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JOSEPHINE B. CRUMP PAPERS

Papers and Journal, 1894-1920
Manuscript Collection MC 845
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JOSEPHINE B. CRUMP

Josephine B. Wright Greenlee Crump (1840-1920) spent the first few years of the Civil War living near Harrison (Boone County) with her infant daughter. Mrs. Crump's first husband, T.J. [?] Greenlee, a private in Company D, 27 Arkansas Infantry [?], worked as an attendant at St. John's Hospital in Little Rock (Pulaski County). In 1863 he brought his family to the state capitol by horseback where Mrs. Crump helped attend the wounded at St. John's. After Union forces occupied the city, T.J. Greenlee was imprisoned at the Little Rock penitentiary and eventually Johnson's Island near Cincinnati, Ohio. Approximately twenty years later, Mrs. Crump recorded her activities and adventures during the city's occupation, which were typed by Mr. Crump's secretary.

Many years after the war, Mrs. Crump began a journal which she kept intermittently from 1894-1920. It includes discussions of her work in the Woman's Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mrs. Crump also mentions her sons Archie and George, and daughter Josie. During 1894, Mrs. Crump recorded a description of a journey she took with her second husband, George Crump, a United States Marshal in Fort Smith (Sebastian County), who was transporting prisoners to Kings County Prison in New York City. Mrs. Crump also describes a visit to U.S. Representative from Arkansas, Colonel Samuel W. Peel, and his wife in Washington, D.C.

THE COLLECTION

Vance H. Trimble of Kenton Hills, Kentucky, donated the papers and journal of his grandmother, Josephine B. Crump on June 12, 1986.

The personal reminiscences are comprised of Mrs. Crump's accounts of her Civil War years which include incomplete remembrances of a battle, and Joe Wright Crump's unfinished story of a Mr. Fancher's successful escape from Union troops near Harrison. Completing this collection are two short stories, one sheet of correspondence and a poem from Lamar Fontaine.

Located in the back of the journal are short stories and lectures Mrs. Crump presented to members of the Woman's Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Also recorded are short stories written by Mrs. Crump, and names of those who contributed and purchased cook books or items for the Methodist Church bazaars. Mrs. Crump's daughter Josie Crump Trimble wrote the short stories on pages 87-94 and 236-237.

Processed by Susan Lynn Parks, July 1988. Special Collections Division, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Series 1.Journal kept by Josephine B. Crump, 1894-1920. Box 1

Mrs. Crump divided her reminiscences into series which are comparable to chapters.
Box 1
  1. Personal reminiscences, first series through seventh series.
  2. Personal reminiscences, eighth series through fifteenth series.
  3. Personal reminiscences, series no. sixteen through no. twenty-one. [Series 19 is lacking]
  4. Incomplete reminiscence by Josephine B. Crump[?] and Joe Wright Crump.
  5. Correspondence, Lamar Fontaine to Josephine B. Crump, 1920.
  6. Poem, "Parading with the boys of 'The Sixties'" by Lamar Fontaine, 1899.
  7. Short story, "Ghosts I Have Seen" and "Mollie's Mess, or a Reminiscence of the Early Days," by Josephine B. Crump, n.d.
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