Collections

The papers include biographical materials, legal and financial papers, correspondence, maps, ephemera, and diaries.

The John Ball Family Papers consist of legal and financial records, correspondence, essays, ephemera, and diaries, largely but not entirely dated after John Ball moved to Michigan. The topically grouped material is arranged alphabetically. The legal and financial records contain certificates allowing John Ball to practice law in New York. A large portion of the correspondence is between John, his wife, Mary, and their daughter, Lucy, which consists mainly of family affairs and travel to Europe, especially Switzerland and France (1869-1894). Earlier letters cover family matters and Michigan social conditions (after 1836). A letter of 1 March 1883 describes travel conditions and Indians at Fort Vancouver and a letter of 29 November 1838 expresses John Ball’s anti-abolitionists sentiments. The diaries written by John Ball tell about a trip to Lansingburgh (New York), 1878, and a trip to New York and New Hampshire, 1883. Mary Ball’s diaries describe traveling abroad, 1872, and her daily life in 1874.

Copies of several books on Ball are in Clarke, as are the papers of Ball and McKee. McKee’s diary of his student years in Massachusetts and Vermont are in the Bentley Historical Library.

A portrait of John Ball is housed in the Clarke as well. The note on the back reads as follows: “John Ball. Portrait painted while he was a student at Dartmouth. Ball became one of Michigan’s most famous pioneers. He was the first to teach west of the Mississippi.” The portrait is in a small, oval frame.

This artificial collection includes reprints, newspaper clippings (copies), published materials, a typed letter, and brochures.

This artificial miscellaneous collection is a compilation of published items, copied materials, and a typed letter from 1932. Most of Dr. Kellogg’s papers are housed at the Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections.

The papers include his correspondence, diaries, notebooks, a list of Custom house employees, photographs, a printer's plate, and real estate papers for Colorado and Illinois.

The majority of the Papers include correspondence, 1870-1897 and undated, describing Custom House concerns, such as smuggling; the World’s Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair) in Chicago, 1893; Chicago life; stocks; real estate; and Republican Party Politics, 1890-1893.

Other materials include his diaries, 1905 and 1908; notebooks and a list of Custom House employees, 1890-1892; photographs; and a printer’s plate of his image; and a notebook of his mother’s estate, 1867-1898. Real estate papers relate to land in Colorado and Illinois, 1867-1910.

Item-level index cards are available to assist researchers.

Family papers, photographic images, promotion papers, and medical writings of Joseph Rowe Smith, Jr., letters to/from his brother, Henry Smith, military and medical papers of Joseph Rowe Smith, Sr., and miscellaneous family materials.

The papers of Joseph Rowe Smith, Sr., 1823-1859, and undated, document his diary of his military career, 1823-1835, which traces his traveling, survey work in Florida, illnesses, births, and deaths of children, his affection for his wife, and conversion to Christianity following exposure to several severe cholera epidemics are particularly interesting. His faith comforted him through the loss of two babies. Also of interest are medical reports on his injured elbow, and estate papers.

The papers of Joseph Rowe Smith, Jr., 1848-1910, and undated, include his promotion papers, photographic images, and his medical writings. Also found in Box 1 are letters from Henry Smith to his brother Joseph R. Smith, Sr., and a journal, 1870-1878, and several folders of miscellaneous materials of Horace Smith, 1870, 1920.

Miscellaneous family papers and photographic materials, mostly undated, complete the collection. Item-level index cards are also found in Box 3. Note: The Clarke also has two portraits of Smith: one is a small. framed, damaged water color portrait probably from his West Point graduation, circa 1823;the second is an oversized, framed, painted portrait of Smith in uniform with his arm in a sling, undated. For more information about the portraits, please refer to the Framed Art Inventory binder.

A letter Smith wrote on November 13, 1862 to President Abraham Lincoln recommending Rev. S. T. Carpenter of Polo, Illinois for chaplain at the Washington Park Hospital in Cincinnati. Note by Surgeon General W. A. Hammond concurring is housed in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. A link to the finding aid describing the letter is found at https://illinois.as.atlas-sys.com/repositories/2/resources/2557.

Family papers include correspondence, diaries, account books, school notebooks, autograph books, legal papers, obituaries, teaching contract and certificate, a history of Shepherd, Michigan, and specifications for the Shepherd town hall.

This collection of family papers includes correspondence, diaries, account books, school notebooks, autograph books, legal papers, obituaries, a teaching contract and certificate, a history of Shepherd, and specifications for the Shepherd town hall. It provides an interesting view of the lives of early Shepherd pioneers.

Collection of research materials on Michigan topics, mostly photocopies, notes, drafts of articles, and correspondence.

The collection consists mostly of photocopies of newspaper articles, magazine articles, information from websites, the Congressional Record, and chapters from reference and other books, on topics of interest to Barnett. Also included are his correspondence and email to various institutions and people asking for information and material, his notes, and typed articles he wrote on various topics. Topics documented in depth include: Ash, Center Line, John Farmer, Upper Peninsula railroads, Magnet Truck, Michigan railroads, the Mackinac Bridge, music and singers who sang songs about Michigan and or cars, the longstanding oleo versus margarine debates and laws, Michigan Central Railroad Co. Head Lights (a publication), Michigan jazz, traffic lights, with biographical materials on W.L. Potts, and Detroit, Mackinac and Marquette Railroad Co. maps (oversized transparencies). The materials (photocopies)on Headlights or Headlight Flashes includes: an advertising publication of the Company, which describes the comfort of traveling via the Company's trains and provides city histories with biographies of important families and individuals, as well as photographs of those people, expensive homes, businesses, public buildings, and pastoral scenes. Towns described include: Michigan City (Ind.), 1894; and the Mich. cities of: Albion, 1895; Pontiac, 1897; Benton Harbor and Flint, 1896; and Saint Joseph, 1898. Also included are microfilmed newspaper articles (photocopies), in which the Headlights of various cities were advertised, 1895-1896 and 1941, and 1997-2000 typed transcripts of other similar newspaper advertisements, 1895-1898. Additional subjects include: Agricultural Demonstration Trains of Michigan State University, 1906-1937; buying Michigan, 1795-1796; counties, name changes/considered creation of new counties; the history of county names; dandelions [as an emergency source of post-World War II rubber]; highway lighthouses [precursors to traffic lights]; lynchings; prisoners building Michigan roads during the 1920s; reflectors (roadside); roadside parks [Michigan had the first]; stagecoaches; broadcasting; homestead lands; Hollywood; the Port Huron and Milwaukee Railroad; Sabbath blue laws; Ludington (Mich.); swamp lands; centroids; Iron Range and Huron Bay Rialroad; ferries; population centers; Oldsmar, Florida; David Ward, Deward (Mich.); the Detroit and Charlevoix Railroad Company; Cigar Industry in Detroit, including strikes, unions, and women employees; Cigar Store Indians; crops of Flax and Gingseng and flax industries in Michigan prisons; Michigan Indians mentioned in county histories; Michigan Road Construction Train; Michigan World War I fruit and olive pit gathering campaign to create gas masks; Ragweed and hay fever and the Northern Hay Fever Resort Association, Topinabee, and the Western Hay Fever Association of the U.S., headquartered in Petoskey; General Philip H. Sheridan 's warhorse Rienzi; St. Mary's Falls Ship Canal Company and its subsidiary units, the Canal Mineral Land Company and the Michigan Pine Land Association; and Windmills in Detroit. Also included is a draft of a book by Graydon M. Meints on lumber baron David Ward that Barnett reviewed. The major topics found in 2021 Addition, Boxes 63-75, include: American Tract Society, Bloomers, Colporteur, Graphite Mining in Michigan, Medical Quacks, Michigan Iron and Land Company, Samuel Geil Maps of Michigan, and Whipping (Military corporal punishment). The 2022 Addition, Boxes 76-79, includes the major topics of Vigilance Committees against German Americans during World War I and Ski Trains. Other topics include: Buffalo Bill Train Accident, Carbon Works in Detroit, Detroit’s Streetlight Towers, Grand Duke Alexis A Romanov Visits Detroit, ‘Hello Girls’ [U.S. Army Signal Corps, World War I], Lindbergh in Michigan, Michigan World War II Veterans Bonus, Wetzel (Antrim County, MI, village), Bomb Mackinaw (which were 1925 practice maneuver plans to prevent enemies from crossing into the straits by dropping bombs from airplanes), and Crawfish. The collection is ongoing.

Processing Note: Abbreviations used by Barnett on folder labels were used and copied by Clarke processors exactly. Acidic materials were copied in 2014.

Genealogies, photographs, publication, notes, correspondence, lists. and historical information of Margaret Drake Elliot.

Includes publications, family genealogies, maps, and other materials she gathered and her notes and drafts of the book.

Family correspondence mainly between Beach, his sister, brother, other relatives, friends, his parents and their siblings, friends, and relatives.

The collection mainly consists of family correspondence to Marvin from Gertie, mostly Frank, other relatives and friends. There is also earlier correspondence between Emma and Porter, their siblings, friends and other relatives. An unidentified tintype of a man is in the Biographical materials folder.

Her correspondence with her family, friends, and boyfriend, Darius Olmsted of North Dakota, school certificates and teaching materials.

The collection consists mostly of correspondence which is arranged chronologically. Marie’s correspondence with friends and family includes materials relating to teaching such as lists of students and teachers from Garden, fliers of school supplies, and teaching information. Among her correspondents is Darius Olmsted, who lived in Medora, Billings County, N. D. Their increasingly warm correspondence includes the sending of hugs, kisses, and her near demands that he avoid playing baseball and risking hurting himself. Their correspondence runs from August 1891 to July 1898. The rest of the correspondence includes descriptions of family and social life in Washtenaw County and Garden. Also included is an autograph album given to her on her 12th birthday, July 16, 1886. Miscellaneous materials are filed at the back of the box.

The family papers, 18801-1969 (Scattered) and undated, documents the lives of Anna, Julia and Mary M., all of whom were Michigan teachers, with a focus on Mary's nursing experience, during which she served as a Red Cross and U.S. Nursing Corps member with the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

The family papers, 18801-1969 (Scattered) and undated, documents the lives of Anna, Julia and Mary M., all of whom were Michigan teachers, with a focus on Mary's nursing experience, during which she served as a Red Cross and U.S. Nursing Corps member with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. The collection is organized by format: Papers including obituary of Mary’s mother, also named Mary who died in 1944, various correspondence, pins, poem, and Mary’s AEF card from Siberia, vaccination record and wallet in the front of Box 1. Amongst the pins is a 1908 President Taft brass campagna swastika, to attach to a watch fob. Photographs of men, women, school children at schools where Mary or her sisters taught, nurses, nursing, nursing school, an operation, family, friends, colleagues, families, animals, some buildings, and vacations fill the rest of Box 1 through Box 3. In the 1940s-1960s Mary vacationed in Florida where she and friends and family visited various tourist cities including Tarpon Springs and Orlando. There are photographs of diverse animals and birds including elephants of an unidentified circus. Mike the cat predominates in the animal photographs. There are photographs of a man and woman in wheelchairs. There is an oversized folder of teaching and nursing certificates and high school diplomas and two oversized volumes of Mary’s nursing experience in France in World War I, one of which is very artistically organized with AEF on the front cover made from photographs of AEF nurses and soldiers. Most of the materials are undated.