Manuscripts
The group contains correspondence and documents contemporary to George Boosinger, as well as later letters related to research into Boosinger genealogy and Mormon history. The early correspondence (1839-1857) includes family letters addressed to George and Marie Antoinette Boosinger from Boosinger's brother John and sister Catherine Barbara "Barbary" Boosinger, his daughters Catherine (Ricketts) and Nancy (Munn), and a sister or sister-in-law named Phoebe Pratt. There is also a letter from John Craig to Boosinger describing the former's trip to California in 1846, including traveling overland from Missouri, being at sea during the Mexican War, and a description of the Sacramento Valley area, as well as two letters from A.W. Edwards to his father H.A. Edwards (1857). Other early documents include 1836 receipts and promissory notes signed in Kirtland, Ohio, by Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith, and others, as well as Missouri court records describing proceedings initiated by Boosinger against Smith and others for damages on non-payment of a loan. A song or poem entitled "Early This Spring We Leave Nauvoo" (c.1846) and a certificate of the ordination as an elder of James Oliver (1842) are also included. The remainder of the correspondence, dated 1937 to 1951, consists of research on the Boosingers and Mormon history in the eastern United States undertaken by M.S. MacCarthy on behalf of M.F. Boosinger. MacCarthy's correspondents include The Essex Institute in Massachusetts, the New York Public Library, the Bancroft Library, Austin E. Fife, Alvin F. Smith, Ralph C. Roper, Frederick A. Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Evan Inslee of the Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Dale Lowell Morgan, and Charles Kelly. Included with the collection is a set of land plats of Caldwell County Missouri, c.1950 (showing areas addressed in Boosinger's 1840s court filings) and various newspaper clippings on the Mormon Church (c.1937-1953).
mssHM 52217-52249
