Collections

Family papers include correspondence, account books, autograph albums, records of Dean Creek Threshing Company, state tax land deeds, and miscellaneous.

The collection includes the correspondence between Clarence and Lucy before they married, 1890-1896, and later correspondence with friends and relatives. Also included are Autograph Albums, Clarence’s Account Books, and records of the Dean Creek Threshing Company. The deeds in the collection do not name a Beardslee as a seller or owner. Miscellaneous materials include a program for a Detroit Provisional Imperial Klanvocational, June 30-July 9, 1923, with handwritten notes on speakers and officers, and the words to a Klan song based on the melody of “Michigan, My Michigan,” on the inside back cover.

The papers consist of family papers of the Collet and Hall families, including personal, business, legal papers and account books.

The Collet-Hall papers consist of correspondence, financial, business, and legal papers, certificates, and account books. Sections of the William and Sarah Hall correspondence note views on politics, the Civil War, and slavery. Letters from William Collet to his parents describe working at the Pere Marquette Railroad offices in Michigan City, Ind. A letter to Emma from her brother James tells about the fluctuating currency situation in Indiana, 1860. One document grants Emma Collet legal guardianship of her children, William Hastings and Emma Jane, after the death of her husband (their father), Stephen. Genealogical materials include records of births, deaths, and marriages, notebooks, certificates, and newspaper clippings.

The collection includes photographs the newspaper staff took, retook, or collected of town business, people, events, buildings, organizations, schools, school events, accidents, and other topics in or near Gratiot County, Michigan.

The collection includes images that the newspaper staff photographed or collected of town business, people, events, buildings, organizations, schools, school events, accidents, and other topics in or near Gratiot County, Michigan. Some of the images are later copies of pre-1900 images.