Collections

The papers include family, personal and business correspondence, church records, and materials documenting the Greenback Party and the history of Clinton County, Michigan.

The collection includes: family, personal, and business correspondence includes letters from his brothers, Amos and William, about their inheritance, farm products, the sale of grain, a new steam grist mill and railroads in Ohio, outrageous prices for dry goods during the Civil War, school life in Ohio, elections (1877), land prices, drought (1886), church life, Standard Oil Company drilling, etc., 1848-1892. Also included are miscellaneous church records of the Greenbush Christian Church, 1858-1908. Political correspondence and newspaper clippings documenting the National Greenback Party, 1882-1887, and undated are also included. Lastly, Blank’s diaries describe expenses, the weather, personal activities, churches in Greenbush and Eureca, Clinton County, Michigan, the death of his wife, Lydia, his childhood in Ohio (recounted in 1879), Greenback activities (1880-1881), death of his child (August 1882), suicide of his friend Britton (September 18, 1885), and Prohibitionists’ activities (1887-1888).