FRANCIS HENDERSON JAMES PAPERS

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SUMMARY

BIOGRAPHICAL/HISTORICAL NOTE

Francis Henderson “Henny” James was born in 1888 to an affluent family in Rapides Parish, La. His parents were Francis Henderson James and Vanangus “Nangie” Amelia Sleet James, who had eight additional children: Trent, Rosanna, Florence, Lucy, Margaret, Ella, Nancy, and Vanangus. Trent L. James would later marry Willie Frank Texada, the daughter of prominent political and landholding family from Rapides Parish. Francis James graduated from Louisiana State University in 1912 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and received his M.S. in Sugar Engineering in 1913. James served in the U.S. Army during World War I. He married Jessie M. Broadwell in 1926 and they had four children: Francis Jr., Marilyn, Trenton, and Margaret Anne. After spending seventeen years in the sugar industry in Puerto Rico, James was employed as chief engineer from the 1930s to 1950s at the Salsburg Sugar Factory on the Helvetia Plantation in St. James Parish, La. He died in a Baton Rouge hospital of pneumonia and other complications resulting from injuries sustained in an automobile accident on September 2, 1959, in Donaldsonville, La.

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

The Francis Henderson James Papers contain a diary, correspondence, photographs, certificates, newspaper clippings, and other records detailing the personal and professional history of an LSU alum, World War I veteran, and sugar engineer. Of note are the diary James kept from 1937 to 1958 documenting his work as chief engineer at the Salsburg Sugar Factory, letters and certificates relating to his long-standing association with the Freemasons, and photographs and other items documenting his time as an LSU student, his travels and work abroad in France and the Caribbean, and family connections in central Louisiana. The personal and business correspondence includes communications concerning James family property and letters from Vanangus “Nangie” James to her children in the months before her death in 1932. The papers also include several items relating to Trent L. James, who served as the Rapides Parish Assessor from 1921-1970. The materials have been arranged as follows: all correspondence, written records or printed items are housed in box 1; all photographs are housed in box 2; all tintypes are housed in box 3; and all oversized items are included in a separate folder.

INDEX TERMS

Boyce, La.--History.

Card photographs.

Correspondence.

Freemasons--Louisiana.

Helvetia Plantation (La.)

James, Francis Henderson, 1888-1959.

James, Trenton LeRoi, 1890-1973.

James, Vanangus Sleet, 1852-1932.

Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College--Students.

Plantations--Louisiana--Saint James Parish.

Rapides Parish, La.--History.

Salsburg Sugar Factory (Saint James Parish, La.)

Sigma Nu. Phi Chapter (Louisiana State University)

Sugar--Manufacture and refining--Puerto Rico.

Tintypes (prints)

World War I.

CONTAINER LIST