Collections : [David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

Back to top
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

The holdings of the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library range from ancient papyri to records of modern advertising. There are over 10,000 manuscript collections containing more than 20 million individual manuscript items. Only a portion of these collections and items are discoverable on this site. Others may be found in the library catalog.

Search Constraints

Start Over You searched for: Date range 1817 Remove constraint Date range: 1817 Level Collection Remove constraint Level: Collection Repository David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library Remove constraint Repository: David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Number of results to display per page
View results as:

Search Results

Collection
The papers of the Abbot family consist mainly of correspondence, but also include financial and legal papers, diaries, a letter-book, clippings, printed material, speeches and photographs (including cartes-de-visite, and some cyanotypes and tintypes). The materials date from 1733 to 1999, the bulk ranging from 1860-1910. A significant portion of the correspondence comprises of personal letters exchanged during the Civil War between William Richardson Abbot, headmaster of Bellevue High School, and his wife, Lucy Minor Abbot. Abbot's letters mention battles and political events of the Civil War, including his experience as an officer in the First Regiment of the Engineers Troops (Army of Virginia). Other correspondence includes exchanges between W.R. Abbot and his immediate family, both during and after the Civil War, as well as numerous letters to Abbot from parents of boys attending Bellevue High School. The collection also includes materials from the lives of the children and grandchildren of William and Lucy Abbot. Letters from the Abbot children consist of personal exchanges, accounts of travel in turn-of-the-century Europe, as well as experiences in the German university system. Also included is a brief memoir by Ann Minor, Lucy's sister, documenting childhood experiences in Virginia during the Civil War. There are also papers belonging to the Minors of Charlottesville (Va.), such as correspondence of Charles and John Minor.

While the bulk of the collection is made up of correspondence, the papers also include Abbot's addresses to schools and the Virginia Educational Society; printed bulletins detailing courses of study and formal statements of the teaching philosophy at Bellevue; and an official letter-book, receipts, financial and legal documents relating to the purchase, expansion and daily administration of the school. Other materials relating to the children of the William and Lucy Abbot include educational addresses by their son, Charles Minor Abbot, who administered Bellevue until it closed (1901-1909), as well as biographical material on Virginia Henderson's authoritative influence on professional nursing.

The Abbot Family papers provide the researcher with numerous vantage points onto public, professional and private life in nineteenth-century Virginia, most particularly through personalized accounts of men and women of the time. While the papers follow the families' colonial past from the early eighteenth century into the mid-twentieth century, the collection is noteworthy for its emphasis on military and private life in the Confederacy and in the Reconstruction South. The collection illuminates the experience of the Civil War through numerous windows onto the private lives of individuals; the professionalization of secondary education during the Reconstruction; the social and epistolary conventions of nineteenth century courtship; and the construction of an inter-generational identity, based on extended familial affections and ties to the institutions of Bellevue and the University of Virginia.

Collection

Adeline Burr Davis Green papers, 1796-1956 5 Linear Feet — 1551 Items

Married first to David Davis, lawyer, Supreme Court Justice, and U.S. Senator from Illinois, and then to Wharton Jackson Green, agriculturist and U.S. Representative from North Carolina; resident of Fayetteville, N.C. Personal and family correspondence. Includes journal of and letters, 1851-1853, from brother James M. Burr to his wife describing his life in California during the Gold Rush; Civil War letters to Adeline from her cousin (and later second husband), Wharton Jackson Green, while a prisoner-of-war at Johnson's Island, Ohio; letters, 1882-1885, from first husband David Davis describing daily proceedings in the Senate, social functions in Washington, D.C., and notable persons; letters from friends of Davis concerning personal and political matters; letters, 1906-1928, from Jessica Randolph Smith and others pertaining to the United Daughters of the Confederacy; and letters, 1911-1931, from cousin James Henry Rice, Jr., ornithologist, naturalist, editor, and literary figure, discussing politics, conservation, South Carolina culture, world affairs, especially relative to Germany and Russia, his rice plantations, and the League of Nations.

Papers of Adeline E. (Burr) Davis Green (1843-1931) include letters, 1851-1853, from James M. Burr, brother of Adeline (Burr) Davis Green, to his wife describing his life in California searching for gold; James Burr's journal entitled "Journal of a Cruise to California and the Diggins" ; Civil War letters from her second husband and cousin, Wharton Jackson Green (1831-1910), later agriculturist and U.S. congressman, while a prisoner-of-war at Johnson's Island, Ohio; letters, 1882-1885, from her first husband, David Davis (1815-1886), jurist and U. S. senator, describing daily proceedings in the senate, social functions in Washington, D.C., and notable persons; letters from friends of Davis concerning personal and political matters; letters, 1906-1928, from Jessica Randolph Smith and others pertaining to the Daughters of the Confederacy; and letters, 1911-1931, from James Henry Rice, Jr. (1868-1935), ornithologist, naturalist, editor, and literary figure, discussing politics, conservation, South Carolina culture, world affairs, especially relative to Germany and Russia, his rice plantations, and the League of Nations.

Collection

Admiral Robert Barrie papers, 1765-1953 6 Linear Feet — 735 Items

Online
Admiral Sir Robert Barrie (1774-1841) served in the British Navy and participated in the Vancouver expedition, 1791-1795; the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars; the War of 1812; and served as naval commissioner in Canada, 1819-1834. Collection includes papers relating to Admiral Barrie's experiences in the Vancouver expedition, 1791-1795; the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars; the War of 1812; and his service as naval commissioner in Canada, 1819-1834. Included is a small group of material relating to the 31st Regiment of Foot in Florida and Britain during the 1760s and 1770s when the Admiral's father, Dr. Robert Barrie, was surgeon's mate. Correspondents include Thomas Manby and James Macnamara.

The collection consists primarily of family papers in which some naval correspondence is intermingled. The letters of Sir Robert and Lady Julia Barrie are numerous. There are letters by Admiral Gardner, Dorothy (Gardner) Clayton, and various naval officers and members of the family. There are groups of legal papers, biographical sketches, genealogy, financial accounts, and photographs.

Family relationships and associations are extensive and are represented by comment, legal documents, and genealogies. The families include: Clayton, Cornwall, Cracraft, Cririe, Dixon, Fothergill, Gardner, Humphrys, Ingilby, Lyon, Shuttleworth, and Uppleby. A small group of photographs includes Sir Robert Barrie, William Barrie, John and Olivia (Page) Fothergill, John and Kitty (Leadbetter) Uppleby, Leadbetter and Eliza (Barrie) Uppleby, Charles Clotworthy Wood, Swarthdale House, and others.

The papers were still owned by the family as late as the 1950s. On Feb. 28, 1951, Charles John Ormond Barrie wrote about them to James S. Matthews of the Vancouver City Archives. Ten years earlier (Aug. 19, 1941) he listed several series of letters, some of which are no longer in the collection--correspondence from Lord Aylmer, Sir George Cockburn, Sir John Franklin, and George Vancouver. The covers for a few of these letters remain in the collection. The covers for letters by Admiral Gardner and copies of letters by Barrie indicate other absent manuscripts. Some papers may have been destroyed during Barrie's lifetime.

Collection

Admittance cards, 1811-1880 0.2 Linear Feet — 98 cards; 1 box

.Admittance, matriculation, and "Order of Lecture" cards are from a number of medical students from 1811-1880 in the University of Pennsylvania, Jefferson Medical College, Long Island College Hospital (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Harvard University Medical School, Philadelphia School of Anatomy, New Hampshire Medical Institution, Berkshire Medical Institution, and St. Bartholomew's Hospital (London, England). They contain the autographs of the most eminent professors of the day: i.e., Samuel Gross, Franklin Bache, Benjamin Rush, Austin Flint, Samuel Jackson, S. Weir Mitchell, J. K. Mitchell, Charles D. and James A Meigs, John Barclay Biddle, et al. The St. Bartholomew's Hospital card is signed by Ludford Harvey, John P. Vicent, and John Abernethy, the latter (1764-1831) being an eminent English surgeon and founder of the Medical School of St Bartholomew's. The "Order of Lecture" cards from Jefferson Medical College and the University of Pennsylvania list curricula, faculty and their residences, schedules of lectures and texts.Admittance cards, 1850-1853, are for courses at the Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia. They include two matriculation cards for William D. Watson of Chatham County, N. C., dated Nov., 1850, and Oct., 1852, and an examination card Oct., 1852-1853, which is signed by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell as professor of Anatomy, Surgery and Physiology. Dr. Watson returned to Chatham County after his graduation. His house was destroyed during the Civil War. The portion of his medical library saved and stored in a neighboring attic eventually was placed in the historical Collection of the library of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.

.Admittance, matriculation, and "Order of Lecture" cards are from a number of medical students from 1811-1880 in the University of Pennsylvania, Jefferson Medical College, Long Island College Hospital (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Harvard University Medical School, Philadelphia School of Anatomy, New Hampshire Medical Institution, Berkshire Medical Institution, and St. Bartholomew's Hospital (London, England). They contain the autographs of the most eminent professors of the day: i.e., Samuel Gross, Franklin Bache, Benjamin Rush, Austin Flint, Samuel Jackson, S. Weir Mitchell, J. K. Mitchell, Charles D. and James A Meigs, John Barclay Biddle, et al. The St. Bartholomew's Hospital card is signed by Ludford Harvey, John P. Vicent, and John Abernethy, the latter (1764-1831) being an eminent English surgeon and founder of the Medical School of St Bartholomew's. The "Order of Lecture" cards from Jefferson Medical College and the University of Pennsylvania list curricula, faculty and their residences, schedules of lectures and texts.

Admittance cards, 1850-1853, are for courses at the Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia. They include two matriculation cards for William D. Watson of Chatham County, N. C., dated Nov., 1850, and Oct., 1852, and an examination card Oct., 1852-1853, which is signed by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell as professor of Anatomy, Surgery and Physiology. Dr. Watson returned to Chatham County after his graduation. His house was destroyed during the Civil War. The portion of his medical library saved and stored in a neighboring attic eventually was placed in the historical Collection of the library of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.

Collection

Alexander Cuningham papers, 1740-1918 10 Linear Feet — 6,371 Items

Merchant, from Petersburg, Va. Business records and some personal correspondence of four generations of the Cuningham family, including Robert Cuningham; Alexander Cuningham, and his brother, Richard M. Cuningham; the latter's son, John Wilson Cuningham; and grandson, John Somerville Cuningham, all merchants and planters. The early papers center around Alexander and Richard's success as commission merchants for cotton and tobacco in Petersburg, Va., and the firm's planting interests in Person County, N.C. The collection also contains a few family letters, including some from Alexander Jr. while a student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and from another son at Leasburg Academy, Caswell County, N.C. The papers of John Somerville Cuningham concern his work as a field agent for the Bureau of Crop Estimates, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, local politics, and family matters.

Business records and some personal correspondence of four generations of the Cuningham family, including Robert Cuningham; Alexander Cuningham, and his brother, Richard M. Cuningham; the latter's son, John Wilson Cuningham; and grandson, John Somerville Cuningham, all merchants and planters. The early papers center around Alexander and Richard's success as commission merchants for cotton and tobacco in Petersburg, Va., and the firm's planting interests in Person County, N.C. The collection also contains a few family letters, including some from Alexander Jr. while a student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and from another son at Leasburg Academy, Caswell County, N.C. The papers of John Somerville Cuningham concern his work as a field agent for the Bureau of Crop Estimates, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, local politics, and family matters.

Collection

Alexander Robinson Boteler papers, 1707-1924, bulk 1836-1889 3 Linear Feet — 5 boxes, 1,686 items (incl. 4 vols.)

Online
Correspondence of Alexander's father, Dr. Henry Boteler, for 1776-1837; and family letters of Alexander with information on his career at Princeton College and his courtship of his future wife, Helen Macomb Stockton. Political correspondence, relating to the election of 1860, the Constitutional Union party, and Alexander's travels around the country in 1882-1884 while a member of the U.S. tariff commission. Volumes include Boteler's diary for 1845, relative to his farming activities; various scrapbooks and some genealogical materials on the Pendleton, Digges, and Pope families. Among the correspondents are Lewis Cass, Samuel Cooper, John B. Floyd, S. B. French, Wade Hampton, T. J. Jackson, Andrew Johnson, R. E. Lee, John Letcher, W. P. Miles, John Page, Thomas N. Page, Rembrandt Peale, W. N. Pendleton, W. C. Rives, Alexander Robinson, W. H. Seward, J.E.B. Stuart, Jacob Thompson, J. F. Thompson, and Dabney C. Wirt.

This collection consists of family letters of Alexander R. Boteler (1815-1892), Virginia political leader, congressman, and Civil War soldier, with sidelights on his career at Princeton College, Princeton, New Jersey, his courtship of Helen Macomb Stockton, whom he later married, his altercations with Charles J. Faulkner, and "Yankee" depredations at his home, "Fountain Rock," during the Civil War; political correspondence, 1855-1870, relating to the election of 1860 and the Constitutional Union Party; letters concerning Boteler's travels about the country in 1882-1884 while a member of the U.S. Tariff Commission; correspondence concerning claims of James Rumsey as inventor of the first steamboat; and legal and personal papers of Helen (Stockton) Boteler's father, Ebenezer S. Stockton, and grandfather, Robert Stockton. Volumes include Boteler's diary, 1845, relative to his farming activities; a scrapbook on the election of 1848; a scrapbook containing clippings, letters, and pictures devoted principally to the activities and interests of Boteler; and a scrapbook containing clippings, letters, and pictures concerning the Pendleton, Digges, and Pope families, especially the life of Dudley Digges Pendleton who married Helen Stockton Boteler.

The collection also contains the correspondence of Alexander R. Boteler's father, Dr. Henry Boteler, for 1776-1837. Among other correspondents are A. R. Boteler, Lewis Cass, Samuel Cooper, John B. Floyd, S. B. French, Wade Hampton, T. J. Jackson, Andrew Johnson, R. E. Lee, John Letcher, W. P. Miles, John Page, Thomas N. Page, Rembrandt Peale, W. N. Pendleton, W. C. Rives, Alexander Robinson, W. H. Seward, J. E. B. Stuart, Jacob Thompson, J. R. Thompson, Dabney C. Wirt.

Collection
Online
Cotton firm from Wilmington, N.C., that for a short period was probably the largest cotton exporting house in the United States. Collection includes account books, ledgers, journals, cashbooks, purchase and sales journals, inventories, other subsidiary books, and some office files and correspondence. Goods were purchased from the Carolinas, Georgia, Texas, and other states and processed in the firm's compress facilities and sold to Great Britain, France, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe.

The collection consists of an extensive, but incomplete, set of account books, remnants of the office file and James Sprunt's correspondence (personal as well as business letters and papers), and pictures. Among the account books there are long series of ledgers, journals, cashbooks, purchase books, and stock inventories that document the company's operations between the 1870s and 1950s. The ledgers date between 1889 and 1952, and there are private ledgers for 1907 through 1931. The volume of minutes covers 1919-1930, but there are a few others among the offices files along with financial statements, 1885-1915, important legal documents of the partnership and corporation, and assorted other papers.

Correspondence and other papers of James Sprunt and the company date between 1884 and 1952, but they are numerous only for 1904, 1906, 1909-1910, and 1919-1921. The letters date mostly to 1904-1910, and 1919-1921, and are largely files of James Sprunt, reflecting his activities in business and interests in secular and theological education, the Presbyterian church in the U.S., and North Carolina history. Notable correspondents and subjects are Alexander Sprunt (1815-1884), Alexander Sprunt (1852-1937), Alexander Sprunt (b. 1898), James Sprunt (1847-1924), Kenneth Mackenzie Murchison, Francis Herman Packer, John Miller Wells, John Campbell White, Edward Jenner Wood, The Laymen's Missionary Movement, and the Presbyterian mission at Kiangyin, China. Account books, minutes, and correspondence are available also for a number of domestic and foreign subsidaries and branch offices, but these are often quite fragmentary. More than thirty pictures, mostly photographs, illustrate the firm's staff, workers, physical plant, and employees as well as other scenes.

Also included are some papers representing various domestic and foreign subsidiaries and branch offices, especially Champion Compress and Warehouse Company, the Wilmington Compress and Warehouse Company, Alexander Sprunt & Son (of Delaware, a holding company), and the company's offices in New York City and Le Havre, France.

Information about the company's history can be found in: James Sprunt's letters of Nov. 6, 1908; Apr. 9, 1909; Jun. 7 and Oct. 22, 1919; an article in Wilmington's Morning Star from Feb. 11, 1921; and Dictionary of American Biography.

Collection
ALS, in French. Humboldt writes to P.H. Azais and Jules Berger de Xivrey on politics, philosophy, his expeditions, ethnology, natural history and the influence and inspiration of French thought. In 1966 Fritz Lange, of the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Kommission, writes to the Duke Medical Center Library regarding the Kommission's project to locate world-wide all correspondence to and from Humboldt.
Collection

Alexander Weinmann papers, 1614-1986 14 Linear Feet — 7,000 Items

The collection reflects Weinmann's extensive research in the history of Viennese music publishing and is a resource for study of publishing firms in Vienna as well as documenting Weinmann's bibliographical research. The Music Series includes title pages and parts of arrangements, focusing on Viennese publishers and composers, including Georg Druschetzky, Joseph Haydn, Johann Baptist Vanhal, Johann Josef Rösler, and Ferdinand Kauer, as well as Johann Sebastian Bach. Included in the Writings and Speeches Series are manuscript drafts of works related to Weinmann's bibliographies (published in the Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alt-Weiner Musikverlages) as well as bio-bibliographical and historical works. The series also documents Weinmann's study of 19th century Viennese publishing firms including Artaria and Company, Giovanni Cappi, Leopold Kozeluch, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, Carlo and Pietro Mechetti, Tranquillo Mollo, Ignaz Sauer, Johann Traeg, and Thaddäus Weigl. Series includes research by Weinmann's brother, Ignaz Weinmann, on Franz Schubert.

The Research Notes Series consists of bibliographic references and citations, information about works and plate numbers; Weinmann's contributions to the Répertoire international des sources musicales; and Wiener Zeitung references. The Series also concerns Weinmann's work as an editor of the sixth edition of the Chronologisch-thematisches Verzeichnis sämtlicher Tonwerke Wolfgang Amadé Mozarts. Anthony van Hoboken, Willi Boskovsky, Franz Giegling, Anton Fietz, and Arthur Fiedler are among primary correspondents in the collection. Weinmann also collected letters (originals and copies) from persons and publishers he studied, including J.P. Gotthard, Johann Strauss, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, and Tobias Haslinger.

Collection
Collection consists of two series, Civil War Papers and Lee Family Papers, acquired and assembled by collectors Alfred and Elizabeth Brand. Materials relate to the Lee family, including Francis Lightfoot Lee, Henry Light Horse Harry Lee, Richard Henry Lee, and Robert E. Lee, as well as Civil War history, including battle reports, correspondence between Confederate and Union leaders and officers (such as Braxton Bragg, Jefferson Davis, William T. Sherman, and Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson), presidential pardons and oaths of allegiance, and some printed materials.

Letters, reports, certificates of appointment, receipts, loans, and other documents pertaining to the Civil War and to the Lee family, and collected by Alfred and Elizabeth Brand. The Civil War Papers Series includes battle reports from Bull Run (1861), Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg; Confederate Army General Orders Nos. 9, 64, and 18; letters detailing the operation of the Confederate Army, outcomes of battles, and Confederate opinions about the Civil War and specific officers. Includes a broadside, "Rally Round the Flag, Boys!;" a transcription of an interview with Jefferson Davis by newspaper writer Augustus C. Buell (1876); a draft of the poem "The Conquered Banner" by the Rev. Abram J. Ryan (1865); two engravings (of Grant and Sherman); John H. Miller and M. French's obligation and oath of allegiance to Virginia and to the Confederate States of America (1862); and J. C. Winsmith's oath of allegiance to the USA and pardon from Andrew Johnson and William H. Seward (1865).

Writers and correspondents in this Series are primarily from Virginia (especially Berkeley County) and Kentucky. Named individuals include Pierre Gustave Tonte Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, David Holmes Conrad, Samuel Cooper, Samuel Wylie Crawford, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, J. E. Johnson, I. Nadenbousch, Daniel Ruggles, William T. Sherman, and Edwin M. Stanton.

The Lee Family Papers Series comprises primarily Colonial-era governmental and financial documents pertaining to Francis Lightfoot Lee, "Henry Light Horse Harry" Lee, and Richard Henry Lee, Sr. Documents pertain to slavery and enslaved people; maps and surveys of leased land; and loan indentures. Includes certificates appointing Francis Lightfoot Lee as Justice of the Peace (1757-1768); and a letter from Richard Henry Lee, Sr., to Henry Lee regarding the colonists' agitation for freedom (1770). Ante-bellum and Civil War documents in the Lee family papers include loan indentures; a bill of sale for cotton to the Confederate government; two cartes-de-visite (of Robert E. Lee); letters written by Richard Henry Lee, Jr., discussing the sale of his sister's slaves; and a letter from Robert Edward Lee to Samuel Cooper regarding poorly executed military orders (1865). Several documents throughout the collection include the original rare manuscripts dealer's description.

Collection

Alfred Cumming papers, 1792-1889 4 Linear Feet — 760 Items

Public official, Indian agent, and Territorial Governor of Utah (1857-1861). Family and political correspondence, mainly of the 1850s, with material on Mormon history, including the "Mormon War," and on frontier and pioneer life. Includes journals, scrapbooks, letter books, and proceedings pertaining to councils and negotiations with the Blackfoot Indians and other tribes (1855). Letters of Cumming's wife, Elizabeth Wells Randall Cumming, describe incidents on her trip to Utah with her husband when he was named governor with frontier conditions and Indian troubles. Cumming's official letter books contain correspondence to James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, Howell Cobb, John B. Floyd, Albert S. Johnston, Brigham Young, and others. Additional correspondents include W.W. Bibb, J.S. Black, William Medill, B.F. Perry, Franklin Pierce, Alexander Stephens, and G.M. Troup. Includes papers of William Clay Cumming, a brother, pertaining to his studies at Princeton University (1805) and at Litchfield Law School; his accounts of opposition to Federalism in New England; his experiences in the War of 1812; travels in the Mississippi Valley and the South; and a few comments on Brazil and Uruguay (1816). The collection also contains papers from Thomas Cumming.

Family and political correspondence of William Clay Cumming; Thomas Cumming; and Alfred Cumming (1802-1873), participant in the "Mormon War," 1857-1861, with material on Mormon history and frontier and pioneer life. Letters of William Clay Cumming, brother of Alfred Cumming, 1805-1818, contain mention of books read and studied at Princeton College, Princeton, New Jersey, in 1805; description of studies, living arrangements, and teachers in the Litchfield Law School, operated at Litchfield, Connecticut, by Tapping Reeve; accounts of violent opposition to Federalism in New England; description of climate and countryside around Litchfield; participation of William Clay Cumming's brother, Joseph, in disturbances at Princeton College, 1807; his activities in the War of 1812 as commander of a company in Florida, campaigns in New York as a colonel, criticisms of officers, a dispute with General George Izard, adoption of a system of discipline for the infantry; description of a trip in 1815 from New York to New Orleans with accounts of Louisville, Lexington, and the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, Asheville, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana; a few comments on Brazil and Uruguay, which he visited in 1816; and mention of John McDonogh. A series of letters by Elizabeth Wells (Randall) Cumming to members of her family describes the arduous trip to Utah, scenery, frontier conditions, and Indian troubles. The collection includes hints of discrepancies in Cumming's account with the U.S. government while territorial governor. Included also are nine volumes: journal of an expedition to the Blackfoot Indians with notes and instructions, 1855; two letter books and official proceedings of a commission to hold council with Blackfoot and other Indian tribes, 1855; two letterpress copy books, 1857-1861, 1859-1860, containing copies of letters to government officials, and to James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, Howell Cobb, John B. Floyd, A. S. Johnston, and Brigham Young; and four scrapbooks containing news paper clippings and broadsides. Among the correspondents are W. W. Bibb, J. S. Black, James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, Alfred Cumming, J. B. Floyd, Albert Sidney Johnston, William Medill, B. F. Perry, Franklin Pierce, Alexander H. Stephens, G. M. Troup, and Brigham Young.

Collection

Alonzo G. Beardsley papers, 1787-1897 2 Linear Feet — 4 boxes, 1,597 items (including 1 vol.)

This collection, largely the correspondence of the law firm of Theodore Medad Pomeroy, William Allen, and Alonzo G. Beardsley (founded c. 1868), also contains the papers of several combinations of lawyers who preceded them, including John Porter, judge and state senator. During the 1850s the collection also includes the letters of Samuel Blatchford, a New York City attorney. From 1840 to 1860 the papers concern business and legal practice in New York state and throughout the northeastern United States. The Civil War period papers of Theodore M. Pomeroy, U.S. Representative from Cayuga County, N.Y. include mention of appointments and promotions; aid to wounded soldiers; defenses on the Great Lakes, the organization of New York regiments, the Conscription Act of 1863, civilian morale, and the activities of Southern sympathizers. Post Civil War materials include the papers of the Dodge and Stevenson Manufacturing Company, makers of reapers and mowers. Letters after 1870 include information about gold mining in North Carolina and Alabama, 1872, and N. M. Osborne & Company, makers of harvesting machines. There is also genealogical material for the Van Dorn, Peterson, and Quick families of New York.

This collection contains mostly the correspondence of the law firm of Theodore Medad Pomeroy, William Allen, and Alonzo G. Beardsley, also contains the papers of several combinations of lawyers who preceded this firm. The early papers, beginning about 1800, center on John Porter, judge, state senator, and law partner of New York Governor Enos Thompson Throop. In about 1840 the Porter letters merge into those of William Allen, and for the next fifteen years the correspondence reflects Allen's legal practice and depicts life in Auburn, New York. The letters of Alonzo Beardsley begin about 1842, but it is not until 1855 that he and Allen become partners. During the 1850s the papers also include the letters of Samuel Blatchford, a New York City attorney. For the most part, papers during 1840-1860 concern business and legal practice in New York state and throughout the northeastern United States.

For the Civil War period there are the 1860s papers of Theodore M. Pomeroy from Cayuga County, New York, a U.S. representative. Topics include appointments and promotions, aid to wounded soldiers, defenses on the Great Lakes, the organization of the 5th, 111th, and 138th New York regiments, the Conscription Act of 1863 and its enforcement, and civilian morale and the activities of Southern sympathizers, especially in 1863. Pomeroy's correspondence also concerns patronage, party organization and rivalry, and service to constituents. From 1865 to 1870 there is much family correspondence, particularly letters to Nellie Bisby of Attica, New York. Between 1865 and 1868 many papers appear from Dodge and Stevenson Manufacturing Company, makers of reapers and mowers. After 1870 letters of Alonzo Beardsley relate to miscellaneous subjects, such as gold mining in North Carolina and Alabama, 1872; the Oswego Starch Company; and N. M. Osborne & Company, makers of harvesting machines. Numerous legal papers and documents reflect all phases of the Osborne firm's work. There is a large amount of related printed matter. The collection also included genealogical material on the Van Dorn, Peterson, and Quick families of New York.

Collection

Alpheus Augustus Hurst papers, 1816-1950 2 Linear Feet — 1340 Items

Ledgers (hard back and composition book), legal documents, family correspondence, almanacs, advertisements, and pamphlets.

Collection

American slavery documents collection, 1757-1924 and undated 2.0 Linear Feet — 2 boxes; 1 oversize folder

Online
Collection of manuscript items relating to American slavery assembled over a number of decades by the staff of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University. Collection contains items documenting the sales, escapes, and emancipations of enslaved people from colonial times through the Civil War, and to a lesser extent, materials relating to slavery in the United States dating from the post-emancipation period.

The collection brings to light details of the lives and deaths of enslaved and free Africans and African Americans in the southern United States, primarily in North Carolina, Virginia, and Kentucky, but also in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, South Carolina, and Tennessee. There are also six albumen studio portrait photographs, mounted on card stock, dating from the second half of the 19th century, along with a copper token from the American Colonization Society, dated 1833.

Items have been foldered individually, with the inventory reflecting their titles, geographic origin, and date (if known).

Collection
Amy Morris Bradley was a nurse and agent of the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the Civil War as well as an educator in Maine, 1840s-1850s, and Wilmington, N.C., 1865-1890s. Collection comprises correspondence, diaries, record books, and photographs documenting Bradley's family life and teaching in Maine during the 1840s, her travels throughout the South and Costa Rica in the 1850s, her duties as a nurse at several U.S. Sanitary Commission convalescent camps during the Civil War, and her post-war work in Wilmington, N.C., where she founded free schools for white children in 1866 and 1872 under the auspices of the Soldiers' Memorial Society and worked as an administrator in the public school system until 1891. The collection includes two salted paper prints and several albumen photographs of Civil War relief camps, some by noted photographer Alexander Gardner.

Collection comprises correspondence, diaries, record books, and photographs documenting Bradley's family life and teaching in Maine during the 1840s, her travels throughout the South and Costa Rica in the 1850s, her duties as a nurse at several U.S. Sanitary Commission convalescent camps during the Civil War, and her post-war work in Wilmington, N.C., where she founded free schools for white children in 1866 and 1872 under the auspices of the Soldiers' Memorial Society and worked as an administrator in the public school system until 1891. The collection includes two salted paper prints and several albumen photographs of Civil War relief camps, some by noted photographer Alexander Gardner.

Collection

Ann Henshaw Gardiner papers, 1753-1970 15 Linear Feet — 38 boxes — 3,588 Items

Online

The Ann Henshaw Gardiner Papers begin in the early years of the settlement of Berkeley County, Virginia, with two pioneer families, those of Captain William Henshaw of Springfield MIlls, Mill Creek, and of William Snodgrass of Clifton Mills, Back Creek. Both groups married into other prominent families of the region, so that their papers furnish two hundred years of local history and genealogical material for Berkeley County. The Andersons, the Verdiers, the Turners, the Evanses, the McConnells, the Pendletons, the Robinsons, and the Rawlingses, among others, appear throughout the collection.

The early letters are predominantly business in character, concerning the land transactions of John Turner, the surveyor of Berkeley County who registered the land titles of many local families. He was related to the Snodgrass family through his marriage to Ruth Rawlings.

By 1814, the correspondence is centered in Robert Snodgrass and his brother Stephen. As Berkeley County produced wheat in abundance, the sale of flour from its mills became increasingly important. The Henshaws of Mill Creek in particular left records of sales of large quantities of flour on the Alexandria and Baltimore markets. The Snodgrasses in this period were also milling although their records are not as numerous for their sales.

Both the Henshaws and the Snodgrasses were involved in the political affairs of Berkeley County. Levi Henshaw (1769-1843) was a gentleman justice of the peace, captain of militia, a member of the county court and of the Virginia House of Delegates, and sheriff in 1840. Robert Verdier Snodgrass (1792-1861) was commissioner of county revenue, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, and colonel of the 67th Regiment of Virginia Militia. Their papers reflect these offices, both in the correspondence and in the legal papers. Levi Henshaw (1815-1896) married Sarah Ann, the daughter of Robert Verdier Snodgrass, thus uniting the papers of both families.

Berkeley County was an agricultural community, whose conditions were reflected in references to slaves in estates, as runaways, and for sale or hire.

Robert Verdier Snodgrass was concerned in both Democratic politics and legal business with Charles James Faulkner. His son-in-law, Israel Robinson, wrote to Snodgrass of political conditions in Washington, D. C. where he was an office holder. (Later Israel Robinson became clerk of the county court, a judge, and a Confederate general) The son of Robert Verdier Snodgrass, Stephen, became postmaster at Hedgesville, Va., in 1855.

By 1860 the settlement of various family estates reveals a maze of Snodgrass relatives. A letter from a cousin in 1860 comments on John Brown's raid and the arrival of the Japanese Embassy in Washington.

The outbreak of the Civil War shows divided political opinion in the family. In 1862, a letter describes the condition of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in wartime and of the Negroes in Washington, D.C., where slavery had been abolished. Stephen Snodgrass, a Unionist, did not have an easy time at Hedgesville during the war, and he had to have papers attesting his loyalty. On May 12, 1865, comment is made upon the assassination of President Lincoln.

Henshaw papers predominate after 1865. Business is dull; the collection of money, difficult.

As the family has scattered, letters of cousins come from many places, and grandchildren write to Sarah Ann (Snodgrass), the widow of Robert Verdier Snodgrass.

The first William Henshaw (1736-1799) in Berkeley County had married Agnes Anderson. William was the son of Nicholas Henshaw who came from Philadelphia to Berkeley County; thus Nicholas is the settler, William the first of that home. In 1886 correspondence begins about the history of the Anderson family; letters continue into the twentieth century.

By the 1890's Valley of Virginia Henshaw and her sisters, Mabel and Francis Little Henshaw, begin to write letters about genealogical matters; in particular, the Rawlings family is the subject of great interest.

Mabel Henshaw married Dr. Samuel H. Gardiner. Her concern for history led her to teach at Shepherd College, Shepherdstown, Jefferson County, W. Va., where she also served as librarian. Mrs. Gardiner was a district chairman of the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association with correspondence in 1915 and 1916 which reveals the methods women were using to insure the pas sage of the woman suffrage amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Gardiner, Miss Ann Henshaw Gardiner, historian, scientist, and teacher, founded nursing education at the Duke University Hospital in 1930.

Between 1926 and 1930, Mrs. Mabel Gardiner wrote to many friends who remembered details of family weddings in the mid-nineteenth century. As late as 1940 she corresponded with R. B. Woodworth on the history of the Tuscarora Church and other Berkeley County churches. A picture of the Tuscarora Church is with these papers. (See Picture Cab. II-7)

The heart of the Ann Henshaw Gardiner Papers is the collection of legal papers which date from 1763. Both the Snodgrasses and the Henshaws as justices of the peace and county office holders were involved in a great deal of legal business through the ions . A grouping of legal papers for both families is followed by special sections on land surveys, on estate settlements, and on militia.

The general file of legal papers begins with gants from Lord Fairfax in the 1760s, when Berkeley County was still a part of Frederick County, Virginia. Richard Rigg, the land agent for Lord Fairifax, was the first surveyor in the district settled by the Henshaws and the Snodgrasses. Rawlings family deeds appear in the 1770s.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, John Turner appears as a chain carrier for the land surveys of the County. He became county surveyor, an office which he held until his death in 1811.

Among the family wills is that of Nicholas Henshaw (died 1777). With the deaths of Robert and Stephen Snodgrass in 1830 and 1832, a great deal of administrative work for their estates enters the papers, as Robert Verdier Snodgrass was appointed executor for both men. (Robert V. Snodgrass was the sone of Stephen Snodgrass) David Hunter and Israel Robinson are the clerks of the county court in these early documents.

Schools, roads, runaway slaves, the hiring of servants mail are concerns Which occupy the papers. With the death of Robert Verdier Snodgrass in 1861, his estate is settled and the legal papers belong to the Henshaws from that date.

The second division of legal papers concerns the settlement of a number of estates, usually those of relatives . The Turner and Gorrell families had intermarried with the Snodgrasses and Henshaws. The earliest papers dating from 1798 contain the will and estate inventory of Joseph Evans. Israel Robinson was executor of the estate of Elan Miller in 1849.

A large group of legal papers concerns the acquisition of land, basic in Virginia economic life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Survey plats began in 1753 in old Frederick County, which had been established in 1738. From it Berkeley County was created in 1772. The first surveys, made for the Rawlings and Morgan families, were for land purchased from Lord Fairfax. Richard Rigg, his surveyor, signed the plats showing the Fairfax grants. Rigg is followed by surveyors Thomas Jones and Josiah Swearingen. Many names of early settlers appear in the survey papers. In the 1780' s a chain carrier, John Turner, began to make surveys. He married Ruth Rawlings, whose land plats are in the papers. John Turner became surveyor for Berkeley County and remained in office till his death in 1810. His son Thomas, who was his deputy, succeeded him as surveyor for the county; The estate papers of the Turner family, elsewhere in the legal papers, show them as early residents of old Frederick County.

In 1803 land office records appear in conjunction with the survey appears. By this time Robert Verdier Snodgrass was a county commissioner of revenue who worked with the Turners in the sale of land.

The Snodgrass family was involved in militia affairs from 1798, when Robert (d. 1830) was a 1st lieutenant in the 67th Regiment 16th Brigade, 3rd Division, Virginia Militia. This county regiment was divided into local companies, each of which was subdivided into classes of roughly seven men. Class rolls, rosters, and officers' lists make up the official papers. By 1820, Robert Verdier Snodgrass was serving as an officer. He became colonel of the 67th Regiment in 1838, thereafter making annual returns.

The constitution of the Berkeley Rangers was drawn up on November 26, 1859, to organize a company of militia from Berkeley County. This company is listed as the Berkeley Border Guards Co. D. 2nd Virginia Infantry, C.S.A. Army, under J.Q.A. Nandenbousch of Martinsburg.

The financial papers are divided between Levi Henshaw I and II and Robert Verdier Snodgrass. Bills and receipts, loans, and household accounts increased as the nineteenth century brought a less self-sufficient life on the farms of Berkeley County. The Snodgrasses no longer lived at the Bill on Back Creek, but had moved to Hedgesville.

With such long family histories in Berkeley County, it was to be expected that descendants of the Henshaws and Snodgrasses should turn to writing the history of their section of Virginia. Valley of Virginia Henshaw was a leader of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Berkeley and throughout West Virginia. Her sisters, Mabel and Frances, were in Martinsburg by 1916. They were the children of Levi Henshaw II and Sarah Ann, the daughter of Robert Verdier Snodgrass.

Mabel (Henshaw) Gardiner wrote a thesis on the history of Martinsburg in 1930 for the degree of Master of Arts at the University of West Virginia. This work was developed into Chronicles of Old Berkeley by Mrs. Gardiner in collaboration with her daughter, Ann Henshaw Gardiner. Published in 1938, this history is based on the Ann H. Gardiner Papers and contains the diaries which Captain Levi and Hiram Henshaw kept on trips to Kentucky, ca. 1828-1830.

Ann Henshaw Gardiner graduated from Shepherd College and went into training in nursing at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She saw service in World War I in a United States Army base hospital in France (U.S. Base Hospital NO. 6). In 1927 she wrote her thesis "The Development of the External Form of the Squid Embryo," at Kansas State Agricultural College for the degree of Master of Science. With the manuscripts of this work are pamphlets and papers of Francis Noyes Balch on Cephalopods.

Broadsides and pamphlets refer to Berkeley County and its history, to estate sales in the county, to the Whig Party, to the militia, and to the Free masons.

Clippings pertain to family members and to the story of Martinsburg and West Virginia. A series of articles by B. F. Voegle on local history is also in clipping form.

Among the miscellaneous material is a manuscript arithmetic book, 1790-1791, which was used by Robert Snodgrass II.

The volumes contain a number of old account books and other records. Family data for the Snodgrasses is preserved in their Age Book, 1821-1861 for each generation from William to Robert Verdier Snodgrass, as well as a list of the family slaves and their ages. Daybooks and farm books date fray 1803 to the 1840's. Four postal card albums, an autograph album, and scrapbooks with many other miscellaneous volumes are in the collection.

At the end of the papers are two albums and two manuscript histories of the first ten years of the Duke University School of Nursing. Pictures, programs, invitations, and clippings in the first album document the beginning of the nursing program in 1930. In the second album are photographs of nursing and laboratory classes

A number of letters, poems, and pamphlets unmounted in albums, conclude the nursing papers On December 27, 1934, the Duke University School of Nursing Alumnae Association was organized with a constitution. A reprint from the Southern Medical Association Journal contains the speeches made in April, 1931, at the dedication of the Medical School. Among the pictures are a number of photographs of members of the various classes of the Nursing School. The Henshaw family is well illustrated by pictures of individuals, their homes, and antique furnishlngs. For further details on this collection, see F. Vernon Aler, History of Martinsburg and Berkeley County, West Vlrginia; Willis F. Evans, History of Berkeley County West Virginia; and A. H. and M. H. Gardiner, Chronicles of Old Berkeley.

119 items and 9 vols., added 5-30-71, are letters, financial and legal papers, and scrapbooks and albums of the Henshaw, Snodgrass, and Gardiner families. Manuscripts of the early nineteenth century pertain to the settlement of estates, land transactions, and the hiring of Negro slaves and their deposition. The volumes center in nine scrapbooks and albums - five of which contain post cards of France and all of which are illustrative of the career of Miss Gardiner.

1 item and 1 cassette tape added, 1-24-73: Copies of the address Miss Gardiner gave at the fortieth anniversary banquet of the Alumni Association of the Nursing School of the Duke Medical Center, April 10, 1970.

2 items added, 5-5-84: Letters written by Robert Verdier Snodgrass to his wife Sarah Ann Snodgrass, in Hedgesville, Va., while he was attending a session of the state legislature in Richmond as a delegate. He describes the city of Richmond and a party given by Governor David Campbell, and mentions political colleagues, a military parade, and the failure of the legislature to elect a United States Senator.

Description from the Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library Manuscript Card Catalog.

Collection

Annie Jennings papers, 1815-1929 1 Linear Foot — Approx. 521 Items

Resident of Brownsville, Maryland and wife of Samuel Jennings, Jr. Papers of Maryland resident Annie (Fouch?) Jennings include business documents of Samuel Jennings, David Fouch, and Samuel Jennings Jr., farmers and millers of wheat in Washington County, Maryland; land deeds and surveys; debts; tax listings; correspondence concerning family matters and social life in Maryland, Iowa, Illinois, and South Dakota; papers related to the English estate of William Jenners; Sunday School lessons of the 1870s; and genealogies of the Fouch and Jennings (or Jenners) families. Volumes include an account book, 1852-1853, of David Fouch (?) for milling flour, and a route book, 1882-1883, of Fred O'Brian.

These papers fall into two parts, both of which were collected by Annie (Fouch?) Jennings, wife of Samuel Jennings, Jr. The first division contains business papers of her family: Samuel Jennings, David Fouch, and Samuel Jennings, Jr., farmers and millers of wheat in Washington County, Maryland. Land deeds and surveys, debts, tax listings, and mercantile accounts are accompanied by Fouch and Jennings, or Jenners, genealogies. Two tax slips in 1862 show Washington County Commissioners imposing a tax to raise bounty money to encourage volunteers, The second half of the papers contain many letters from descendants of Samuel Jennings, Sr., commenting on social life in Maryland, Iowa, Illinois, South Dakota, and elsewhere in the U.S. In 1878 the family was involved in a suit to obtain part of the English estate of William Jenners. A clipping at the end of the papers reviews this case. Mention is made of the Church of the Brethren, and a number of Sunday School lessons are dated from the 1870s. Volumes include an account book, 1852-1853, of David Fouch (?) for milling flour, and a route book, 1882-1883, of Fred O'Brian.