Collections : [University of Michigan William L. Clements Library]

This collection is made up of letters by Amos Lawrence (1786-1852), his son Amos Adams Lawrence (1814-1886), and his brother Abbott Lawrence (1792-1855). They discussed financial and business matters, politics, and personal news.

This collection is made up of letters by Amos Lawrence (1786-1852), his son Amos Adams Lawrence (1814-1886), and his brother Abbott Lawrence (1792-1855). One engraved portrait of Abbott Lawrence and a letter by S. K. Lothrop acknowledging the death of Abbott Lawrence completes the collection. The Lawrences addressed subjects such as Henry Clay, the National Republican Party, education and schools, cotton mills, and national finance. Later items pertain to Amos Adams Lawrence's business affairs, including the construction of railroads in Massachusetts. A printed obituary for the elder Amos Lawrence is pasted into one letter (January 6, 1836). For more information on each item, see the Detailed Box and Folder Listing.

The Abraham Bell papers contain correspondence and financial documents related to Abraham Bell & Co., an early 19th-century New York City shipping firm owned by Abraham Bell.

The Abraham Bell papers contain correspondence and financial documents related to Abraham Bell & Co., an early 19th-century New York City shipping firm owned by Abraham Bell. The majority of material in the Correspondence series is addressed to either Abraham Bell or to his company, and relates to various business affairs, often concerning payment or delivery of goods. Many of the letters originated from European firms, including a letter from Collman, Lambert & Co. in Liverpool, written on stationery that includes a printed list of current prices for cotton and related goods (February 8, 1837).

The Receipts and financial papers series consists of non-correspondence items related to the operation of Abraham Bell & Co. throughout the early and mid-1800s. These include records of payment and lists of cargo carried aboard Bell's ships, as well as several documents relating to loads of street manure in 1839. Several early items within this series pertain to the ship Josephine.

Fifteen Account and receipt books provide information about Bell's financial endeavors throughout the period in explicit detail, covering the years 1840-1868. A letter book contains copies of letters written by Abraham Bell between October 16, 1833, and August 15, 1834.

Miscellaneous items in the collection include an indenture for land in New Jersey belonging to the Budd family (December 25, 1812), and a record of fiscal accounts between Abraham Bell & Co. and [Malionson] Bell & Co. (June 30, 1836).

This account book pertains to Abraham B. Smedes's work as a cooper in Shawangunk, New York, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Additional entries concern education, surveying work, and shoe repair.

This account book (approximately 130 pages) pertains to Abraham B. Smedes's work as a cooper in Shawangunk, New York, in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Additional entries concern education, surveying work, and shoe repair in the early to mid-1800s.

Abraham B. Smedes recorded most of his accounts from 1793-1805 (bulk 1795-1805), documenting his work as a cooper and laborer in Shawangunk, New York. He laid hoops, built or repaired containers such as flour casks, and (occasionally) wrote deeds or other legal documents. One entry concerns the sale of a house to William Hamilton in the spring of 1779 (page 43). Smedes most often received payments in corn, meats, or other foods or goods. He noted that some accounts had been settled "by a course of law." A record with the president and directors of the Ulster & Orange Turnpike Branch Co. concerns surveying work done in 1809 and 1812 (page 95), and Smedes or a later owner of this account book received money for several scholars' tuition in October 1815 (pages 102-121, 124-125).

Later accounts appear on the bottom half of many pages, particularly between pages 7 and 37 and on pages 126-128. These accounts, dated 1821-1842, with the bulk dated 1835-1841, pertain to a cobbler who repaired and made shoes and insoles. Customers paid with foods, goods, and cash. The records on page 128 mention factory labor by Peter, Georgiana, William, Blandina, and Elsie in March 1823. A few additional accounts cover the intervening years between Smedes's entries and the shoemaking records, many pertaining to the sale of vinegar in the 1810s.

The final pages contain financial accounts from 1809-1810 (page 132) and money received from [1801?]-1802 (page 133). The volume includes a 9-page index, organized alphabetically by surname (pages numbered 1-4). Additional pages of accounts are laid into the volume; several pages toward the end have been torn out of the book.

This volume is made up of the accounts of Jackson, Indiana, blacksmith Abraham Heiny between 1834 and 1843. Heiny's accounts include extensive records related to making horseshoes, but also making and sharpening ploughs, shovels, and scythes; making chains and nails; mending wagons and tires; and many other tasks.

The Abraham Heiny account book is made up of the accounts of Jackson, Indiana, blacksmith Abraham Heiny between 1834 and 1843. Heiny's accounts include extensive records related to making horseshoes, but also making and sharpening ploughs, shovels, and scythes; making chains and nails; mending wagons and tires; and many other tasks.

This collection contains 15 letters related to Adeline Chase Hart and Matthew Hart of Goshen, Connecticut. The Harts received 12 letters from family members and acquaintances between 1850 and 1859, and Adeline wrote 3 letters to Matthew while he sought gold in California in the early 1850s. The letters concern topics such as religious conversion, family health, local news, and Adeline's widowhood. The collection also includes a deed for land in Sullivan County, New Hampshire.

This collection (16 items) contains 15 letters related to Adeline Chase Hart and Matthew Hart of Goshen, Connecticut. The Harts received 12 letters from family members and acquaintances between 1850 and 1859, and Adeline wrote 3 letters to Matthew while he sought gold in California in the early 1850s. The letters concern topics such as religious conversion, family health, local news, and Adeline's widowhood. The collection also contains a deed between Dorothy Gilman and Emerson Gilman for land in Sullivan County, New Hampshire (April 1, 1837), witnessed by 2 members of the Chase family.

Adeline and Matthew Hart received 12 letters from their parents, siblings, and acquaintances, mostly from Connecticut and from Elmira, New York. Correspondents commented on family and local news, such as health issues, marriages, and funerals; Adeline's sister Lucy wrote about her visit to Hartford, Connecticut, and described a painting she viewed at City Hall (July 16, 1850). Letters from the Chase family often included contributions from several family members. Adeline Hart wrote 3 letters to her husband from October 19, 1850-December 19, 1851, pertaining to her health, their children, and her finances. Several letters in the collection concern religious revivals and conversions, including Adeline's description of her recent conversion to Christianity (October 19, 1850), Lucy Chase's affirmation that the family had become Millerites (February 5, 1851), and Reuben Chase's mention of "spirit rappers" (March 25, 1853).

Following Matthew Hart's death around early 1853, Adeline Hart received a condolence letter and 2 later personal letters from William K. Vaughan, an acquaintance in Big Flats, New York. Matthew Hart's brother, A. P. Hart, also reflected on Matthew's death (March 6, 1853). Another relative, H. E. Cooke, provided a description of her new home (April 29, 1853). Other later letters concern Hattie A. Hart's work teaching at a school and her intention to attend college (August 22, 1857), as well as property in Elmira, New York (October 24, 1859).

The African American and African Diaspora Collection is comprised largely of individual letters, documents, and other manuscript items relating to slavery, abolition movements, and aspects of African American life, largely dating between 1781 and 1865.

The African American and African Diaspora Collection is comprised largely of individual letters, documents, and other manuscript items relating to slavery, abolition movements, and aspects of African American life, largely dating between 1781 and 1865. Topics addressed in the letters and documents include the experiences and work of enslaved persons in the North and South; the buying and selling of enslaved men, women, and children; participation in the French and Indian War, American Revolution, and Civil War of African descended persons; abolitionists and abolition societies; the American Colonization Society; the lives of formerly enslaved persons; African American education; and many other subjects. For details on each document, see the inventory located under "Detailed Box and Folder Listing"

Albert Whiteley of Columbia County, Maryland, compiled these two notebooks while a student at Jefferson Medical College between 1837 and 1839. He recorded detailed lecture notes from numerous physicians on topics such as surgery, anatomy, obstetrics, general medicine, and chemistry.

Albert Whiteley of Columbia County, Maryland, compiled these two notebooks while a student at Jefferson Medical College between 1837 and 1839. He recorded detailed lecture notes from numerous physicians on topics such as surgery, anatomy, obstetrics, general medicine, and chemistry.

The first volume (6"x3.5", approximately 115 pages) contains notes on lectures that Dr. George McClellan, one of the founders of Jefferson Medical College, delivered between January 1838 and June 1839, concerning surgical methods. The second volume (7.75"x6", approximately 275 pages) contains notes on lectures by numerous instructors, including Samuel Colhoun, Samuel McClellan, John Revere, Granville Sharp Pattison, Jacob Green, Robley Dunglison, and George McClellan.

Each notebook covers a variety of medical topics, with discussions on specific diseases, ailments, and treatments, as well as general information about medicine and related topics. Treatments are frequently described in detail, and the notebooks record instructions for bloodletting, amputation, and other contemporary medical procedures. Medicinal treatments are occasionally mentioned, though the material concentrates primarily on physicians' practices. The second volume also contains lengthy discussions of human anatomy and physiology, a section on obstetrics, and information about general chemistry.

The Albin K. Putnam papers contain the scattered correspondence of an Episcopal priest and his family in New England.

The Albin K. Putnam papers contain the scattered correspondence of an Episcopal priest, documenting a life from its early setbacks in obtaining an education to its early termination in a lingering death. The collection is composed of three main sections. First are letters written by friends and relatives of Dorothy Abbott Putnam, 1821-1830 (29 August 1821-30 March 1830; 10 October [n.d.]), principally on religious topics. Second are letters by Albin K. Putnam from the time of his entry into Dartmouth College in 1834 to his death in 1847 (27 September 1834-3 January 1849). These detail Putnam's years as a student and priest, his illness and death, and his wife's difficult adjustment to widowhood. Interspersed are a few other letters not specifically relating to Albin and Fanny but which provide a more rounded picture of the Putnam family as a whole.

The third series of letters (6 August 1849-5 June 1850) document an intriguing chronicle of an old-age romance, in which William Spaulding, Dorothy Putnam's newly widowed brother-in-law, recalls how forty years earlier, he had wooed Dorothy before marrying her sister. This culminates in a second proposal of marriage, and a second refusal.

The Alexander Robinson papers contain military records relating to Fort Greene, which Robinson commanded during the War of 1812, business records relating to international trading, as well as Robinson's personal correspondence.

The Alexander Robinson papers contain 257 documents and records related to Fort Greene, 103 business papers and documents, and 38 pieces of correspondence. The items span 1807-1843, with the bulk centered around 1814-1815.

The Correspondence series comprises primarily personal correspondence, including letters from family members and friends, both incoming and outgoing. Alexander Robinson wrote many of the early letters to his wife Hetty, during his sea voyages, expressing his affection, providing news, and speculating on when he would return. Between 1818 and 1841, William Hicks, a native of Cork, Ireland, wrote approximately 15 letters to Robinson, requesting information about a brother in New York, and providing increasingly grim descriptions of the political and financial situation in Ireland. His letter of November 15, 1821, gives an account of murders and floggings occurring in Cork. Two of the Robinsons' children, Maria Louisa and George, wrote several additional letters, dating from the 1830s and concerning family news.

The Business Papers series spans 1807-1821 and concerns ships that Robinson commanded during those years. Documents are organized by ship, with a few miscellaneous business papers at the end. The series contains records for the Alexander (1809-1813), the Clarendon (1815), the Catherine Ray (1812), the Fulley (1807-1808), the Independence (1815), the Isabella (1813), the Moses Brown (1812-1821), the Nichola (1809-1810), the Quebec (1812-1813), and the Urbana (1812). The items document such information as rolls of crews and their salaries, trading partners and items traded, financial transactions, and repairs made to ships.

The Fort Greene series contains items relating to Fort Greene, 1814-1815. The gunners' reports and morning and evening reports consist of information about which men were present, absent, sick, and at liberty in October and November of 1814. Provision returns, a requisition log, and a receipt book track the purchase and transfer of ordnance and goods. Also present are orders for Fort Greene and Fort Gansevoort, an orderly book for October 19, 1814, to January 11, 1815, and a 26-page journal kept at Fort Greene by Peter H. Schuyler, which described weather conditions, visitors to the fort, general happenings, and how its residents were employed. On December 10, 1814, he recounted a controversy surrounding the smoking of cigars and pipes inside the fort, and several days later reported a dispute between Alexander Robinson and William Cranston and Cranston's subsequent arrest.

The McGill papers are a small, but informative series of letters addressed to Alexander Taggart McGill from fellow Presbyterian ministers. The letters are concerned primarily with facets of the life of the Presbyterian Church, particularly in western Pennsylvania, including ministerial relations, church politics, and theology.

The McGill papers are a small, but informative series of letters addressed to Alexander Taggart McGill from fellow Presbyterian ministers. The letters all correspond to McGill's years in western Pennsylvania, between the time of his return from the south in 1831 and his departure for New Jersey in 1854. This period coincides with McGill's change in denominational ties, however nothing in the collection relates directly to that switch.

The letters are concerned primarily with facets of the life of the Presbyterian Church, particularly in western Pennsylvania, including ministerial relations, church politics, and theology. Of particular note are letters documenting ties between several of the Presbyterian synods, which, in legend at least, detested one another. Perhaps reflecting McGill's own trajectory between synods, these letters suggest a greater degree of cross-fertilization between synods than has traditionally been suggested.