Manuscripts

Jonas Bigelow letter to Otis Arnold

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Description: This letter contains extensive detail from Jonas Bigelow to Otis Arnold, of Troy, New York, about his many recent activities as a merchant in Albany, New York; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Cincinnati, Ohio; and New Orleans, Louisiana, leading eventually to his venture into Arkansas Territory to trade for beaver pelts and bear skins. The letter also describes his relocation to Fort Smith, an army post located on one of the routes along which Native Americans traveled as they were forcibly removed from the southeastern United States to Indian Territory. Bigelow writes at length about the region surrounding Fort Smith, its many opportunities for profit, and his hope to make a considerable fortune by obtaining government contracts to supply parties of Native Americans.
Type: Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Production date: 1833 August 26.
Call number: mssHM 84001
Creator

Jonas Bardsley and Hannah Bardsley letter to family

Manuscripts

Letter sent from Jonas and Hannah Bardsley in Cincinnati, Ohio, to relatives in England shortly after the Bardsleys had arrived in the United States in 1844. Jonas writes to his parents that after landing in Philadelphia and failing to find work in New England or Cleveland, the family traveled to the "western country" and settled in Cincinnati. They had previously worked on a steamboat (Jonas as a fireman, Hannah as a chambermaid, and their son George as a cabin boy) and had traveled up the Red River "three hundred miles higher than any boat ever went before." They passed through the settlements of Choctaw, Cherokee, and other Indian tribes before their steamship was wrecked "2,500 miles above New Orleans." They traveled back down the river in canoes, and camped out along the river among "thousands of...crocodiles, alligators, bloodsuckers, vampires, and other dangerous water reptiles" and in the woods with bears and wolves, although Jonas chiefly complains about the mosquitoes and sand flies. At one point George came down with bilious fever, and Jonas writes that they ultimately spent most of their steamboat wages in getting home. Following the steamboat incident, Jonas determined that "I will be my own master as long as I stay in this country." He writes to his brother John of trying to repay a debt he owes him, although "it is desperate hard to work to get hold of money in this part of the country." Still, Jonas wrote to his brother George that provisions are cheap and "a man with a family is much better off here than in England," although the lack of "amusement" made it less appealing to single men. In a section to his sister Esther, Jonas notes that Hannah "has got many of the Yankee ways" and has become restless since "she has never been able to muster a baby since she left England." He concludes that his son George is sending them a walking stick and tea ground he got in trade from the Choctaw Indians in Texas. The letter is on a printed letterhead with an engraved image of Cincinnati.

mssHM 80135

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John Greenwood Meadows letter to Eleanor M. Hand

Manuscripts

An autograph letter, with envelope, written to "Dear Nellie" who lived in Wisconsin. The letter, written from Fort Lyon in Colorado Territory at the height of the Civil War, describes the tumultuous circumstances of the 9th Wisconsin Light Artillery, then serving as part of the post's garrison after the Union Army had withdrawn all regular troops to conduct the campaigns against the Confederate insurrection. Meadows apologizes to Eleanor Hand, who would later become his wife, for his lack of letters, but goes on to express his feelings for her, and discusses whether he should re-enlist. Meadows also outlines his episodes of detached duty to posts such as Fort Larned, Kansas, and protecting the settlers and overlanders from the perceived threat of hostile Native Americans.

mssHM 84109

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Billy Newbanks letter to Maggie Newbanks

Manuscripts

An autograph letter written by a young man to his sister living in Monmouth, Illinois. He comments on her education, plans to get an organ, and learning to dance while he also discusses his loneliness, family matters and sends greetings to various friends. He mentions the social life of the fort, the "colored soldiers in other words Negros" and the Native Americans living near the Fort. Newbanks had arrived at Fort Sill just three years after the post was established to prevent Native American attacks upon Euro-American settlements in Kansas and Texas. The letter has slight foxing, with an addressed, postmarked envelope.

mssHM 83796

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Charles S. (Charles Sanders) Peirce letter to Welch, Bigelow & Co

Manuscripts

This letter to the printers Welch, Bigelow & Co. reads as follows: "Gentlemen, I enclose herewith the proof of page 85. I still retain the proof of page 84 because you have not returned me the copy of (661) (662) and (663) which come on that page. Yours truly, C. S. Peirce." The letter was written in Washington, DC and on "U.S. Coast Survey Office" letterhead.

mssHM 79889

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Albert Bigelow Paine Letters

Manuscripts

This collection consists almost entirely of letters addressed to Paine (there are only nine letters by Paine himself). The correspondence provides a picture of the literary and newspaper field of Paine's time. In addition to Paine's professional correspondence, there are also family letters in the collection. Persons in the collection represented by ten or more pieces include: Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon, George Fisher Baker, John Kendrick Bangs, Daniel Carter Beard, John Bennett, Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink, Edward Breck, David MacGregor Cheney, William Fayal Clarke, Richard Harding Davis, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Charles Harvey Genung, Arthur Colfax Grissom, Ewing Herbert, Edward Mandell House, Mildred Howells, William Dean Howells, Alfred Henry Lewis, John Luther Long, Orson Lowell, Louise Kirby Paine Benjamin Moore, Tom P. Morgan, Sarah Edwards Nast, Frederick Burr Opper, Bradley S. Osbon, Samuel Esterbrook Paine, Bernard J. Rosenmeyer, Joshua Slocum, Pamela Colman Smith, Julian Street, Ruth McEnery Stuart, Sophie Miriam Swett, Mary Virginia Hawes Terhune (Marion Harland), Frank Ver Beck, Eugene Fitch Ware, William Allen White, and Caspar Whitney. Other persons represented in the collection include: Irving Bacheller, John Kendrick Bangs, Edward William Bok, James Bryce, Andrew Carnegie, Mary Hallock Foote, Helen Keller, Dora Paine, John Russell Pope, Margaret Elizabeth Munson Sangster, Upton Sinclair, Charles Warren Stoddard, Mark Twain (copies only - no originals), and Theodore Newton Vail.

mssAP 1-2083

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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

Jonas Bigelow letter to Otis Arnold

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Jonas Bardsley and Hannah Bardsley letter to family

John Greenwood Meadows letter to Eleanor M. Hand

Billy Newbanks letter to Maggie Newbanks

Charles S. (Charles Sanders) Peirce letter to Welch, Bigelow & Co

Albert Bigelow Paine Letters

Joseph Whitaker letter