Collections : [Connecticut Museum of Culture and History]

The collection was purchased from a Philadelphia dealer, who arranged the letters by recipient. In keeping with archival practice, they were re-arranged by letter writer and then further organized by generation. Incoming letters precede outgoing.

The collection primarily consists of deeds for land in Hartford, specifically South Meadow, to members of the Bull family. Some of these deeds represent the earliest Hartford deeds in the CHS collection. All three Jonathan Bull’s bought and sold property.

The records in this collection are arranged by generation. Benjamin Bunnell’s account book for coopering and trade was continued by his grandson Luke and covers the years 1756, when Benjamin proudly writes about his purchase on the inside of the book, to 1808. Inside the front cover is an index of accounts, and a single sheet listing the births and deaths of Benjamin’s children and grandchildren. Toward the back of the book, Benjamin recorded an “account of what I have gave to my daughter Abigail by way of her portion” and another account of what Abigail has of her sister’s portion after Mehitable’s death. A recipe for medicine to treat the “bloody flux” is written on the last page of the volume.

The collection, donated by Mr. and Mrs. Frank M. Chapin, was described in the accession record as being material from the Chapin Machine Company In processing the collection it was evident that it included personal papers of the Chapin family and records of several Chapin companies.

The collection consists primarily of handwritten or typed letters sent to Cole by fellow lawyers, businessmen and clients. There are a handful of letters from Cole’s siblings but these are mostly about business matters. The materials were donated in four file folders spanning the period between 1885 and 1893 and were arranged either by first or last name or the name of a company or business. Within each section the materials were not arranged alphabetically. The folders were marked 1, 2, 3 and 5 covered the periods 1885-1887, 1887-1889, 1889-1891 and 1891-1893. Missing from the collection is the bulk of the year 1891 (parts of January and December of that year are covered) which presumably would have appeared in folder 4. The materials have been kept in their original order and further alphabetized.

This collection has been divided into two series: the genealogical research of Clara Beckley (Box 1) and the primary sources she gathered related to her family’s iron foundries (Box 2). Within each box, folders have been arranged alphabetically according to the type of document and main focus of the material. Within each folder the documents are arranged chronologically. If the date of production could not be ascertained, the documents were then placed in the back of the folder.