William J. Potter papers

A collection of approximately 489 items from 1846 to 1949, it consists of personal and family papers of William James Potter, accumulated by Elizabeth Babcock Potter. The collection includes journals, correspondence, a letter book, commonplace book, poems, manuscripts, and ephemera. William James Potter's journals document his early career, preceding his New Bedford ministry; the chaplain's notebook that he kept in 1863 contains records of inspections of hospitals and military prisons, names, cases, and addresses of the inmates. Correspondence includes the letters exchanged between William J. Potter and Elizabeth Potter written between 1860 and 1870. There is also Elizabeth Potter's 1859-1860 letter book and letters from Elizabeth Potter to her mother Lydia Delano Babcock written during her visit to Algonac, the Delano estate, near Newburg, in Orange County, New York, in the summer and fall of 1856; as well as letters written during her stay with William James Potter at Camp Distribution, near Alexandria, Virginia, from November 1863 through May 1864. Also included are the Potters' correspondence with his sisters Mary Ann Potter Howland, Ruth Potter Almy, and Ruby H. Potter Tillinghast. William James Potter's correspondence with his friends, includes correspondents John Albee, Henry W. Brown, and George W. Bartlett (the latter discusses Maine Civil War politics), and letters from Elizabeth's numerous friends and colleagues. Also included is a group of letters from Elizabeth's brother, James Delano Babcock who was engaged in the shipping business and China trade, written from San Francisco, Singapore, Yokohama, and Sitka (Alaska) between 1856 and 1876. Elizabeth Babcock Potter's manuscripts include her commonplace book from 1858 to 1865, a 1851 autograph book, her poetry, mostly religious, and a notebook where she recorded stories of her children from 1869 to 1875. There is also a small group of fragments containing a collection of excerpts from sermons of Andrew Preston Peabody; various notes for sermons, religious poetry, some by Elizabeth Babcock Potter, fragments of letters to her and her parents, including a description of a trip to Scotland (probably by her brother James) and a vivid account of Morgan's first raid to Kentucky in July 1862 and Perryville campaign, written by a friend of Elizabeth's, a Kentucky teacher.