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This collection contains incoming letters to Alden Scovel and a group of diaries kept by Mary Wait Scovel. The Scovels were related by Mary Wait's marriage to Alden Scovel's cousin, Hezekiah Gould Scovel.

This collection contains material related to Alden Scovel and Mary Wait Scovel. The Scovels were related by Mary Wait's marriage to Alden Scovel's cousin, Hezekiah Gould Scovel.

The Alden Scovel Correspondence (69 items) consists of Scovel's incoming personal correspondence, dated April 24, 1820-April 29, 1850 (primarily 1820-1824). He received letters from family members, including his brother Ashley and his uncle Sylvester, who provided news from Albany, New York, and Williamstown, Massachusetts, and from other acquaintances. Charles F. Stuart described his life in Aurora, New York, and Samuel Bradstreet wrote several letters about legal issues related to disputed land holdings in northern New York State. Additional items include an invitation to a Yale alumni reunion (May 20, 1836), a certificate regarding funding that Scovel received from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America Board of Missions (April 29, 1850), and a report about the Albany Juvenile Bible Society (undated).

The Mary Wait Scovel Papers are divided into several series. The Correspondence and Documents subseries (7 items) includes letters that she received from S. Wait in Albany, New York (March 22, 1867); C. Johnston in Memphis, Tennessee (October 7, 1870); and G. [Foierson] in Columbia, Tennessee. Her correspondents discussed personal news, Mary's order of printed cards, and the estate of James M. [Elrea?]. Other items include a patent deed (April 25, 1870), a brief undated note to Mary, and blank forms regarding membership in a lodge of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows and the payment of fuel rations.

The Diaries, Account Books, and Commonplace Books subseries (16 volumes) consists primarily of journals dated August 27, 1838-March 16, 1885, including an unbroken series of diaries kept by Mary Wait Scovel between June 15, 1864, and March 16, 1885 (14 volumes). Scovel wrote primarily about her social life; charitable work; daily activities in Nashville, Tennessee; and travel in Arkansas and Florida. She occasionally commented on current events: several Civil War-era entries concern war news and related events, and her entry of April 30, 1875, describes a lynch mob. In addition to diary entries, the first 4 volumes contain financial records, poetry, essays, genealogical notes, and medical recipes. Volumes 6-16 include records of Mary Wait Scovel's incoming and outgoing correspondence. Some of the pre-printed diaries used by Mary Scovel were originally intended for use by military medical personnel. Enclosures include clippings, additional pages of notes, and plant material.

The Programs, Pamphlets, and Ephemera subseries (76 items) consists largely of programs from charity concerts, theatrical presentations, and celebrations, often held in support of and in honor of schools and other institutions in Nashville, Tennessee. Other items include advertisements and business cards, a menu, an unused memorandum book, and a calendar for January 1874-August 1875. The series contains a list of suggested candidates for an election held in January 1868, several advertisements regarding the benefits of sending children to kindergarten, and an advertisement for The Spirit of Arkansas, which features an illustration of a Native American man riding a grasshopper and chasing another man, with the caption "They have no G. Hoppers and Indians there!"

The Newspaper Clippings subseries (5 items) includes pages and excerpts from the Nashville Whig ([1846]), Nashville Union (April 24, 1862), The Wright County Times (Monticello, Minnesota, February 2, 1888), and the Nashville Banner (April 21, 1888), as well as a published compilation of Clippings from the Tennessee Papers with Other Interesting Items ([April 1865]). The Nashville Whig featured a printed illustration of businesses along Nashville's public square, including H. G. Scovel's storefront.

This collection is made up of the papers of Arba U. Thompson and his wife Frances Warner Thompson of Farmington and Avon, Hartford County, Connecticut, as well as the correspondence of their children Herbert, William, Lewis, Leila, Charles, and Frances May Thompson. The collection also includes the correspondence of Lucelia "Leila" U. Thompson, an educator who traveled with her husband William P. Baker to India in 1853 to serve for a decade as a missionary and teacher.

This collection is made up of the papers of Arba U. Thompson and his wife Frances Warner Thompson of Farmington and Avon, Hartford, Connecticut, as well as the correspondence of their children Herbert, William, Lewis, Leila, Charles, and Frances May Thompson. The papers include 2,713 letters, plus one linear foot of diaries, legal and financial documents, school papers, a commonplace book, a notebook, poems and writings, photographs, ephemeral materials, and printed items.

The Thompson Family Papers correspondence includes a wide range of writers and recipients. A temporary, rudimentary selection of them is as follows:

• The earliest portion of the collection is largely comprised of the incoming correspondence of Frances "Frankie" Warner / Frances Warner Thompson, 1850-1851, and the often lengthy, journal-like letters of Lucelia "Leila" U. Thompson who traveled with her husband William P. Baker to India in 1853, where she served as a missionary and teacher until her death in 1864. Lucelia's letters begin with correspondence from Dwight Place Seminary, New Haven, in 1850. By 1852, she served as a teacher at Germantown in a school of Mary Fales, then in 1853 determined to travel as a missionary abroad. From 1853 to 1864, she wrote lengthy, at times journal-like letters from different locations in India, including "Ahmednuggur," "Khokar," Bhingar, "Shingvay" (illustrated letter from Bombay, January 1, 1855). Her recipients included Emmie Gallup (in Essex, Conn.), Lottie R. Andrew, and Emily Hubbard.
• After Lucelia's death, her husband William P. Barker wrote letters to their parents, daughter Mary, and niece Leila Anna. Barker wrote from Minneapolis and Cottage Grove in the 1860s and 1870s, and from Carbon, Wyoming Territory, in the early 1880s.
• Early 1850s courtship correspondence of Arba Thompson and Frances Warner.
• Early 1850s letters from Mary E. Hubbell of Ipswich, Massachusetts; Avon, Connecticut; Baltimore, Maryland; and North Stonington, Connecticut, to Abigail "Nabby" Thompson.
• Correspondence of Frances Thompson's brother "Baxter" at Yale College, beginning in 1854.
• Letters by Flora Thompson in Avon, Connecticut, to her siblings beginning in the 1850s, then from Carthage, Ohio, by the 1870s.
• Letters of Abel M. Thompson of Rockville mid-1850s
• Correspondence of Pliny F. Warner of Aledo, Illinois, a job printer and publisher of the weekly Aledo Banner, editor of the Mason County Republican out of Havana, Illinois, and then the Havana Republican.
• Letters by Frances Warner's father Milo Warner of Strykersville, New York, 1850s-1860s.
• Letters by Frances Warner's sister Cordelia Morrill of Brooklyn, Strykersville, "Shadow Nook," and Java Village, New York, 1860s-1890s.
• Post-Civil War correspondence to Frances, Abigail "Nabby", and Herbert Wilson Thompson.
• Letters to Frances and Arba from cousin Dr. C. D. Woodruff of Lima, New York.
• Letters of E. G. Warner in Amherst, Massachusetts, to cousin Leila Thompson, 1880s.
• Letters from Charles and Anna Thompson to Frances Thompson from Bridgeport, Connecticut, late 1880s. Charles K. Thompson worked for the American Gramophone Company at Bridgeport.
• Letters of H. W. Thompson, working at C. H. Smith & Co., loan brokers and western real estate out of Hartford, Connecticut, late 1880s.
• Correspondence of Edith A. Warner of Brooklyn, New York, while teaching at Granville Female College, Granville, Ohio, in the 1880s.
• By 1890, the volume of letters to Frances May Thompson, known as May, from siblings and cousins increased dramatically. In the early 1890s, May took a job as a teacher at a schoolhouse in Washington, Connecticut. While there, she received letters from Helen M. Webster (1860-1905), a supervisor at the American Asylum at Hartford, Connecticut; later, Helen married to a man named George Reed and wrote from Hill City, South Dakota, in 1896 and 1897. By the late 1890s, May received letters from her husband, who worked at Harvey & Lewis, opticians and photographic supplies. He also used New York Life Insurance Company stationery.
• Correspondence between siblings Lewis and Leila Thompson, 1900s.
• Incoming letters to Leila Thompson from Alice P. Warner of Beloit, Wisconsin, early 1900s.
• Letters between Leila and Alice H. "Claire" Alderman in Clarkston, Georgia; St. Petersburg, Florida; and elsewhere, 1900s-1910s.
• Later letters between Beatrice A. Hoskins and her mother Frances Hoskins.

The collection includes two small, unsigned diaries, dated 1848 and 1923. Legal and financial documents include 57 accounts, tax receipts, land indentures, loan receipts, four account books (1824-1927), and other papers, largely from Avon and Farmington, Connecticut. One account book, kept by Guy Thomson in 1824, includes accounts for sawing, mending a halter, plowing, mowing, planting, picking apples, making cider, shoeing horses, mending fences, and other labor, plus monies taken in from a boarder.

School papers include 10 rewards of merit, report cards, school programs, a student's notebook, and a teacher's notebook, all dating from 1851-1925. A commonplace book by Leila U. Thompson dates from the 1840s and includes poetry and excerpts, including a multi-page poem, "The Missionary's Call." A notebook, marked "O.V. Brainerd" contains page after page of scribbles.

Poems and other writings include 42 loose leaf copies of poems on subjects such as temperance, resignation, death and bereavement, friendship, sentimental and religious topics, Christmas, and other subjects. Seventeen photographs include a CDV of Fannie Warner as a young girl, and a selection of snapshots, apparently of members of the Hoskins family.

The Thompson Family Papers include a variety of ephemera and printed items, including 12 visiting cards; 33 invitations and announcements; 46 birthday, valentine, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and other holiday cards; genealogical notes; newspaper clippings, pamphlets, programs, and other items.