The Ragland collection consists of the papers of Annie Eliza Cowgill Smithee (1846-1903), James Newton Smithee (1838-1902), and their descendants. Annie Eliza Cowgill was the daughter of Addison J. H. Cowgill and, through his lineage, a descendent of Benjamin Harrison, signer of the Declaration of Independence. Addison died while Annie was still a young girl and she moved to Little Rock with her mother and sister, Mary, sometime before 1860 where they lived in the home of Barney Knighton, a tinsmith and stepfather to Annie’s mother. While living in Little Rock, Mary Cowgill married James Cook, a Confederate artillery officer who may have introduced Annie to his comrade, James Newton Smithee.

Smithee was a newspaperman from Sharp County, Arkansas, who established a newspaper in Brownsville, Arkansas in 1860. He enlisted in the Confederate service in 1861, eventually becoming a second lieutenant in Woodruff’s Arkansas Battery. (The name of this unit underwent many changes; names that Smithee used most often were Blocher’s or Marshall’s Battalion.) During the war Annie remained in Little Rock and was an eyewitness to the city’s capture by the federal army September 10, 1863. In 1865, Smithee surrendered with the rest of his unit and returned to Arkansas, resuming work as a newspaperman. He continued to court Annie, but then moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to take a job as a typesetter with the Memphis Appeal. A misunderstanding between Annie and Smithee resulted in his departure from Tennessee in July, 1865, and for the following six months he worked as an itinerant printer at various newspaper offices in Louisiana and Texas.

On January 1, 1867, Smithee returned to Little Rock and married Annie Cowgill. The couple had eight children, six of whom survived infancy: Edith, Ray, Annie, Elbert, Newton, and James Newton, Jr. Smithee worked in Little Rock from 1867 to 1886, first as a shop foreman for the Arkansas Gazette and eventually editor of the sheet. During this time he also held positions in the Arkansas State Guard, Arkansas State Lands Commission, and the Arkansas Press Association. In 1886 he accepted an appointment with the United States General Land Office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and in 1890 the Smithee family moved again to Denver, Colorado. In the late 1890s, Smithee returned to Little Rock without his family and again worked for the Arkansas Gazette as editor and owner. He committed suicide in Little Rock on July 4, 1902.

Elbert Smithee, the oldest son, worked for his father in Little Rock in the 1890s but returned to Denver afterwards where he gained some success publishing puzzles for game magazines. Ray Smithee, the second oldest daughter, married William H. Blore in Denver, Colorado, on July 10, 1901. They had one daughter, Gladys Lorraine, who married Russell Ragland in 1927 and is the donor of this collection. The Raglands made their home in southern California where they were eventually joined by Ray Smithee Blore. Annie Smithee married George Rosean in Denver, Colorado, in 1927 and they, too, moved to California where George became the assistant superintendent of the Pasadena City Zoo.