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The Baker-Taintor papers consist of correspondence and other papers of Colonel Rufus Baker, U.S. Army ordnance officer, and his father-in-law, Charles Taintor, revenue collector and postmaster of Windham, Connecticut.

The Baker-Taintor papers (1,080 items) consist of the letters and documents of Colonel Rufus Baker, U.S. Army ordnance officer, and his father-in-law, Charles Taintor, revenue collector and postmaster of Windham, Connecticut. The collection contains 1,041 letters and documents, 37 financial records and receipts, and 2 miscellaneous items.

Many of the Taintor papers, which comprise the bulk of the early years of the collection, are business letters discussing payments and receipts to the state. Taintor correspondence trails off in the 1830s and his last contribution is from 1837. Also in the collection are a few 1812 letters addressed to George Abbe and Charles Abbe, likely relatives of Taintor’s wife Mary.

The first Baker letter is from 1814, but the majority of his correspondence date from after 1818. Baker's papers concern military matters, including changes in command at various posts, arsenal requests for supplies, exploratory expeditions in Florida and along the Mississippi, the war with Mexico, and problems with recruiting. Several ordnance lists are included. A letter from March 28, 1818, discusses establishing a new arsenal in Detroit and offers Baker the opportunity to be stationed there for its planning. Of interest is a letter from General Pratt, dated November 16, 1864, in which he discusses the Lincoln administration and the handling of the North-South dispute. Also of note is an 1838 letter from his son Charles at West Point, along with the rare return letter from Baker.

The bulk of the Financial Records and Receipts series are receipts of payments from Baker through the American Exchange Bank and the Importers and Traders’ National Bank; the receipts do not specify what the transactions were for. Of interest in this series are a number of itemized lists of tools, received by the Watervliet Arsenal between 1848 and 1851, that were used in an audit in 1853.

Collection of research materials on Michigan topics, mostly photocopies, notes, drafts of articles, and correspondence.

The collection consists mostly of photocopies of newspaper articles, magazine articles, information from websites, the Congressional Record, and chapters from reference and other books, on topics of interest to Barnett. Also included are his correspondence and email to various institutions and people asking for information and material, his notes, and typed articles he wrote on various topics. Topics documented in depth include: Ash, Center Line, John Farmer, Upper Peninsula railroads, Magnet Truck, Michigan railroads, the Mackinac Bridge, music and singers who sang songs about Michigan and or cars, the longstanding oleo versus margarine debates and laws, Michigan Central Railroad Co. Head Lights (a publication), Michigan jazz, traffic lights, with biographical materials on W.L. Potts, and Detroit, Mackinac and Marquette Railroad Co. maps (oversized transparencies). The materials (photocopies)on Headlights or Headlight Flashes includes: an advertising publication of the Company, which describes the comfort of traveling via the Company's trains and provides city histories with biographies of important families and individuals, as well as photographs of those people, expensive homes, businesses, public buildings, and pastoral scenes. Towns described include: Michigan City (Ind.), 1894; and the Mich. cities of: Albion, 1895; Pontiac, 1897; Benton Harbor and Flint, 1896; and Saint Joseph, 1898. Also included are microfilmed newspaper articles (photocopies), in which the Headlights of various cities were advertised, 1895-1896 and 1941, and 1997-2000 typed transcripts of other similar newspaper advertisements, 1895-1898. Additional subjects include: Agricultural Demonstration Trains of Michigan State University, 1906-1937; buying Michigan, 1795-1796; counties, name changes/considered creation of new counties; the history of county names; dandelions [as an emergency source of post-World War II rubber]; highway lighthouses [precursors to traffic lights]; lynchings; prisoners building Michigan roads during the 1920s; reflectors (roadside); roadside parks [Michigan had the first]; stagecoaches; broadcasting; homestead lands; Hollywood; the Port Huron and Milwaukee Railroad; Sabbath blue laws; Ludington (Mich.); swamp lands; centroids; Iron Range and Huron Bay Rialroad; ferries; population centers; Oldsmar, Florida; David Ward, Deward (Mich.); the Detroit and Charlevoix Railroad Company; Cigar Industry in Detroit, including strikes, unions, and women employees; Cigar Store Indians; crops of Flax and Gingseng and flax industries in Michigan prisons; Michigan Indians mentioned in county histories; Michigan Road Construction Train; Michigan World War I fruit and olive pit gathering campaign to create gas masks; Ragweed and hay fever and the Northern Hay Fever Resort Association, Topinabee, and the Western Hay Fever Association of the U.S., headquartered in Petoskey; General Philip H. Sheridan 's warhorse Rienzi; St. Mary's Falls Ship Canal Company and its subsidiary units, the Canal Mineral Land Company and the Michigan Pine Land Association; and Windmills in Detroit. Also included is a draft of a book by Graydon M. Meints on lumber baron David Ward that Barnett reviewed. The major topics found in 2021 Addition, Boxes 63-75, include: American Tract Society, Bloomers, Colporteur, Graphite Mining in Michigan, Medical Quacks, Michigan Iron and Land Company, Samuel Geil Maps of Michigan, and Whipping (Military corporal punishment). The 2022 Addition, Boxes 76-79, includes the major topics of Vigilance Committees against German Americans during World War I and Ski Trains. Other topics include: Buffalo Bill Train Accident, Carbon Works in Detroit, Detroit’s Streetlight Towers, Grand Duke Alexis A Romanov Visits Detroit, ‘Hello Girls’ [U.S. Army Signal Corps, World War I], Lindbergh in Michigan, Michigan World War II Veterans Bonus, Wetzel (Antrim County, MI, village), Bomb Mackinaw (which were 1925 practice maneuver plans to prevent enemies from crossing into the straits by dropping bombs from airplanes), and Crawfish. The collection is ongoing.

Processing Note: Abbreviations used by Barnett on folder labels were used and copied by Clarke processors exactly. Acidic materials were copied in 2014.

Eliza O. Perkins Burke's letters and papers document the life of a military officer's wife before and during the Civil War, and her friendships with fellow military wives.

Most of these letters are addressed to Eliza Perkins Burke, excepting a handful written to Mary, an invitation to Capt. Perkins to play billiards, and a certificate of merit presented to Edward while he was at St. Louis University. This is a scattered, spotty correspondence, but there are a couple cohering elements. Many of the women writing to Eliza were also married to military men. They had become friends on Sullivan's Island, while their husbands, many of whom were in the 3rd Artillery, were stationed at Fort Moultrie in the 1830s and early 1840s. The Civil War is another theme around which several of these letters cluster, although only one letter is from an actual soldier. The other coherent grouping is a series of six letters from Rosalie Smith, who was trying to obtain a divorce and chafing under the necessity of depending on her sister's husband for financial support.

The letters from fellow military wives show how close the women had become while together on the island, and there is a sense, especially during and after the Civil War, that these friendships were doubly valuable because they reminded the women of better times. Many of the wives did not see each other again after leaving Fort Moultrie, or only enjoyed infrequent visits. Although they only wrote to each other occasionally, they expressed great nostalgia for the time shared on Sullivan's Island. Often a milestone -- birth, death, or wedding -- prompted the letter, and the author often described her children's progress.

Judith Chiffelle, who had probably been on Sullivan's Island with her brother Thomas, was an anomaly. While the rest of the women were married to military men, Judith was single. She taught school in Baltimore and was raising her dead sister's children while their father ran his business in St. Louis. She wrote, "this I know will astonish you. I like to be an independent old maid, I will never marry. I have taken an oath to live single for my dear childrens' sake" (1854 December 17). Two years later her tone is less triumphant: "what a change a few years make in our life -- I struggling along trying to make a living hard work & keeping school " (1857 February 2). She admits that she would "long ago have laid down this weary head" had it not been for the children.

The Civil War era letters include one from Caroline Carson, a southern woman who suffered multiple hardships. Her husband died, "the plantation was sold according to his directions," and then her father's house, where she had stored her possessions, was burned: "Everything I had in the world was burnt up -- Books and pictures, china, glass linen all my little effects which I valued, and hoped someday to get around me again" (1862 February 4). "I hope in this horrid war no thing of the kind will happen to you," she continued. Another letter, from a northern lady, shows the less direct effect the war had on women who were not in the midst of the fighting. Rather than wondering where to live, Annie Eustace pondered what to wear: "in this time of our country's great troubles, we should think of something else, beside dress and party giving . . . I spend very little time and thought about fine dress, and making a show; I have lost all taste for such things (1862 May 6). There is also one letter from Eliza's soldiering nephew David P. Hancock while he was at Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York, recovering from a wound and anxious to get back to the field (1862 May 12).

The other clutch of letters is certainly the most intriguing one. Rosalie Smith was living, along with her mother, at her sister Ann Eustace's house in Dixon, Illinois. Rosalie bridled at having to depend on Judge Eustace, whose wealth had been severely reduced by the depression of 1857, but she saw no alternative until her brother Joe returned from Mexico with funds. In response to Eliza's suggestion that she get married, Rosalie wrote, rather obliquely, "this would be a long story and probably uninteresting on paper, but should I ever see you, I will give you some of my reasons for remaining in 'meditation free'" (1859 November 30). By the next year, Rosalie's reasons for resisting her reliance on her brother-in-law had increased: "Judge Eustace's relatives have always annoyed me by reports of our entire dependence on him, making things at times, very disagreeable to all" (1860 October 27). This letter also alludes to a Mr. Sheridan, who was apparently Rosalie's husband, whom she now wished to divorce. She was worried that he would "use every effort to annoy, and keep me bound; money only, will be the great lever by which it can be accomplished." She moved to Chicago with her sister's family, and she happily discovered that "a residence of two years, will grant me a divorce, provided Sheridan does not make application to live with or support me; so on this account too, I am anxious to keep quiet, that he may not know where I am, to molest me" (1860 December 3).

The William Tell Claude manuscript contains all of Claude's editorial columns written between December, 1846 and June, 1849, probably for the Maryland Republican.

The William Tell Claude manuscript contains all of Claude's editorial columns written between December, 1846 and June, 1849, probably for the Maryland Republican. As a deeply committed and tireless publicist, Claude launched a series of front door and back door attacks on the Democratic opposition, criticizing the Democratic war in Mexico and smearing the names of Democratic candidates for office.

The origins of the manuscript are unclear, but it appears to have been compiled at a later date, possibly simply to be retained for convenient reference, possibly for separate publication. Only one work of Claude's appears to found its way into print as a separate work, however, his war-time Address to the people of Anne Arundel County (1861).

This volume is an account of thirteen '49ers traveling from New England to California during the gold rush. Comstock describes their journey from New York, on the brig Empire, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, and from there overland through Mexico City to San Blas on the Pacific; for the last leg, they sailed to San Francisco. When they arrived in California, they went up the San Joaquin River to Stockton and Merced.

This volume records the daily experiences of Comstock's group as they travelled to California, styling themselves the G. M. Speculating Club. The group went by stage to Troy, then by railroad to New York. There they elected officers and purchased equipment (at inflated prices), which they shipped on a schooner headed around the Cape. On February 18, 1849, they left on the Brig Empire, along with 53 others, 30 men to a cabin, to sail for 22 days to Vera Cruz. Along the way they experienced storms and sea-sickness. On February 27, he wrote, “No tongue can express, no language can portray the awful sublimity of a Thunder storm at sea[;] none but those who have witnessed can realize or even imagine its grandeur.”

Upon arrival in Mexico on March 12, they purchased a wagon, horses, and mules for their trek. Parties of as many as 47 men were departing almost daily. Along the route they encountered cemeteries and battlefields of the Mexican War, which had ended the previous year. They encountered resentful, larcenous people and endured sand fleas and hunger on their 46-day trek. Comstock estimates their distance at 469 miles.

After selling their few remaining horses and mules for a quarter of the purchase price, they embarked for San Francisco on April 29, on the schooner Jacklin, along with 30 or 40 others. Once at sea, they discovered that the Captain had overloaded his ship, and that the food and sleeping accommodations were not sufficient; Comstock remarked that the cooks were terrible. Beset by headwinds and calms, the brig took 32 days to reach San Francisco, by which time the passengers were limited to a pint of water per day and nothing to eat but bread, beans, and rice. At one point the captain so feared mutiny that he tried, unsuccessfully, to sequester all of the passengers’ arms.

San Francisco was teeming with men from all over the world, who arrived daily by the hundreds. The group changed their original plans to sail up the Sacramento River, and instead went up the San Joaquin on a schooner of the same name. On board were several deserters from the Navy. "Deserters are frequent, the Gold Mania having spread among the sailors & causing many of them to leave their $16 per month on Gov vessels and seek their fortunes at mines among scores of other adventurers” (June 11, 1849). The ship had to be “warped,” by placing the anchor forward in a small boat and pulling the ship up to it for miles, but on June 14 they arrived at Stockton, a town of several hundred people, most of whom slept in tents. From there they proceeded in three groups by stage and on horseback for 80 miles to get to the “diggings,” where they worked in two shifts, but only placer-mined a disappointing $10 a day in gold flakes.

They soon dissolved the organization, when one member decided to return to San Francisco. Comstock and a few others were exploring the Merced River when Sherman took an early-morning bath in the stream, slipped on moss-covered rocks into deeper water, and drowned. They buried him near the camp.

Pension papers and other materials concerning his military service; also letter from Lieutenant Charles D. Todd (located near Blaines Cross Roads, Tenn.) about sending Comstock's body home to Adrian, Michigan, from Knoxville, Tennessee, and miscellaneous papers of Lucia Comstock.

The Richard Coulter journal is a lengthy, detailed account of the experiences of a private soldier participating in the American invasion of Mexico, 1846-1848.

The Richard Coulter journal is a lengthy, detailed account of the experiences of a private soldier participating in the American invasion of Mexico, 1846-1848. Educated, observant and possessing a biting wit, Coulter has left an unusually insightful document, which he attempted to make as comprehensive as possible. He took great pains to describe all aspects of a soldier's life during the war, from mustering in to life in the camps, interactions with Mexican civilians, descriptions of the cities and countryside, the battles and their aftermath, strategy, morale, and attitudes. His particular disdain for Generals John W. Geary and Thomas Childs reaches a level of vitriol seldom seen, and often borders on the comic.

The original of the Coulter journal is now lost. It appears likely that this typescript was prepared in the 1930s or 40s for Richard Coulter, Jr.

This collection holds the family and business papers of George Croghan, a hero in the War of 1812 and the inspector general of New Orleans from 1825-1845.

The Correspondence series holds the family and business papers of George Croghan. The earliest item is a brief letter from Christopher Clark to Francis Meriwether, May 26, 1794, regarding land. The items from 1814 to 1840 are primarily official missives to Croghan, when he served in military and governmental capacities as a major, postmaster, and inspector general. These concern enlistments, operational expenses, and debts. Beginning in 1837, many of the letters are addressed to George's brother, Dr. John Croghan, including 27 letters written by George. Another personal item is a brief letter from Croghan to his mother, dated 1837.

The Documents and Financial records series consists primarily of Croghan family land purchases and transactions in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. An item from May 28, 1817, contains a small map of a plot of Kentucky land being sold. Other documents include receipts for baggage transportation; an account for the income and expenses of the New Orleans Post office, dated 1825; and a number of debtors’ notes and bank receipts that document his money problems from 1825 until his death.

The Printed Material series contains three items: a memorial pamphlet printed by Croghan Bank, Fremont, Ohio, honoring Colonel Croghan for his heroism at Fort Stevens, with a portrait of Croghan as a young man; an informational circular, addressed to Dr. John Croghan (1846), from Lyman C. Draper, advertising his book, Lives of the Pioneers, a biography of prominent pioneers of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the western borders of Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia; and a brief from the Edmonson Circuit Court on George Croghan's petition for the removal of Nicholson and others as trustees of the Mammoth Cave estate, 1902.

Two debating societies based in Montgomery, New York, recorded their constitutions and meeting minutes in this volume in the early to mid-19th century. At weekly meetings, members debated questions related to politics, morality, and other subjects, though religious topics were banned.

Two debating societies based in Montgomery, New York, recorded their constitutions and meeting minutes in this volume (approximately 180 pp.) in the early to mid-19th century. At weekly meetings, members discussed political issues and moral questions.

The title page has an unattributed epigram taken from verses written by Robert Burns for the Freemasons. Following this, the Farmers & Mechanicks Debating Society of Montgomery recorded its first minutes (February 4, 1823), which pre-date its constitution (February 11, 1823). The 4-page constitution and 2-page list of members' signatures are followed by about 70 pages of minutes from the society's weekly meetings. Every week, the group discussed a member's question, posed and chosen the week before, with members arguing in the negative and affirmative. Questions covered a range of moral and political subjects such as quality of life, wealth, women's rights, punishment for crimes, and finances, though religious topics were banned. The minutes record the names of members presenting either side of the question and occasionally concern administrative affairs such as officer elections. The final dated entry appears on January 26, 1825, with one last entry from "Saturday evening Feb 28" of an unknown year.

The second section (approximately 90 pages) contains the minutes and constitution of the Farmers & Mechanicks Debating Society's successor, the Good-Will Debating Society, in the Town of Montgomery. Its constitution, which has later annotations and alterations, is largely similar to the earlier document. Weekly meeting minutes cover December 11, 1840-January 30, 1846, though some dates are missing or appear out of chronological sequence. The society's debate topics were similar to its predecessor's, though some related to contemporary political issues such as the annexation of Texas. A group of loosely tied newspaper clippings laid into the volume (dated 1846) pertain to the Mexican-American War and topics related to mechanics and manufacturing.

Lawyer, Member of Michigan Supreme Court, 1842-1846, Democratic Governor of Michigan, 1846-1847, and holder of numerous other public offices; papers include correspondence and other papers documenting his career in public service.

The Alpheus Felch papers details the active life of this nineteenth century Michigan public servant. Not only are public issues discussed in the correspondence files but the researcher will also gain an understanding of some of the personal problems associated with public service. The collection also includes several files of other family members.