first landing place of Columbus in the new world?", and his interest in the history and topology of New Hampshire. The draft of his Columbus article is in a secretary's hand and edited in pencil, probably by Fox, and also shows Virginia Woodbury Fox's annotations. Some of the notes are numbered in pencil in order from 1 to 204, with no explanation provided for these notations.

The series includes receipted bills, accounts, cancelled checks, and a check register. They document the Foxes' household and personal expenses in Washington, Boston (where they lived at the Parker House), and Lowell, Massachusetts, as well as his 1866-1868 travels to Russia through many European cities. The 1874 receipts include expenses for settlement of the estate of his mother, Mrs. Olivia Fox.

The series includes an autograph collection, souvenirs of social and cultural events, calling cards received at home while the Foxes lived in Washington, drawings, photographs, and the illustrated manuscript of a satirical account of life aboard a steam battleship. The autographed letters include some addressed to President Andrew Jackson and then referred to the Secretary of the Navy, and show signatures of author Washington Irving, President Martin Van Buren, and politicians Robert Livingston and Thurlow Weed. The invitations include those to Lincoln's second inauguration in March, 1865; dinners with visiting Russian officers; and a ceremony marking the raising of the American flag over Fort Sumter after its recapture in 1865. Among the undated cards announcing an "at home" is one for the White House from President and Mrs. Lincoln.

The drawings include some by Admiral David Porter, who is probably the author and illustrator of the satirical volume. The photographs include one of a woman, perhaps Virginia Woodbury Fox, alone, and with members of her family; as well as an unidentified older African-American woman.

The series includes publications and other printed information as well as newspaper clippings on the Woodbury family, and on Fox's areas of interest and related to his writings. Some of the commercial printed materials appear to have been collected randomly. The scrapbook pages are leaves from other books onto which clippings have been glued. The document on "small Vessels in which I have been concerned" is anonymous but appears to be written by Robert Bennett Forbes, based on the ships listed. One document is in Chinese and may be the guest list for an event Fox attended.

Arrangement

The materials are arranged chronologically. The bundled clippings were originally stored separately; some of the other subject-related clippings were originally in other series and have been gathered together here. Some of the clippings were grouped by subject and others by time period; their original arrangement has been retained.

The series includes letters sent (both originals and drafts) and received by Virginia Woodbury Fox, with recipients including her husband and other family members, as well as officials of St. John's Church in Washington, DC. After her husband's death, she donated land on which the Church erected an orphanage, with a plaque commemorating Gustavus Vasa Fox. Notes in her hand indicate that she destroyed much of her correspondence to her husband. Among those letters saved, and specifically marked, is that of July 20, 1863, describing the Draft Riots in New York City. Other highlights include a note (c. 1862) from Mary Lincoln and a separated envelope from President Abraham Lincoln.

Biographical Note

Virginia Lafayette Woodbury (1821-1908) was the daughter of Levi and Elizabeth Clapp Woodbury. She married Gustavus Vasa Fox in 1855; they had no children. Her sister, Mary Elizabeth, married Montgomery Blair and their children included Montgomery Blair, who was the Foxes' heir.

Arrangement

Some of Virginia Woodbury Fox's letters to her husband are filed with his letters received in Series I. Correspondence. Others are included here with her family's papers: she appears to have retrieved them from her husband's papers and specifically organized them here herself.

The series includes correspondence and personal papers of members of the Woodbury and Fox family, including Virginia Woodbury Fox's father Levi and uncle Isaac O. Barnes. Levi Woodbury's letters received include those signed by Presidents Andrew Jackson (1835) and James Buchanan (1847) and by Senator Thomas Hart Benton (1851). The letters received are originals; the letters sent are letterpress copies, some of which are difficult to read. Most of the Barnes letters were in alphabetical order, which has been retained; the 1850-1851 letters were originally in the Levi Woodbury correspondence and have been moved here with their original order retained.

Biographical Note

Levi Woodbury (1789-1851) served as Secretary of the Navy (1831-1834), Secretary of the Treasury (1834-1841), United States senator (1841-1845), and Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1845-1851). The bulk of his and other Woodbury family papers are now in the Library of Congress. Levi Woodbury's sister Hannah (b. 1800) was married to Isaac O. Barnes (b. 1798). Gustavus Vasa Fox served as executor of Barnes's will. The materials give no indication of William Bowes Bradford's relation to the Woodbury family; G.W.M. Guild appears to have been a nephew of Fox's.

Some correspondence in Series I was originally folded and then bundled in stacks between wooden boards, probably for storage in pigeonholes within a desk or cabinet. On the boards was written the content and date range of the stacked documents. A few were retained with the collection and are included here. This series also includes Virginia Woodbury Fox's notes regarding decisions she made about her husband's papers.

The bound volumes include Fox's letters (many to his future wife's uncle and aunt, Isaac O. and Hannah Woodbury Barnes) and journals from cruises on various vessels, a scrapbook about him collected by Virginia Woodbury Fox, a scrapbook of clippings created by a Blair or Fox family member, household accounts and records of the Foxes' stock and property holdings, two letter books (one containing letter press and one carbon copies), a writing portfolio that was a gift from Levi Woodbury, a relief map of New Hampshire's White Mountains, and the edited editions of Fox's correspondence published by the Naval History Society.

Virginia Woodbury Fox's notes in Volume 1 indicate that she erased or deleted various sections that she deemed to be "too personal." Her note in her scrapbook documents its importance to her and to any future biographer of her husband.