The papers of John Austin Moon (1855-1921) span the years 1832-1921, with the bulk of the material dating from 1860 to 1921. Moon, a city attorney for Chattanooga, Tennessee, circuit court judge, and United States representative from Tennessee, collected newspaper clippings concerning much of his career which he mounted into scrapbooks. The Library of Congress bound loose papers of similar nature included with the scrapbooks; the result is a collection containing items readily identifiable with specific parts of Moon’s career. Subjects include legislation concerning parcel post, Tennessee River Valley public works, federal aid in construction of public roads, the Organic Act of Hawaii (1900), and other territorial legislation. The collection is organized by topic or type of material.

The Moon Papers consist primarily of scrapbooks, 1896-1921, recording his political career in Congress, where he served as a member of the U.S. House Committee on Post Office and Post Roads. Separate from these scrapbooks are folders of newspaper clippings, along with correspondence and petitions from the citizens of Bristow, Lehigh, McAlester, Sapulpa, and Wagoner, principal towns in Indian Territory, later Oklahoma, supporting legislation sponsored by Moon that would grant the territory statehood.

Also in the papers are newspaper clippings concerning the decisions of the Tennessee Supreme Court, 1861 and 1872-1877. Moon’s wife, Adeline McDowell Deaderick, was the daughter of Tennessee’s chief justice, James W. Deaderick; it is possible these were the papers of her father, whose service as chief of that court was during this time.

Moon’s papers also contain three account ledgers belonging to his grandfather, Austin M. Appling, a merchant in Chattanooga and later in Bristol, Virginia. In the backs of each volume, in sections not used by Appling, Moon recorded notes concerning law. In these and other volumes are penciled notations marking the space formerly occupied by newspaper clippings and other items removed in 1948 by Moon’s daughter, Anna Mary Moon, for return to the family.