Collections

The John Sawyer Brooks Papers contain correspondence, scrapbooks, photographs and drawings, and other papers, most relating to missionaries and mission administration at the Mendi Mission in Sierra Leone, 1851-1859. Also present are papers relating to the Mount Pleasant Mission in Peel Township, Ontario, 1846-1855, and to the Brooks family, 1850s-circa 2000.

The papers consist of correspondence, reports, and research material almost exclusively devoted to John Boyce's work on wood and wood diseases. About a third of the papers relate to Boyce's work on the use of wood in airplanes during World War I.

Collected by John Skutel, a private collector who placed his materials up for auction in 1989. The collection contains material related to P.T. Barnum and associates, which is heavily represented by the Bridgeport History Center's P.T. Barnum Research Collection (BHC-MSS 00001). Of note in the Skutel Collection is the original contract that signed M. Lavinia Warren to P.T. Barnum's management, and the original typescript of Warren's autobiography.

The papers contain correspondence, legal documents, maps, and printed material by or relating to Guy Johnson and his experiences as Superintendent of Indian Affairs during the American Revolution, as well as documentation of his efforts regarding claims on his confiscated property in the United States. Series I holds Johnson's papers, which include correspondence with family members and British military officers Guy Carleton and Thomas Gage. Also present are two printed almanacs and two autograph manuscript journals recording Johnson's activities and voyages between Quebec and England, and New York and Quebec. Documents in the papers include several on parchment recording Johnson's services to the crown and his lands in New York, a list of accounts with Joseph Brant, and a manuscript record titled "Return of Services performed by the Indians of Colonel Guy Johnson's Department" which details "the Killed, wounded, etc. & damages done to the Rebels from the beginning of the Year 1780 to the end of 1781." Series II holds material related to Johnson's family in Ireland and Great Britain, in particular records of his son-in-law Colin Campbell and daughters Mary Johnson Campbell and Julia Johnson, documenting their involvement in the settlement of Guy Johnson's estate and their efforts regarding his confiscated property. Correspondence holds letters from banker Thomas Coutts, and several petitions the family submitted to the commissioners for American claims. Also present are personal letters to Colin Campbell from others, including British general Sir William Howe, concerning his military career.

The papers consist of correspondence, papers, volumes, deeds, and other material documenting several generations of the Johnson family of Connecticut and New York. Samuel Johnson (1696-1772), William Samuel Johnson (1727-1819), William Samuel Johnson (1795-1883), and Samuel William Johnson (1828-1895) are prominent figures in the papers. The correspondence of William Livingston (1723-1790) and Noah Welles (1718-1776) is also arranged in the papers. In addition to extensive correspondence between Johnson family members, the papers contain material relating to Connecticut and New York politics in the colonial and Revolutionary War periods, and religion, land development, and Indian affairs in the nineteenth century. Additions to the papers include family correspondence, sketchbooks of Katharine Livingston Bayard Johnson, a diary and account books of Sarah Dwight Woolsey Johnson, photographs by Robert Bayard Severy; Livington family genealogy, by Margaret S. Rutgers; multi-generational account book, and photographs of eighteenth-century documents related to William Samuel Johnson.

The papers consist of correspondence, writings, photographs, and research files (1914-1963) documenting the professional career and personal life of John Spangler Nicholas, a biologist and zoologist. His academic work, editorial contributions to the Journal of Experimental Zoology, and scientific research are detailed. Correspondents include: Ross Granville Harrison, Charles Rupert Stockard, and the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology.

Correspondence, receipts, financial papers, military orders, a diary for the year 1813, and other papers of John Stites Gano, Major-General in the Ohio Militia and a figure in the Western battles of the War of 1812. The papers are chiefly military in nature, though there are some personal items. Included are letters to and from Gov. Return Jonathan Meigs, Stephen Gano, the noted clergyman and brother of J.S. Gano, and letters to General William Henry Harrison.

Chiefly diaries and correspondence by the wife and daughters of Thomas Pinckney Johnstone, a missionary to Turkey from 1833 to 1853. The diaries record their attempts to convert Turkish, Greek, and Armenian neighbors, the persecutions suffered by the converts, and the life of the missionary family. Diaries and letters written on their return to the United States describe their life in Granville, Ohio where they met anti-slavery activists; in Salem, Massachusetts; and in New Haven, Connecticut. The diary of Martha Johnstone Walker reports on her experiences at the Le Roy Seminary in New York. Also in the papers are six family letters and genealogies of the Walker and Johnstone families.

Chiefly correspondence, to or from Mill. Of the 237 letters by Mill, 131 are to his wife, Harriet Hardy Taylor Mill. Twenty-four letters are from Helen Taylor, Mrs. Mill's daughter. In addition there are two volumes with drafts of letters by Mill written between 1851 and 1858 to a variety of recipients. Notable correspondents in the collection are John Austin, Jeremy Bentham, Augustus De Morgan, Isabella Beecher Hooker, George Grote, John Sterling and Edward Livingston Youmans. Other manuscript material includes four pages of his autobiography (dated 1861), his journal of a walking tour through Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Surrey (1828) and several undated fragments, including several pages of medical advice to an unnamed person.