Manuscripts
1883-1887 November
- Description
- A collection of 1,072 items from 1815 to 1939, it consists of letters, manuscripts, documents, and two scrapbooks related to the lives and family of Harriet Williams Russell Strong and Charles Lyman Strong. There is material related to mining in Virginia City, Nevada, from 1860 to 1867 and Galena, Nevada, from 1877 to 1880; Hardyville and La Paz, Arizona; and California. There is some material related to the activities of Harriet Strong's father, Henry Pierrepont Russell, in the militia in Nevada; this material includes some references to Native Americans. Of note is one letter from Orion Clemens (brother of Mark Twain) appointing Samuel Andrew Russell to the Nevada Militia in 1863. The subject of California politics appears in the letters of Harriet's sister, Catherine Hundley, and her husband, Patrick Oglesby Hundley; he was a member of the California state assembly from 1860 to 1861 and elected superior court judge of Butte County, California, in 1879. There is also material related to the education of women on the mining frontier, as reflected in letters by Harriet Strong and her friends written from Miss Atkin's Young Ladies Seminary at Benicia, California. Later material relates to California horticulture, flood control, irrigation, and water conservation during the years that Harriet Strong managed the family's property in Whittier, California. The collection also contains some papers related to George Crockett Strong, Civil War general and brother of Charles Lyman Strong.
