The papers document three generations of the Woolsey family. The most prominent figures in the collection are William Walton Woolsey (1766-1839), land owner and merchant in New York City; his son, Theodore Dwight Woolsey (1801-1889), Greek scholar, political theorist and president of Yale College; and Theodore Salisbury Woolsey (1852-1929), professor of international law at Yale Law School, son of Theodore Dwight Woolsey. The papers of William Walton Woolsey contain extensive business correspondence, ledgers, legal papers, documents relating to land sales in New York and Ohio, as well as family and personal letters. Since he was engaged in the importation of sugar, cotton and hardware, some of his business correspondence is political with discussions of the Jay Treaty of 1794, the problems of piracy, American neutrality in the 1790s and the general politics of the period. Important correspondents are Chauncey Goodrich, Archibald Gracie, Eli Whitney, Noah Webster, Elihu and Nathaniel Chauncey, Oliver Wolcott, Benjamin Tallmadge, Jedidiah Morse, James Roosevelt, John A. Schuyler, Comfort Sands, John Broome, and Nicholas Bayard. The papers of Theodore Dwight Woolsey contain his writings on Greek language and literature, the Bible, international law and the texts of his sermons.
The papers contain correspondence, sermons, notes, writings and memorabilia of Elias D. Weigle, minister of Trinity Lutheran Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
Principal figures in these papers are Clara A. Case Underwood, her daughter, Clara Beatrice, and son, Eugene Bertrand. Included is some family correspondence (1860-1904), an autograph album kept by Clara A. Underwood, European travel diaries and notes written by Clara Beatrice Underwood (1903), and various certificates of membership and diplomas of Eugene Bertrand Underwood and his first wife, Lottie Elizabeth Treat Underwood.
Correspondence, speeches, travel diaries, and documents relating to John Q. Tilson's public life. The diary of his trip to Europe in 1925 was kept while studying munitions for a report to Calvin Coolidge. Another diary reports on a trip to the Orient in 1927. Correspondence reflects his service in the Connecticut National Guard and his connection with Yale Law School. He lectured there on parliamentary law from 1930 until his death, and papers from this course are also in the collection. Of particular interest in the correspondence is a letter from Calvin Coolidge (1923) and another from Cordell Hull (1940).
Journals, letterbook, medical notes, and essays of Benajah Ticknor, doctor and surgeon with the U.S. Navy. Of primary importance are the journals which describe journeys made by Ticknor with the Navy to South America, the Far East, and Europe.
The papers consist of correspondence, diaries, memoranda, notes, writings, clippings, and subject files documenting the personal life and professional career of Harold Phelps Stokes. His interests in United States foreign policy and domestic politics, the Alger Hiss case, the Paris Peace Conference, New York City politics and government, prison reform, and journalism are documented. Stokes corresponded with many prominent American political and social figures.
Travel journals written by Elizabeth E. Smith on a trip to Europe and the Near East (1883-1885). The copious journals record not only architecture and the arts, but also the daily life and customs of the people whom she observed. Included in the journals are also photographs, prints, newspaper clippings, and drawings, some of them her own. Also in the papers are several of her poems and essays written during the trip.
This collection is made up of the papers of ten individual members and six branches of the Seymour family: the Day family, Parsons-Dean families, Watkins-Law families, Leggett-Seymour-Doolittle families, St. John family, and Howard family. The largest sections are those of Thomas Day Seymour, Charles Seymour (1885-1963), and Charles Seymour, Jr. The collection represents six generations of an intellectually and socially prominent family and through correspondence and diaries offers detailed evidence on social life and customs in New Haven, Hartford and nineteenth-century Ohio.
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