Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

D. C. Allen was a Three Oaks, Michigan book dealer and collector of material on the House of David, an adventist cult founded in England. The leader of this cult was Benjamin Purnell who made Benton Harbor his home and the site of his follower's business activities. The Allen collection (formerly housed at the Wyoming American Heritage Center) consists of most of the publications by and about the Israelite House of David, scattered manuscript materials mainly documenting the colony's business operations and court cases involving Purnell and the colony, and photographs and postcards depicting activities of the colony.

The collection gathered together by D. C. Allen includes published materials, manuscripts and other paper documentation, and photographs, postcards, and other visual materials. The published material consists mainly of books and pamphlets written by House of David founder "King Benjamin" Purnell and his wife Mary and others associated with the House of David. This collection was formerly stored at the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center.

Personal correspondence, 1842-1941; Civil War letters, 1862-1865, of C. V. DeLand of Co. C, Ninth Michigan Infantry, later Colonel of the First Sharpshooters during the Civil War; correspondence concerning early Jackson history, indentures, school records, temperance and abolition material and other records pertaining to family affairs and the town of Jackson, Michigan. Also contains photographs, with family portraits and photo of an old mill in Jefferson, Mich.

Binkowski was a district judge from Warren, Michigan who collected extensively about Democratic politics and the Polish American community in Michigan. The collection includes materials collected by Binkowski on Democratic politics, the Polish community in Michigan, the cities of Detroit, Warren, and Hamtramck, Michigan, and collected letters, postage covers, and stamps.

The collection includes materials collected by Binkowski on Democratic politics, the Polish community in Michigan, the cities of Detroit, Warren, and Hamtramck, Michigan history in general, and collected letters, postage covers, and stamps. Digital materials include video files and an archived website. Photographs include images of strike violence, 1934-1938, at various Michigan firms; photos of Polish American public figures and organizations, also photos of political meetings and elected officials. Audio cassettes mostly contain recorded interviews with Polish American political figures.

Papers of Benjamin Douglass and his sons, Samuel T. Douglass, Detroit attorney and jurist, and Silas H. Douglas, professor of chemistry at the University of Michigan, and member of Douglass Houghton's Northern Michigan survey. Correspondence, scrapbooks, letter books, and miscellanea concerning family affairs, business and university activities; also contains records of the Douglass and Walker and Campbell Law Firm; and papers of individual members of Silas Douglas’ family, including his wife Helen Welles Douglas, their children Samuel T. Douglas, Marie Louise Douglas, and Catherine Hulbert Douglas, and other Douglas and Welles family members; and photographs.

The Douglass Family collection spans the period 1812-1911 and comprises eight linear feet of manuscripts, one linear ft. of photographs, three outsize volumes, and 1 folder of oversize materials. The collection include the papers of Benjamin Douglass and his two sons, Samuel T. (1814-98) a lawyer and Detroit judge, and Silas H. (1816-90), a professor at The University of Michigan. Although Silas came to use the family name of Douglas rather than Douglass, the paper indicate that there was little consistency.

The collection consists of personal and professional correspondence, letterpress books, business and legal papers, scrapbooks, photographs, and family materials. The collection, except for series of photographs and maps, is arranged by family member name.

Edwin Franko Goldman (1878-1956) was an American composer and conductor for military bands. Collection, assembled by Goldman, of autographs, letters, photographs, and musical scores of many musical celebrities from his lifetime and before.

The Edwin Franko Goldman Autograph Collection consists of two series: Background Materials and Autographed Photographs and Manuscripts. The collection contains autographs, letters, photographs, and musical scores of such notable musical celebrities as Antonin Dvorák, George Gershwin, Franz Liszt, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, John Philip Sousa, Johann Strauss, and Igor Stravinsky.

Papers of Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, Abolitionist poet, and the Chandler family of Adrian, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, including Elizabeth's parents Thomas and Margaret Evans Chandler; Margaret's sisters Ruth Evans and Jane Howell; Elizabeth's brothers Thomas and William, and William's wife Sarah Taylor Chandler. Correspondence of Elizabeth and Thomas Chandler and Ruth Evans with family members in the East, Benjamin Lundy, and others, describing early settlement, agricultural conditions, and local and national anti-slavery movements; also family correspondence of Thomas and Margaret Chandler in Pennsylvania.

The Elizabeth Margaret Chandler collection includes both the papers of this abolitionist poet as well as papers of other members of the Chandler family of Pennsylvania and Lenawee County, Michigan. Represented in the collection are letters to/from Elizabeth's parents Thomas and Margaret Evans Chandler; Margaret's sisters Ruth Evans and Jane Howell; Elizabeth's brothers Thomas and William, and William's wife Sarah Taylor Chandler. Following 1830, much of the correspondence of Elizabeth and Thomas Chandler and Ruth Evans is with family members in the East, Benjamin Lundy, and others, describing their settlement in Lenawee County, agricultural conditions, and local and national anti-slavery movements. Other correspondents in the collection include William Bliss, Darius Comstock, Isaac Crary, Abi Evans, Jane Howell, Darius C. Jackson, Benjamin Lundy, William M. Sullivan and Matthew F. Whittier.

In all, there are twenty-two letters, 1830-1834, written to members of her family, from Elizabeth Margaret Chandler. The earliest letter, June 14, 1830, written from Philadelphia, discusses the advantages of emigrating to Michigan. The later letters are written from Hazelbank, a farm in Lenawee County, between Adrian and Tecumseh, where Elizabeth Chandler settled with her brother, Thomas Chandler, and her aunt, Ruth Evans. The letters describe the clearing of the land, the building of a log cabin and its furnishings, the planting of the first crops, and give an account of the district around the farm, its settlers (chiefly Quakers), its trade and agriculture, land and commodity prices. They contain scattered references to abolitionist activities, such as the boycott of slave-produced commodities, to the Black Hawk War in Illinois and Wisconsin, 1832, and to other current events. Fifteen letters, 1830-1835, on the same subjects, were written by Thomas Chandler and Ruth Evans; two letters, 1834, 1835, enclose copies of obituary notices on Elizabeth Chandler's death.

Also part of the collection are sixty letters, 1830-1842, written to Elizabeth and Thomas Chandler, and Ruth Evans, from Ruth Evans' sister, Jane Howell, Philadelphia, Pa. Several of these letters refer to slavery and to anti-slavery leaders, such as William Lloyd Garrison, Benjamin Lundy, Evan Lewis, and Charles C. Burleigh, coeditor with his brother, William Henry, of the abolitionist newspaper The Unionist; a few refer to the financial and mercantile disruption caused by President Andrew Jackson's monetary policy, resulting in the panic of 1837; two letters, 1835, mention the boundary dispute between the State of Ohio and Michigan Territory (the Toledo War); others refer to a controversy between the Hicksite Friends and the Orthodox Friends in New York, the danger of a cholera epidemic, Indian difficulties, the increase of settlers in Michigan Territory, and other contemporary topics; one letter, 1832, encloses a certification of Thomas Chandler's membership in the Society of Friends, and one letter, 1834, encloses a poem on the death of George Dillwyn (1738-1821), Society of Friends preacher.

Twenty-eight of the letters received by Elizabeth and Thomas Chandler and Ruth Evans in Michigan (1830-1852) were from other relatives and friends. Seven of these, 1831-38, were from Benjamin Lundy concerning a trip to Mexico, anti-slavery activities, and the first edition of Elizabeth Chandler's poems, which Lundy published in 1836; two letters, 1851, 1852, were from I. Prescott, publisher and bookseller of Salem, Ohio, discussing a republication of Elizabeth Chandler's poems; one, 1837, from Darius C. Jackson, delegate from Lenawee County to the Second Constitutional Convention of Assent, Ann Arbor, 1836, mentions the revision of Michigan laws, the Internal Improvement Bill, and the General Banking Laws Bill; one, 1837, from Isaac E. Crary, Michigan's first member of Congress acknowledges receipt of Thomas Chandler's petition against the Annexation of Texas, which Crary had presented to the House of Representatives; one, 1838, from William Bliss of Blissfield, lists the names of officers and members of the Anti-Slavery Society of Blissfield; one, 1839, from William L. Sullivan, Jackson, discusses Methodist anti-slavery meetings; one, 1838, describes the anti-abolitionist riots in Philadelphia, Pa., and the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, built in 1837 by anti-slavery societies for public meetings; three, 1837, are from Mathew Franklin Whittier (brother of John Greenleaf Whittier), Amesbury, Mass.

A calendar arranged by name of correspondent is available in the reading room card files.

Ermine Cowles Case was a prolific paleontologist and geologist, and a well respected professor of historical geology and paleontology at the University of Michigan. He was instrumental in the discovery and naming of several dinosaurs, and did considerable research on prehistoric vertebrates. The collection includes professional and person files that contain correspondence, organizational activities, recognitions, research, speeches, biographical records, and photographs. Inclusive dates span from 1805-1956, but most fall in the 1902s-1940s.

The records of Ermine Cowles Case span the course of his professional career, including his research, travels, and involvement in many scientific circles. Outside of academia, Case maintained correspondence with several family members and close friends, which this collection also contains. Aware of his contributions to history, Case filed away his many professional and personal correspondences noting in the first folder, "These letters are worth keeping and looking over. They contain much information of what went on, and many signatures of men active in Geology and Paleontology, both in U.S. and abroad, in my working time" (1947). Several small notes like these can be found throughout the collection among letters, photographs, and research materials. The series in this collection include: Professional Files, Personal Files, and Visual Materials.

A pioneer Detroit, Michigan family, established the Ferry Seed Company and other business enterprises, active in civic and cultural affairs. Papers document the family and its business, cultural, political and philanthropic activities.

The Ferry family papers document the rise to prominence of this family who first gained their fortune as seed merchants. The papers also reveal the workings of other Detroit businesses, the development of the Detroit Institute of Arts, turn-of-the-century Michigan politics, and the suburban development of Grosse Pointe. The papers span the years 1758 to 1989 with the bulk of the materials covering 1855 to 1959. The collection consists of: account books, ledgers, journals, and business reports; blue prints, deeds, titles, abstracts, and mortgages; correspondence (business and personal); appointment books, diaries, scrapbooks, and clippings; receipts and tax returns, photographs, and printed miscellanea. It is important to note that the Michigan Historical Collections does not house all extant Ferry materials. The donor, Dexter M. Ferry, III, retains possession of several early account books, ledgers, and journals related to D.M. Ferry & Co.; he also kept some family correspondence and virtually all photographs.

The Ferry family papers arrived at the Michigan Historical Collections in an order based on when the donor reviewed the materials. In the course of reprocessing, this order was altered, and an arrangement assigning primacy to the generation of Ferry who created the document was followed. This reprocessing has resulted in three series: Historical and Background, materials predating Dexter M. Ferry; Dexter M. Ferry; and Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. The few problems presented by overlap between generations are duly noted in the contents list. Within these generational series the materials are arrayed in business, personal, philanthropic, and political subseries. Given the natures of the family and the family business, the researcher should note that murkiness exists between subseries divisions. In general these dividing principles work well. They preserve Dexter M. Ferry, III's original order at the folder level while facilitating access by independent researchers.

The strengths of the Ferry collection are myriad. The family correspondence provide unique insight into a family which grew wealthy but remained close-knit. Especially interesting are the long runs of correspondence between Dexter M. Ferry and his mother, Lucy Ferry Crippen, and Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. and his mother, Addie Miller Ferry. The former run reveals much about the fluid society of late nineteenth-century Detroit, and the latter reflects the pressures of more rigidly defined social strictures. The correspondence between Ferry, Jr. and his sisters, Blanche Ferry Hooker and Queene Ferry Coonley, are illuminating on the handling of the family business in the changing economic climates of the twentieth century.

Some facets of the development of the Detroit business community are well documented as the family invested heavily in local real estate and business. The strengths of the present collection revolve around the Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. materials relating to business and finance in Detroit from 1920 to 1950, particularly the banking community's reaction to the crisis of the Depression. The links between automobile touring, the good roads movement, and the development of ancillary industries to support the burgeoning automotive industry are fairly well documented by Dexter M. Ferry, Jr.'s papers. Young Ferry's close association with the development of the Detroit Institute of Arts is extremely well documented and these papers provide a case study of twentieth century patronage.

A somewhat refracted view of Michigan politics at the turn of the twentieth century is provided through the scrapbooks and clippings on Dexter Ferry's failed campaign in 1900 for governor of the state. The papers are stronger in their documentation of Dexter Ferry, Jr.'s political involvement with the local governance of Grosse Pointe. Here the details of community control are thoroughly covered by correspondence, reports, and minutes.

William Montague Ferry served as missionary to Indians at Michilimackinac, Michigan for the United Foreign Missionary Society, 1822-1834 and as clergyman in Grand Haven, Michigan. William Montague Ferry, Jr. served in the 14th Michigan Infantry in the Civil War, as University of Michigan Regent and later moved to Park City, Utah where he was active in Democratic Party politics. Thomas W. Ferry served as congressman, 1865 to 1871, and as U.S. Senator from 1871 to 1883. Papers include correspondence describing missionary work of William M. Ferry, Sr., civil war letters of William M. Ferry, Jr., some political correspondence of Thomas W. Ferry, and letters of Amanda White Ferry, wife of William Sr.

The Ferry family collection consists of letters and typescripts of letters from William Montague Ferry and his wife Amanda White Ferry describing their trip from Ashfield, Massachusetts, to Mackinac Island and their missionary work among the Indians; letters, 1862-1901, of Colonel William M. Ferry, University of Michigan regent, particularly to his wife and other relatives while serving in the Fourteenth Michigan Infantry during the Civil War; speeches and letters from contemporary politicians to Thomas White Ferry, lumberman and U.S. Senator; and two scrapbooks of newspaper clippings on the Ferry family. Correspondents in the collection include: Susan B. Anthony, Henry P. Baldwin, Zachariah Chandler, Schuyler Colfax, William M. Evarts, Hamilton Fish, Rutherford B. Haye, Whitelaw Reid, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Pontiac, Michigan Presbyterian church founded in 1824; session minutes, minutes of board of trustees, historical materials, church bulletins, and other church materials, including manuscript sermons and scrapbooks of minister William S. Jerome.

The record group is comprised of four series: Governance; Church Groups; History and Background; Church building; Financial; and Bulletins. Within Governance are found session minutes and minutes of the board of trustees. The Church Groups series includes minutes of the Men's Club, the Sunday School Workers organization, and the Society of United Workers, among other groups. The History and Background series includes a historical sketch of the church, as well as manuscript sermons and scrapbooks of minister William S. Jerome.