CORSICANA – The William Henry Parsons Camp #415, Sons of Confederate Veterans, met for its May meeting at the Pearce Museum at Navarro College in Corsicana.
The Ennis-based genealogical and historical organization hosted a special showing of the museum collection for its members and a number of guests including members of the Austin Civil War Round Table from Austin, Texas.
“For anyone interested in American Civil War history, the Pearce Museum is one of the ‘go to’ places to learn more,” said Parsons Camp commander Rob Jones.
“It is one of the premier museums in the entire nation devoted to this important period in our history, and it’s just down the road in Corsicana,” added Jones.
According to the Pearce Museum’s director, Rhett Kearns, it’s Civil War collection holds over 17,000 documents and artifacts belonging to those who experienced that tragic time in American history.
“Through exhibits and interactive displays interpreting original letters, diaries, photographs and artifacts,” he said, “the museum preserves and interprets the history of the war and people involved – North and South, men and women, children and adults, leaders and common citizens.”
Jones pointed out how the museum’s collection has items specific to those in Ellis and Navarro Counties showing how the war affected local residents.
“In one of the first exhibit cases,” he noted, “is a document brought home from the Secession Convention in Austin in early 1861 by Joseph A. Clayton, one of the local delegates to the Convention. He was involved in the Telico Manufacturing Company started before the war east of the present site of Telico on the Trinity River,” Jones added.
According to the “Handbook of Texas,” the war resulted in the closing of the manufacturing facility and moving of Telico to its present location.
Jones observed that hundreds of men from Ellis County served in various units of the Confederate army, including Hood’s Texas Brigade in Virginia, Parsons Texas Cavalry Brigade, and the 13th Texas Infantry along the Texas coast.