Search

Pioneer Michigan geologist, assistant to state geologist Douglass Houghton on the Michigan Geological Survey, 1837-1842, completed portions of U.S. Land Survey of the Upper Peninsula begun by Douglass Houghton, 1845-1846. Later active in family's land business and lumber trade. Papers consist of notebooks containing field notes, sketches and maps; private journals covering Michigan geological expeditions and other trips, including the peninsula coast survey, Lake Superior and Upper Peninsula surveys and surveys of Wayne, Monroe and other counties; also weather memoranda, 1835-1864; miscellaneous accounts; and other papers largely relating to geology.

The collection consists primarily of Hubbard's pocket-size field notebooks. The notebooks are arranged, for the most part, chronologically for the period 1837 to 1893. Several notebooks that do not fit the chronological sequence are placed at the end of the series of notebooks. The notebooks for the years 1837 to 1840 have been bound, probably by Hubbard, into larger volumes. For convenience the later notebooks have been grouped into "volumes" by the library. Each "volume" is in a separate case. The notebooks contain personal journals, geological notes, and meteorological registers, along with sketches of landforms, scenery, and people, geological sections, and maps.

A few loose papers are found at the end of the collection.

The most extensive notebooks are those written between 1837 and 1840, when Hubbard was working for the Michigan Geological Survey, and in 1845 and 1846, when he was conducting the combined land and geological survey of the Upper Peninsula. In addition to the main sequence of notebooks for those years (volumes 1-8 and 10-12), that period is represented by separate meteorological registers (volumes 18 and 22), separate geological field notes for the 1840 expedition to the Lake Superior region (volume 21), and three reports on Hubbard's 1846 surveys (volumes 23-24 and loose papers).

This finding aid contains two appendixes. The first, compiled by the initial cataloger of the collection in 1958, specifies where many of the topics indexed in the card catalog for this collection can be found in the series of notebooks. The second contains an inventory of the maps found in the collection.

Several portions of the collection have been published.

The notebooks for May 23-August 8, 1840 (volumes 7-9 and parts of 21) have been published as Lake Superior Journal: Bela Hubbard's Account of the 1840 Houghton Expedition}, edited by Bernard C. Peters. Marquette, Mich.: Northern Michigan University Press, 1983. [MHC call number EA/91/H875/L192]

The "Catalogue of the Geological Specimens, Hubbard & Ives Survey, 1846" (volume 23), the "Report on the Geology &c. of District Surveyed by Messrs. Higgins & Hubbard, 1846, Lake Superior, with Catalogue of Minerals, Sections, etc." (volume 24), and the "Report upon the Geology & Topography of the District on L. Superior Subdivided in 1846 by Hubbard & Ives" (loose material) have been published in Report on the Geological and Mineralogical Survey of the Mineral Lands of the United States in the State of Michigan .., by Charles T. Jackson. Washington, D.C.: Printed for the House of Representatives, 1849. (31st Congress, 1st Session, House Executive Document 5, Part 3) [MHC call number EA/153/U58/M583]

The reports of Hubbard's surveys for the Michigan Geological Survey, based on his notes have been published in Geological Reports of Douglass Houghton: First State Geologist of Michigan, 1837-1845. Lansing, Mich.: Michigan Historical Commission, 1928. [MHC call number EA/153/MG345/G345]

Hubbard's autobiography has been published as Memorials of a Half-Century. New York: Putnam's, 1887. [MHC call number EA/60/H875/M533]

Other Bela Hubbard papers are found at the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

Daniel Carlisle family of Buchanan, Michigan; family correspondence, diaries, and photographs.

The Carlisle family collection consists of two feet of material dating from 1860 to 1972. The papers relate to various members of the Daniel Carlisle family of Buchanan, Michigan. The collection contains correspondence between Hannah L. Carlisle and her husband, Daniel Carlisle. Include as well are letters and eight of Hannah Carlisle's diaries, written between 1885 and 1900 and largely concerning her life in Dead wood, South Dakota.

Other family members represented in the collection are William and Phyllis Carlisle and Vivian Carlisle. The letters of William D. Carlisle concern his service in the US Navy during World War II. The letters of Phyllis Carlisle relate both to her student life at the University of Michigan during the early 1940s and to her service in the Waves during the war. The letters of Vivian Carlisle were written while a student at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University during the 1940s.

Other items of interest is a folder of genealogical material and a letter written by Francis A. Carlisle while serving in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, describing his experiences.

State chapter of national temperance organization founded in 1874; records include correspondence of early W.C.T.U. workers, Alice E. H. Peters and Ella Eaton Kellogg; also minutes, scrapbooks, and other records of individual Michigan W.C.T.U. districts and chapters.

The Michigan Woman's Temperance Union records divide into seven series: Correspondence; Miscellaneous and Publicity; Printed Materials; District Records; County Union Records; Local Union Records; and Photographs. The records document the period of the Michigan WCTU's greatest influence, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as the organization's gradual declining influence following the repeal of the prohibition amendment.

Thomas B. Buell family of Branch County, Michigan. The family was engaged in farming, banking, real estate, and other business enterprises; family history and genealogy; correspondence and other papers of individual Buell family members; records of family banking operations in Union City and Elmira; and papers of Buells attending Olivet College.

The Buell family collection documents the lives and activities of Thomas Bingham Buell (TBB1) and successive generations of sons. The collection is composed mostly of correspondence and business records such as mortgages, contracts, stock certificates, receipts and deeds. The business records and much of the correspondence are valuable for their documentation of the running of a family farm and the operation of a privately-owned bank in 19th and early 20th century Michigan.

Another great value of the collection lies in the personal correspondence and writings of family members. The correspondence and journals of the wives, for example, are especially interesting as most were city bred with no farm experience until after their marriages. And the correspondence between sons and fathers reveals a great deal about the pressures of keeping up the family farm and bank.

The collection, consisting mainly of correspondence and other records of the Buell men, has been divided into nine series: Buell Family, Thomas Bingham Buell (1815-1899), Farmers National Bank, Darius David Buell (1852-1942), Thomas Bingham Buell (1880-1942), Dorr Darius Buell (1882-1920), Elmira Bank of Buell and Wickett, Darius David Buell (1907-1990), and Topical Files. The named series follow sequentially from father to son with the records of the two family banks placed after the papers of the Buell family member first associated with that bank. Because the family was involved so heavily in business dealings both with the farm and the banks, most of the collection in some ways relates to business activities. Thus, family correspondence is often a mixture of personal sentiment and business dealings. In the processing of the collection, files identified as "business" relate only to banking or real estate endeavors. Non-business papers might pertain to both personal and business affairs. Correspondence has generally been grouped by the family member who received it except in cases where it did not make sense to break up groups of related materials, as in the Olivet College subseries of the Darius David Buell (1852-1942) papers.

Branch County and Ann Arbor, Michigan, family. Family papers, reminiscences of Russell and Ralph R. Tinkham, and other papers relating to studies at the University of Michigan and elsewhere.

The collection includes papers relating to the Tinkham and Huxtable families of Branch County, Michigan. The bulk of the papers concerns Russell Tinkham and includes letters, 1875-1877, written while a student in Germany. Also in his papers are reminiscences of his life to 1868, and a notebook, ca. 1920's, containing drafts of letters and other writings. This notebook includes obituaries of University of Michigan class of 1872 classmates, drafts of legal documents, letters to state representatives from Ann Arbor concerning legislative issues and other matters. The reminiscences of Ralph R. Tinkham relate to his career as Chief Engineer for the U.S. Lighthouse Service and Chief of the Civil Engineering Division of the U.S. Coast Guard. His work took him to many places in the Great Lakes area, as well as Alaska, the Gulf Coast, and Hawaii. These reminiscences also concern his life as a student at the University of Michigan and his experiences during World Wars I and II.

Papers of the Edward and Nellie Wilson Whitehead family of Coldwater, Branch County, Michigan. Family letters largely concerning daily activities, including occasional mention of land prices, social customs, fashions and health problems.

The collection of the Whitehead family of Coldwater, Michigan consists entirely of letters from family and friends. The correspondence centers around Edward and Nellie Wilson Whitehead, chiefly from Nellie Whitehead's sisters Lucy Wilson Gifford Smith, Leothie Wilson Culver, Orpha Wilson, and Laura Wilson, and her cousins Mary and Naomi Baker. The bulk of the letters were written in the 1870's when Edward and Nellie Whitehead were living in Webster and Churchville, New York. There are, however, a few earlier letters (the first being in 1862) as well as some later in the 1880's. With the last composed in 1900. The letters are all of a general type with an occasional passage discussing land prices and conditions, fashions of the days health problems, etc. The majority speak of family concerns-neighborhood and family gossip. The correspondence came from Angola, Indiana; Battle Creek, Batavia, Coldwater, Jackson, and Sturgis, Michigan; and Batavia, Churchville, and Webster, New York, with the largest share, naturally, coming from Michigan.