We just acquired a particularly rich family collection that we hope researchers will use a lot.  It consists of correspondence among members of the Terry and Bacon families of Hartford and New Haven, respectively.  Nathaniel Terry, the progenitor of the family, married Catherine Wadsworth.  Nathaniel was mayor of Hartford and a Congressman.  His sons were also quite distinguished and most of them attended and graduated from Yale.

One son, Adrian Russell Terry, was a physician, and his most fascinating letters are those written while he was in Ecuador trying to establish a medical practice there.  Great observations of the local land and citizens, plus a huge list of medical supplies he purchased in New York City are two of the highlights among his papers.

Charles A. Terry, another of Nathaniel’s sons, was also a physician and when he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, he sent back vivid descriptions of that city.  His brother, Alfred Terry, was the most avid letter writer in the family.  His letters are mostly from his student days at Yale and later at Litchfield, Connecticut, where he studied law under James Gould.

Daughter Catherine Terry married noted minister, theologian and author Leonard Bacon.  All of their children (and there were plenty) wrote to mother about their activities, the development of their children, their relationships with other family members, etc.  Leonard Bacon and his son Leonard W. traveled to Europe and the Middle East from 1850-1851 and they wrote long, detailed letters of their impressions of the familiar and unfamiliar.

Catherine and Leonard’s son, Francis Bacon, a physician, wrote from Galveston, Texas where he tried (unsuccessfully) to get established in a practice.  His letters are filled with disparaging remarks about the lack of culture among the population there.  He also could not stand the weather.

George Bacon, another son, wrote several letters in the 1850s while he was on board the U.S.S. Portsmouth when it sailed to Shanghai and Hong Kong. Daughters Rebecca T. Bacon and Alice Mabel Bacon also made names for themselves, the first as an educator, the second as a teacher in Japan and as the founder of a nurses training school for African-American women in Hampton, Virginia.  And I could go on, as does the collection.

As I mentioned at the outset, this promises to be an extremely important research collection.  I cannot wait to learn what other gems exist in addition to the letters from Rutherford B. Hayes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lydia Sigourney and Alexis de Toqueville.

Eli Whitney, best known for inventing the cotton gin, was also a pioneer in mass-producing firearms.  There is little documentation, however, about this aspect of his engineering prowess. In a letter CHS recently acquired, Whitney himself provides some specifics.

The letter was written to John Adam of the Forbes & Adam foundry in Canaan.  Whitney (through his secretary who wrote the missive) specifies that the trip hammer be “made about one inch wide and let it be left without hardening.”  He also requests that Adam “forward my gudgeons, stakes, husk, hammer &c to Litchfield.”  Next he asks for help building a workforce, including “one or two nailers who are expert workmen & masters of the business . . . It is my intention to employ them in forging some of the light limbs of the musket.”

Accompanying the letter is an order sheet, seemingly in Whitney’s own hand, with specifications for three pieces of rolled iron, two “gudgeons made to patterns”, a husk, socket, 10 stakes, and a hammer and “Half a ton of rolled iron . . .”  On the verso are pencil patterns of the gudgeon.  These two documents complement our Forbes & Adam account book collection and provide valuable insight into and documentation of Eli Whitney and his gun manufacture.

I have not posted to the blog for ages; too many things got in the way, I am afraid.  But I am back! On Thursday of this week, we received the most remarkable scrapbook. It was created by a young man from Wethersfield, Connecticut, Andrew Twaddle, who in 1953 took a cross-country train trip to attend a Boy Scout Jamboree in California. The scrapbook, like many from the first half of the 20th century is on very acidic and poor quality paper that crumbles when you touch it. Everything is affixed to the pages with cellophane tape that has yellowed and dried. Typical. It is the contents that is not so typical. This young man included a catalog for boyscout uniforms (G. Fox & Co. was the official outlet for Boy Scout equipment), the flyer for the jamboree, notes on the exciting things he saw while on the train, a diary (!), lots of newspaper clippings made by his aunt who lived in California, postcards to his parents, and, believe it or not, a cover for his flashlight that would make it glow red during one of the ceremonies.

I remember my brothers in Scouts, but I do not think they attended anything this big. What a wonderful experience it must have been for a pre-teen boy. Now we can preserve that experience here at CHS.

No matter how many I see, I still get the chills when reading and handling a bill of sale for a person.  We recently acquired just such a document.  Benjamin Payne of Hartford sold a Negro Woman named Minnah to Samuel Forbes of Canaan for fifty-two pounds, ten shillings.  This particular bill of sale caught our attention because Samuel Forbes, of the iron manufacturing firm Forbes & Adam, freed his slaves sometime around the Revolution, and his account books (which was recently acquired) are filled with customers he identified as “Negro”, individuals who were obviously freemen.  One cannot help but wonder why Forbes had such a dramatic change of heart about owning human beings in an apparently short span of time.

While perusing an unprocessed collection last week, I came upon a fascinating pamphlet published by the War Finance Committee.  Its title is “A New Way for Librarians and War Bond Workers to help their communities help their country win the War.”  Connecticut is used as one of the examples of how the program works.

“Public libraries in Connecticut, working with the State War Finance Committee, demonstrated that libraries could play an important part in the War Finance Program.  New professional and educational groups were reached through the libraries; and librarians, because of their special place and prestige in a community, made the best possible type of War Bond appeal to such groups.  Friends of the libraries and library trustees helped libraries win important literary awards for their communities.”

What struck me most was the statement the librarians hold a special place and prestige in the community.  Sometimes I am not sure we are held in the same esteem today.  I also found it a bit amusing that librarians were equated with war bond workers!

This publication and other documents related to suffrage and women’s role in World War II are part of a collection about Ruth Dadourian, a remarkable woman for her time.  A catalog record will be on the OPAC shortly.

There are so many topics for research in this collection, I don’t know where to start. We just acquired 48 account books that belonged to John Adam and Samuel Forbes, both individually and as the partnership Forbes & Adam. These two men were instrumental in developing the iron industry around East Canaan, Connecticut. Adam lived in Taunton, Mass. before moving to East Canaan where he married Samuel Forbes’ daughter. Forbes and Adam owned interest in several ore mines, a sawmill and a paper mill, a slitting mill, a “nailery” and a general (company?) store. The volumes we have date from 1748-1875.

Many of the entries in the ledgers include not only the person’s name but his occupation and town of residence as well. Some of the occupations mentioned are ore digger, ore carter, anchor maker, bloomer and iron turner. Those customers of African heritage are so noted in the volumes. There is a volume entitled “Woman’s book”, a ledger that put me in mind of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book Goodwives in that women, who are almost entirely identified by their relationship to men, paid their bills by nursing, spinning, making butter, and making and mending clothes.

The volume marked “Real Estate” includes notes about building a forge in Norfolk, 1760; to paying John Forbes for his 999-year lease of 1/32 of Salisbury Ore Hill; and the purchase of one whole right in the Susquehanna Purchase. Other entries give a fascinating look at the extent the iron industry impacted northwestern Connecticut–buying land for cord wood, investing in ore mines, hiring agents, investment in turnpikes, and on and on.

I got very frustrated reading through these accounts when I saw what I termed “scribbles” made by Charles S. Adam on the blank pages of the early volumes. However, I finally realized that, although he defaced the “sacred” 18th century volumes, he noted his financial transactions, local births and deaths, and national events such as the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. There is a lot to be mined from Charles’ scribbles with further examination. I have learned to not be so hasty in my judgments.

This collection is a rich resource we sincerely hope the scholarly community will mine.

Things have been a bit hectic here as we reorganize the operation of the library and museum, and our accessions have not been as fast and furious as usual.  However, we did acquire in December a fascinating document related to a Revolutionary War prisoner.  Evidently William Dodd, of Falmouth, Maine, who had been held prisoner in New York and had finally been release, fell ill while traveling through Pomfret.  The town provided medical expenses, room and board for Dodd from August 1781 to January 1872.  They indicate they also had expenses for “carrying him out of the state.”  The town’s Selectmen and a Justice of the Peace sent a request to the Governor and Council of Connecticut for reimbursement for the town’s expenses of just over 15 pounds. It is this document that recently came into our possession and provides an interesting insight into the travails of former prisoners and the culture of assisting soldiers, even in a small rural town.

During the holiday season, Beatrice Fox Auerbach sent out Christmas cards as was the custom at the time, a practice that is widely continued to this day. In our collection of Fox materials, we have a scrapbook that contains the Christmas cards she sent to friends and associates between 1929 and 1966. All of the cards were specially designed and featured subjects like her home on 1040 Prospect Avenue, her dogs, Auerfarm, and, in the later years, her grandchildren. The formats of the cards started off quite simple, but increased in complexity and creativity over the years. Pictured below is a sampling of a few of my favorites.

This one, from 1931, shows Mrs. Auerbach’s home on Prospect Avenue as well as her two dogs. The inside reads “Wishes you A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year”

Auerfarm is the subject of this card from 1945. The inside message reads, “To you and your dear ones - a very happy Christmas and all the goodness of life. Let us hope that peace now begun will spread its blessings more and more confidently into the New Year. With warmest greeting and much good cheer, Beatrice Fox Auerbach, Hartford Connecticut, December 1945″

This 1950 Christmas card was one of the first to depict Mrs. Auerbach’s grandchildren. After 1950, however, the majority of her Christmas cards featured her grandchildren in some way.

Beatrice Fox Auerbach may have been Jewish, but she was also an exceptionally adept businesswoman and, as such, catered to her mostly-Christian clientèle by turning her store into a virtual wonderland every Christmas season. The children’s department was transformed into Toyland, much to the delight of children all over Connecticut. And, of course, Santa Claus was there, beginning the day after Thanksgiving, so that every little girl and boy could be sure to tell him exactly what they wanted to be waiting under the tree on Christmas morning.

However, the most memorable aspect of Christmas at G. Fox & Co. has to be the store’s marquee, which was decorated complete with lights during almost every holiday season. For several years, the marquee consisted of the Christmas village with accurate replicas of many of Connecticut’s most important historic buildings. Pictured below is the scene of the Connecticut village from the brochure that G. Fox & Co. produced as a guide to the historic buildings on the store’s marquee.

The buildings reproduced on the marquee that year (1959) were:

1. The Green Homestead in South Windsor
2. The Osbert Burr Loomis House in Windsor
3. The Joseph Webb home in Wethersfield
4. The Litchfield Congregational Church in Litchfield
5. The Noah Webster Home in West Hartford
6. The Nathan Hale Homestead in South Coventry

While the Christmas Village was by far the most popular display, there were others as well. During the energy crisis of the early 1970s, the marquee was decorated, but did not have its traditional light display. At other times, festive scenes took the place of the Christmas Village, whose buildings had to be restored or replaced several times due to the destructive forces of the winter weather.

An obscure bit of New England and constitutional history recently came into our collections. Colonel David Humphreys of Connecticut was charged with raising a small army to suppress Shay’s Rebellion in Massachusetts. In a letter to Governor Samuel Huntington, dated December 18, 1786, Humphreys informed the governor “of all the resignations which have taken place, together with the names of such persons as might be proper to fill their vacancies.” Captains Clift and Robinson, Lieutenant Hart and Ensign Keeler “declined accepting their appointments. After making unsuccessful overtures to Captain Rogers, Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Mix,” Humphreys asked for Huntington’s permission to recruit Captain Moses Cleveland of Canterbury, Lieutenant Joseph Wilcox (then in service at West Point) to be a Captain, Mr. Russel Bissel of Windsor to be Lieutenant and Mr. John Thomson to be Ensign.

Humphreys further reported that “Tho’ no public money has been advanced, several officers have made considerable progress in enlisting men. About twenty recruits have arrived . . . [and] I made arrangements with Colo. Wadsworth to furnish them with all necessary supplies.”

Shay’s rebellion was an armed uprising in western Massachusetts from 1786-1787. The rebels, led by farmer and former soldier Daniel Shays, were mostly small farmers angered by crushing debt and high land taxes. Congress, operating under the Articles of Confederation, called for armed troops to suppress the uprising but had no power to recruit the men or pay them. Massachusetts managed to mobilize a privately financed army and eventually defeated the rebels on February 3, 1787. Connecticut was the only other state to respond, but obviously not without some effort and eventually without result. The small Connecticut force was never needed.