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The Letters, Documents, and Other Manuscripts of the Duane Norman Diedrich Collection is a selection of individual items compiled by manuscript collector Duane Norman Diedrich (1935-2018) and the William L. Clements Library. The content of these materials reflect the life and interests of D. N. Diedrich, most prominently subjects pertinent to intellectual, artistic, and social history, education, speech and elocution, the securing of speakers for events, advice from elders to younger persons, and many others.

The Letters, Documents, and Other Manuscripts of the Duane Norman Diedrich Collection is a selection of individual items compiled by manuscript collector Duane Norman Diedrich (1935-2018) and the William L. Clements Library. The content of these materials reflect the life and interests of D. N. Diedrich, most prominently subjects pertinent to intellectual, artistic, and social history, education, speech and elocution, the securing of speakers for events, advice from elders to younger persons, and many others.

For an item-level description of the collection, with information about each manuscript, please see the box and folder listing below.

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."

The collection focuses primarily on John Tailyour, a Scottish merchant who traveled to North America and Jamaica in the 1770s and 1780s to conduct business, before finally returning to his home in Scotland in 1792. His correspondence is heavily business related, centering especially on his trading of slaves, foodstuffs, and sundry goods. It also chronicles the current events in both Jamaica and the Empire. Many of Tailyour's correspondents debate the meaning and merit of the cessation of the slave trade in the late 18th century, as well as the military events of the American and Haitian revolutions, and of the Maroon rebellion of 1795. The papers also include letters between John and his family in Scotland regarding John's mixed-race Jamaican children. He sent three of his children to Britain to be educated, which caused much family concern. Tailyour's account books and financial papers relate both to his Jamaican estate and business, and to his Scottish estate, from which he received added income from rents. The accounts for this estate continue for several decades after Tailyour’s death in 1815. A number of disparate and miscellaneous letters, war records, photographs, and realia that belonged to various members of the extended Tailyour family date mainly from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

The collection has three substantial parts. The most comprehensive and cohesive section is the one concerning John Tailyour, until his death in 1815. The second part contains business papers and accounts related to the Tailyour estate. The third part is the least integrated, and consists of a variety of family papers, photographs, military memorabilia, and other miscellanea.

The Tailyour papers date from 1743 to 2003, with the majority of the collection concentrating in the period from 1780 to 1840. Within these bulk dates, are the two largest portions of the collection: the correspondence and accounts of John Tailyour until his death in 1815, and the account records of the Tailyour estate after 1815.

Seven boxes contain John Tailyour's personal and business correspondence of 3757 letters. The letters focus on Tailyour's mercantile activities in the Atlantic market, especially on the slave trade, its profitability, and the threat posed by abolitionists. Tailyour's correspondence also chronicles personal and family matters, including the education and provision for his mixed-race children from Jamaica. In addition, the collection contains four of Tailyour's letter books of 1116 copies of retained letters that cover the period from 1780 to 1810, with the exception of the years 1786-7 and 1793-1803. In these letters, Tailyour's focus is business, particularly as it relates to the slave trade, but he also includes personal messages to his friends and family.

Tailyour's business papers contain 32 loose account records, as well as five account books documenting the years between 1789-90 and 1798-1816. These primarily concern his Kingston and Scottish estates, including the expense accounts and balance sheets for each, as well as the finances of his merchant activities during the period. Finally, 38 documents of probate records for John Tailyour mainly relate to his landed estate.

The latter portion of collection within these bulk years (1815-1840) also contains correspondence and accounts, although the 228 letters are almost entirely concerned with business accounts. These focus on Tailyour's estate after his death, with John's brother Robert as the main correspondent. Additional materials include 1761 business papers that chronicle the finances of the estate, 11 account books, and 6 hunting books. The business letters and account books detail the estate's expense accounts and receipts, as well as the balances for their annual crops, salmon fishing business, and profits derived from the rents collected on their land. The hunting books contain descriptive accounts of the family's hunts and inventories of their hunting dogs.

The third, and final, part of the collection consists of Tailyour family records (bulk post-1815), including 49 letters from various family members in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and five letterbooks, kept by Alexander Renny Tailyour and Thomas Renny Tailyour. 4 account books are also present kept by Alexander Renny Tailyour and others. Some of the records concern the First World War, including a group of prisoner-of-war records sent from Germany, and journals kept at home that detail news of the war, and daily domestic activities.

The family history documents include 64 genealogical records and 58 probate records. Many of the genealogical items are brief notes on family history, and sketches of the family tree, including a large family tree that spans several hundred years to the present day. The probate records contain one will from the late-nineteenth century, but are otherwise entirely concerned with John Tailyour's estate in the years immediately after his death.

Of the printed records, Memoirs of my Ancestors (1884), by Hardy McCall is a genealogy of the McCall family, and Tailyour's Marykirk and Kirktonhill's estates are described in two printed booklets, one of which is an advertisement for Kirktonhill's sale in the early-twentieth century. Other printed material includes 14 various newspaper clippings concerning the family over the years, and 12 miscellaneous items.

The illustrations, artwork, and poetry comprise 14 fashion engravings, 12 sailing illustrations, a picture of a hunting cabin, two silhouettes, and a royal sketch, all of which date from the early- to mid-nineteenth century. Kenneth R. H. Tailyour's sketches are represented in two sketch books created in his younger years (1917 and 1920). Loose records of poetry, as well as a book of poems from George Taylor, are in this section.

The 221 photographs are of the Tailyour family from the late-nineteenth to the twentieth century, with the majority falling in the early decades of the twentieth century. Most are portraits of the Tailyour family from the early twentieth century, particularly Kenneth R. H. Tailyour.

The 138 pieces of ephemera are, for the most part, postcards of foxhunts during the nineteenth century. These announce the almost-weekly family foxhunts during the middle years of the nineteenth century. The 19 items of realia, include Robert Taylor's quill pen from 1826.

The audio-visual portion of the collection contains three items: a compact disc with an audio interview of John Dann, Director of the Clements Library, on National Public Radio's "The Todd Mundt Show;" a compact disc with photos of the West Indies; and a collection of photographs of the Tailyour papers in their uncatalogued state, and of the festivities surrounding the acquisition of the collection.

Finally, miscellaneous material of 18 pieces includes Robert Taylor's commonplace book of short stories, letters, and poems; the catalogue of Robert Taylor's books; James Tailyour's 1771 style and form book; and a communion book.

This collection contains correspondence, diaries, ephemera, photographs, and other material related to Vashti Detwiler Garwood, a schoolteacher and physician in Ohio, Massachusetts, Kansas, and Michigan. The collection documents her experiences teaching school in Ohio and Massachusetts, as well as her coursework at the Boston University School of Medicine. Also included are additional photographs of her family and a published history of the Novy-Garwood families.

This collection (0.5 linear feet) contains correspondence, diaries, ephemera, photographs, and other material related to Vashti Detwiler Garwood. The material documents her experiences teaching school in Ohio and Massachusetts, as well as her coursework at the Boston University School of Medicine. Also included are additional photographs of her family and a published history of the Novy and Garwood families.

The Correspondence series is comprised of 16 personal letters between members of the Cannon family of Pennsylvania and members of the Detwiler and Garwood families. The Cannon siblings wrote and received three letters between 1862 and 1864, sharing recent news such as local deaths. Isaiah Cannon also informed his brother, D. H. Cannon, of his intention to enlist in the Union Army (February 1, 1864).

The remaining 13 letters relate to Vashti Detwiler Garwood, including several from her mother-in-law, Angeline Garwood (1805-1881), who reported family news from Lewisburg, Ohio. Vashti received a letter from Spencer Willard Garwood, her future husband, written while he served in the 132nd Ohio Infantry Regiment during the Civil War; he provided some of his impressions of the South and shared updates about his regiment (July 7, 1864). In one late letter, W. H. Berkey, editor of the Vigilant, responded to her letter concerning conditions within the Cassopolis Jail in Cassopolis, Michigan; the Women's Christian Temperance Union believed Garwood's previously printed letter a fraud, though a clipping attached to the letter respects the Vigilant's verification of her identity (September 19, 1896).

Vashti Detwiler Garwood kept 5 Diaries and Journals between 1858 and 1868, most of which concern her experiences as a schoolteacher in Ohio and Massachusetts, as well as the early years of her married life in Fort Scott, Kansas. She wrote sporadically until the fall of 1864, when she began composing entries more frequently. Some of the journals document overlapping periods of time. Along with her experiences, she often recorded her thoughts and emotions, frequently related to her religious beliefs and her relationships. Her small pocket journal, kept throughout 1860, also contains quotations, algebra problems, and financial accounts. One late, undated entry in the journal, written between January 1, 1859, and December 31, 1864, is a lament composed after her failed attempt to win admission to Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Her final journal, kept between January 2, 1865, and September 8, 1868, occasionally refers to military developments during the Civil War, and contains a brief allusion to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (April 15, 1865). The series also holds a typescript of diary entries written between January 16, 1864, and September 27, 1864, made from a diary in the collection.

The Writings are 4 jokes and humorous anecdotes, including 1 referencing Native Americans; 6 poems, often sentimental in nature; a list of quotations and a set of notes; an 8-page lesson on "The Rainbow," composed in a question-and-answer format; and 2 essays on writing compositions, totaling around 3 and a half pages. One of the latter compositions is signed by Vashti Detwiler Garwood.

The first subseries of Documents and Ephemera holds items related to Vashti Detwiler Garwood's studies at the Boston University School of Medicine between 1880 and 1881, including tickets verifying her membership in the class and permission to attend lectures, an order of lectures for 1880-1881, 2 commencement tickets, and several items attesting to her successful completion of individual courses. Other material includes a printed circular addressed to students, which states the faculty's commitment to the fair treatment of women (February 5, 1882); tuition receipts; and an event program, printed in Latin. Other Documents and Ephemera are three manuscript slips attesting to Hiram Garwood's good conduct in school, funeral notices, invitations, and 3 printed, colorful cards presented to Martha and Vashti Detwiler as "reward[s] of merit."

The Recipes series (5 items) contains several recipes, including 2 individual items and a three-page sheet containing many recipes, a fragment from a food-related account, and a bill of fare.

Visual Material (22 items) includes photographic portraits and snapshots of members of the Detwiler and Garwood families, both identified and anonymous; a photograph of President James A. Garfield; a postcard depicting the University of Michigan's 1908 commencement exercises, with Vashti Detwiler Garwood marked; and a colored illustration of a woman. The collection also contains a cased ambrotype portrait of Christian Detwiler and Vashti, his daughter, taken in the fall of 1853, and a bound "Souvenir of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania" containing several views of the town.

Printed Material (22 items) consists of 16 newspaper clippings, most of which contain poetry or recipes; an educational pamphlet entitled The Family Bible Teacher, number 18 in a series; a newsletter from the Greenwich Academy, which mentions an upcoming visit by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; 1 of Vashti Detwiler Garwood’s calling cards; and 2 small cards printed with memory- and friendship-themed mottos.

Also included is a copy of the Novy-Garwood Family Record and Connections, a book published in 1990.

Artifacts include a leather wallet purchased by Christian Detwiler in 1827, a circular wooden box, a paper doll, and several outfits for the doll.

The collection also holds 6 pages of Genealogy notes.

This collection contains correspondence, documents, and genealogical information related to Captain William Pote, Jr., of Marblehead, Massachusetts; his sons Greenfield and Samuel; his grandson William; and other descendants. Many items reflect the Pote family's involvement in shipping. One series concerns the family's claim for compensation after French privateers seized a ship's cargo. Later material pertains to efforts of the Dennison and King families to trace their ancestors, who included members of the Pote family.

This collection contains correspondence, documents, and genealogical information related to Captain William Pote, Jr., of Marblehead, Massachusetts; his sons Greenfield and Samuel; his grandson William; and other descendants. Many items reflect the Pote's involvement in shipping, and one series of items concerns the family's claim for compensation after French privateers seized a ship and its cargo. Later material pertains to efforts of the Dennison and King families to trace their ancestors, who included the Pote family.

The Pote Family Correspondence and Documents series (59 items) contains material related to the descendants of William Pote, dated between 1769 and 1853. Two early letters, including one between Samuel Pote and John Poat, the latter an English sea captain (November 11, 1769), and another copied from Jos. Poat about a family marriage in the year 1334 (March 1776), reveal the family's early interest in their genealogy. The series also holds business correspondence, such as 6 letters between Samuel Pote and Jedediah Pebble related to a payment dispute over the sale of the Nero (October 1781-March 1783). The financial documents are records concerning Greenfield Pote, his son William, and Samuel Pote, including agreements, a deed, receipts, and estate papers.

The Dennison Family Correspondence and Documents series (25 items) is comprised of correspondence and documents related to several generations of the Dennison and King families (1747-1997). Among the items are letters exchanged by Samuel and Horatio Dennison, wills for George and Samuel Dennison, and a document granting Samuel Dennison United States citizenship (January 27, 1839).

The French Spoliation Documents series (57 items) consists of 43 letters, 1 postcard, 2 petitions, 4 pages of hand copied records, 2 pages from an account book, 3 newspaper clippings, and 2 government publications, all related to a financial claims resulting from French capture of American merchant ships in the late 18th century. William Pote (1766-1847) owned the Freeport, a ship seized by a French privateer in 1796. The series traces the Pote family's attempts to gain financial compensation from the United States government. Many letters were exchanged between family members and lawyers.

• French Spoliations. Report of the Secretary of State... Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1886 (324 pages)
• Statement Showing the Payments of Awards of the Commissioners Appointed Under the Conventions Between the United States and France, Concluded April 30, 1803, and July 4, 1831, and Between the United States and Spain, Concluded February 22, 1819... Washington: Government Printing Office, 1886.

The Account Books and Daybook series contains 4 items.

William Pote's daybook and account book consists of 196 pages of ledger entries kept between 1788 and 1844, as well as the following loose items: 19 letters (1793-1835), 4 pages from an account book (1776), and 5 additional documents. The financial records concern agricultural products, manufactured goods, labor, personal notes, and seamen's wages, as well as different goods produced and sold by the Pote family, such as fish, eels, clams, corn, potatoes, butter, meat, rum, sugar, molasses, tea, and salt. Roughly 225 people, 19 ships' captains, 10-15 seamen, and 17 unique vessels are covered. In addition to family finances, the daybook documents several trips William Pote made to the West Indies between 1789 and 1790, and to Europe in 1792 and in unidentified years. A group of records dated between March and July 1802 pertain to the Portland Mineral Company's expenses.

William Pote, Jr., kept an account book (145 pages) between 1825 and 1830. The volume also contains laundry records (1849) and Bessie F. H. Jackson's school notes (1889). Pote's records pertain to the sale of food and supplies to 9 schooners (Adeline, Desiah, Galens, Julia Ann, Leopard, Lincoln, Pelican, William H. Crawford, and William), repairs made to the Leopard (p. 48), and cargo carried onboard the Lincoln during an 1830 trip to Honduras and on the Adeline during an journey to Belize and Honduras (p. 140). Pote also noted the names and earnings of 13 men who participated in mackerel fishing expeditions.

A smaller blue volume (38 pages) contains three main sections: William Gardiner's expenses of the Leopard's mackerel fishing voyages (1833-1834); William Pote's farm accounts between 1835 and 1836; and Pote's 2 accounts concerning payments made to his married daughters Eliza and Sophia (undated). Receipts are also laid into the volume.

An anonymous author also maintained an account book and log book for the Allegator (212 pages), which contains records of the ship's mackerel fishing expeditions between May 1828 and November 1831. Log entries record the weather, daily catch size, the ship's location, and other information. The volume also holds additional accounts William Pote (1766-1847) kept between 1831 and 1847, documenting the fishing voyages of the Allegator and Leopard.

The Ephemera series (13 items) is comprised of the following items: 2 negatives of silhouettes of William (1766-1847) and Dorcus Pote (1772-1842); 2 prints made from those negatives; 8 poems composed by Eliza Pote Dennison; and a pamphlet entitled "The Home Formulary: The Latest and Most Valuable Toilet and Miscellaneous Formulas for Home Use," by William Hobury.

Eliza Dennison King, William Pote's granddaughter, compiled the material within the Genealogy series (96 items) while researching the history of the Pote, Dennison, and allied families. The series includes King's correspondence with distant cousins and drafts of family trees.

Finally, the collection includes a ledger-sized Pote Family Notebook of copied letters and documents, plus additional genealogical materials. The volume includes early 1880s copies of three American Revolutionary War era letters by Joseph and Samuel Pote (March 1776-March 6, 1785; 7 pages); copies of French spoliation claim-related documents and records (1793-1832, copied 1882-1885; 9 pages); and genealogical and biographical notes on members of the family (17 pages).

The Woods family papers chronicle the establishment of an important family in western Virginia during the 18th and early 19th centuries. While the bulk of the collection pertains to Archibald Woods' (1764-1846) activities as a surveyor and land speculator in Ohio County, the collection also contains several letters from later generations of the family, and documents relating to military and public affairs, including the War of 1812.

The Woods family papers chronicle the establishment of an important family in western Virginia during the 18th and early 19th centuries. While the bulk of the collection pertains to Archibald Woods' (1764-1846) activities as a surveyor and land speculator in Ohio County, the collection also contains several letters from later generations of the family, and documents relating to military and public affairs. A series of land surveys of the Ohio Valley, prepared by Archibald Woods, has been arranged and placed at the end of the collection, and two land documents relating to Woods property are also present in Oversize Manuscripts, a 1774 deed signed by Dunmore granting lands in Botetourt County and an 1820 grant signed by James Monroe for lands in Ohio.

The collection includes a petition relating to the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798. Addressed to the Senate and House of Representatives of Virginia from the citizens of Ohio County, the petition includes thirty nine signatures protesting the Acts. The signers expressed their concern regarding what they saw as a violation of the Constitution, and asserted that the acts were a "serious cause of alarm" for the citizens of Ohio County, whom, they noted, continued to adhere to the Democratic principles of the American Revolution.

During the time that Andrew Woods served as sheriff of Botetourt County, 1777-1780, he kept a small, deerskin-bound notebook of his activities including receipts and notes on the collection of taxes and fees. There are also sporadic family business records. Included are an agreement for disposition of property including land, livestock, and enslaved persons (named Herod [Bin?], Sip, Ceasar, and Nanas). A copy of a contract between siblings Andrew, Martha, and Archibald (likely Andrew Woods' children) for the care of Martha Poage Woods and arrangements for the purchase of an enslaved person for Elijah Woods is also present. The contract provided for clothing, food, and shelter and, if Martha chose "to go back over the mountains," to provide an enslaved person to care for her.

Over fifty surveys and treasury warrants document Archibald Woods' importance as a surveyor and land speculator in the Ohio River Valley. Many of these can be positively traced to land that today lies in the state of West Virginia, mostly in the panhandle, but, Woods owned property throughout Ohio County, which then included parts of Ohio and a corner of Pennsylvania. A contemporary range and township map assists in situating Woods' land holdings.

Seven printed orders, each unique, or nearly unique, include information about troop recruitment and deployment during the War of 1812, and about demobilization at the end of the war. Among other documents in the collection are Archibald Woods' commissions and resignations.

There is little true correspondence in the Woods family papers, although one item, a letter from Joe Woods, is of some interest. In this letter written to his mother, Woods summarizes his reasons for transferring to Princeton, assuring her of his sound character and his decision. William Woods' ledger and daybook from 1828 and Hamilton Woods' cypher book from ca. 1820s are also present in the collection. The collection contains a photograph album with cartes-de-visite, cabinet cards, and other photos from around the 1870s and 1880s, as well as approximately 0.5 linear feet of photographs of Woods family members, particularly Ruth Woods and Charles Moss from the early 20th century, and the Woods family homestead.

Finally, the collection contains useful information about the Woods family estate, Woodsdale. Three documents from 1815-1816 provide floor plans and a record of construction costs, and there are two copy photographs of the house as it stood before its demolition in 1949. In 1976-77, Ruth Moss described the physical layout of the home and grounds as she recalled them, as well as her memories of life at Woodsdale in the early part of the century. An additional 0.25 linear feet of Ruth Moss's genealogical research on the Woods family is also present.