Collections : [University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

Correspondence and miscellaneous business papers including Civil War letters exchanged between John C. Buchanan and his wife, Sophia Bingham Buchanan, while he was serving as first lieutenant in Co. D. of the 8th Michigan Infantry. Many of the letters are almost sermons and philosophical essays about his home and family, religion, his country and the war and its leaders. Others are detailed descriptions of camps and camp life, such as Seabrook plantation in South Carolina and its Negroes, James Island and its reptiles; his quarters and food; sea transports; marches, skirmishes and battles with the Army of the Potomac in the Maryland campaign and around Fredericksburg. The collection also includes letters from Claude Buchanan while he was a student at the University of Michigan; letters (1847-1858) of J. Irwin Beaumont of Mississippi and Minnesota to Angie Bingham (Gilbert); notebooks, speeches, business papers, and a diary of a trip to the South in 1884 made by Claude Buchanan.

Missionary family to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan; correspondence, sermons of Abel Bingham, diaries of Hannah Bingham reflecting her daily activities and religious convictions.

The collection documents the lives of a missionary family to the Ojibwa Indians of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The papers have been arranged into the following series: Correspondence; Abel Bingham ministerial papers; Miscellaneous; and Bound Account Books and Diaries. The collection is of value for the family correspondence, for the sermons of Abel Bingham, and for the diaries of Hannah Bingham reflecting her daily activities and religious convictions (1817-1868). There are also papers concerning Fountain Street Baptist Church in Grand Rapids in the 1850s.