Mary Eleanor Bissell Papers

This collection chiefly contains correspondence and documents created by the Connecticut ancestors of Pasadena, California, socialite Mary Eleanor Bissell, the most prominent of whom are her great-grandparents, Eleanor Mills Bissell and Thomas Bissell (active 1796-1848). The collection contains around forty pieces of correspondence relating to her great-grandparents as well as over a hundred items relating to the Bissell family business. The business papers include court summons, bills of sale, receipts, promissory notes, quit-claim deeds and an account book, all dated between 1738 and 1836. The collection also contains documents on the genealogy of the Bissell family in Windsor, Connecticut, as well as eighteen photographs of family and friends.

A one volume guest book for Bissell's home in Pasadena, an autograph album, three lantern slides of Bissell's rose garden, one piece of correspondence, and a college diary are the only items in the collection that specifically pertain to Mary Eleanor Bissell.