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The Bigelow Papers consist of twenty-eight letters, almost all of which were written by Lydia S. Bigelow Hathaway to her sister Elisa Wales Bigelow Page between 1839 and 1850. The letters are entirely personal in nature, covering a range of domestic and family topics.

The Bigelow Papers consist of twenty-eight letters, almost all of which were written by Lydia S. Bigelow Hathaway (1822-1850) to her sister Elisa Wales Bigelow Page (1815-1883) between 1839 and 1850. The earliest letters date from when Lydia was a seventeen year old student in Petersham, Mass., and and the correspondence continues irregularly into her married life in Lynn and Worcester, up to the year of her death in 1850. The letters are entirely personal in nature, covering a range of domestic and family topics.

The primary value of the collection is the portrait it provides of a young woman's life in mid-nineteenth-century New England, revolving around the varied regions of the domestic sphere. Cotillions, dressmaking, romance, church meetings, visiting, songfests, and pasttimes are the main subjects of Lydia's letters, all of which are discussed in her lively and entertaining prose. In one sense, her letters from school are disappointing, in that there is scant mention of her actual schooling, but on balance the letters present a fine depiction of the maturation of a young New Englander into her adult role as wife and mother.

Of special interest are Lydia's description of the financial depression at Templeton, Mass., following an industrial collapse in 1843 (letter 22) and her account of her bankruptcy in 1848, when her husband's business venture disintegrated, carrying with it several investors' money (letters 25-28). The last two items in the collection are a letter from Lydia's father to her mother, written on the day of Lydia's death, March 31, 1850; and one item from San Francisco, 1889, concerning Lydia's son and daughter in law.

The Phoenix family papers contain correspondence and documents relating to the firm Phoenix, Ingraham & Nixon and its failure in 1811, resulting in Alexander Phoenix's imprisonment for debt. They also include 11 letters from Harriet Beecher to Elizabeth Phoenix, dating to the late 1820s and 1830s.

The Phoenix family papers consist of 67 letters, 32 legal documents, 10 financial records and receipts, 2 drawings of land lots, and a printed bill. The materials span 1776-1884, though the bulk centers on the periods between 1808 and 1814, and 1826 and 1833. Early letters and documents relate primarily to the firm Phoenix, Ingraham, & Nixon. They include a letter from Alexander Hamilton to Nathaniel G. Ingraham, denying him financial assistance because of other obligations (March 5, 1801); the firm's articles of agreement (February 15, 1803); and 27 letters written by Nathaniel Ingraham to Alexander Phoenix concerning business acquaintances and hardships faced by the company, and its eventual bankruptcy (1810-1811). A document of October 11, 1811, gives a full account of the firm's losses.

Between November 1811 and March 1813, nearly all of the 20 letters and documents relate to attempts to free Phoenix from debtors' prison; his attorney, Silvanus Miller, wrote many of them. Also of interest is a manuscript, dated November 1811, containing copied extracts from letters by Phoenix during his imprisonment. In several of the letters, he criticized Albert Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury, and discussed other political matters. A copy of a congressional act of March 3, 1813, documents the release of Phoenix and several associates.

Of note is a series of 11 letters written to Phoenix's daughter, Elizabeth, by a young Harriet Beecher in the late 1820s and early 1830s. Many of the letters are undated, but can be traced to this period based on their postmarks. Beecher and Phoenix had been schoolmates at Hartford Female Seminary around 1823, and in her letters, Beecher frequently reminisced about their time at the school, including how strange she must have seemed to the other girls, and discussed mutual friends. Much of Beecher's correspondence is very introspective in nature, and consists of her religious and philosophical thoughts, including a recommendation that Phoenix read the works of Joseph Butler in order to develop her argumentation. Several of the later letters include postscripts written by Catharine Beecher, Elizabeth's teacher in Hartford. A letter of June 11, 1833, mentions their plans to open a "small school" in Cincinnati, where they had moved with their father, Lyman Beecher. Overall, the letters shed light on Harriet Beecher's intellectual and religious development during her young adulthood.

Several items postdate 1836; two of these relate to the estates of Alexander Phoenix and Shearjushub Bourne, a relative of Edgar Ketchum. Two other documents, located in the "Miscellany" series, illustrate land lots.