Manuscripts
James Humphrey addendum to James Humphrey's Book of forms
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Humphrey Griffith letters to family
Manuscripts
Letters from Humphrey Griffith to his mother Mary and brother Reece, written from 1849 to 1857 and covering Griffith's travels to California and his life and experiences there. The letters begin in St. Louis, where Humphrey was waiting to depart for California with a large number of other immigrants ("the merchants do know a Californian as soon as they see him," he wrote), and trace his travels through Indian Territory (he wrote to his mother of his well-being and religious faith, noting that "God is great - he is the same God on the prairie or in the Temple"), his stops at Scott's Bluffs, Castle Bluffs, and Chimney Rock (where he inscribed his name "some 200 feet up"), and his encounters with Sioux Indians near Chimney Rock, where they "came in and we had a village of fifty lodges containing near a thousand Indians." The rest of the letters were written from California, and Humphrey specifically writes of his initial situation in Washington, agriculture, the price of goods, the uncertain nature of his business ventures, damaging rain and flooding (1852), his election to the California legislature (1853), and his canvassing activities for James Buchanan (1856). He also writes of family matters, including his love for his fiancé Helen, whose parents opposed her moving to California, his marriage to a woman named Cordelia (1852), and his grief over the death of their 2-year-old daughter Laura from typhoid in 1857. The final letter was written by Humphrey's friend Joseph J. Underhill to Mary Griffith following Humphrey's death in 1865.
mssHM 74800-74815
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Dixon Green Colliery account book
Manuscripts
Account book recording payments relating to colliery expenditures between January 1779 and January 1782. The book records payments for wages, access by land and water canals to the mines, repairing old channels and cutting new ones, etc. There are numerous names recorded of the various workmen.
mssHM 84076
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Receipts for dues paid by James Ludlow
Manuscripts
Here are four receipts from the Mercantile Library Association of San Francisco, California, recording quarterly dues paid by James Ludlow. The receipts are dated 1858, October 1; 1859, January 1; 1860, January 1; and 1860, April 1. Each is in the total of three dollars, and each is signed by H. H. Moore. Printed forms, filled in by hand.
mssHM 257
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James Gow journal
Manuscripts
The majority of the journal contains prescriptions Gow made for his customers and the recipes for those prescriptions. The volume also contains two other sections: a female relative of Gow's recorded 19th century poetry in parts of the book and there is also a section titled, "Journal of a Seaman in the Forecastle." This diary section contains accounts from 1851 to 1852 of an anonymous sailor who sailed from Boston to San Francisco in a clipper and then chronicles his time in Port Adelaide, Australia. There are also two pages of what may be the ship's manifest.
mssHM 74486
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James McMahan orderly book
Manuscripts
This volume is the day-to-day record of the 2nd Pennsylvania Battalion during Henry Bouquet's 1764 Ohio campaign during the Pontiac War, also known as Pontiac's Conspiracy. It documents military orders, records of court martial, announcements, encounters with women following the troops, French prisoners of war, Indigenous hostages, interactions with local Indigenous groups, and life at Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania, following a siege by allied Indigenous warriors. After McMahan returned home in December 1764, he used the orderly book to keep personal accounts. The sporadic records cover 1765 to 1772 and include transactions involving purchases of whiskey, shoes, "Bedsteads, "dear skins," lead, sugar, salt, and books, as well as payments to day laborers and artisans.
mssHM 84495
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James Judson Jerome diary
Manuscripts
In his diary, Jerome talks about his work with several gold, silver, and copper mines in Mohave and Yuma counties, Arizona. He talks specifically about mines around the Cedar, Planet, and Signal mining camps. Jerome performed several different tasks including surveying and recording of mine sites, posting notices on mines, and receiving, distributing, and sending out the mail in Mohave County. Included with the diary are nine pieces of ephemera including two tintypes of Jerome and several postcards.
mssHM 68418