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Note: This list is not exhaustive and does not include all manuscript collections held at the CHS. A number of collections have finding aids online at http://www.chs.org/library/faids.htm
Allen, Nathan H.
Research notes on music in Connecticut between 1680 and 1879; collection includes typed draft of Music in a New England State: From Psalmody to Symphony in Connecticut.
(0.8 linear foot)
Babcock Papers
Date range: 1788-1869
Business letters and accounts of the printing businesses of Elisha (1753-1821), John (1764- ) and Sidney Babcock of Hartford and New Haven; includes family correspondence.
(1.2 linear feet)
Batterson, James G. (1823-1901
Date range: 1864-1865
Batterson, James G. (1823-1901). Papers and correspondence, of Batterson as Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee for Connecticut, campaign of 1864; includes a packet of election charts, giving analysis by vote of Connecticut counties, 1863. Batterson was also the originator of accident insurance and President of the Travelers Insurance Company.
(0.3 linear foot)
Beckley, Clara
Date range: 1848-1957
Correspondence, photoprints and research material of Connecticut collector, relating to John Adam Beckley (1808-1874) and iron furnaces in Canaan, CT.
(0.8 linear foot)
Brainard, Newton Case (1880-1964)
Date range: 1941-1964
Research notes and papers, on Connecticut clockmakers, cabinetmakers, inventors, mills, printers, silversmiths, and shad fishing.
(4 linear feet)
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Bulkeley, Houghton (1896-1966)
Date range: 1958-1966
Correspondence, including 18 letters from Truman Smith while the latter was a member of the House of Representatives from Roxbury, CT. Also contains notes and photoprints relating to Connecticut cabinetmakers.
(2.3 linear feet)
Burr, Aaron (1756-1836)
Date range: 1765-1833
Lawyer and political figure. Business papers and correspondence, primarily related to Burr’s law practice.
(ca.100 items)
Butler, Albert L
Three autograph volumes of single letters from political and otherwise prominent figures of the mid-nineteenth century, several of them directed to Secretaries of the Navy relating to naval appointments. Includes one letter from Elias Boudinot to Lewis Pintard dated 1781. Also contains many printed portraits.
(0.6 linear foot)
Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company
Date range: 1847-1870
Correspondence, records and bills, of Hartford Printing firm, the majority of which is correspondence with G. & C. Merriam Co., publishers in Springfield, Mass., relative to the printing and binding of Webster’s Dictionary. Also contains letters to Merriam, Chapin & Co., and notice of the dissolution of Shattuck & Co., March 1, 1885.
(0.3 linear foot)
Champion, Henry (1723-1797)
Date range: 1719-1843
Personal and business papers of Commissary General, Eastern Department, during the Revolutionary War; includes correspondence of his son Henry Champion (1751-1836) of Colchester, CT, a major in the American Revolution, who also had an interest in the Connecticut Land Company.
(3.3 linear feet)
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Chinese Educational Mission, Hartford
Date range: 1872-1885
Correspondence, documents, papers, 1872-1885. Contains the correspondence of Chinese youths sent by their government to study in Connecticut. Also includes autograph albums and scrapbooks of newspaper clippings relating to student activities. Timothy Kao and Hung-Hsun Ling published a bilingual edition of Jeme Tien You and the Chinese Railway based upon materials in this collection.
ca. 50 items
Coffin, Owen Vincent (1836-1921)
Date range: 1852-1917
Business records, official and personal correspondence of business and insurance executive in Middletown, CT, and state senator and Governor of Connecticut, 1895-1897. Coffin was President of the Middlesex Mutual Assurance Company. Collection also includes photographs, scrapbooks, memorabilia and correspondence and records relating to the Nebraska Real Estate and Live Stock Association.
(5.8 linear feet)
Colt, Samuel (1814-1862)
Inventor and manufacturer. Correspondence and papers, including business records of Patent Arms Manufacturing Company,1808-1869. ca 5,000 items. Colt was one of his time’s most prominent firearms manufacturers. His papers include a report on the festivities planned for the coronation of the Emperor of Moscow, Russia, in 1856, and a directive to his employees which stated that "every man employed in or about my armory whether by piece work or by days work is expected to work ten hours during the running of the engine and no one who does not cheerfully consent to do this need expect to be employed by me."
Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences
Date range: 1800-1813
Records: contains original sketches written in reply to a survey seeking data on Connecticut towns in preparation for a statistical history of the state. Michael R. Gannett’s Cornwall in 1801 by Elijah Allen is based upon these materials.
Connecticut Artillery. Third Regiment
Date range: 1812-1817
U. S. Army. Records, 1812-1817.
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Connecticut Colony (1742-1773)
Letters from colonial agents in England. [Shelved in oversize area] This collection continues an earlier volume, 1724-1742, the contents of which have been published with the Talcott Papers in The Connecticut Historical Society’s Collections, volumes 4 and 5. (0.2 linear foot)
Ms 93845
Connecticut Council of Safety (1775-1783)
Memorials and petitions for transport and export permits, records, and certifications for individuals seeking permits.
Connecticut. General Assembly
Date range: 1631-1819
Acts, committee reports, petitions, resolves (primarily copies, some originals), records. Included are twelve official state seals.
ca. 400 items
Connecticut Towns
Many early documents from various Connecticut towns. 159 separate collections filed by the name of the town.
Cooke, Amos Starr (1810-1871)
Date range: 1820-1855
Correspondence. Starr, of Danbury, CT, went to Honolulu, Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, as a missionary under the sponsorship of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Also contains family letters.
(0.3 linear foot)
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Cornelius, Elias (1794-1832)
Date range: 1811-1903
Letters of clergyman and missionary among Native-Americans (Cherokee, Choctaw, etc.) and at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, CT; includes letters from others to his sister, Mrs. Sarah Cornelius Perry, and her son, Rev. Talmon C. Perry. Elias Cornelius was an 1813 graduate of Yale University; his nephew graduated from the same institution in 1846.
(0.8 linear foot)
Crevecoeur, Hector St. John de (1735-1813)
Date Range: 1785-1789
Correspondence of French consul in New York City with Jeremiah Wadsworth (1743-1804).
Dwight-Patrick Papers
Date range: 1772-1866
Correspondence,between Theodore Dwight, Sr. (1764-1846), Hartford editor, prominent Federalist, secretary of the 1814 Hartford Convention, of Theodore Dwight, Jr. (1796-1866), Hartford author, and Mary A. Dwight Patrick (Mrs. Matthew Patrick), author of gift books.
(0.1 linear foot)
G & C. Merriam Company
Date range: 1835-77
Publishers in Springfield, Massachusetts. Business correspondence, much of it with Case, Tiffany and Company (later Case, Lockwood and Brainard Company), Hartford.
ca. 100 items
Gallup, Benadam
Date range: 1664-1813
Correspondence and papers of justice of the peace in New London County, CT, dealing with the French and Indian Wars and the American Revolution; also contains legal papers including those pertaining to the estate of Peleg Lewis.
(0.8 linear foot)
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Geer, Elihu (1817-1887)
Date range: 1839-1884
Business and political correspondence, of printer in Hartford, CT; includes two letters from James Dixon (1814-1873), 1847 and 1848. Collection also contains militia correspondence and papers.
(1.3 linear feet)
Gillette, William Hooker (1853-1937)
Date range: 1891-1914
Letters and Correspondence of Actor and dramatist, William Hooker Gillette, member of Hartford’s Nook Farm community. Best known for his performance in the title role of Sherlock Holmes.
ca. 85 items
Gong Bell Company
One of three firms manufacturing bells in the East Hampton, Connecticut, area in the late-19th and early 20th centuries. Together, these three firms supplied practically all bells for any purpose in the nation.
(54 linear feet)
Gray, Samuel, Jr.
Date range: 1777-1782
Correspondence and papers, of Deputy Commissary General of Issues during the American Revolution including official correspondence with Charles Stewart, Commissary General of Issues, and with local deputies all over New England and southern New York State. Samuel Gray resided in Windham, Connecticut.
(0.3 linear foot)
Great Britain. Privy Council
Date range: 1743-1775
Orders and correspondence, , directed to the Governor and Company of the Colony of Connecticut. Continues an earlier volume, 1725-1743, the contents of which have been published with the Talcott Papers in The Connecticut Historical Society’s Collections, volumes 4 and 5.
(0.2 linear foot)
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Hamersley, William (1838-1920)
Date range: 1835-1910
Letters, correspondence, diaries, political speeches, and papers of both William James Hamersley (1808-1876) and his son William Hamersley. William James Hamersley was a publisher and bookseller as well as editor of The Hartford Independent Press. He was also Mayor of Hartford, 1853-1854 and 1862-1863. His son William Hamersley was city attorney of Hartford (1865-1868), State’s Attorney (1868-1888), Superior Court judge (1893-1894) and Supreme Court of Errors Associate Justice (1894-1908). The collection also contains letters and papers of William Woodruff Niles (Bishop of New Hampshire), letters of the Right Rev. John Williams, and letters of the Right Rev. William Croswell Doane.
Hartford Charitable Society
Date range: 1792-1871
Collection includes original constitution, act of incorporation, lists of subscribers, records, and accounts of Society in Hartford, CT. Many of the receipts are signed by Barzillai Hudson as Treasurer, 1793-1802.
(0.4 linear foot)
Hartford, Connecticut. Widows Homes
Date range: 1860-1928
Records: including architect’s blueprint and specifications, trustees’ records, financial papers, written history, correspondence and papers, and applications for admission. Collections also contains a few personal papers of Robert Anderson Wadsworth (1861-1940), Secretary for the Homes.
(0.8 linear foot)
Holley, Alexander Hamilton (1804-1887)
Date range: 1830-1870
Official and personal correspondence, family papers of founder of the Holley Manufacturing Company of Lakeville, CT, producers of pocket cutlery and shears, and later Lieutenant-governor (1854-1855) and Governor (1857-1858) of Connecticut. Mr. Holley was also active in the railroad field.
Holley, Alexander Lyman (1832-1882)
Date range: 1843-1882
Correspondence, account books and notebook, , while a student at Brown University, mechanical engineer at Corliss & Nightingale in Providence, RI, and in New York City, publisher of Holley’s Railroad Advocate, metallurgist, and freelance technical writer for The New York Times. Alexander Lyman Holley was the son of Governor Alexander Hamilton Holley (1804-1887).
(0.3 linear foot)
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Huntington, Benjamin (1736-1800)
Date range: 1761-1864
Family correspondence, chiefly with his wife, Anne (1740-1790), in Norwich, CT, during his terms as a General Assemblyman, member of the Continental Congress and Representative to the First Congress. The collection also contains other family correspondence.
(0.3 linear foot)
Jacobus, Donald Lines
Unpublished manuscript archive of the "Dean of American Genealogists" and prolific, authoritative and meticulously accurate family historian and publisher of more than 50 books and 250 articles.
Jarvis, William (1796-1871)
Date range: 1837-1889
Letters of Episcopalian minister in East Haddam, CT, to his nephew, William Jarvis (1813-1883), a land agent in Hartsgrove, Ohio, about land owned by the family in Ohio, about local, state and national politics during the Civil War, and about his son-in-law, arms manufacturer Samuel Colt (1814-1862) his enterprises and family. After 1871, the correspondence is continued by his Jarvis’s son, Richard William Hart Jarvis (1829-1903). Collections also contains reports of the manufacture of soap at the Coburn Soap and Washing-Fluid Company, 1866-1873, and of Dr. George Oglevie Jarvis’s (1795-1875) "surgical adjuster," 1844-1847.
(0.8 linear foot)
Johnson, William Samuel (1727-1819)
Date range: 1744-1817
Correspondence, letterbooks, diaries, legal documents, deeds, grants, patents, addresses, petitions, briefs and accounts of colonial agent for Connecticut at the British court in London from 1767 to 1771, member of Continental Congress, U. S. Senator, lawyer, member of Connecticut Governor’s Council, and President of Columbia College. Johnson was also appointed to settle the controversy over land occupied by the Mohegan tribe and was involved in the Susquehanna land dispute. The collection also includes the manuscript draft of Governor and Company of Connecticut, and Mohegan Indians, by their Guardians: Certified copy of Book of Proceedings before Commissioners of Review, MDCCXLII (London: W. and J. Richardson, 1769). Notable correspondents include: William Bayard, Eliphalet Dyer, Benjamin Gale, Jared Ingersoll, Richard Jackson, Stephen Mix Mitchell, William Pitkin, William Smith (1728-1793), Pelatiah Webster, and Jonathan Trumbull, Sr.
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Law, Richard (1733-1806)
Date range: 1713-1816
Correspondence, relating to his service as delegate to the Continental Congress and as jurist, offering his views on legislation and structure of the federal judicial system. All are handwritten transcripts made by Albert Carlos Bates, Librarian of The Connecticut Historical Society, of original loaned to him by Ernest Law of Philadelphia in 1916. The present locations of the originals is not known. Currently shelved under Ernest Law, the donor; will be recataloged to Richard Law.
(0.1 linear foot)
McClellan, John (1767-1858)
Date range: 1714-1914
Correspondence, papers, addresses, notebooks, dockets, house plans, friendship albums, justice of the peace records (1816-1835), and account books of lawyer and state legislator (on and off between 1792 and 1824) of Woodstock, CT and diaries of his son-in-law Isaac Webb, teacher in Middletown, CT. Also includes notebooks of Sarah M. W. Silliman and papers of Samuel McClellan, a Revolutionary War officer. (11 linear feet)
Miclosky, Ken E.
Date range: 1948-1982
Miclosky’s letters to his family while stationed in Vietnam with the 82nd Airborne Division of the U. S. Army. The letters describe jungle warfare, the struggle with insects and leeches, and include a propaganda leaflet directed at African-American soldiers. Miclosky was killed in action and the collection contains letters of condolence from President Nixon, Senators Thomas Dodd and Clarence Bell, and General Westmoreland.
National Popular Education Board
Date range: 1845-1855
Letters, autobiographical information, and religious statements, from young women recruited from New England, trained as teachers in Hartford, Connecticut, and sent to schools in the West. Polly Welts Kaufman’s Women Teachers on the Frontier is based upon two years of weekly Saturday research with this collection. This book caused a "ripple effect" which brought to the CHS additional correspondence of other teachers sponsored by the Board, heretofore in private hands. Letters from Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Massachusetts poured in with inquiries regarding various teachers mentioned in Kaufman’s book. The book, and therefore the collection, inspired a symposium on women in Litchfield, Connecticut, and an article by Nancy Hoffman entitled "Woman’s True Profession: Voices from the History of Teaching."
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Niles, John Milton (1787-1856)
Date range: 1822-1856
Correspondence and papers of judge, U. S. Senator, Postmaster General, and founder and editor of the Hartford Weekly Times. The collection also includes scrapbooks, drafts of speeches, notes and resolutions, and a thirteen-page statement on the Fugitive Slave Act for the Times.
(0.8 linear foot)
Primus Family
Date range: 1854-1893
An African-American family in Hartford, Connecticut. Letters by Nelson Primus, an artist who lived in Boston, 1864-1895 and Seattle, WA, in 1899, and by his sister Rebecca Primus Thomas, a teacher on the eastern shore of Maryland under the Hartford Freedmen’s Aid Society, where she established a school at Royal Oak, Talbot County, named Primus Institute. Rebecca’s correspondence with intimate friend Addie Brown provides a rare, first-hand account of the lives of mid-nineteenth century African-Americans in Hartford, Connecticut. Barbara Jean Beeching’s master’s thesis (Trinity College, Hartford) The Primus Papers: an Introduction to Hartford’s Nineteenth Century Black Community. was based on this collection. ca. 300 items.
Robbins, Philemon (1709-1781)
Date range: 1727-1809
Clergyman, and Ammi Ruhamah Robbins (1740-1813) Clergyman. Papers, including correspondence 1742-1792, letters written by A. R. Robbins while serving as chaplain during the American Revolution, memorandum books and sermons, 1732-1809.
ca. 300 items
Robbins, Thomas (1777-1856)
Date range: 1728-1854
Congregational clergyman, antiquarian, and librarian of The Connecticut Historical Society, 1844-1854. Account books, addresses, business papers, correspondence and papers, school papers, sermons, etc.
ca. 5,100 items including a 12-vol. diary
Smith, John Cotton (1765-1860)
Date range: 1760-1860
Diaries, papers, business, legal and official correspondence and meteorological journals of lawyer, judge, U. S. Representative, Lt. Governor, 1811-1813, and Governor of Connecticut, 1812-1817. Smith was the first president of the Connecticut Bible Society, 1831-1845, and was also President of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1826-1841. Also included in the collection are notes on Superior Court proceedings. Notable correspondents: David Daggett, Matthew and Roger Griswold, Tapping Reeve and Benjamin Talmadge.
(5.5 linear feet)
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Smith, Julia Evelina (1810-42)
Date range: 1810-1842
Diaries written in French by female intellectual and advocate of women's rights from Glastonbury, Connecticut. Julia Smith’s translation of the Bible is also included in the collection.
Susquehanna Company
Date range: 1753-1802
Records: contains the articles of agreement, minutes of meetings, a copy of the original deed of the sale of land by Native-Americans, and conveyances of a land company organized in the colony of Connecticut in 1753/4 to settle an area in the colony of Pennsylvania along the upper Susquehanna River. Donna Bingham Munger’s "Following Connecticut Ancestors to Pennsylvania: Susquehanna Company Settlers" in the April 1985 issue of The New England Historical and Genealogical Register is based upon this collection.
Terry, Alfred Howe
Date range: 1863-1888
Military correspondence and papers: Collection contains the papers of Major General Terry, George Armstrong Custer’s superior officer at the time of Little Big Horn.
Tomlinson, Gideon (1780-1854)
Date range: 1760-1877
Legal, financial, political and family correspondence of lawyer, U. S. Representative (1819-1827), U. S. Senator (1831-1837) and Governor of Connecticut, 1827-1831.
(7 linear feet)
Treadwell, John (1745-1823)
Date range: 1798-1818
Member of Continental Congress, Governor of Connecticut, 1809-1811. Correspondence, letters, documents. Notable correspondents: James Hillhouse, Timothy Pitkin, Jr., and Uriah Tracy, all writing from Washington or Philadelphia.
ca. 80 items
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Trumbull, Henry Clay (1830-1903)
Date range: 1849-87
Correspondence of Civil War chaplain and editor of the Philadelphia Sunday School Times.
ca. 83 items
U. S. Treasury Department
Assessment returns for Connecticut, made pursuant to federal law, Oct. 1798 and 1815-16. Arranged by individual town. Contains general lists of all dwelling houses, lands, lots, and buildings in the State of Connecticut on the first day of October 1798. These booklets for 42 Connecticut towns are constantly used by researchers to establish a given person’s residence or relative wealth.
Wadsworth, Daniel (1771-1848)
Date range: 1749-1883
Correspondence and papers of artist and builder of Montevideo in Hartford, CT. Collection includes business papers, maps, surveys, and correspondence.
(1.1 linear feet)
Wadsworth, Jeremiah (1743-1804)
Date range: 1759-1815
Correspondence and papers, letterbooks, bills, receipts, accounts of Commissary General of Purchases for the Continental and French armies and later a Federalist Congressman; includes papers and receipts relating to Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene’s (1742-1786) estate and land papers, including those pertaining to the Phelps-Gorham purchase. The collection also contains correspondence with Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, 1785-1789, author of Letters from an American Farmer, who was the French consul to Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, about the first seal of Hartford. This seal was first used on the certificate of honorary citizenship which Hartford granted to General Lafayette and his son and to Crevecoeur and his sons.
(21 linear feet)
Webster, Noah (1758-1843)
Date range: 1796-1863
Family and business correspondence, deeds, and agreements with publishers; also includes certificates of registration, contracts, licenses relating to this famous lexicographer’s Dictionary and other works.
(0.4 linear foot)
Williams Family
Date range: 1700-1897
Include papers of Ezekiel Williams (sheriff of Hartford County, Rev. War commissary of prisoners for Conn.) and Ezekiel Williams, Jr. (marine insurance broker).
(1,750 pieces and 6 account books)
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