CSA 8, 2¢ brown red with large margins to in where separated unevenly prior to use, tied well-struck RICHMOND / VA. // FEB / 10 cds on cover locally addressed by Governor John Letcher to R. A. Brock, Esq. with State of Virginia, Executive Department imprint (S-VA-01, CV $500) at lower left, embossing under top back flap “Manufactured by Waterlow & Sons, 65 to 68 London Wall, London.” Very Fine. Ex Snead III. $1,000.

Robert Alonzo Brock (1839-1914) donated an enormous collection of Civil War documents to the Huntingdon Library in San Marino, Ca. Comprised of his own private and official correspondences. The materials cover a period from 1582-1914 and include papers of prominent Virginia families, business firms and businessmen, religious and fraternal organizations, government offices and departments, politicians, statesmen, and administrators. Odd it ended up in California, but so it is. As a boy, Brock was passionately fond of reading, and early developed a love of antiquities. At the age of thirteen he left school, entering the employ of uncles engaged heavily in the lumber business, using his wages in the purchase of books of various kinds. He later engaged in business for himself, but when war broke out between the states he enlisted in the First Company, Twenty-first Regiment Virginia Infantry, serving actively one year, connected with Winder Hospital during the remainder of the war. He engaged in the lumber business from 1865 to 1881 with considerable success. In 1875 he was elected corresponding secretary of the Virginia Historical Society, and in 1881 retired from business to devote himself entirely to study and research.

John Letcher (1813-1884) is best known as Virginia’s Civil War-era governor, serving from 1860 through 1863. He was also a prominent attorney in Lexington, Va., a newspaper editor, Democratic party leader in western Virginia, and member of congress in the 1850s. After the Civil War, he resumed his law practice and spent one session in the Virginia House of Delegates, 1875-1877. Thereafter, his health began to fail and he died in Lexington early in 1884.

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