Manuscripts
Clendenen family correspondence. 1855-1870
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Clendenen, Willard Lambden, To Mary Cowan (1887-1888); Confederate Historical Society, Correspondence with Clarence C. Clendenen (1969-1972); ephemera
Manuscripts
Clendenen family correspondence and a 1859 pocket diary kept by Clemens L. Clendenen cover family affairs, farming, and property, including and a rift between Hyman Clendenen and his father over land in Iowa and a homestead grant.
mssClendenen family
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Clendenen Family Papers
Manuscripts
Clenenden family correspondence and the 1859 pocket diary kept by Clemens L. Clendenen cover Clendenen family affairs, farming, and property, including and a rift between Hyman Clendenen and his father over the land in Iowa and a homestead grant. The Civil War letters from Clemens L. Clenden to his wife Louisa Shinn Clendenen posted from Parkersburg, Clarksburg and New Creek, West Virginia. (Aug. Sept. - 1864) and a letter from Andersonville prison deal with camp life and comprise some discussion of war politics, Vallandigham and Copperheads. This portion of the collection also includes letters to Louisa from John V. Clendenen, and members of the 4th W. Virginia Cavalry about her husband's fate. Letters from William Lambden Clendenen to his fiance Mary Cowan (1887-1888) (32 pieces) describe his life in Ashland, Kansas, as a farmer and laborer. Correspondence between Colonel Clarence Clemens Clendenen and Confederate Historical Society (London) (1969-1972, 18 pieces) deal with history of the Civil War, especially in the West and border states, and discuss affairs of the Confederate Historical Society. Correspondents include Michael A. Rich, Robert Fowler, and Kenneth M. Broughton.
mssClendenen family
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Curtis family correspondence, (bulk 1855-1892)
Manuscripts
A collection of family correspondence containing 110 items, the letters are chiefly to Delia Augusta and Sarah Henrietta Curtis from their brothers. The letters include discussion of the Curtis sisters' studies and education, family news, the Civil War, life in Ohio, Tennessee, Arizona, and California, from 1820 to 1892; also included are a few letters of Henry James and Clarissa Fisher Curtis. The collection also contains a typewritten summary and outline of the Curtis family letters (1984) and ephemera.
mssHM 50671-50759
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Clemens family papers
Manuscripts
This collection contains papers of the family of American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens including 7 diaries of his daughter Jane Clampton Clemens and correspondence and records of the family, including letters from all three Clemens daughters to their parents. The following individuals are represented in the collection: Clara Clemens, Jane Lampton Clemens (1880-1909), Susy Clemens (1872-1896), Mary Mason Fairbanks, Grace Elizabeth King (1852-1932), and Elizabeth Gillette Warner (1838-1915). Note: the collection does not contain letters by Samuel Clemens; he is only represented as an addressee. The collection includes 7 diaries of Jane Lampton Clemens, spanning the years 1900-1907. HM 53346 also contains 12 photographs that were inserted in the diary's opening for 1900, Nov. 11-12. The photos are not annotated in any way but several appear to have been taken in Europe, possibly Italy. The diaries, for the most part, cover the last years of her life, while she lived in Dublin, New Hampshire and a sanitarium in Katonah, New York. The diaries detail Jean Clemens struggle with epilepsy, as well as the medical treatments for the disease, circa the turn of the century. There are also letters and records including letters from all three Clemens daughters to their father, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, and to their mother, Olivia Langdon Clemens. There are letters from various extended family members and friends to Olivia Langdon Clemens, as well as, financial records from various companies.
mssClemens
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Rix Family Correspondence
Manuscripts
The collection consists almost entirely of letters sent to Sarah Rix by her family members, primarily her brother Charles and sisters Nancy, Phebe, and Eunice, as well as various nieces and nephews. Included are 61 letters sent by Charles Rix in Dunlap, Iowa, from 1870-1894. Charles describes his life in Iowa extensively, including notes on the landscape, his crops and success at farming, and his general happiness with living in the West. He describes in detail the prices of agriculture, livestock, and other living expenses over the course of the twenty years his letters cover, and notes that in general the "cost...for provision and clothing is low." Charles also writes of family members, business affairs in Connecticut (he writes to Sarah about selling their "old home" for a low price, for which he blames their in-laws the Burdicks, noting "I have not much reason to Respect [them]"), of an 1883 cyclone, of an influx of immigrants from Illinois seeking to buy land, and of his worry over his wife Sarah's many illnesses. A series of letters written by Charles' nephew George Tracy Burdick to his sister Mary Adelaide Burdick from 1901-1903 also describe life in Iowa, where George worked in La Moille at the Kimball and Burdick General Store. George writes of a great increase in land speculation in Iowa in 1901, but also notes that "the great rush has been on the Dakotas and Minnesota." An earlier letter describes his trip to Chicago in 1885. The remaining letters mainly consist of those written to Sarah Rix from her sisters and nieces in Connecticut. The majority of these cover news on family members and acquaintances, including weddings, births, deaths, marriages, and illnesses, particularly scarlet fever, pneumonia, and "deranged spells." An unsigned letter chronicles the Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia (1876). Another detailed letter by an unknown friend of Ella Burdick Burton written in 1887 relates details of religious fervor in Manchester, New Hampshire, which the friend writes is "unlike any ordinary place because there are so many Christians who have had deep religious experiences." Also included in the collection are several cartes-de-visite and other ephemera.
mssHM 76000-76184
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Colby family correspondence
Manuscripts
This collection of letters were written by James T. Colby and his daughters Sarah and Rebecca, to John M. Anderson and Rebecca Anderson of Salem, Massachusetts, whom Sarah and Rebecca address as "Uncle" and "Aunt." The letters are largely concerned with details of the Colby family's life in San Francisco during the years 1859 to 1861. In the first four letters, HMs 4214, 4216, 4218, and 4219, written between January and April, 1859, James Colby is alone in San Francisco, but has encountered such success working in a Navy yard that he wishes his family to join him. Starting with HM 4220, dated June 3, 1859, letters from his daughters begin to appear. HM 4220 also contains lithographs depicting the city of Sonora as well as the town of Springfield in Tuolumne County. In HM 4224 (July 19, 1859), Rebecca Colby, who appears to be the younger Colby sister, reports that she is to have a tooth extracted that afternoon. There is no correspondence from Mrs. Colby directly, though she is mentioned in several letters (HM 4225, dated August 19, 1859). In HM 4226, written 1859, August 19, Colby addresses his son John A. Colby, who has been left at home, to study hard. It can be inferred that John is staying with the Andersons. It appears, to, that Mrs. Colby gave birth in San Francisco, for in HM 4227 and HM 4228 (dated 1859, September 4 and 19), Sarah and Rebecca both refer to "the baby" for the first time. In HM 4231 (1859, November 29), Colby writes that he has been quite sick, and the doctor has recommended that he return home to Massachusetts, but he is reluctant to give up the money he makes at his job. He reports that Rebecca is learning dress-making. HM 4236, written by Sarah on 1860, January 4, is addressed "Dear Brothers" and is directed to John and William, implying that William Colby is also still in Massachusetts. By February (HM 4237), James Colby is still sick, and writes that "I can't eat anything to speak of and I am getting to be Nothing but a skeleton." James Colby writes of the discovery of a silver mine (HM 4236, 1890, March 4), which has caused great excitement. He reports that he is the foreman on a naval steamer, in charge of seventy-five men, and he is feeling better, after his weight dropped from 155 pounds to 127 pounds in six months. By April 1860, Sarah is working in a sewing factory (HM 4241) and her father has fallen sick again. In HM 4247 (1861, May), James Colby writes of the secession of the South, and the "great Union procession" in the streets of the city, where, Colby writes, there were "16,000 American Flags flying in San Francisco." In the final letter of this group (HM 4254, dated 1862, January 26), James Colby writes of a tremendous flood in Sacramento, and how it has devastated business, but he hopes it will pick up soon.
mssHM 4214, 4216, 4218-4220, 4222-4248, 4250