Collections : [University of Michigan William L. Clements Library]

The August F. W. Partz letters pertain to Partz's experiences while living and traveling in New York, Ohio, and western Illinois during the Civil War. Partz, a mining engineer, discussed a business opportunity in Santa Fe, guerilla warfare and attacks on trains traveling through the Midwest, and military news from Missouri.

This collection contains 16 letters that mining engineer August F. W. Partz wrote to his business partner, C. Elton Buck, between May 16, 1864, and October 31, 1864. Partz wrote from the Mamakating Mine in New York (3 items); Cleveland, Ohio (2 items); and Quincy, Illinois (11 items). The letters are drafts or writer-retained copies; some pages have more than one letter written on them.

Some of Partz's letters pertain to his business interests, particularly regarding a mining opportunity in Santa Fe, New Mexico; he also mentioned the possibility of bringing German laborers to the United States to work with nickel (October 3, 1864). Most of Partz's correspondence concerns his attempts to travel from New York to Santa Fe via Cleveland, Ohio, and Missouri. He spent October 1864 in Quincy, Illinois, waiting for an opportune moment to continue his journey, which had been rendered dangerous by guerilla attacks on trains in Missouri. Partz discussed the opinions of Missouri and Kansas residents and refugees, attacks on passenger trains, and military developments in Missouri, especially those related to General Sterling Price. For a time, Partz considered traveling to the Southwest by way of California. In one letter, he mentioned his fear of Native American hostility (October 1, 1864).

This collection is made up of 27 letters that Lieutenant Charles Wochna wrote to his parents while serving with the United States Marine Corps in Korea and Japan during the Korean War.

This collection contains 27 letters that Lieutenant Charles Wochna wrote to his parents while serving with the United States Marine Corps in Korea and Japan during the Korean War. Though only one letter is fully dated (January 1, 1954), the letters cover much of his time abroad.

While stationed abroad, Wochna attended artillery training, participated in several amphibious landing exercises, and constructed bunkers. In their spare time, the American soldiers often played volleyball or other sports. A few letters, written late in the war, discuss Wochna's anticipation of returning home via Japan; in the March 14 letter is a list of items he wished to be shipped to him, and some sketches of emblems that were on his desired clothing. In addition to news of life in Korea, he also mentioned taking periods of rest and relaxation in Japan, and reported purchasing souvenirs in both countries.

Wochna occasionally commented directly on military operations, detailing his experiences upon landing on an unidentified beach (May 15), mentioning the proximity of a peace delegation (August 7), and relaying news of recent operations. In a letter dated June 11, he summarized two schools of thought regarding the presence of American military operations in the country. Other letters refer to the general progress of the war. Wochna's correspondence also reflects his ongoing concern for family members and friends who remained in the United States. He often responded to news of his family, including sadness upon hearing of his grandfather's death (June 14). Wochna frequently offered advice to his brother Jerry, then a student, and requested news about the current football seasons of the Cleveland Browns, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and Ohio State Buckeyes. He attempted to follow the teams while stationed abroad.

• the USS Talladega
• the insignia of the 1st Marine Corps
• combat ribbons signifying participation in the Philippines, China, and Japan during the Second World War
• combat ribbon signifying participation in the Korean War

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.

The Henry Murfey letter book contains copies of 12 letters addressed to Henry, of Cleveland, Ohio, ostensibly from his deceased sister and father via a spirit-writing medium. The letters date from December 28, 1855, to September 20, 1856. The longest and most revealing of the letters details the experience of his sister Mary's physical death, her arrival at a "large spiritual temple," and her introduction to a spirit guide named "Flora." Mary then described her visit to the planet Saturn and its inhabitants.

The Henry Murfey letter book is a wallet-size, leather bound notebook containing 12 letters recorded over 54 handwritten pages and dating from December 28, 1855, to September 20, 1856. The letters are each addressed to Henry Murfey of Cleveland, Ohio, ostensibly from his deceased sister Mary (11) and father John (1) via a spirit-writing medium.

The letters are written in reverse chronological order, with the final letter located at the beginning of the letter book. The longest and most revealing of the letters details the experience of Mary's physical death, her arrival at a "large spiritual temple," and her introduction to a spirit guide named "Flora." Mary then described her visit to the planet Saturn and its inhabitants. Later letters assured Henry of the veracity of their communication and assured him that she often thought of him and communicated with him through the movement of inanimate objects. Several letters are undated, including one by Murfey's father John. The final three pages contain a crossed-out note, a recipe for an herbal remedy, and random calculations.