Manuscripts
Samuel Benedict Reed letters
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William Reed Bullard papers
Manuscripts
This collection consists primarily of correspondence between Dr. William Reed Bullard and his sister Helen K. (Bullard) Wyman, with a few additional letters from family members including William's wife Mary. In these letters to his sister, William discusses his life and medical practice in both Indianapolis, Indiana and Helena, Montana. Bullard was active in both communities and his letters often describe social activities, celebrations and the growing and shaping of both towns. His letters also reveal Bullard's commitment to his family, and his deep love of music.
mssHM 70209-70257
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William Reed Bullard papers
Manuscripts
This collection consists primarily of correspondence between Dr. William Reed Bullard and his sister Helen K. (Bullard) Wyman, with a few additional letters from family members including William's wife Mary. In these letters to his sister, William discusses his life and medical practice in both Indianapolis, Indiana and Helena, Montana. Bullard was active in both communities and his letters often describe social activities, celebrations and the growing and shaping of both towns. His letters also reveal Bullard's commitment to his family, and his deep love of music.
mssHM 70209-70257
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Walter Reed letter to Captain Culver
Manuscripts
Letter written by Reed to Captain Culver regarding the cancellation of a meeting they were expected to attend.
mssHM 74826
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Reed Peck memoir
Manuscripts
The original of the Reed Peck Manuscript, an 1839 memoir criticizing Mormon actions in Missouri during the conflicts of 1838. Peck opens with a prophecy about "redeeming" Zion (Missouri) through armed force, the "interpretation" of which led Joseph Smith to call for volunteers to march to Clay County "under arms" (they were waylaid by a cholera outbreak). Peck goes on to relate alleged financial and power conflicts in Kirtland, Ohio, between, among others, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and Oliver Cowdery, as well as disagreements over where in Missouri to establish a Mormon settlement. He writes that once the Mormons had settled in Caldwell County, the Mormon presidency became a "despotic government" and that it proposed a policy, encouraged by Rigdon, that dissenters from the Church be killed so that "they would not be capable of injuring the church." He goes on to say that the Mormon leadership demanded that all followers consecrate their property to the Church or be turned over to the "terrible brother of Gideon" (Jared Carter) for punishment. Peck continues that he and some others were "ever after ... opposed to the rule of the presidency" because "their word was law in religious, civil and military matters." He writes of the formation of a "secret military organization" (the Danites) by Carter, George W. Robinson, and Sampson Avard "under the instruction of the presidency," and of pretending to join the group, although he avoided taking the official oath and "declared to my trusty friends that I would never act in the office." He also remembers that Carter was later found guilty of criticizing the presidency, and alleges that he heard Joseph Smith say he would have "cut his throat on the spot" if he had been alone. The remainder of the memoir recounts the events of the Mormon War, in which Peck claims that hostilities between Mormons and Gentiles were inflamed by Joseph Smith. He begins with disputes over an election in Daviess County, leading to a "skirmish" which he says was exaggerated into accounts of a "bloody massacre of ... Mormons," leading non-Mormon citizens to fear retaliation and call for the expulsion of the Mormons from Daviess County. He criticizes the Mormons for initiating confrontations, plundering goods, and for attacking the militia under Capt. Bogart at the Battle of Crooked River, but he condemns the attack on Mormons in the Haun's Hill Massacre. He concludes his narrative of events with the arrest and subsequent escape of the Smiths, Rigdon, Wight, Parley Pratt, and others. He closes the manuscript by condemning Smith and the Church ("how can he [Smith] expect to support his character as a man of God when facts are exhibited to the world in their true light," he wrote) and by listing the sources for his narrative, much of which was allegedly based on his own eyewitness accounts. Other individuals mentioned in the memoir include W.W. Phelps, Edward Partridge, John Corrill, and Dimmock Baker Huntington. There appear to be pages missing after page 152.
mssHM 54458
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Samuel Augustus Gilbert letters
Manuscripts
The letters, which Gilbert wrote to his sisters, span fourteen years and cover his various travels and work throughout Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, and more specifically Cape Cod, Charleston, Galveston, Matagorda, Corpus Christi, and Mount Vernon. The first eleven letters discuss briefly Gilbert's work with the U.S. Coast Survey and Alexander Dallas Bache, but are mainly personal in nature with discussions of his family and friends. The two Civil War era letters are written from Camp Platt, W.V., and Mount Vernon, Va.; in these letters he discusses troop movements, his experiences with the people of the south, and his opinion of the war, the "rebs," and "Father Abraham."
mssHM 66182-66194
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Mai Richie Reed diaries
Manuscripts
Reed kept these diaries during two separate trips to the American southwest. They give a detailed description of Reed's experience traveling through New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Reed, and the friends with whom she was traveling, visited Acoma, Isleta Pueblo (where they witnessed a dance ceremony), and Laguna in New Mexico; Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon in Arizona; and La Jolla, San Diego, Pasadena, and the San Gabriel Mission in California. The diaries are illustrated with photographs from the trips and include Reed and her friends, the southwest landscape, the places she visited, and the Hopi, Navajo, and Isleta Indians (most of the photographs are labeled by Reed).
mssHM 64598-64599