This volume contains James Stuart's notes on legal definitions and procedures, as well as financial accounts related to the family of John Allen of Shelbyville, Kentucky.
Each page of legal notes (about 300 pages total) pertains to a specific subject. The first group includes discussions on the relationships between attorney and client, master and servant, and other groups; other topics include estates and deeds, property management, contracts and finances, and debt. A smaller number of pages are dedicated to crime-related subjects, such as assault, false imprisonment, slander, and trespassing. Multiple sections pertain to administrative issues and aspects of trials, such as the presentation of evidence.
The second portion of the volume consists of 4 pages of financial notes from around the early 1821s, pertaining to a wagon for hire and laborers. An unknown writer compiled an additional 18 pages of financial records (spread over 40 pages, of which many are blank) between January 1816 and November 1830. They concern payments to the compiler's children from William Logan, for storeroom rent in Shelbyville, for daily expenses, to Ann Maria Allen for the education of his or her children, for a saddle, and for other goods. Some records pertain to the author's slaves.
Two letters between F. B. Voegele and Charles Ross, secretary to Harry S. Truman, are laid into the volume. Voegele discussed the possibility that Jesse Truman, a name mentioned in the financial accounts (page 338), was related to the President. He sent the volume to the White House and requested that Truman sign it. In his return correspondence, Charles Ross noted that the President found the volume "most interesting." Harry Truman signed the front pastedown on December 7, 1945.
John Allen was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, on December 30, 1771, the son of James Allen and Mary Kelsey. The Allen family moved to Kentucky before 1779, where Allen received a basic education. After studying law with Archibald Stuart in Virginia from 1791-1795, Allen settled in Shelby County, Kentucky, where he had a successful legal practice. He served in the state legislature (1800, 1803-1813) and was lieutenant colonel of the 1st Kentucky Rifle Regiment during the War of 1812. Allen married Jane Logan (d. 1821) on October 19, 1798, and they had four daughters: Ann Maria (1802-1877), Eliza Sarah (1806-1867), Jane Logan (1808-1844), and Mary Kelsey (b. 1829). John Allen died on January 22, 1813, while fighting in the Battle of Frenchtown. Counties are named for him in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Ann Maria Allen married Henry Crittenden and David R. Murray, Eliza Sarah Allen married Martin D. Hardin, Jane Logan Allen married John Todd Parker, and Mary Kelsey Allen married Thomas Willoughby Newton.
