Manuscripts
This collection contains letters, documents, and a few account books related to the business activities of California financier Henry Douglas Bacon. Subject matter includes banking methods in the 1850s; the failure of Page & Bacon and Page, Bacon & Co.; the financing of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad; land transactions in Missouri and Illinois; mines and mining properties in the western United States; the wine and citrus industries in Southern California; the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad; the purchase, boundaries, and subdivision of the Marengo Ranch (now the city of South Pasadena, California); and the construction of the Raymond Hotel in Pasadena, California. Significant persons represented in the collection include Frank Page Bacon (19 items), Henry Douglas Bacon (164 items), Julia Ann (Page) Bacon (54 items), Samuel Latham Mitchill Barlow (57 items), James Buckland (31 items), William Tell Coleman (31 items), R. A. Fisher (18 items), Samuel Gaty (273 items), Walton G. Hughes (117 items), William Birdie Hyde (19 items), J. G. Mahany (19 items), Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel (76 items), Daniel Dearborn Page (33 items), Francis W. Page( 33 items), Henry Starr (21 items), John D. Weems (15 items), Langston C. Winston(27 items), and Thomas M. Yerkes(100 items). Some notable items include:
Bacon, Henry Douglas. Letters to Daniel D. Page and Francis W. Page concerning the failure of Page & Bacon and Page, Bacon & Co., and efforts to recoup. 1855, Jan. - May
Barlow, Samuel L. M. Letter to Henry D. Bacon concerning attempts to avert southern secession. 1860, Nov. 30
Shaffner, Taliaferro Preston. Letter to Henry D. Bacon explaining his use of military mines during the Schleswig-Holstein War. 1864, Sep. 15
Letters to Bacon from mining agents in Mexico, describing the political unrest and resultant obstacles to business. 1865-1866
Gaty, Samuel. Letters to Henry D. Bacon concerning attempts to get a land bill through the Illinois legislature by means of lobbying and bribery. 1866, Nov.-1867, June
Carr, Jeanne C. and Winston, Elizabeth M. Letters to Henry D. Bacon concerning the Pasadena Library Society. 1883, Jan. - Feb.
Hyde, William Birdie. Letters to Henry Douglas Bacon about Leland Stanford and the Southern Pacific. 1873, Aug. 14 - 22
Cambell, James and others. Letter to Henry D. Bacon differentiating between the Pasadena and San Pasqual school districts. 1879, Dec. 26
Bacon, Henry Douglas. Incomplete manuscript of his dedicatory speech for the Bacon Art and Library Building. 1881, Aug.
Grant, Ulysses S., City Point, Virginia. Endorsement of Shaffner's system of artillery mining, 1865 March 22, contemporary copy (BC 2560, box 10)
