Manuscripts

Barney, Hiram, Iowa Territory real estate documents

Description: Consists of legal documents, mortgages, deeds, and payments in Lee County between the Des Moines and Mississippi Rivers. Also included are the land indentures pertaining to the Half Breed Tract in the southern portion of the Iowa Territory.
Type: Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Date: 1812-1894
Call number: mssHB
Creator: Barney, Hiram(Opens in new tab)
Provenance: gift of Nicholas W. Gillham, July 2008.; Purchased from Walter T. Shatford, 1962.
Restrictions: Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.

Barney, Hiram, real estate documents (Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Mexico)

Manuscripts

Hiram Barney's political, business, legal, and family papers concern a wide variety of subjects including real estate, primarily in Iowa, and New York; court cases (often pertaining to debt collection) and other legal services; politics generally, but especially patronage distribution; family affairs, business transactions concerning the Erie and other canals; small railroads (largely in the Lake Plains region); Mexico and Mexican-American relations; the Civil War; U.S. Customs Service. Barney's correspondence contains numerous references to the anti-enslavement movement in the North, the Civil War, Republican Party politics, and Barney's friendship with Abraham Lincoln. Also found throughout this portion of the collection are transportation papers dealing with Barney's interest in connection with the opening up of waterways, the railroad, and the telegraph from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. Among the correspondents are William C. Bryant, William A. Butler, Salmon P. Chase, Charles P. Clinch, Erastus Corning, Edward C. Delavan, William P. Fessenden, John Jay, David W. Kilbourne, Eugene Kozlay, Abraham Lincoln, Edward L. Pierce, Matias Romero, Horatio Seymour, William T. Sherman, Edward D. Smith, Breese J. Stevens, Lewis Tappan, William D. Waterman. Real estate papers concern mostly the Half-Breed Tract between the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers. Which includes signed documents of land indentures by specific Indigenous tribal members of the Sak and Fox (Meskwaki) Nation with papers pertaining to the first Anglo proprietors and settlers. Related to Barney's real estate documents are Francis Scott Key's papers. Legal papers extend from 1825 to 1888 and includes articles of partnership, court cases, powers of attorney, and notes for collection. New York Custom House papers cover the general operations, patronage, and personnel of the Custom House, as well as records of the fraud investigations conducted by the U.S. Treasury Department.

mssHB

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