Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

None

Use Restrictions

Consult repository for information

Preferred Citation

Thomas Clowes Account Book, MSS 06-27, Virginia Room, Fairfax County Public Library

Acquisition Information

Unknown

Processing Information

Chris Barbuschak, April 2017
EAD generated by Ross Landis, 2024

Historical and Biographical Information

Thomas Clowes was born on April 14, 1818 in Loudoun County, Virginia to Mary and Joseph Clowes III. He married Martha McCormick on September 3, 1839 in Alexandria, Virginia and the couple had seven children together.

Clowes operated a grocery store in Alexandria at the corner of King and Saint Asaph Streets in the 1850s. He dealt in groceries, liquors, produce, poultry, butter, pork and both foreign and domestic products. In the 1860s, he was a general freight and ticket agent in the Alexandria offices of the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad.

His wife, Martha, died on August 2, 1862. He married Henrietta Fitzhugh Swann, daughter of Mordecai Cook Fitzhugh, on December 12, 1865 at the Second Presbyterian Church. Clowes died suddenly on April 22, 1868 at his Alexandria home on Columbia Street. He was buried at the Trinity United Methodist Church Cemetery.

Scope and Content

The Thomas Clowes Account Book, 1857-1869, consists of a small leather-bound account book which documents Clowes’ transactions at the Exchange Bank of Virginia at Alexandria, Virginia including bills, cash transactions, and payments to individuals. The account book continued to be maintained after his death from 1868-1869 presumably by his wife, Henrietta Fitzhugh Swann Clowes, as it mentions transactions and sale of goods between her two sisters Amanda Gooding and Fannie Hutchison. Daniel Ridgway, another Alexandria native, is also listed in the account book. Inside the account book was an unrelated 1922 letter from Katie Gibson of Atlanta, Georgia to Berta M. Berry of Union City, Tennessee which concerns the death of a mutual friend named “Mrs. Holt” and Gibson’s upcoming surgery.

Related Material

None

Separated Material

None

Index Terms

• Alexandria (Va.) - History
• Clowes, Henrietta Fitzhugh Swann (c.1820 - ?)
• Clowes, Thomas (1818-1868)
• Gooding, Amanda M. Fitzhugh (1808-1893)
• Hutchison, Frances “Fannie” Fitzhugh (c.1815-1881)

Adjunct Descriptive Data