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This collection is made up of the papers of five generations of the Dwight, Willard, Alden, Allen, and Freeman families of the East Coast and (later) U.S. Midwest, between 1752 and 1937. Around 3/4 of the collection is incoming and outgoing correspondence of family members, friends, and colleagues. The primary persons represented are Lydia Dwight of Massachusetts and her husband John Willard, who served in the French and Indian War; Connecticut mother Abigail Willard along with her husband Samuel Alden, who ran an apothecary in Hanover, New Jersey; Allen Female Seminary School alumna and teacher Sarah J. Allen; American Civil War surgeon Otis Russell Freeman; Presbyterian minister and temperance advocate Rev. Samuel Alden Freeman; and prominent public librarian Marilla Waite Freeman. The papers also include diaries and journals, writings, school certificates, military and ecclesiastical documents, photographs, newspaper clippings, advertisements, business and name cards, invitations to events, and brochures for plays and other performances.

The collection is arranged first by family grouping, then by material type. These series roughly reflect the arrangement of the collection when it arrived at the William L. Clements Library.

The Dwight-Willard-Alden Family Papers are comprised of around 250 items, dating between 1752 and 1884. One fifth or so of this grouping is predominantly correspondence between Lydia Dwight/Lydia Dwight Willard, her father, stepmother, siblings, husband, and sons, 1752-1791. These intermarried families were based largely in Sheffield and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The letters include discussions about mending and cleaning clothing; feelings about their father/husband gone to serve in the French and Indian War; putting up a monument to replace faltering graves; the return of Elijah and Col. Williams from the field on account of sickness; coming and going of soldiers; moral and practical advice; teaching and boarding young students during the war; settling into (“no longer free”) married life; the death of Bathsheba Dwight; the meeting of local men in private homes and the training of minute men in Stockbridge; the prolonged case of smallpox experienced by Lydia’s son in 1785; and news of John Willard, Jr.’s admission to Harvard.

The remaining four fifths of this grouping are largely incoming correspondence of Abigail Willard Alden (1771-1832) and her daughter Abigail Alden (1809-1854). Their correspondents were located in Stafford, Connecticut; Hanover and Lancaster, New Hampshire; Lunenburg, Vermont; and elsewhere. They begin with letters from siblings and parents to the newly married Abigail Willard Alden (ca. 1800); Samuel Alden travel letters to New York City; and news of a Stafford doctor named Chandler who had promised marriage to a woman and then fleeced her for $500 before fleeing to parts unknown. A group of letters regard pharmacy matters, the burning of Samuel Willard’s drugstore (January-April 1802), and the state of Anti-Federalists and Federalists in Stafford (1802). A large portion the letters include content on sickness and health, with varying degrees of detail, including several family members sick and dying from measles in 1803. Other topics include Hanover, New Hampshire, gossip on local premarital sex; a debate on whether or not to hire a black female domestic laborer; comments on a local suicide attempt; a young woman deliberating on objections to women spending time reading novels (April 10, 1806); and treatment by a quack doctor. These papers also include two diaries, poetry and essays, two silhouettes, genealogical manuscripts, and miscellaneous printed items.

The Allen Family Papers are largely incoming letters to Sarah Jane Allen prior to her marriage to Samuel A. Freeman (around 300 items), and from her father-in-law Otis Russell Freeman (around 60 items) between 1860 and 1865. An abundance of the letters were written to Sarah while she attended the Allen Female Seminary in Rochester, New York, and afterward when she lived at Honeoye Falls, New York. They include letters from her parents, cousins, friends, and siblings. A sampling suggests that the bulk are letters by young women attempting to eke out a life for themselves through seminary education, teaching, and domestic labor. Among much else, they include content on Elmira Female Seminary, New York state travel, and female friendship and support.

The Otis Russell Freeman letters date between 1862 and 1865, while he served as a surgeon in the 10th and 14th Regiment, New Jersey Volunteers. He wrote about the everyday camp life with a focus on the health and sickness of the soldiers. His letters include content on the defenses of Washington, D.C., fighting at Cold Harbor and outside Richmond, Virginia, the surrender of Robert E. Lee, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln's body lying in state at Jersey City. Two carte-de-visite photographs of Otis Freeman are present.

A diary kept by Sarah J. Allen began on the day of her marriage, September 26, 1865, documents her honeymoon to Niagara Falls. It ends in November 1865. The remainder of the volume is filled with recipes for baked goods, pickles, and other foods. The printed items include ephemera from Sarah Jane Allen’s tenure at Elmira Female College five issues of the Callisophia Society’s newspaper The Callisophia (vol. 1, nos. 1, 3-6; March/April 1860-January/February 1861), as well as a Catalogue of Books in Callisophia Library, December 1862.

The Samuel Alden Freeman Family Papers include approximately 300 largely incoming letters to Presbyterian minister S. A. Freeman, plus printed materials, ephemera, photographs, and bound volumes, dating in the 1810s and from the 1860s to 1880s. Correspondence of his second wife Olive dates from the 1810s in central New York. The collection includes letters to S. A. Freeman from his first wife Sarah, daughter Abigail Alden Freeman (1873-1925), and Sara Harriet Freeman (1879-1946). These materials include courtship correspondence of Sarah Jane Allen and S. A. Freeman. A considerable portion relates to Presbyterianism and at least one temperance society pledge sheet is present. Approximately 50 photographs, about half of them identified, are largely of Samuel A. Freeman and the Freeman daughters Marilla and Abigail. Among the printed ephemeral items are advertisements for programming at Corinthian Hall (probably Rochester, New York), items related to a Sunday School Association (including a printed broadside catalog of books at a N.J. Sunday School), and pamphlets on Presbyterianism. A medicinal recipe book from the mid-19th century and a commonplace book of poetry are examples of the S. A. Freeman family bound volumes.

The collection concludes with letters, photographs, ephemera, and printed items comprising the Marilla Waite Freeman Papers. Around 600 letters are largely incoming to public librarian M. W. Freeman from female educators and librarians. They discussed their profession, books, reading, and intellectual topics. A small clutch of letters, about three dozen manuscript and typed poems, and a dozen or more newspaper clippings, 1900s-1910s, comprise poet Floyd Dell’s contributions to the collection. Marilla also corresponded with poets and writers Margaret Todd Ritter, Robert Frost and Mrs. Frost, and Marie Bullock about public and private recitations and lectures. Examples of subjects covered by the printed materials include orations, educational/school/college items, library-related items, newspapers and clippings, fliers, women's clubs, New York City theater, the American Library Association, Poetry Society of America, poems by various authors, such as Ina Robert and John Belknap, visiting and business cards, and travel.

From about 1860 through at least the end of the Civil War, Samuel C. Taylor worked as a salesman for the Philadelphia clothing firm of Charles Stokes & Co. The 1863 portion of his journal contains almost daily entries between February and May, vividly describing his travels from Philadelphia to Memphis and social life in Memphis during the Civil War. The 1890 portion of the journal consists of seven humorous essays, which are highly stereotypical, possibly semi-fictional, depictions of life in the south.

The Taylor journal is a single, 3/4 leather-bound volume in two sequential parts, the first dated 1863, the second, 1890. The journal is probably a transcript made in 1890 or 1891 from the original, based on the style of binding and paper, and the continuity in handwriting and pen between the two dated parts. The 1863 portion, 260 pages long, takes the form of almost daily journal entries from the time of Taylor's departure from Philadelphia on February 16th, through his stay in Memphis, until his return to Philadelphia on May 16th, and is uniformly well written and interesting. It is a far more polished piece of writing than many journals, and may have been corrected or embellished at the time of its transcription. At its best, Taylor's prose has the feeling of Mark Twain's exuberant descriptions of life on the Mississippi, leavened with the cynical undercurrents of Melville's Confidence Man., and though it is brief, covering only a four months' residence, the journal is a valuable social record of life in wartime Memphis as seen by a person come to take advantage of the quick money to be made. Taylor has a preference for the "colorful" aspects of life in Memphis, and includes vivid descriptions of the shoddy accommodations, the venality and corruption, rampant violence and crime, and of soldiers, prostitutes, rebels, drunks and rowdies. Throughout, he displays an eye for the telling detail, a good sense of humor, and an unerring flair for making a good story out of difficult circumstances.

Among the several highlights in the journal is an excellent description of the steamboat trip to Memphis, during which a "Jewish" swindler/gambler managed to con his way out of several tight spots by his using his wits and his finesse with cards. Once in Memphis, Taylor provides memorable descriptions of the city in all its war-time depravity, and vivid accounts of long lines of ragged, worn-out soldiers marching in to town, of murder, robbery and charlatanism, of prostitutes and drunks shouting and shooting in the streets, and of the characters, like himself, who have descended on the city to turn a quick profit, legally or illegally. Taylor was somewhat less accomplished in his poetry, though his poem about life in Memphis during the war is an amusing, sarcastic look at the closet secessionists of the city, Memphis' cheerless, malattired women, crime, and the amusement he occasionally found, including listening to the "darkies" singing. One quatrain summarizes his attitudes well: "What an awfull place to live in / Now I'll stop or freighten you (sic) / Yet upon my word of honor / What I've written you is true" (p. 106).

Taylor's attitude toward Jews, synonymous with swindling merchants in his mind, and African-Americans is highly stereotyped. He is, however, somewhat sympathetic toward slaves and freedmen even as he is willing to have a laugh at their expense. In Memphis, he attended a religious service for freedmen delivered by a mulatto preacher named Revels. Taylor was genuinely moved by the sermon, and seems to have agreed with its message. He is also somewhat sympathetic with the "contrabands" he sees being trampled by Union soldiers, or boating up river, half-dressed and hungry to a mission in Missouri. In general, though, Taylor is inclined toward a cynical view of strangers, and is always on his guard for the cons and crooks that were abundant in Memphis.

The 1890 portion of the Taylor journal consists of seven humorous essays, which are highly stereotypical, possibly semi-fictional, depictions of life in the south. They include:

1. "Sketches from the South," (Chattanooga, April 3, 1890: p. 263-268)
2. "A Kentucky Wheelman," (Louisville, Ky., April 20, 1890: p. 269-271)
3. "A Hodoo Doctor" (Birmingham, Ala., April 30, 1890: p. 272-275)
4. "The Negro Drill Workers" (Memphis, Tenn., May 2, 1890: p. 276-279)
5. "The Georgia Cracker, The Alabama Razor Back" (Atlanta, Ga., May 10, 1890: p. 280-284)
6. "New Orleans, La." (May 20, 1890, New Orleans: p. 285-293)
7. "Pensacola, Florida" (September 20, 1890, Pensacola: p. 293-295)

These essays are the interesting products of a talented writer, who, though sympathetic observer of southern society, is nevertheless mired in the ingrained attitudes and prejudices of his day. In the first essay, Taylor discusses the phenotype of African-Americans and the several "clases or sets" that comprise the African-American community in the South, from the rich, to the merchants, mechanics, drill men, tramps and the "poor old uncle." "The hoodoo doctor" and "The Negro drill workers" are somewhat longer essays along the same lines, and are written as first hand experiences. In "A Kentucky wheelman" and "The Georgia cracker, the Alabama razorback," Taylor turns his eye to the poor white community in the deep South, and paints a dismal view of the state of their culture. Essays 3, 4, and 5 also include crude, pen and ink illustrations of the subjects of the essay.

The Thomas Hall diary documents Hall's Civil War service with the 110th New York Infantry in 1862-1863, including camp life, encounters with African American vendors, health concerns, and his participation in the Siege of Port Hudson.

The Thomas Hall diary is a pocket-sized volume containing entries for August 28, 1862, to August 20, 1863. The diary documents Hall's Civil War participation in the 110th New York Infantry, from the time of his enlistment until a few days before his death from heatstroke and disease on August 25, 1863. In a series of brief entries, Hall described his regiment's experiences in Virginia; Maryland; Ship Island, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Port Hudson, Louisiana.

The opening entries of the diary are quite terse, generally providing only one to two lines of basic information. They primarily concern such topics as Hall's location, the letters he received and wrote, his church attendance, and his military activities. However, beginning in November 1862, Hall wrote with greater detail about his surroundings and actions. On November 5, 1862, he described the regiment's departure by steamship from Baltimore, noting that the bay was "dotted with sail vessels and steamers." While onboard the ship, he noted mechanical problems, extreme weather, his ship-related duties, health concerns, his surroundings, and food. During mid-November, while the regiment sailed south for New Orleans, he mentioned regular drilling using "the manual of arms" (November 10, 1862), and a brief stint in the hospital (November 13, 1862). On November 20, 1862, he wrote that he had visited the Virginia plantation of Confederate General John B. Magruder.

Soon after his arrival in the Deep South, Hall noted his extreme dislike of Ship Island, Mississippi, which he hoped never to see again (December 29, 1862), and referred to his time with military and the inexperience of the officers in his regiment. In the same entry, he lamented that he saw "No better prospect of peace then [sic] one year ago" (December 31, 1862). He also discussed the capture of a Confederate plantation near Carrollton, Louisiana, including the confiscation of its ducks and chickens (January 13, 1863) and the arrest of a soldier, Thomas Lake, for intoxication, commenting, "The devil to pay generaly [sic]." By mid-March, operations against Port Hudson, Louisiana, had begun, and Hall's entries mainly focused on these developments. He noted that each man now carried six days' rations (March 11, 1863), described the bombardment of Port Hudson as "fire & explosion on river" (March 15, 1863), and gave an account of a march through knee-deep mud (March 18, 1863). On April 12 and 13, 1863, Hall briefly commented on the Battle of Fort Bisland, noting that fighting had ended at 6 p.m. and the Confederate band had played "Dixie." Subsequently, he mentioned the capture of Confederate prisoners near Franklin, Louisiana, (April 15 and 16, 1863) and the poor condition of the men in his regiment due to a lack of regular rations and the absence of the quartermaster (April 25, 1863). On May 26, 1863, he discussed a skirmish near Port Hudson, stating that "marshy ground" had caused the Union artillery to fail. Other entries note the surrender of Port Hudson (July 8, 1863), the suicide of a man in the regiment (July 8, 1863), and a Zouave's failed attempt to escape from Port Hudson (July 9, 1863).

In his diary, Hall also wrote about several experiences with African Americans. On November 20, 1862, he recounted tricking an African American who sold him "ginger cakes." According to Hall, the man "could not count" and Hall exploited him by taking more cakes than he had purchased. Near New Orleans, he described buying bread from "an old negress who had a Mexican man…. Her man was lame and she supported Both" (December 19, 1862). On another occasion, he noted that several friends had gone to the "negro quarters" in Carrollton, Louisiana, and danced nearly all night (January 10, 1863). On March 4, 1863, he mentioned that the "contrabands expect to march tomorrow," but he gave no further details.