Dwight-Willard-Alden-Allen-Freeman family papers, 1752-1937

Summary

Creator:

Freeman, Marilla W., 1870-1961

Abstract:

This collection is made up of the papers of five generations of the Dwight, Willard, Alden, Allen, and Freeman families of the East Coast and (later) U.S. Midwest, between 1752 and 1937. Around 3/4 of the collection is incoming and outgoing correspondence of family members, friends, and colleagues. The primary persons represented are Lydia Dwight of Massachusetts and her husband John Willard, who served in the French and Indian War; Connecticut mother Abigail Willard along with her husband Samuel Alden, who ran an apothecary in Hanover, New Jersey; Allen Female Seminary School alumna and teacher Sarah J. Allen; American Civil War surgeon Otis Russell Freeman; Presbyterian minister and temperance advocate Rev. Samuel Alden Freeman; and prominent public librarian Marilla Waite Freeman. The papers also include diaries and journals, writings, school certificates, military and ecclesiastical documents, photographs, newspaper clippings, advertisements, business and name cards, invitations to events, and brochures for plays and other performances.

Extent:

2,910 items (11 linear feet)

Language:

English

Authors:

Collection processed and finding aid created by Isaac Burgdorf and Cheney J. Schopieray, 2022

Background

Scope and Content:

This collection is made up of the papers of five generations of the Dwight, Willard, Alden, Allen, and Freeman families of the East Coast and (later) U.S. Midwest, between 1752 and 1937. Around 3/4 of the collection is incoming and outgoing correspondence of family members, friends, and colleagues. The primary persons represented are Lydia Dwight of Massachusetts and her husband John Willard, who served in the French and Indian War; Connecticut mother Abigail Willard along with her husband Samuel Alden, who ran an apothecary in Hanover, New Jersey; Allen Female Seminary School alumna and teacher Sarah J. Allen; American Civil War surgeon Otis Russell Freeman; Presbyterian minister and temperance advocate Rev. Samuel Alden Freeman; and prominent public librarian Marilla Waite Freeman. The papers also include diaries and journals, writings, school certificates, military and ecclesiastical documents, photographs, newspaper clippings, advertisements, business and name cards, invitations to events, and brochures for plays and other performances.

The collection is arranged first by family grouping, then by material type. These series roughly reflect the arrangement of the collection when it arrived at the William L. Clements Library.

The Dwight-Willard-Alden Family Papers are comprised of around 250 items, dating between 1752 and 1884. One fifth or so of this grouping is predominantly correspondence between Lydia Dwight/Lydia Dwight Willard, her father, stepmother, siblings, husband, and sons, 1752-1791. These intermarried families were based largely in Sheffield and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The letters include discussions about mending and cleaning clothing; feelings about their father/husband gone to serve in the French and Indian War; putting up a monument to replace faltering graves; the return of Elijah and Col. Williams from the field on account of sickness; coming and going of soldiers; moral and practical advice; teaching and boarding young students during the war; settling into (“no longer free”) married life; the death of Bathsheba Dwight; the meeting of local men in private homes and the training of minute men in Stockbridge; the prolonged case of smallpox experienced by Lydia’s son in 1785; and news of John Willard, Jr.’s admission to Harvard.

The remaining four fifths of this grouping are largely incoming correspondence of Abigail Willard Alden (1771-1832) and her daughter Abigail Alden (1809-1854). Their correspondents were located in Stafford, Connecticut; Hanover and Lancaster, New Hampshire; Lunenburg, Vermont; and elsewhere. They begin with letters from siblings and parents to the newly married Abigail Willard Alden (ca. 1800); Samuel Alden travel letters to New York City; and news of a Stafford doctor named Chandler who had promised marriage to a woman and then fleeced her for $500 before fleeing to parts unknown. A group of letters regard pharmacy matters, the burning of Samuel Willard’s drugstore (January-April 1802), and the state of Anti-Federalists and Federalists in Stafford (1802). A large portion the letters include content on sickness and health, with varying degrees of detail, including several family members sick and dying from measles in 1803. Other topics include Hanover, New Hampshire, gossip on local premarital sex; a debate on whether or not to hire a black female domestic laborer; comments on a local suicide attempt; a young woman deliberating on objections to women spending time reading novels (April 10, 1806); and treatment by a quack doctor. These papers also include two diaries, poetry and essays, two silhouettes, genealogical manuscripts, and miscellaneous printed items.

The Allen Family Papers are largely incoming letters to Sarah Jane Allen prior to her marriage to Samuel A. Freeman (around 300 items), and from her father-in-law Otis Russell Freeman (around 60 items) between 1860 and 1865. An abundance of the letters were written to Sarah while she attended the Allen Female Seminary in Rochester, New York, and afterward when she lived at Honeoye Falls, New York. They include letters from her parents, cousins, friends, and siblings. A sampling suggests that the bulk are letters by young women attempting to eke out a life for themselves through seminary education, teaching, and domestic labor. Among much else, they include content on Elmira Female Seminary, New York state travel, and female friendship and support.

The Otis Russell Freeman letters date between 1862 and 1865, while he served as a surgeon in the 10th and 14th Regiment, New Jersey Volunteers. He wrote about the everyday camp life with a focus on the health and sickness of the soldiers. His letters include content on the defenses of Washington, D.C., fighting at Cold Harbor and outside Richmond, Virginia, the surrender of Robert E. Lee, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln's body lying in state at Jersey City. Two carte-de-visite photographs of Otis Freeman are present.

A diary kept by Sarah J. Allen began on the day of her marriage, September 26, 1865, documents her honeymoon to Niagara Falls. It ends in November 1865. The remainder of the volume is filled with recipes for baked goods, pickles, and other foods. The printed items include ephemera from Sarah Jane Allen’s tenure at Elmira Female College five issues of the Callisophia Society’s newspaper The Callisophia (vol. 1, nos. 1, 3-6; March/April 1860-January/February 1861), as well as a Catalogue of Books in Callisophia Library, December 1862.

The Samuel Alden Freeman Family Papers include approximately 300 largely incoming letters to Presbyterian minister S. A. Freeman, plus printed materials, ephemera, photographs, and bound volumes, dating in the 1810s and from the 1860s to 1880s. Correspondence of his second wife Olive dates from the 1810s in central New York. The collection includes letters to S. A. Freeman from his first wife Sarah, daughter Abigail Alden Freeman (1873-1925), and Sara Harriet Freeman (1879-1946). These materials include courtship correspondence of Sarah Jane Allen and S. A. Freeman. A considerable portion relates to Presbyterianism and at least one temperance society pledge sheet is present. Approximately 50 photographs, about half of them identified, are largely of Samuel A. Freeman and the Freeman daughters Marilla and Abigail. Among the printed ephemeral items are advertisements for programming at Corinthian Hall (probably Rochester, New York), items related to a Sunday School Association (including a printed broadside catalog of books at a N.J. Sunday School), and pamphlets on Presbyterianism. A medicinal recipe book from the mid-19th century and a commonplace book of poetry are examples of the S. A. Freeman family bound volumes.

The collection concludes with letters, photographs, ephemera, and printed items comprising the Marilla Waite Freeman Papers. Around 600 letters are largely incoming to public librarian M. W. Freeman from female educators and librarians. They discussed their profession, books, reading, and intellectual topics. A small clutch of letters, about three dozen manuscript and typed poems, and a dozen or more newspaper clippings, 1900s-1910s, comprise poet Floyd Dell’s contributions to the collection. Marilla also corresponded with poets and writers Margaret Todd Ritter, Robert Frost and Mrs. Frost, and Marie Bullock about public and private recitations and lectures. Examples of subjects covered by the printed materials include orations, educational/school/college items, library-related items, newspapers and clippings, fliers, women's clubs, New York City theater, the American Library Association, Poetry Society of America, poems by various authors, such as Ina Robert and John Belknap, visiting and business cards, and travel.

Biographical / Historical:

Lydia Dwight was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on January 14, 1732, to parents Joseph Dwight (1703-1765) and Mary Pynchon Dwight. Lydia grew up in Worcester County, Massachusetts, and married Congregational minister Dr. John Willard (1733-1807) of Stafford, Connecticut. Lydia and John had several children, including John Willard, Jr. (1759-1826), a Yale graduate who became a minister and relocated from Connecticut to Lunenburg, Vermont, around 1803; and Abigail Willard (1771-1832), who married Harvard graduate Dr. Samuel Alden in 1800. After marriage, she moved to Hanover, New Hampshire, where her husband operated an apothecary.

Samuel and Abigail Willard Alden had one daughter, named Abigail Alden (1809-1854). The younger Abigail married Otis Russell Freeman (1809-1902), who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. From: Military Record of the Sons of Dartmouth in the Union Army and Navy, 1861-1865 (Boston, Mass.: Trustees of the College, 1907): 20-21. "Otis Russell Freeman, D.M.C.: Was commissioned surgeon Tenth Regiment New Jersey Volunteers April 14, 1862; was stationed at Washington, D. C., until April 1863, then ordered to Suffolk, Va., by the regiment attached to Corcoran's brigade. During the enforcement of the draft the regiment was on duty in Philadelphia, where Dr. Freeman served as chief medical officer. During the Antietam campaign was under the orders of General Geary, as surgeon-in-chief of the brigade. From December, 1863, to March 1864, had charge of the surgeons stationed in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. In March 1864, was remustered as a veteran and sent to the front, where he was assigned to the First Brigade, First Division, Sixth Army Corps, and was continuously serving in the field hospital and the ambulance corps from the battles of the Wilderness to the front of Petersburg in the summer of 1864. About July 1 of that year was made chief medical officer First Brigade, First Division, Sixth Army Corps. Soon after was ordered to Washington and the Shenandoah Valley and was present at all the battles under General Sheridan until December 1864, then ordered to the front at Petersburg, and was on duty there until the surrender of General Lee. Mustered out of service July 1, 1865."

Abigail Alden Freeman had four children, including Samuel Alden Freeman (1838-1924). S. A. Freeman became a Presbyterian minister, marrying Sarah Jane Allen (1839-1880) in 1865. The couple moved to Squan Village [Manasquan], New Jersey, and remained there until he secured a ministry at the Presbyterian Church in Honeoye Falls, New York, in 1869. According to a description by the previous owner of these family papers, Sarah Jane Allen "was born in Springwater, New York, on September 26, 1839. Two years after her birth, her parents returned to Honeoye Falls, New York, their former residence. At age 10, Allen attended the school of Rev. Charles Kittredge in Greece, New York. At 14, she entered the Allen Female Seminary conducted by Mary B. Allen . . . at Rochester, New York. Sarah Jane Allen eventually became a teacher at the Allen Female Seminary. She also attended Elmira Female College, graduating in 1861. She taught at the Allen Female Seminary until her marriage to . . . Samuel Alden Freeman. . . . Sarah Jane Allen died at age 42 on December 26, 1880." Samuel A. Freeman then married Olive Williams, in 1882. They moved to Naperville, Illinois, then back to western New York at Lyndonville and Westernville. Rev. Samuel A. Freeman died on June 1, 1924.

Samuel A. and Sarah J. Freeman had at least four children, including Marilla Waite Freeman (1870/71-1961). Marilla Freeman attended the University of Chicago and began work at the University's library as a student. After graduation, she became Library Assistant at the Newberry Library (Chicago). She sought further education in library work, then became a public librarian. She was director or department head at the Davenport Public Library (Iowa), Louisville Free Public Library (Kentucky), Free Public Library of Newark (New Jersey), and a base hospital library at Camp Dix (N.J.) during World War I. She then took a position at the Goodwyn Institute Library in Memphis, Tennessee, earned a law degree from the University of Memphis, passed the bar in that state, and went to work in the Harvard Law Library in the early 1920s.

Marilla Freeman spent the bulk of her career working for the Cleveland Public Library in Ohio. Between 1922 and 1940, she was Head Librarian, during which time she led numerous changes and additions to library departments, increased usage, connected the library with external partners, brought in high profile poets for readings, published articles in magazines and newspapers, and worked with community organizations on education projects and outreach. She was member of many professional organizations, particularly the American Library Association (for which she served as first Vice President in 1923-24), the Ohio Library Association, and Poetry Society of America. Freeman moved to New York after retirement from the Cleveland Public Library and worked at the St. Joseph Tuberculosis Hospital in the Bronx. She died on October 29, 1961, and is buried in her hometown of Honeoye, New York.

Acquisition Information:

2021. M-7244 .

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged first by family grouping, then by material type. These series roughly reflect the arrangement of the collection when it arrived at the William L. Clements Library.

• Dwight-Willard-Alden Family Papers
  • Correspondence (chronological)
  • Account Book
• Allen Family Papers
  • Correspondence (chronological and bundled)
  • Journal, Family Record, and Account Book
  • Writings
  • Photographs
  • Printed Items and Ephemera
• Samuel Alden Freeman Family Papers
  • Correspondence (chronological and bundled)
  • Writings and Documents
  • Photographs, Silhouettes, and Cutouts
  • Education-Related Items, Printed Items, and Ephemera
• Marilla Freeman Papers
  • Correspondence (chronological and bundled)
  • Writings, Account Book, and Notes
  • Printed Items
  • Books and Pamphlets
  • Education-Related Items, Newspaper Clippings, and Ephemera

Rules or Conventions:

Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Related

Additional Descriptive Data:

Related Materials

The William L. Clements Library also holds the Joseph Dwight Collection, 1734-1762, military papers of a Massachusetts lawyer who was a brigadier general during King George's War. Joseph Dwight was father of Lydia Dwight (1732-1798).

Subjects

Click on terms below to find any related finding aids on this site.

Subjects:

Books and reading.
Children--United States.
Clergy--United States.
Congregationalists.
Courtship.
Drugstores.
Education--History--18th century.
Education--History--19th century.
Education, Higher.
Father and child.
Female friendship.
Marriage.
Measles--United States--History--19th century.
Mother and child.
Poets.
Presbyterianism--United States--History--19th century.
Presbyterians.
Public librarians--United States.
Public libraries.
Seven Years' War, 1756-1763.
Smallpox--United States--History--18th century.
Stepparents.
Women poets.
Women teachers--History--18th century.
Women teachers--History--19th century.
Women writers.

Formats:

Advertisements.
Books.
Business cards.
Cartes-de-visite (card photographs)
Clippings (information artifacts)
Cookbooks.
Diaries.
Fliers (printed matter)
Genealogies (histories)
Invitations.
Letters (correspondence)
Newspapers.
Pamphlets.
Periodicals.
Photographs.
Programs (documents)
Recipes.
Silhouettes.
Speeches (documents)
Visiting cards.
Writings (documents)

Names:

American Library Association.
Cleveland Public Library--History.
Elmira Female College.
United States. Army. New Jersey Infantry Regiment, 10th (1861-1865)
United States. Army. New Jersey Infantry Regiment, 14th (1862-1865)
United States. Army--Surgeons.
Alden family.
Allen family.
Dwight family.
Willard family.
Freeman family.
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865--Assassination.
Freeman, Marilla Waite, 1870-1961.
Freeman, Otis Russell, 1809-1902.
Alden, Abigail W., 1809-1854.
Alden, Samuel, 1768-1842.
Allen, Mary B.
Bullock, Marie, 1911-1986.
Dell, Floyd, 1887-1969.
Dwight, Joseph, 1703-1765.
Dwight, Lydia, 1732-1798.
Freeman, Samuel Alden, 1838-1924.
Freeman, Sara Harriet, 1879-1946.
Freeman, Sarah Jane Allen, 1839-1880.
Frost, Robert, 1874-1963.
Hilton, James, 1900-1954.
Willard, Abigail, 1771-1832.
Willard, John, 1733-1807.
Williams, Olive S., 1845-1931.

Places:

Cleveland (Ohio)
Hanover (N.H.)
Honeoye (N.Y.)
Lancaster (N.H.)
Lunenburg (Vt.)
New York (State)--Description and travel.
Sheffield (Mass.)
Stafford (Conn.)
Stockbridge (Mass.)
United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Health aspects.
United States--History--French and Indian War, 1754-1763.
United States--Politics and government--1783-1865.
United States--Politics and government--1865-1933.