Manuscripts

Sarah Studevant Leavitt autobiography

Image not available

Description: This autobiography is the original handwritten manuscript of Sarah Studevant Leavitt, dated April 19, 1875. It describes her life including her childhood days in New Hampshire; the many visions and spiritual manifestations that she experienced; her conversion to Mormonism; and frontier and pioneer life as she and her family traveled from New Hampshire to Kirtland, Ohio, to Nauvoo, Illinois, to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and to Pine Canyon, Utah. Additional topics that Leavitt covers are the murder of Joseph Smith (1805-1844), her opinion of polygamy, and the persecution of Mormons.
Type: Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Production date: 1875-1878.
Call number: mssHM 66386
Creator: Leavitt, Sarah Studevant(Opens in new tab)

Henry Leavitt Ellsworth journal

Manuscripts

Henry Leavitt Ellsworth's journal, which is in the form of a letter to his wife Nancy Goodrich Ellsworth, covers Ellsworth's 1832 trip, starting at Fort Gibson, across what is now Oklahoma. His travel companions were Washington Irving, Joseph Charles Latrobe, and Albert, Count de Pourtalés. The journal includes details regarding the group's route, the physical description of the area, and the group's interactions with the Pawnee and the Osage Indians. Ellsworth also tells about several buffalo and wild horse hunts in which he and Washington Irving participate. The journal was published in 1937 with the title Washington Irving on the prairie.

mssHM 66493

Image not available

Sarah Bixby letter to Martha Hathaway

Manuscripts

In this letter addressed "Dear Sister Martha," Sarah Bixby writes from Rancho San Justo in San Benito County, California. She describes the cold weather, and tells of the recent wedding of Margaret Hathaway, who, Sarah writes, has moved from "the heights of the betrothed young lady to the every day duties of the plain married woman, and now is her time, to make her mark in the world, by making her husband happy and her home attractive." She wonders "if Margaret will be a good correspondent now that she is married." The rest of the letter concerns family members and mutual acquaintances. Also included are three black-and-white portrait photographs: one of Mr. & Mrs. Lewellyn Bixby, one of Martha Hathaway, and one of Mrs. Jotham Bixby. Photos have identifying information on backs.

mssHM 15208

Image not available

Sarah Siddons letter to Patty Wilkinson

Manuscripts

One-page fragment of a signed letter in which Siddons communicates that she will be staying with Lady Barrington, who was mourning the death of her son, until she is "wanted in Edinborough." The letter is addressed "To Miss Wilkinson."

mssHM 11385

Image not available

Erastus Fairbanks Snow autobiography

Manuscripts

Bound typescript of the autobiography of Erastus Fairbanks Snow, covering the years from approximately 1818 to 1847. The text essentially begins with Snow's baptism into the Mormon Church in about 1833 and traces his travels to Kirtland, Ohio. The rest of the autobiography focuses on Snow's itinerant preaching of the Mormon religion, particularly in the Virginia area.

mssHM 27974

Autobiography of Sarah D. Pea Rich [microform] : 1893

Manuscripts

Microfilm of a typescript of Sarah D. Pea Rich's autobiography, copied at the Church Historian's Office by A.M. Rich in 1933. Includes a brief forward by Sarah Rich dated 1885 (the autobiography was finished in 1893). It begins with stories about Sarah's family history and her childhood in Illinois and Tennessee, and goes on to describe her family's conversion to Mormonism in 1835, of her first meeting with Charles C. Rich, experiences during her early years of marriage, mob violence against Mormons in Missouri, living in Nauvoo, her positive reminiscences on polygamy, the family's 1847 travels to Iowa, living in Mount Pisgah, traveling overland to Utah, and life in Utah during her husband's seven year mission to California. Also includes some genealogy.

MSS MFilm 00340

Image not available

Midwives : a novel

Rare Books

The trial of a midwife in 1980s Vermont. Sybil Danforth, with several hundred deliveries to her name, claims the mother was dead when she opened her to save the baby. The prosecution claims the mother was alive and the operation was illegal. The story is narrated by Sybil's daughter, portraying the trial as another round in the persecution of midwives by the New England medical profession.

653016

Sarah Studevant Leavitt autobiography

Opening Hours

Admission Info and Tickets

You might also be interested in

Henry Leavitt Ellsworth journal

Sarah Bixby letter to Martha Hathaway

Sarah Siddons letter to Patty Wilkinson

Erastus Fairbanks Snow autobiography

Autobiography of Sarah D. Pea Rich [microform] : 1893

Midwives : a novel