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University of Michigan William L. Clements Library

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Minto-Skelton papers, 1757-1956 (majority within 1770-1900)

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Summary

Creator:
Skelton family
Abstract:
The Minto-Skelton papers contain the papers of Walter Minto (1753-1796), noted mathematician and educator, his nephew Walter Minto Skelton (1804-1848), and other members of their extended family. Walter Minto's papers contain correspondence, writings, and other documents related to his travels in Italy, scholarship, and teaching career. The Walter Minto Skelton and family papers include correspondence, poetry, prose writings, illustrations and photographs, documents, printed materials, notes, invitations, and miscellanea.
Extent:
2 linear feet
Language:
English
French
Italian
Latin
Spanish
Authors:
Collection processed and finding aid created by Robert Lewis

Background

Scope and Content:

The collection entitled Minto-Skelton family papers is divided into two series: the Walter Minto papers and the Skelton family papers. It began as the Walter Minto papers by donation from Harry B. Earhart in 1934, and this collection, which consists of 21 documents and seven letters, has been incorporated into the new, larger collection of Minto-Skelton family papers given by Jean McIntyre Conrad in 2004. The Skelton family papers contains only a few items from the Earhart donation: specifically, seven of the ten Detargny documents between 1796 and 1798 (in Series 2, sub-series 4) and one printed broadside from 1799 (in Series 2, sub-series 5); the rest come from the much larger Conrad donation. In the Contents Lists that follow each collection it has been noted which papers originally belonged in the Earhart donation.

Walter Minto Papers:

The Walter Minto papers consists of 296 letters and 31 documents, along with nine manuscript notebooks, diaries, account books, etc. and five short handwritten notes by Minto himself. Nearly all of the letters were written during Minto's lifetime, from 1774 to 1796, with four from 1797-98 added to the collection because they refer to him or to his estate. Most of the letters were written to him (253), and they are about equally divided between those written before he left Scotland for America (mid-1786) and those written after he arrived in America. Those from 1779 to 1786 are especially revealing about two events in his life that were either unknown or only hinted at previously.

The first has to do with his sojourn in Italy. He accompanied the Johnstone boys to Italy in 1776 as their tutor and remained with them there until early 1779, when they, and presumably he with them, returned to England. But letters both to and from his father, Walter Minto, Sr., along with references in other letters, make clear that, after entrusting the boys to Captain Machell in Spain, he returned to Slop's home in Pisa in March of 1779, began a formal, concentrated study of mathematics with Slop, that he continued that study there until mid-1782, and that it affected his health.

The second has to do with Minto's previously unknown relationship with a woman named Catherine Drummond. This relationship can be seen in the 49 letters (sometimes in French, occasionally in Italian) written by her to him between March of 1784 and early June of 1786, when he left Scotland for America. The correspondence continued in America, though less frequently; she wrote only three letters between February of 1787 and January of 1788. In a letter (of which there exists only a partial "translation") in response to hers of January of 1788 he tells her that he has loved her for four years and proposes marriage to her. She rejects his proposal by return mail, but continues writing to him until 1791, even after his marriage to Mary Skelton in the fall of 1789.

During his time in America, he met and exchanged letters with a number of influential people, both before going to Princeton (mid-1786 to late 1787) and afterwards (1787-96): for example, John Witherspoon, president of the College of New Jersey; the astronomer and clockmaker David Rittenhouse; Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, with whom he lodged when he first came to America; the army officers James Chrystie and Francis Gurney, who became his friends; even George Washington, to whom he sent a copy of his book on the new planet.

Another 25 letters are neither to nor from him. Most were written from one Minto family member to another and concern primarily family matters; they were probably brought by Minto to America, or were perhaps sent to his wife, Mary (Skelton) Minto, by his Scottish relatives after his death. Two of the letters were written to or from the Johnstones, in 1764 and 1772 (the latter by David Garrick), before Minto had even met the family. Three of the four letters written in 1797-98, after his death, were addressed to his wife, and the fourth to a close friend of hers.

Of the 18 letters written by Minto himself, eight are originals, having been sent to relatives and friends. The other ten are copies or drafts, in his own hand, that he kept for his personal use: these are always marked "copy" or "draft" in the Contents List.

Following the letters are nine manuscript notebooks, diaries, account books, etc. (eight written by Minto, 1776-96; plus one written in 1802, after his death) and five miscellaneous notes in his own hand. Most of the notebooks provide details about events in his life, especially the lists of expenses in the notepads from 1776 and 1779, having to do with his theological education and his dealings with the Johnstone boys, his trip to America in June and July of 1786 from the daily log he kept of it, his travels during his first few months in America from the notepads for late 1786 and early 1787, and the nature of his mathematical lectures at the College of New Jersey from the notebook dated 1802.

Of the remaining 31 documents: 14 date from 1757 to 1786, when Minto left Scotland for America; 14 from 1787, after he arrived in America, to his death in 1796; and three from after his death, the latest of which is dated 1801. The earliest one (a transcript of the entry for Elisabetta Dodsworth's baptism in 1739, from the Baptismal Record of Leghorn in Italy) is dated 1757, when Minto was only four years old. The last is a bill of lading, dated 1801, for what was probably family memorabilia sent from the Minto family in Scotland to Mrs. Mary Minto after her husband's death. In between are documents providing glimpses into Minto's education (24 January 1776), his being set free in Cadiz (13 March 1779), his trip home from Italy in the summer of 1782 (the passport signed by Sir Horace Mann on 11 June 1782), his honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen (3 February 1786), his becoming a United States citizen (24 July 1787), and his membership in the American Philosophical Society (17 January 1789).

Walter Minto Skelton (1804-48) and Family Papers:

The Skelton family papers, unlike the Walter Minto papers, consist of a great variety of materials: 43 letters, written between 1780 and 1940; a large body of prose writings and poetry, including 6 notebooks of prose and poetry, 20 orations, lectures, and essays, and 22 manuscripts of miscellaneous verse; one engraving, one drawing, one print, and four portrait photographs; 50 documents of various kinds; 14 printed materials and 3 newspaper clippings; and 58 items of miscellanea, including 7 notes, 18 invitations, and 24 round pieces of cloth with writing in ink.

The letters are divided into three groups based on the primary correspondent in each group: Mary Skelton Minto (from before 1780 to 1813, and possibly to 1824, the date of her death); Walter M. Skelton (from 1824 to 1843); and the Boyd family (from 1872 to 1940). All three groups of letters provide details about events in the lives of family members. In addition, the first group provides some chronology on the life of Marin Detargny, which is described in detail in the section below on documents. The second group contains some important Skelton family documents, especially the very difficult-to-read letter to Walter Skelton from his father Joseph dated 20 January 1825, and the one from his aunt Elizabeth White dated 22 March 1827. The third group of letters contains a mix of dates and correspondents, mainly regarding the extended Skelton families (especially the Boyds). Two letters in particular are revealing in their insights into the late 19th-century (and later) interest in spiritualism, or spiritism: the one from Edgar Ryder to Ann Skelton dated March 1872 announcing his belief that her brother Walter "is one of the Big Guns in the Spirit world"; and the one from Charles Robb to Elizabeth Boyd dated 12 January 1930 enclosing his transcript of a spirit message from her aunt Ann Skelton during a séance the previous day.

Following the letters are prose writings and poetry, divided into three groups. The first consists of manuscript notebooks containing one or the other or (usually) both genres, and is further divided into notebooks in Walter Skelton's own hand (3) and those in other hands (3). Except for "Elizabeth White's Collection of Poetry," all of these notebooks have Princeton connections, and a few have western Pennsylvania connections.

The second group contains orations, lectures, and essays, nearly all of which are in Skelton's hand and presumably composed by him. The dated ones are from his years at the College of New Jersey in Princeton, and most of the others must be as well. Public speaking was an integral part of the College curriculum, and some of the orations must have been delivered there during his student days (see especially the one dated July 1825).

The third group contains miscellaneous verse. A few of the poems are in Skelton's hand and may have been composed by him (3); the leaf containing the second poem has a few occurrences of the name "(Miss) C. Morford," who may have been a love interest of his. Most of the poems (19), however, are in other hands and range from well known ones like "Don't give up the Ship," Burns' "Auld Lang Syne," and Waller's "Of My Lady Isabella playing on the lute" to obscure ones, including a "Canzonetta" in Italian by Peruchini. Along with Elizabeth White's collection in the first group, these poems indicate a strong interest in poetry in Walter Skelton's extended family.

After a few miscellaneous illustrations and photographs are a large group of documents (certificates, wills, receipts, deeds of land sales, surveys, and the like), divided by the families to which they refer. Most of these families were from western Pennsylvania and related to the Skeltons (Boyd, Craig, McFarland) or were members of the Skelton family itself. The Franklin Heirs also relates to western Pennsylvania, for in January of 1840 Walter Skelton purchased two tracts of land, totaling 410 acres, on the west side of the Allegheny River in South Buffalo Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, which had been owned in the 1780's by Benjamin Franklin; Skelton presumably built a house on the property and lived there until his death in 1848, when it passed into the hands of his sister Ann Skelton. The Scudders were friends of the Skelton family in New Jersey, and the deed of sale described here was probably from a descendant of that family. The two White family documents refer to Elizabeth White, whose collection of poetry is described in Series II, sub-series 2 above and who lived in Scarsdale, New York; she was the sister of Walter Skelton's mother, Sarah White Skelton, wife of Joseph Skelton, Sr.

The most intriguing set of documents has to do with Marin Detargny. It is uncertain how his papers came to be included in the papers of the Mintos or of the extended Skelton family. Moreover, seven of the ten Detargny documents between 1796 and 1798 were in the Earhart donation; why or how they became separated from the rest of the Detargny documents is a mystery, especially since they are not so different from the other three of the same date. From the documents (and four letters referring to him) one learns that Marin Detargny was born in France on 26 June 1776, son of Jean Francois Detargny. He is twice called "homme de lettres," once "Professeur," and is later referred to as "Reverend." He remained in France until at least 1798, not leaving until 1800 or a little later. By December 1802 he was in Virginia, residing in Alexandria and trying to open a school, but at about the same time he must have moved to Annapolis, where he taught French until at least April 1804. Between November 1805 and August 1807 he was in Charleston, South Carolina, but by 1810 he was in Philadelphia and being looked after, at least financially, by Benjamin Hopkins (husband of Mary Skelton Minto's niece, Elizabeth, the daughter of Mary's brother Josiah). By early 1813, Detargny was destitute and was in danger of being sent to the overseers of the poor; his wife was also destitute and depended on "relatives" who could not afford to help her husband.

How the Skeltons and the Hopkinses came to know him, and especially how the Hopkinses came to be responsible for him, is unknown, though intriguing; sometime after 1807 (see undated letter from M. Chrystie to Mary Minto) a "Mrs. Ditennia" (probably Mrs. Detargny), who had been ill, visited Mary Minto in Princeton.

The next category consists of printed materials (a broadside; an interesting advertisement and list of fees for Mrs. Graham's school in New York from the early 19th century; two newspapers; some pamphlets and announcements; and three newspaper clippings about family events). The most numerous group is the pamphlets and announcements, which contains primarily the Proceedings of seven Boyd family reunions held in western Pennsylvania and Ohio between 1881 and 1892 (at least ten reunions through 1900, but no other Proceedings appear in the Skelton family papers). These Proceedings contain lists of the participants and attendees at the various reunions, along with biographies of some of the Boyds (including Walter Skelton Boyd [1864-92], who was named for his uncle, Walter Skelton, in the 7th Proceedings), and an in-depth study of some of these people might help to unravel the connections both among the Boyds and of the Boyds with the Craigs, Earharts, and McIntyres.

The final group consists of miscellaneous materials, including notes by Walter Skelton; invitations to parties, dances, and college exercises; a statement from students at the College of New Jersey directed to James Carnahan, president of the College; a notebook containing "By-Laws of ‘The Princeton Blues'," a militia group in Princeton whose captain in 1830-31 was Walter Skelton; a booklet of proverbs and common sayings in English and Spanish on facing pages; a series of primarily 20th-century family notes and lists about the contents of the second Minto-Skelton collection before it was given to the Clements Library; and some obscure pieces of cloth with writing on them. Three of the five notes written by Walter Skelton are presumably from his days at the College of New Jersey; a fourth is apparently a record of the books in his library; and the fifth is a unique list of "Provincialisms noticed in the Western part of Pennsylvania," which he must have recorded when he first went out to that part of the country in 1826. Fourteen of the eighteen invitations (some on the backs of playing cards) are addressed to one or more of the Skelton sisters requesting their attendance at parties, dances, and college exercises, and they attest to the active social life for young women in Princeton and environs in the 1780's.

The last item in the group of miscellaneous materials is a set of twenty-four round pieces of cloth with writing in ink on one side of twenty-two of them. The writing has various configurations: always the name of the writer and, in addition, occasionally the name of the addressee, usually a sentiment of some kind, and frequently a date and the home of the writer. The addressee, when given, is always Mary or Mary McFarland; the year, when given, is 1845, usually in October; the home addresses are nearly always somewhere in Indiana County or Armstrong County, Pennsylvania; and the writers are often relatives (five are Skeltons).

Biographical / Historical:

Walter Minto:

Walter Minto (1753-1796), noted mathematician and educator, was born in a village near Cowdenknows in the Merse district of Scotland (not far from Redpath in the former Berwickshire) on 6 December 1753. He was the oldest son of Walter Minto, Sr., and Agnes Waugh Minto, and brother of Thomas, Nanny, Agnes, and David, all of whom were living in Edinburgh by the early 1770's. Thomas's Uncle Robert Minto, a landowner in Jamaica, helped him secure a position there in the 1770's; he later owned his own plantation on the island. Minto's forebears were from Spain originally, but by the second half of the 18th century his immediate family was living in impoverished circumstances. Nevertheless, in 1768, when Minto was only 15, he was able to attend lectures at the University of Edinburgh, where, until 1771, he studied Latin, Logic, Natural Philosophy, Greek, and Moral Philosophy under various professors of arts and sciences, including Adam Ferguson and James Robertson. He must have suspended, or temporarily interrupted, his studies at the University, for between 1773 and the spring of 1775 he was a student of divinity living at the home of a Robert Watson in East Rhynd, near Abernethy in Perthshire. But by the fall of 1775 he was back at the University of Edinburgh studying Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric, and in early 1776 he received his diploma.

Minto had hoped to travel, and especially to visit Italy, but was financially unable to do so. When David Hume, whom he had met and studied with in Edinburgh, proposed that he become tutor to two young boys, who were soon to go to Italy to continue their education there, he eagerly accepted. The two boys were John and George Johnstone, sons of George Johnstone, Member of Parliament for Cockermouth, former Governor of West Florida (1764-67), and soon to go to America on a mission of conciliation (1778). Minto began his appointment in January of 1776 in Johnstone's London home and continued there until the end of May, when he and the boys left for Italy on the ship Westmoreland, traveling around Spain, via southern France, and then to the port of Livorno, arriving in Pisa in late August. Minto secured lodgings for the three of them in the home of Dr. Giuseppe Slop de Cadenberg, an associate of Tommaso Perelli, the Professor of Astronomy at the University of Pisa (Slop succeeding him in 1780). Slop's wife, Elisabetta Dodsworth, was the daughter of an English father and an Italian mother.

Minto remained in Pisa with the Slops from 1776 until 1778, following a rigorous schedule of instruction for the Johnstone boys as laid out by their father in advance of their leaving England. In the summer of 1778, however, John Johnstone became ill, as did Minto, and when Johnstone learned of this in October, he immediately wrote an intemperate letter to Minto, accusing him of being the cause of the illness for disobeying his orders for the boys, berating his behavior in general, and ordering him to bring the boys home immediately. By return mail, in a dignified letter, Minto disputed these accusations, but at the same time made arrangements for transport on the ship Westmoreland, Capt. Willis Machell, to London for the three of them, and in mid-December, they sailed from Livorno. Early in January of 1779, their ship was captured by a French man-of-war off the coast of Spain, and they were put ashore in Malaga, where they stayed in the English consul's house while the French were deciding about an exchange. In late February Minto and the boys were put at liberty in Cadiz, west of Malaga, and in early March he delivered the boys into the care of Captain Machell, with whom they sailed back to England. Minto then took a ship to Genoa, and ultimately back to the Slops' house in Pisa.

Back in Pisa, without the responsibility of the Johnstone boys, Minto began an intensive study of mathematics under the direction of Slop, which continued until mid-1782. During this period, in March of 1781, William Herschel announced his discovery of a new planet (later called Uranus), which was of great interest to Slop as an astronomer, but was also important to Minto, who later remarked that "the discovery of the new planet drew [his] attention to Astronomy." Minto began to record the observations of Herschel at Bath, Slop at Pisa, Nevil Maskelyne at Greenwich, and others in preparation for a book on the radii vectores and the shape of the orbit of the new planet. In 1782, after more than three years of concentrated study, which had "weakened" his "constitution," as he explained in a letter to his parents, he decided to return to Scotland. He left Pisa during the summer, traveling overland this time, via Switzerland, Germany, and the Low Countries to Ostend in Belgium, where he embarked in September, and arrived back in Scotland in October.

Upon his return, Minto must have immediately turned his attention to completing his book on the new planet, for in it he recorded the observations of John Robison, Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, from December 4, 1782, to January 23, 1783. The book itself was published shortly thereafter as Researches into some Parts of the Theory of the Planets in which is Solved the Problem, To determine the circular Orbit of a Planet by Two Observations; exemplified in the New Planet (London: C. Dilly, 1783), and was dedicated to Slop.

The years 1783 to 1786 were busy ones for Minto. He taught mathematics in Edinburgh, perhaps in a part-time capacity at the University. At least as early as 1784, he began to take an interest in emigrating to America, and he made plans to leave in 1785, but postponed his departure a few times before finally setting out in mid-1786. In 1784, he began a voluminous correspondence, leading to a love interest, with Catherine Drummond, daughter of John Drummond, 3rd Laird of Logie Almond of Perthshire, who also had a home in Edinburgh. This correspondence lasted several years, and in the spring of 1788, he proposed to her, but she declined.

His growing reputation as a mathematician came to the attention of David Stewart Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan, who asked him to collaborate on a book about John Napier, the discoverer of logarithms, with Buchan writing the biographical parts and Minto the scientific parts. The book was far enough along at the end of January 1786 for Buchan to show it to King George III, who voiced his approval. At the beginning of the next month, Minto was awarded an honorary LLD degree by the University of Aberdeen in recognition of his scientific publications. In early June he embarked for America from Greenock, Buchan and others having helped to smooth the way for his resettlement there by writing letters of recommendation and making contacts for him with a number of important Americans.

On his arrival in Philadelphia on August 1, Minto lodged in the home of Benjamin Rush. While in Philadelphia, he met Benjamin Franklin, and pursued various possible opportunities, one of which was the chair of mathematics at Washington College in Maryland, which apparently came to nothing. By December 1786, the Napier book was in press, and was published the following year as An Account of the Life, Writings, and Inventions of John Napier, of Merchiston; by David Stewart, Earl of Buchan, and Walter Minto L.L.D. (Perth: R. Morison, Jr., 1787). During the winter months of his first year in America (from late December 1786 to late February 1787) he spent his time in and around Albany, New York, staying with a fellow Scottish immigrant, the Rev. John McDonald. In March, he was involved in negotiations to become the Principal of Erasmus Hall in Flatbush, New York; he agreed to the trustees' terms and took up his appointment there in May. In late July he was naturalized as a United States citizen, and in late September he was offered the professorship of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at the College of New Jersey in Princeton (to succeed Ashbel Green, who had held the position since 1785). He was released from his contract at Erasmus Hall and took up residence in Princeton before the end of the year.

In late 1787, Minto began a peripatetic year and a half, after which he lived a settled life as a member of the College of New Jersey faculty, so far as one can judge from the extant documents and correspondence. During his first year, he gave his inaugural oration on the night before graduation, in late September 1788; it was printed before the end of the year as An Inaugural Oration, on the Progress and Importance of the Mathematical Sciences (Trenton: Isaac Collins, 1788). Immediately after graduation, the trustees of the College accepted his proposal that he relinquish five pounds of his salary to provide a medal to be given by the trustees and faculty for the best dissertation on one of two topics: "The unlawfulness & impolicy of capital punishment & the best method of reforming criminals & making them useful to society" and "The unlawfulness & impolicy of African slavery & the best means of abolishing it in the United States & promoting the happiness of free negroes." Before the end of Minto's first year, John Witherspoon, President of the College of New Jersey, remarked to Lord Buchan on the quality of his teaching and on his "amiable" participation in the life of both the College and the town of Princeton.

In January of 1789, Minto was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, with his certificate signed by Benjamin Franklin, David Rittenhouse, and others. In late September or early October, he married Mary Skelton of Princeton. Having no children of their own, they took students into their home as boarders (John Rush, son of Benjamin Rush, in 1792; Lewis or Philip Woofoin in 1793-94; his nephew Ennion Skelton; and others), who regarded Minto as a mentor.

In November 1792, Isaac Collins, a printer in Trenton, New Jersey, wrote to Minto giving him an estimate for printing a pamphlet containing his "Calculations." There is nothing in print that matches this description, but a mid-19th-century writer commented that "we have seen the manuscript of his Mathematical works, arranged and prepared by himself for publication." Whatever this manuscript was, it seems to have been lost. What does exist in the collection is a manuscript of Minto's lecture notes, divided into three parts (trigonometry, practical geometry, and conic), which was transcribed by a student in the junior class shortly after his death (1802).

From 1795 to 1796, Minto held the positions of both clerk of the Board of Trustees and treasurer of the College, responsible for receiving tuition fees and room rents, paying bills, and overseeing the College funds and investments. On October 21, 1796, after what was apparently an illness of at least nine months, Minto died, just short of 43 years of age, and was buried in the Princeton cemetery. His wife Mary outlived him (until 1824), but he seems not to have left her very well provided for financially, as evidenced by various bonds and repayment schedules made during the last two years of his life and by letters she received after his death. Shortly before he died, he purchased a slave named Toney, but freed him on the agreement that Toney would work for him for some six years. By this gesture he fulfilled the intent of one of the topics in his proposal of 1788: "The unlawfulness & impolicy of African slavery & the best means of abolishing it in the United States & promoting the happiness of free negroes."

Walter Minto Skelton (1804-48) and Family:

Walter Minto's wife was Mary Skelton, daughter of Joseph Skelton (1720-78), a merchant miller and owner of a number of properties on Stony Brook (a few miles southwest of Princeton, New Jersey, close to the location of the Battle of Princeton) and later (by 1774) judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Middlesex County, and his first wife, about whom nothing is known. Mary was probably born in the 1750's, and she and her family were Quakers. At the time she married Walter Minto (1789) she had five living siblings, all of whom appear in the Skelton family papers. The oldest was Josiah (1741-1821), who followed in his father's footsteps as a merchant miller and landowner, and who apparently paid off in 1798 one of the debts outstanding after Walter Minto's death. The other siblings, who must have been born in the 1740's and 1750's, were: Sarah; Elizabeth (b. ca. 1851), known as Betsey; Thomas; and Joseph, the youngest, who served as a 1st lieutenant in the Revolutionary War. The family probably moved to Princeton in the 1770's, when Skelton became judge, and by the 1780's Mary and Betsey, as unmarried women, were often invited to dances, exhibitions, orations, etc. by the gentlemen of the College of New Jersey. After Minto's death in 1796, Mary lived with her sister, Betsey, in Princeton, perhaps in the Skelton family home, and she followed in her husband's footsteps by freeing her own Negro slave Gitty in 1812. She died in late 1824, leaving all of her personal property and real estate to Betsey, with $100 to another sister, Sarah (by then married to Matthew Clark and living in Princeton), and $600 to a nephew, Walter Minto Skelton.

Walter Minto Skelton, the predominant figure in the Skelton family papers, was born on August 19, 1804, in New York, the son of Mary Minto's brother, Joseph Skelton (date of birth uncertain; dead by 1840 and probably buried in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania), and Sarah White Skelton (b. 1781; d. 1870 or later). Walter was named for his uncle, Walter Minto, and was the second oldest of at least seven children: the others were Elizabeth (b. 1803 in New York), Peter (b. 1805 in New York), Thomas (b. 1807 in New York), Mary (b. 1812 on Long Island; d. 1831 in Princeton), Ann (b. 1818 in "Conemaugh, Pennsylvania"), and Joseph (b. 1824 also in "Conemaugh").

Joseph and Sarah Skelton lived in New York, and struggled financially to support their family, so Walter was sent to live with his aunt Mary Minto and her unmarried sister, Betsey Skelton, in Princeton (from at least 1810). Walter matriculated as an undergraduate at the College of New Jersey in 1820, and he graduated in late 1825; he apparently studied law as well, but the circumstances of his apprenticeship are unknown. He must have continued to live with his aunt Betsey, after Mary's death in 1824, and he was the primary beneficiary of Betsey's estate, both her real property and most of her personal property, when she died in October 1826.

In early 1826, he traveled to western Pennsylvania, perhaps to visit his parents, with whom he had lost touch. His father Joseph Skelton was at the time working at the Conemaugh Salt Works, on the Conemaugh River in what is now southern Indiana County, a short distance upriver from the present-day Saltsburg. Joseph was probably employed by his brother Thomas, who established a well or wells there in 1816 and operated them until 1824, when they ceased to be profitable. At some point, Walter began to work at the Salt Works himself, and was apparently in partnership with his uncle by 1829. The wells were restarted in 1830, and from then until the mid-1840's were known as the Walter Skelton works. He seems to have returned to Princeton from time to time: in July 1826, when he delivered an a oration on the 4th in Cranbury, New Jersey; in July 1831, when he was captain (1830-31) of the Princeton Blues, a militia company of citizens of the town; and in the winter of 1832, when his brother Thomas went out to Conemaugh to relieve him at the Salt Works.

In January 1840, Walter purchased two tracts of land, totaling 410 acres, formerly owned by Benjamin Franklin on the Allegheny River in South Buffalo Township, Armstrong County, not far from the present McVille; he lived there with his mother Sarah Skelton and perhaps one or more of his siblings. He died in 1848, probably in June, leaving his property in thirds to his sister Ann, his brother Joseph, Jr., and in trust to his sister Ann for the use of his mother Sarah. He never married.

After Walter's death his youngest sister, Ann, as his main heir, is the Skelton family member who appears most frequently in the Skelton family papers, in leases, indentures, and other documents. In the 1850 census, she was living on the property she inherited from Walter, and she was still there in 1860 and 1880, but by 1900 had moved to Freeport, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. Her mother Sarah was living with her in 1850 and 1860, but by 1870 had moved to Bucks County, in eastern Pennsylvania, and was boarding in the home of Mahlon Scarborough. Ann, who never married, lived until 1906; she seems to have been a revered figure to her relatives, for her name appeared long after her death as the bearer of a "spirit" message to her niece Mary L. Boyd in 1930.

However, Walter's older sister Elizabeth was, in a sense, the most important remaining Skelton, for she, through her marriage and the marriage of one of her offspring, forged the connection to the other families that figure prominently in the Skelton family papers after 1822. In November of that year, living by then in western Pennsylvania, she married William McFarland. He, like Walter Skelton, was also a salt manufacturer on the Conemaugh River, a little farther upriver from the Skelton Works. The McFarland Works was founded in 1801, and William was active in the business from at least 1821 to 1838 (and possibly to 1846), and may have been a partner of Walter Skelton or his uncle Thomas for part of that time. The McFarlands had (at least) three children (Mary, Hannah, and George). Mary, the oldest, was born in 1823 and died unmarried in 1904; and George, probably the youngest, died in action in the Civil War in 1862.

The second daughter, Hannah P. McFarland (b. 1832; d. between 1906 and 1911), married William M[orison] Boyd (b. 1834; d. 1912) in 1860 and, through him and the Boyd family, extended the connection to the Craig, Earhart, and McIntyre families. They had their home in the vicinity of Slate Lick, Armstrong County. William was an insurance agent, and later a justice of the peace in Freeport, Armstrong County, and both he and his unmarried sister Lizzie frequently appear in the family papers from the late 19th century into the early 20th. Many Boyds lived in and around Freeport, especially in McVille and Slate Lick, and the extended family, which traced its roots in America to John and Mary Fulton Boyd, who emigrated from Ireland to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in 1772, held biennial conventions in western Pennsylvania and Ohio between 1881 (the first) and (at least) 1900 (the tenth). The origins of the Armstrong County Boyds are not entirely clear. The earliest recorded Boyd in the County was the Rev. John Boyd, the oldest of the nine children of John and Mary Fulton Boyd, who was pastor of the Slate Lick and Union Presbyterian churches from 1802 to 1809, but there were descendants of other original Boyd children in the County as well.

The connections both among the Boyds and with the Craig, Earhart, and McIntyre families have not been thoroughly unraveled. The oldest of William and Hannah Boyd's five children was Walter Skelton Boyd (1864-92), who was named for Hannah's uncle, Walter Skelton; another was Mary L. Boyd, who was William's only heir when he died in 1912, but it is unknown who the other siblings were, though they may be lurking among the attendees listed by name in the Proceedings of the various Boyd conventions (as may some of the Boyd names in what follows). The Craig family is connected through the marriage of Isabella Craig (daughter of John Craig of South Buffalo Township) and John Boyd circa 1840; this may have been the John Boyd who opened a store in McVille in 1864 and/or who was instrumental in erecting the Presbyterian church in Slate Lick in 1871-72. Isabella and John's children were James Boyd, Eliza Boyd, and Mary Boyd, and their grandchildren (James's children) were John C. Boyd and Jane Boyd. The Earhart family is connected through the sister (first name unknown) of William M. Boyd; she married an Earhart (perhaps a descendant of the Rev. David Earhart, pastor of the Lutheran church in South Buffalo Township in the 1840's and grandfather of Amelia Earhart). Her son was Harry B. Earhart, who lived in Ann Arbor and who gave the first collection of Minto papers in 1934, and her daughter must have been Marie Earhart White, who appears in the family correspondence between 1937 and 1940 (living in Ann Arbor by the latter date). The McIntyre connection is through Annie S. Boyd (antecedents uncertain; d. 1899), who between 1881 and 1888 married Frank F. McIntyre (d. 1949), a farmer in South Buffalo Township; they moved to Pittsburgh a few years after their marriage. Frank and Annie had two children, both born in the 1880's: Charles B[oyd] McIntyre and Helen B. McIntyre (never married; retired from school-teaching in the Pittsburgh area in 1956). The Jean McIntyre Conrad who gave the second collection of Minto-Skelton papers in 2004 is presumably a member of the same family, which would explain why she owned the papers.

Acquisition Information:
1934, 2005. M-211, M-4423 .
Custodial History:

The Minto papers were donated by Harry B. Earhart in 1934. These have been incorporated into the larger collection of Minto-Skelton family papers donated by Jean McIntyre Conrad in 2004.

Arrangement:
The Minto-Skelton papers are arranged in two series:
  • Series I: Walter Minto papers
    • Sub-series 1: Correspondence
    • Sub-series 2: Notebooks, Diaries, and Account Books
    • Sub-series 3: Notes
    • Sub-series 4: Documents
  • Series II: Walter Minto Skelton (1804-48) and Family
    • Sub-series 1: Correspondence
    • Sub-series 2: Prose Writings and Poetry
      • Notebooks
        • In WMS's hand
        • In other hands
      • Orations, Lectures, Essays
        • In WMS's hand
        • In other hands
      • Miscellaneous Verse
        • In WMS's hand
        • In other hands
    • Sub-series 3: Illustrations and Photographs
    • Sub-series 4: Documents
      • Boyd
      • Craig
      • Detargny
      • Franklin heirs
      • McFarland
      • Scudder
      • Skelton family
      • White
    • Sub-series 5: Printed Materials
    • Sub-series 6: Notes, Invitations, and Miscellanea
Rules or Conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

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The collection is open to research.

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PREFERRED CITATION:

Minto-Skelton Papers, William L. Clements Library, The University of Michigan

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Collection

Minto-Skelton papers, 1757-1956 (majority within 1770-1900)
Total components 615
Last indexed 2024-10-17