Collections

The Stinchfield family papers contain the correspondence, business records, financial and legal documents, photographs, and genealogical papers of the Stinchfield family, founders of a successful lumber business in Michigan in the mid-19th century. The collection also includes materials related to social and family events in Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, through the mid-20th century.

The Stinchfield family papers consist of the correspondence, business records, financial and legal documents, photographs, and genealogical papers of Jacob W. Stinchfield, his wife Maria Hammond Stinchfield, and their descendants. The collection's correspondence and documents are organized by generation, reflecting their original order. The earliest items in the collection (Generation I series) include real estate transactions involving Jacob Stinchfield of Lincoln, Maine, dating from 1837. Beginning in the 1860s, after the family’s move to Michigan, the records include correspondence, accounts, and other financial records relating to the lumber business, begun by Jacob and continued by his son Charles Stinchfield. The materials provide information respecting the management of men in lumber camps, logging in winter weather conditions, methods of transportation, the challenges of rafting logs downriver, and other lumber business operations in volatile market conditions. Jacob and Charles Stinchfield’s partner, and frequent correspondent, was David Whitney, Jr., a wealthy Detroit businessman.

The Stinchfields expanded their company to include railroads (to facilitate their logging operations) and mineral mines. Many documents in the Generation II series, including manuscript and printed maps, concern land development in Michigan, where the family owned a farm in Bloomfield Hills, and in the West, especially Wyoming. The family traveled extensively and corresponded about their experiences in Europe, Asia, and the western United States. The Civil War is represented with small but significant holdings -- among them, a September 21, 1864, note written and signed by President Abraham Lincoln, requesting a fair hearing for a furlough (probably for George Stinchfield), and a February 14, 1863, letter from Vice President Hannibal Hamlin to Jacob W. Stinchfield, assuring him that George McClellan would not be ordered back to the command of the army.

The collection's twentieth-century materials (Generation III and Generation IV series) consist largely of the personal correspondence of Jacob Stinchfield’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The life of Charles Stinchfield, Jr., is well documented, from his schooling at St. John’s Military Institute in Manlius, N.Y., and a brief time at Cornell University, through his roles in the family business, his marriage, and the raising of his three children. Interactions between Charles Stinchfield, Jr., and his father, Charles Stinchfield, a demanding and energetic businessman, are also well represented in the collection. The materials reveal relationships between family members and their servants, and spiritualists' attempts to contact Charles Stinchfield III, who died of appendicitis in 1933 at the age of 15. Later papers provide descriptions of the social life of a wealthy family in the early and mid-20th century, at their residence in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and at their country home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

The Genealogy series, compiled largely by Diane Stinchfield Klingenstein, contains extensive background research on family members, copies of Ira and George Stinchfield’s Civil War records, transcriptions of letters written by Charles Stinchfield on a journey west in 1871 (not otherwise represented in the collection), and a typewritten draft of Diane Klingenstein’s family history, "One bough from a branch of the tree: a Stinchfield variation."

In addition to materials organized by generation, the collection includes photographs, scrapbooks, pastels, realia, and books. Many of the photographs are individual and group portraits (both studio and candid) from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The images include many exterior views of the land and buildings of the family’s country home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (Stonycroft Farm, ca. 1910), and of the Stinchfield residence in Grosse Pointe, Michigan (ca. 1940s). Early 20th-century lumber camps and railroads in Oregon and mining camps in Nevada are represented in photographs and photograph albums. The collection contains photos from trips to Japan (ca. 1907), the American West, and Europe. The collection's scrapbooks include newspaper clippings, invitations, and photographs, mainly concerning the life of Diane Klingenstein in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, during the 1930s and 1940s.

The Stinchfield family papers contain three pastel portraits of unknown subjects. The Realia series includes a bone ring likely made by George Stinchfield when he was a prisoner on Belle Isle, Virginia; a ring bearing Ira Stinchfield's name and regiment, in case he died during the Civil War; hospital identification and five baby pins for Diane W. Stinchfield (1925); a variety of additional Stinchfield family jewelry; and several wooden, crotched rafting pins, apparently from Saginaw, Michigan.

The Books series includes a copy of The Pictorial Bible, given to Charles and Mary from Father Fish, June 12, 1879, and a selection of 9 additional publications, which are cataloged individually. A comprehensive list of these books may be found by searching the University's online catalog for "Klingenstein."

Church located in the Brightmoor area of Detroit, Michigan. Vestry meeting minutes; administrative files; registers of services; registers of baptisms, burials, marriages, etc.; records of different church organizations; bulletins of special church services; yearly files of collected clippings, photos, and other materials regarding church activities.

The records of St. James parish include vestry minutes, 1924-1993; baptism, confirmation, marriage, and burial records, 1926-1993; bulletins, administrative records; records of the Episcopal Church Women and other parish organizations; and photographs. This record group has been divided into nine series covering the period from 1923 soon after the church began conducting services until 1993 when the church members decided to disband.

St. John’s Episcopal Church was established in 1963 in Temperance, MI. The church closed in 1997 due to dwindling membership. The records contain meeting minutes, photographs, financial reports, correspondence, and membership and church activity records.

St. John's Episcopal Church records consist of The records contain meeting minutes, photographs, financial reports, correspondence, and membership and church activity records. The records are organized into eight series: Registers of baptisms, communicants, burials, marriages, etc.; Registers of services; Membership records; Photographs and Background Material; Activities; Administrative Records; Bishop's Committee Meetings, and Miscellaneous.

Records of vestry and congregational meetings; parish registers, records of women's guild and women's auxiliary; and treasurer's record book.

The records of St. Luke's include minutes of vestry and congregational meetings; registers of members, baptisms, marriages, etc.; registers of church services; church publications; scrapbooks detailing activities; photographs; and record books for church women's organizations.

Episcopal church located in the Seven Mile-Gratiot area of Detroit. Registers of baptisms, confirmations, marriages, burials, etc.; registers of church services; vestry minute books; records of church organizations; historical information; subject files; and photographs.

Registers of baptisms, confirmations, marriages, burials, etc.; registers of church services; vestry minute books; records of church organizations; historical information; subject files; and photographs.

Catholic chapel (later parish) ministering largely to University of Michigan students. Council minutes, correspondence, topical files, chapel bulletins, and financial records; also files relating to the Gabriel Richard Foundation, the Newman Club and the Newman Student Association; and photographs.

The records of St. Mary Student Parish are divided into seven series: (1) St. Mary Chapel administrative files; (2) Gabriel Richard Center records; (3) Newman Club records; (4) Topical files; (5) Newsletters; (6) Photographs, Scrapbooks, and Albums; and (7) 2011-2014 Accessions.

Church formed in 1971 from the merger of two Detroit, Michigan, Episcopal parishes. Records include historical and informational files; vestry minutes and treasurer's records; records of church organizations; publications and church bulletins; subject files; scrapbooks; and photographs.

The records of St. Matthew's and St. Joseph's Episcopal Church divide into the following record series: the records of St. Matthew's (before the 1971 merger); the records of St. Joseph's (before the 1971 merger); the records of the merged church (1971 to the present); photographs, oral history project, and Sara Hunter collected materials.

St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church of Flat Rock, Michigan, member of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, was formed as a result of the unification of the Church of the Holy Family of East Rockwood and St. Timothy’s of Flat Rock and operated from 1971 to 2001; registers of baptisms, burials, confirmations, and marriages, and other organizational records.

The record group consists of two series: Historical and Genealogical materials and Organizational files. The record group is of most value for its documentation of church activities important to genealogical research.

Episcopal church located in Detroit, Michigan. Sacramental records including baptismal, marriage, and burial registers; registers of confirmations and communicants; vestry minutes; and photographs.

The collection contains chiefly the sacramental records of the parish: Baptismal, marriage, and burial records are relatively complete for the period 1901-1978. Records of confirmations and communicants are somewhat less complete. Vestry minutes are incomplete--several volumes of minutes are missing from the collection.

The collection also includes a few photographs.

Macomb County and Kalamazoo, Michigan, family. Papers of Addison Ray Stone, graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, later assistant surgeon in the 5th Michigan Cavalry during the Civil War, including medical school theses and notes and letters to his wife during the war; papers of William A. Stone, physician concerned with mental illness, assistant superintendent of the Michigan State Hospital for the Insane at Kalamazoo; papers of Dr. Harriette Stone, assistant physician at the State Hospital, containing letters from her father, Samuel P. McCalmont, Republican legislator from Pennsylvania, later founder of that state's Prohibition Party; papers of William A. Stone, Jr., and other members of Stone, McCalmont, Osborn, and Keeler families; and photographs.

The Stone-McCalmont family papers date from about 1832-1930 and contain materials relating to different family members. The collection has been arranged by name of family.