Manuscripts
Joseph Hickox letter to Laurence D. Peabody
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Joseph C. Sasia letter to Olive Percival
Manuscripts
In this letter, Fr. Sasia regrets that he was unable to secure any reliable information on the sundial at the San Juan Bautista Mission, but if she would write the present rector of the mission, he might be able to furnish some information. He gives the name and address of the rector and promises to keep her letter on file and contact her should he find any information on the sundial.
mssHM 16373
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Danforth H. Medbery memoir
Manuscripts
Medbery wrote this memoir of his time in California in 1919 at the age of 80. It begins with his voyage to California on the "Northern Star." He arrives in San Francisco 24 days later. He talks about his work in a mill, the machinery he uses there, looking for gold and the equipment he builds; he also talks about his other jobs selling fruit and vegetables and copper mining in Copperopolis, California. He also talks about politics, violence, attending church and teaching Sunday school, and social life in general. While in California, his wife, Mary, was often in California too, but she would eventually move back East before him.
mssHM 82465
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Oscar A. Wikeen letter to Roger Gurley
Manuscripts
Eleven-page letter by Oscar A. Wikeen to his friend Roger Gurley, 1st Lieutenant, 42nd Infantry Division, Co. A ("Rainbow Division"). Wikeen wrote this letter from the American Embarkation Center in France after the war had ended. In the letter he talks about his experience in the war, and what he's been doing since the end of the war. He talks in detail about his experience in the Battle of Lorraine, the Chateau-Thierry Drive, and his training in Paris. He talks about the "boche" soldiers, the dead bodies he saw, the beauty of a night attack, his comrades that would not be going home, etc. After the war, Wikeen traveled throughout France. The letter is written on "American YMCA" letterhead.
mssHM 83109
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Joseph Whitaker letter
Manuscripts
In this letter, written from Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, to an unknown addressee, Joseph Whitaker describes the Native Americans in the area: "...not many deer now the Indians kill about all there is a few Indians about all the time they speak muskrats and fish on the ice in the winter the muskrats build a kind of house of pieces of old bog one of them is worth a shilling to them. The skins they sell for six pence and eat the rest they don't wash themselves once a month and when they have good luck they paint themselves with all kinds of paint...." Whitaker also talks briefly about his farming and hunting.
mssHM 82459
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Joseph Cross letters
Manuscripts
Two autograph letters from Joseph Cross to his parents. The first letter, dated Dec. 7, 1806 (HM 62947), was written from Fort Michilimackinac. Cross describes an expedition in which he and a group of soldiers searched for and rescued nine soldiers who went missing while taking supplies to Fort Saint Joseph. Cross found the men on a "desart island," starving to death and contemplating "the horrid plan of killing and eating one of their number." He then proceeds to list the adventures that he had since his last letter home, including traveling "396 miles up Lake Michigan among the Indians," descending "the celebrated Falls of St. Mary in an Indian canoe," being shot at by two Indian "centinels" and "blown up in a gun room" after the stored ammunition caught on fire. He was injured in the last incident, but "owing to the skill and great attention of our Surgeon and good health and constitution" made full recovery, "without a scar."
mssHM 62947-62948
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Peabody Scrapbook
Visual Materials
The Peabody Collection consists of 672 glass plate negatives in various sizes, 1054 film negatives in various sizes, 24 photograph albums, 887 loose photographs in a variety of formats, published works, and manuscript material, created and collected by Henry G. Peabody, 1859-1993 (bulk 1890s-1900s). The materials collectively describe Peabody's long career as a commercial landscape photographer working on both the east and west coasts of the United States. The photographs and negatives depict Peabody and his family; landscape views in New England, Canada, the western United States, California, and Mexico; Native Americans; city and landscape views in Great Britain, France, and Switzerland; portraits; architectural renderings; plants and animals; unidentified landscapes; and miscellaneous images. Additional photographers and photographic firms represented in the collection include Alexander Hesler, Charles F. Lummis, and Spence Air Photos. The published works contain photographs by Peabody. The manuscript material provides information about Peabody's negatives; contains catalogs of Peabody's works for sale; describes Peabody's commercial dealings as both a photographer and seller of photographic equipment; and contains ephemeral material collected by Peabody throughout his life.
photCL 478