Manuscripts

Parker family correspondence

Description: The collection consists of letters which discuss family matters, and a few letters from the Parkers' son deal with his service during the Mexican-American War and General Gideon Johnson Pillow.
Type: Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Date: 1834-1866
Call number: mssHM 43014-43063
Provenance: Purchased from C.F. Heartman, February 1937.
Restrictions: Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.
Rights: The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining permission rests with the researcher.

Parker family correspondence

Manuscripts

The collection consists of letters which discuss family matters, and a few letters from the Parkers' son deal with his service during the Mexican-American War and General Gideon Johnson Pillow.

mssHM 43014-43063

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The collection consists of 43 letters. Thirty of the 43 letters are from Lucy Smith Crittenden Thornton to her son Harry Innes Thornton, Jr. The remaining letters are written by other Thornton family members including (piece counts in parenthesis): Bessie Thornton (3), Sarah Thornton (2), Margaret Thornton Fall (1), Katherine Marshall Thornton (2), Harry I. Thornton, Jr. (3), and Ann Mary [last name unknown] (2). Even though the letters chiefly deal with family matters and the Thornton's social lives in San Francisco and Oakland, many of the letters also discuss the social conditions in the post-war South and family friends who left the South because of failing plantations. The Thorntons also comment upon the numerous "Yankees" with whom they have to socialize after the war. The family also mentions the freedmen in the South, Jefferson Davis, the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, and politics in California. The 3 letters by Harry I. Thornton, Jr., discuss his travels in the American southwest, his legal career, and specific court cases with which he was involved. Harry I. Thornton, Sr., is mentioned briefly in one letter.

mssHM 68280-68322

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Winans family correspondence

Manuscripts

There are 16 letters by William M. Winans to his mother and sister Sarah M. Winans Thornley written between 1860-1874. The six letters written during his service in the war discuss camp, foraging expeditions, war news and politics. The latter include an account of Forrest's second ride (Dec. 11 1862 -- Jan. 3, 1863) and dark pronouncements on the "gloomy future of our glorious government" undermined by Illinois Democratic legislature "opposed to the administration" and "Copperheads in the north". The post-war letters concern his life in Rochester, Ind., plans to move to Kansas, his second marriage, and the education of his sons.

mssHM 71521-71549

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Correspondence

Manuscripts

The collection consists of a series of 48 letters sent by Francis Baylies to General John E. Wool between 1848 and 1852. Baylies writes extensively, and often scathingly, of antebellum era politics, statesmen, military operations, and military leaders. Individuals discussed (often disparagingly) in the letters include John Quincy Adams,Thomas Hart Benton, Braxton Bragg, James Buchanan, Lewis Cass, Henry Clay, Caleb Cushing, George Mifflin Dallas, Jefferson Davis, Millard Fillmore, Horace Mann, William L. Marcy, Gideon Johnson Pillow, James K. Polk, Winfield Scott, William Henry Seward, Zachary Taylor, Nicholas Trist, John Tyler, J. Watson Webb, Daniel Webster, and Levi Woodbury. Baylies writes frequently of Wool's involvement at the Battle of Buena Vista, the presidential elections of 1848 and 1852, New York state politics, and general social movements, as well as revolutionary activity in Europe in 1848-1849. Also included with the collection is a letter written after Baylies's death by his brother William Baylies and two essays by an unknown author on the Canadian Rebellions of 1838, dated 1862 and possibly expanding on Baylies's earlier research on the topic.

mssHM 78727-78777

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Francis Baylies Correspondence

Manuscripts

mssHM 78727-78777

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Swett family correspondence

Manuscripts

A collection of 225 items from 1864 to 1897, which consists chiefly of letters to and from Swett's wife, Laura R. Swett, and son, Leonard Herbert Swett. The early letters have passing references to Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and Swett's dealings in the cotton trade during the Civil War. The later letters describe Leonard Herbert Swett's participation in the U.S. Geological Survey of the Utah Plateau Region under Captain Clarence E. Dutton in 1880 and his later work for the XIT Ranch in 1886 during the formative period of Western Texas. Because the Swetts were also friends of General and Mrs. George A. Custer, passing references to them appear throughout the collection.

mssHM 50227-50449

Parker family correspondence

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Parker family correspondence

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