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This collection contains twelve letters written by Edward W. Chesebro of Guilderland, New York, and Allen D. Chesebro of Gallupville, New York, to John Carhartt of Bridgeport, New York, in the mid-1840s. Edward described his teaching career and made observations about the educational system and about his brief stay in the South. Allen provided updates on Edward and on other members of the Chesebro family.

This collection contains twelve letters written by Edward W. Chesebro of Guilderland, New York, and Allen D. Chesebro of Gallupville, New York, to John Carhartt of Bridgeport, New York. Edward wrote ten letters between January 3, 1846, and February 21, 1847, primarily about his career as a schoolteacher in Guilderland and Bangall, New York. He frequently shared his opinions of his students, who often performed far below his expectations, and expressed his frustration with their shortcomings, both academic and moral. He also gave his generally negative opinions upon the state of education in the region and the importance of attending the State Normal College at Albany while pursuing an educational career. In October 1846, he described his travels along the Erie and Ohio Canals.

The letters include updates on Chesebro's family members, and he occasionally mentioned contemporary political issues, including violence at the New York Democratic Convention (April 2, 1846). About the American South, he wrote, "I returned as perfectly disgusted…as any live man could be" with the people, the climate, and slavery (December 7, 1846). In two additional letters, Allen D. Chesebro (1822-1902) of Gallupville, New York, discussed his own travels throughout New York, Edward's plans to move to either Texas or Mississippi, and news of the Chesebro family.

This collection contains the personal correspondence of Levi Henry Elwell and his family. Elwell was a professor in Amherst, Massachusetts, and many of the letters relate to his children's studies at Vassar College and Amherst College, as well as their everyday lives in Massachusetts and New York.

This collection contains 226 personal letters, 8 Greek-language examinations, and 5 loose newspaper clippings regarding Levi Henry Elwell and his family.

The Correspondence series contains letters between and to members of the Elwell family. During his early days as a student at Amherst College and as a teacher in Poughkeepsie, New York, Elwell wrote to his mother, Harriet Adaline Elwell, and fiancée, Abbie Miner Nickerson, about his scholarly life and experiences. In these letters, Levi and Abbie often discussed their engagement and wedding plans. Though later correspondence includes some letters that the couple sent to Levi's parents, most originated from their children, Marion, Florence, and James. The sisters frequently wrote each other to discuss Marion's experiences at Vassar College. They also received mail from various friends, several of whom enclosed sketches. Levi Elwell wrote many of the later letters to his daughter Florence during her studies at Vassar College, including a postcard entirely in Latin (June 1906) and a report on the family's reaction to witnessing Halley's Comet (May 10, 1910). Though the letters primarily concern personal news, correspondents occasionally discussed contemporary politics; in a letter to Marion dated October 30, 1904, Levi described the American political landscape and discussed his own political views. Around 11 newspaper clippings are enclosed in various letters.

The Newspaper Clippings and Exams series has 8 examinations (December 20, 1897-January 20, 1908) for students of Amherst College, who were required to translate and interpret classical Greek texts, printed in their original language. The 5 loose newspaper clippings concern women's colleges (May 14, 1910), faculty promotions at Amherst College (undated), dirigible balloons (undated), and Halley's Comet (2 items, ca. April 1910).

Gertrude M. Nichols of Albion, New York, and Niagara Falls, New York, received 10 letters from acquaintances in the late 1860s. Her correspondents wrote of their lives in New York and Wisconsin.

Gertrude M. Nichols of Albion, New York, and Niagara Falls, New York, received 10 letters from acquaintances in the late 1860s. "Libbie," a friend, wrote Nichols 2 letters from Lockport, New York, in September 1866. She provided updates about acquaintances, shared her desire for Nichols to visit, discussed their friendship, and commented on marriage. Her letter of September 13, 1866, encloses notes and a printed "Programme of Daily Exercises" from an unspecified school. A friend named "Theo" (b. January 12, 1849) from Albion, New York, wrote 7 letters to Nichols between October 28, 1867, and August 8, 1869. His letters pertain to social news from Albion and to his friendship with Nichols. He also discussed a teaching institute's annual session (October 28, 1867), an argument over women's rights (December 4, 1867), raids of unlicensed liquor dealers (January 27, 1868), northerners' interactions with "southern vagabonds" (March 1, 1868), and a solar eclipse (August 8, 1869). Theo signed some of his letters "Philetiros." The final letter to Nichols, unsigned, concerns the writer's social life in Wisconsin (December 12, 1869-January 1870).

The Kendall collection consists of twenty letters written to Harriet Kendall over nearly forty years, demonstrating the difficulties of keeping up friendships at a distance in the 1800s.

This small collection illustrates the difficulties of keeping up friendships at a distance. Harriet seems to have been a rather lackadaisical correspondent, if the rather frustrated salutations of her friends' letters are to be believed. "Why in the name of cross-eyed Cat-fish, don't you write to your old friends? Really! I am real provoked at you" began Lottie, who lived in Corning, N. Y. (1865 November). Lottie and others urged Hattie to come visit them, and it appears that she did get to her friend Sarah P. Burroughs' home in East Varick before the fall term of 1866. Since there aren't any letters by Harriet herself in this collection, it is difficult to tell how she responded to her other friends' repeated entreaties to visit or write to them, or to get a good sense of her attitudes toward them.

Although Sara Fisher, too, took Harriet to task for not responding promptly, Harriet evidently did keep up a correspondence with her after they graduated from Genesee College. There are five intensely chatty letters from Sara. She dreaded the idea of teaching, missed her school friends, and had lost touch with her friends from home, most of whom were "dead or married." She glumly reported that those who were around "laugh at me because I cannot translate my diploma for which I've worked four years" (1869 July 11). Once she settled into her position teaching school in Rome, her anxieties abated somewhat, but her letters still caromed from subject to seemingly unrelated subject with an incredible nervous energy, and rarely touched upon her job. Instead she writes of other people, and quizzed Hattie for news of others, sprinkling in reminiscences and sidebars about her cozy room and holiday plans as she hurtled along.

The other cohesive group of letters centers around a boy. By November 1865, Lottie is quizzing, "how is Mr. Brigham," and there are four letters from the young man in question in this collection. Hattie met Charles H. Brigham, Jr. in Lima, and she evidently kept him posted on news of the town and college after he left for Spencerport. He wished he was back in school, and told Hattie, "one can't prize a good education to high." He was particularly sensitive about how his writing ability measured up to Hattie's, and his frequent comments about how Hattie must think "his letters are dry and don't amount to much any way" are too morose and persistent to be read simply as coy talk (1865 August 27). Charlie thought about going to the oil region of Pennsylvania, but after his brother returned from Pithole with typhoid fever, he reconsidered, and turned his attention to a possible career in the Rail Road business.

Whatever the nature of Hattie and Charlie's relationship, their epistolary courtship was ended abruptly by Charlie, who wrote, "Hattie, I cannot with justice to you and to myself correspond with you longer." He gave the unsatisfying explanation that "all things must have an end, and so with this," and he assured Hattie that his reason for the break had nothing to do with her letters: "for I think that there are very few people that can write as good a letter as you can. I know I can't. wish I could" (1866 January 13). Whether or not Harriet was mollified by this statement is unclear. A letter from Ruby Rice written a few years later, in an attempt to reestablish her friendship with Hattie, mentioned that she saw "Charley Brigham almost everyday -- we often get to talking about Lima and the Lima people -- and he often speaks of you, what good times you used to have" (1869 February 26).

This slim volume contains lists of Willard S. Niles' students at various locations in New York State, scholars' attendance, and other records between 1841 and 1849. The attendance rolls are divided by commencement date and each student's name is followed by a row of hash marks. Niles' children used most of the pages' margins and blank spaces to practice penmanship, jot their address, repeat student names, and in one case copy a letter from Hiram Niles in Iowa. The letter copy reads "It is very loathsome and mean and disgusting in you not to write once in a month if I get down." The blank book has tan, paper covers. Printed on the front cover is WRITING BOOK. THE PROPERTY OF MANUFACTURED AND SOLD BY B. MAYNARD... Hamilton, N.Y.: Imprint of G. R. Waldron & Co., with images of a patriotic eagle and shield, small oval depictions of a woman with a ship in the background, and decorative borders. The back cover bears a printed multiplication table.

This slim volume contains lists of Willard S. Niles' students at various locations in New York State, scholars' attendance, and other records between 1841 and 1849. The attendance rolls are divided by commencement date and each student's name is followed by a row of hash marks. Niles' children used most of the pages' margins and blank spaces to practice penmanship, jot their address, repeat student names, and in one case copy a letter from Hiram Niles in Iowa. The letter copy reads "It is very loathsome and mean and disgusting in you not to write once in a month if I get down." The blank book has tan, paper covers. Printed on the front cover is WRITING BOOK. THE PROPERTY OF MANUFACTURED AND SOLD BY B. MAYNARD... Hamilton, N.Y.: Imprint of G. R. Waldron & Co., with images of a patriotic eagle and shield, small oval depictions of a woman with a ship in the background, and decorative borders. The back cover bears a printed multiplication table.