Collections

Law firm records include legal records of estates, divorces, chancery cases, and debt collection, correspondence, and numerous land records. McKee family records are also included.

The collection includes many types of legal records, including: Estates, Divorces, Chancery Cases, and debt collection papers. Correspondence is from clients, lawyers, legal firms, banks, and various land offices. Some of the larger case files include those of the Bank of Lansingburgh (New York) and the Indian Mill Creek Salt Company (Grand Rapids, Mich.). Numerous land records include: State Tax Deeds, Indentures, Mortgages, Bounty Lands for Veterans and their widows, Deeds, Plat Maps, and Receipts for land. The firm had many clients in Michigan and New York (State).

McKee family records include family correspondence, 1840s-1874, undated; legal cases, and Aaron McKee’s (father of James McKee) inheritance case, 1856-1864. Also included is the 1862 license for Ball and McKee and a letter of protest over the removal of the soldiers’ memorial in Grand Rapids, 1908.

Processing Note: Personal materials of John Ball were apparently removed when this collection first came to the Clarke and became the John Ball Family Papers.