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The First Unitarian-Universalist Church of Detroit Records comprise over 150 years of records documenting the activities of the church's ministers, administrative bodies, committees and interest groups, and members. The first such denomination in the Detroit area, First U-U traces its history to the mid-nineteenth century and represents the convergence of two like-minded denominations founded on principles of humanism, social consciousness, and civic responsibility. The collection's five series contain materials pertaining to the church's history and development, administration, religious services, educational programs, and community engagement.

The First Unitarian-Universalist Church of Detroit Records comprise the collected documentation of the activities of the church's administrative bodies, committees, and congregation members. The collection contains materials pertaining to the church's history and development, governance, and religious, educational, and community service activities. The collection is divided into five series: Ministry and Membership, Church Administration, Church Committees and Organizations, Church Activities, and Newsletters and Orders of Service.

Methodist church established in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1827; proceedings and minutes of various church boards and committees; baptism and marriage records, topical files relating to church activities and personalities; and photographs.

The records of the First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan include Church registers; Governance records; Topical Files; and Photographs. Included are proceedings and minutes of the Board of Stewards, Board of Trustees, Official Board, church committees, and quarterly and annual conferences; correspondence and reports of the Methodist Educational Advance; membership lists and directories; baptism and marriage records; financial information; missionary materials, including those about Ann Arbor native Judson Collins, first Methodist missionary to China; documents related to church history; and other church materials, including a limited number of photographs.

Methodist Church established in Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1825; church record books; records of Official Board and Quarterly Conferences; minutes and other materials of women’s groups; and subject files.

The record group has been arranged into the following series: Church records including lists of members and record of baptisms and marriages; Governance files, including Official Board minutes and Quarterly Conference reports; and records of church groups, especially Ladies Aid, Women's Society of Christian Service, and the Women's Foreign Missionary Society.

Presbyterian church established in Ypsilanti, Michigan in 1829; Church registers, session minutes; records of woman's missionary society and ladies aid society; records, 1906-1940, of board of trustees; and records, 1830-1846, of the First Congregational Society.

The record group includes registers containing record of baptisms, marriages, and membership. In addition, there are early record books of the church, including session minutes. Many of the records relate to groups within the church, especially the Woman's Missionary Society and the Ladies Aid Society. The remainder of the record group is comprised of miscellaneous early documents, history and background information, and a scattering of photographs.

The Fish Family papers contain the personal letters of Harry S. Fish of Williamson, New York, and his children who, over the course of the 19th century, scattered throughout the United States, fought in the Civil War, and suffered sickness and poverty during the postwar period. Also present are letters to J. Clifford Robinson from his mother and sister, and letters written annually from Franc Edith Aldrich Arnold to her friend Maud Bradley Robinson, from 1887 to 1933.

The Fish family papers (417 items) contain the personal letters and writings of a family from Williamson, New York, whose members, over the course of the 19th century, scattered throughout the United States, fought in the Civil War, and suffered though sickness and poverty during the postwar period. The bulk of the letters (336 in all) concern Harry S. Fish and his children: Dan, Carlton, Selby, and Julia Fish. Also present are letters to J. Clifford Robinson from his mother and sister, and 47 letters written annually from Franc Edith Aldrich Arnold to her friend Maud Bradley Robinson, spanning 1887 to 1933. The collection also contains 25 calling cards, 9 social invitations, 2 documents, 1 essay, 13 miscellaneous items, and one lock of hair.

Correspondence series :

The Fish family letters subseries (336 items) largely document the lives of Dan, Carlton, Selby, and Julia Fish. Throughout, the siblings discuss their deep animosity toward their father. The first four letters (1847-1850) are between Wright R. Fish, in Poughkeepsie, New York, and his father Isaac Fish, in Williamson, New York. Letters written during the Civil War-era include 18 letters from Carlton, 27 from Selby, 14 from Daniel, 9 from Judson Rice (all addressed to Julia), and 49 letters from Julia to Carlton (with 3 additional, post-war letters). These include descriptions of the Peninsular Campaign (Yorktown and the Seven Days Battles, particularly Gaines's Mills) by Selby, and Judson Rice's account of 1st Winchester. Both Selby and Carlton commented on their regiment’s occasional ill discipline and low morale. Selby described his experience in army hospitals and sometimes reflected on death, war, and the hard life of a soldier.

Dan’s letters, written mostly from California and Oregon, provide commentary on the life of an itinerant (and sometimes vagrant) traveler in the gold fields of the Far West. Julia described local events and family news, frequently discussing family strife. She occasionally discussed the politics and society in Williamson. In a particularly notable incident onJuly 17, 1864, Julia consulted a psychic to diagnose Carlton’s mysterious illness, which appeared during the siege of Yorktown in May 1862. Many Civil War era letters contain illustrated letterheads.

The collection contains material concerning southern perspectives of the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction eras, including 59 letters written to Julia Fish by Selby Fish and/or his wife, Josephine, from New Orleans (1864-1871); 7 letters from Selby to Carlton (1867-1869); and letters from Carlton to Julia: 7 written from Grant City, Missouri, (1868-1869); 27 from New Orleans, Louisiana (1869-1883); and 3 from San Antonio, Texas (1883). Of note are two letters written by Carlton from Grant City, Missouri, in which he described the surge of population in a "back woods" town in northwestern Missouri, as post-war westward expansion peaked (October 18, 1868 and October 24, 1869). Also of interest are Carlton’s accounts of his struggles with poverty and unemployment (November 8, 1889), and Dan’s report on joining the Good Templars in 1867; he described a wild ceremony that featured riding a goat backwards and climbing a greased pole with bare feet.

The J. Clifford Robinson letters consist of 63 letters and postcards, written to J. Clifford Robinson by his mother and sister Gertrude in 1895 and 1896. These offer a perspective on an intensely close mother-son relationship in the 1890's, and contain many remarks of motherly advice.

The Fish family letters subseries ends with 13 condolence letters addressed to Maud Bradley, comforting her on the death of her mother, Julia Fish Bradley, in 1905.

The Arnold-Robinson letters subseries contains 47 letters written annually, on New Year's Day, by Franc Edith Aldrich Arnold to Maud Bradley Robinson, reflecting on the events of the year, and reminiscing about their childhood together in Pultneyville, New York (1887-1933). These letters were written every year from 1887-1933, from their teenage years through retirement. In these, Arnold discussed her concerns about remaining unmarried, her inability to have children, and her desire to adopt a child.

The Ephemera, Photographs, and Miscellaneous series (55 items) is comprised of 5 items of ephemera concerning Julia Fish Bradley and her relatives; 25 calling cards from friends of Julia Fish Bradley; 9 invitations to parties and balls addressed to J. Clifford Robinson, (1890's); 13 miscellaneous writing fragments; and 3 cartes-de-visite of Selby Fish (c. 1869), Joseph E. Johnston (c.1863), and Nathaniel Lyon (c.1861).

The Fisk-Chalker family collection is made up of letters, land indentures, tax receipts, tintype photographs, and a tavern keeper's license, related to the Fisk and Chalker families of Junius, New York; Livingston County, Michigan; and (briefly) Chamberlain, South Dakota. The collection includes five Civil War letters, with content on the Michigan First Regiment of Engineers and Mechanics; and three letters by Sarah J. Fisk Chalker following her arrival on Bailey's Ranch near Chamberlain, South Dakota, January 1890.

The Fisk-Chalker family collection is made up of 36 letters, 10 land indentures, 42 tax receipts, 2 tintype photographs, and 1 tavern keeper's license, related to the Fisk and Chalker families of Junius, New York; Livingston County, Michigan; and (briefly) Chamberlain, South Dakota.

The Correspondence is largely incoming and outgoing letters of John Fisk, his brother Sumner Fisk, his wife Judith "Judah" Fisk, and his daughter Sarah J. Fisk Chalker. Five Civil War date letters include two letters by Sumner Fisk (August 4, 1862, and June 20, 1864), in which he offers news on Seneca County, New York, soldiers Charley Bush and Capt. Ira Munson (probably of the 126th New York Infantry). John Fisk received two letters from Private George Turk of the First Regiment Michigan Engineers and Mechanics, Company A (June 18, 1864, and July 23, 1864), with content on soldiers' pay, camp life, and augmenting his military wages by chopping cord wood for the railroad in Calhoun, Georgia, and Bridgeport, Alabama.

In the early days of January 1890, Sarah J. and John Chalker moved to the newly organized state of South Dakota and settled on the Bailey Ranch on the Missouri River, near Chamberlain. In three letters to her mother, Sarah described their arrival, their house, the terrible "gumbo" mud, and other aspects of the "disagreeable country." She wrote of a visit with "an old squaw and Indian" for meat and coffee in their teepee near the Bailey Ranch stable--"the old squaw smoked while we was in there. She carried her pipe on her back." After a month, they received fewer visits from Native Americans. In summation, she wrote "Mother, I would not live here and make it my home for all the land in Dakota." John and Sarah returned to live in Putnam, Michigan.

The Documents series includes 10 land indentures dating between 1849 and 1884 (bulk 1849-1851) largely for property in Seneca and Ontario County, New York. Forty-two receipts for John and Judith Fisk's property taxes in Putnam, Michigan, 1865-1892, and John Fisk's Junius, New York, tavern keeper's license (May 1, 1854) complete the series.

The collection's photographs depict the parents of Sarah J. Fisk and of John G. Chalker. One tintype portrait shows John S. and Judith "Judah" Fisk and another tintype shows Abner and Deliah Patterson Chalker.

Family based in Detroit and Alpena, Michigan and engaged in many business enterprises; business records detailing involvement in lumbering, milling, paper manufacturing, and power and light companies, mainly in Alpena, Michigan.

The Fletcher family collection consists primarily the records of the family's business activities. The business correspondence date from 1856 to 1936 and relates to the operation of family firms, notably A. F. Fletcher & Co., Fletcher Pack & Co., and George N. Fletcher & Sons. The business records series is more specifically arranged by company name and includes the Alpena Power Company/Alpena Electric Light Co., George N. Fletcher & Sons, and the Alpena Water Company among others. Other series in the collection relate to both personal and corporate litigation. The Frank W. Fletcher Personal papers concerns his tenure as a regent of the University of Michigan and his continuing interest in university affairs.

Fletcher, Pack and Company and A. F. Fletcher & Company were two early Alpena, Michigan lumber companies. Financial, land, and other business records.

This record group includes financial records, records of land purchases, and other miscellaneous business materials. There are also some photographs detailing scenes of lumbering activities. Although described here together, these are the records of separate Fletcher family companies: Fletcher, Pack Company and the A. F. Fletcher Company. The relationship between these two companies is not clear.

Records of the business enterprises of Oren Stone of Stony Run (later South Grand Blanc) and Flint, Michigan. The firms were known variously as Flint Woolen Mill, Stone Woolen Mill and Stone, Atwood and Co. Also includes daybooks and ledgers detailing the operation of his general stores in Stony Run and Flint, Michigan, and letter books, invoices, journals, cashbooks, order books, ledgers, and other business records from the woolen mill business.

The records of the business enterprises of Oren Stone consist of 232 volumes and a folder of miscellaneous loose items. Beginning in 1851 when Stone was working in Stony Run, the records extend up to 1910. The collection includes some of the records of Stone's mercantile activities in Stony Run and Flint primarily in the 1850's and 1860's. The great bulk of the collection, however, pertains directly to the activities of the Flint Woolen Mills. Since 1867, these have been arranged by type of record, including letterpress books of correspondence, invoices, order books, cashbooks, inventories, ledgers, journals, and daybooks. Some of the records relate to specific activities within the mill such as knitting, carding, spinning, weaving and finishing, and dyeing.