The collection contains legal and financial materials related to the settlement of the estates of Ricardo Maria Bell of Santiago, Cuba and Ana Maria Bell de Becerra. Also included are an account ledger of former trustee Robert Ewing, wills, correspondence, and checks.
The papers of the Board of Trustees of Dickinson College, 1833-1879, include correspondence, reports, financial statements, printed materials, and legal documents, and have been arranged into thirteen series.
Series 1 – Membership contains correspondence regarding membership on the Board of Trustees, lists of members, and attendance records.
Series 2 – Reports to the Board of Trustees consists of reports by the college president on the overall status of the college as well as reports from the heads of the college departments.
Series 3 – General Business includes bound and loose copies of minutes of the trustees’ meetings, resolutions passed by the various trustee committees, and correspondence in which general business is conducted.
Series 4 – College Personnel includes materials dealing with the college presidents.
Series 5 – Physical Plant consists of deeds, mortgages, certificates, bills, and correspondence dealing with the construction of the campus buildings.
Series 6 – Financial Affairs contains reports of the treasurer, ledger books, student accounts, and other financial materials.
Series 7 – Scholarships contains hundreds of scholarship certificates as well as correspondence and reports related to the sale of scholarships to raise funds for the college.
Series 8 – Conferences consists of materials which pertain to the control of the college by the Baltimore and Philadelphia Conferences of the Methodist Church.
Series 9 – Honorary Degrees contains correspondence relating to the granting of honorary degrees to prominent individuals.
Series 10 – Publications contains printed materials produced for use by the general community such as lists of college rules and regulations.
Series 11 – Dickinson Preparatory School contains reports of the principal to the Board as well as such financial materials as the treasurer’s list of students.
Series 12 – Dickinson Commercial College includes ledger books used in conducting the business of the commercial department of the college.
Series 13 – Executive Committee contains two bound volumes of the minutes of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees.
A fuller description of each series is given before each series inventory.
The collection contains materials relating to family life on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and in Ohio. The central figure is Daniel Bowdle (1796-1876), who as a young man moved to Cincinnati and became the successful business man of his family, with real estate and other interests. He aided his less fortunate kin in Talbot County, MD, including making provisions for the old age of James Lloyd, a beloved slave. The letters of William James Bowdle (1834-1876; Class of 1854) reflect student life at Dickinson College; letters of numerous other relatives are supplemented by genealogical notes on the Bowdle Family. Also included are papers on the settlement of the estate of Capt. Patrick Dickey, dated 1806-1841, which involve lands in Ohio and in Mason Co., VA.
James Buchanan was a graduate of Dickinson College, Class of 1809, who went on to become the fifteenth president of the United States. The majority of this collection is comprised of correspondence between Buchanan and his business and political associates; over four hundred letters penned by Buchanan are included in the collection. Drafts of speeches, printed pamphlets, and various memorabilia are also represented.
The collection includes business letters and legal papers of the Burd family, early deeds and patents, settlement of the Edward Shippen Burd estate 1848-1870, and correspondence concerning bequests for St. Stephen's Church, Philadelphia, the Burd memorial there, and the "Burd Orphan Asylum."
This collection contains a number of items purchased as a group from Robert Rowe in 2014, and features the business papers of Milton I. Zeigler, postcards, ephemera, and publications from the Carlisle Indian School. Zeigler served as the industrial instructor for the shoe and harness department at the Carlisle Indian School from about 1901-1909. His business papers include correspondence with government agents and material suppliers as well as vouchers for expenditures during various business trips. The postcards in this collection all feature images of the Carlisle Indian School. The ephemera in this collection include commencement programs and quotation cards printed by the Carlisle Indian School Press. The Publications section includes multiple government publications about the Carlisle Indian School as well as souvenir booklets about the school and a copy of Stiya: A Carlisle Indian Girl at Home, written by school matron and printing supervisor Marianna Burgess.
Most of the materials in this collection are available online at the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center.
This collection contains a number of items purchased as a group from Robert Rowe in 2017, and includes a number of photographs, artifacts, and documents related to the Carlisle Indian School. The four court martials in this collection are from the year 1904, and include charges against a total of five students. The Ephemera and Publication sections include printed materials related to the Carlisle Indian School, including four schoolbooks used at the school in the 1910s. These books contain marginalia written by students. The photographs included in this collection include the E.A. Seabrook Photograph Album as well as a number of miscellaneous images. The artifacts in this section include a ceramic china dish and three brass buttons off of a school uniform.
Most of the materials in this collection are available online at the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center.
The Edwin K. Charles collection consists of the various papers, government documents, newsletters, transcripts, and publications collected by Charles in the years following the accident at Three Mile Island. Edwin K. Charles, a resident of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, became heavily involved with the public-awareness group, Three Mile Island Alert, directly following the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. Over the years, he collected various materials concerning the legal struggles between the NRC, GPU, and Three Mile Island Alert.
Moncure Daniel Conway was born into a southern aristocratic family, but ultimately became one of the nation's leading abolitionists and humanitarians. Conway was a graduate of Dickinson College in 1849 and was trained for the ministry at Harvard Divinity School. The collection consists mainly of correspondence relating to all phases of Conway's career; his student days at Dickinson and at Harvard, his anti-slavery witness, and his pastorate at South Place Chapel in London. His letters reflect his wide acquaintance with leading intellectual and political figures of his day; some of his correspondents include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Dr. Annie Besant.
The journal in this collection has been digitized and is available for reading online (see the link for related entries below).
George Dum (c.1863-1918) served as secretary and treasurer for the Perry County-based Oak Grove Lumber Company. This collection contains materials pertaining to his interest in this venture, as well as his family's legal dealings with the associated Oak Grove and Kennedy's Valley timber tracts after his death. The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence, financial and legal documents, and maps.
Robert Emory (1814-1848) taught Latin and Greek at Dickinson between 1834 and 1840 and served as acting president in 1842-43 and 1845-47. This collection contains personal correspondence, as well legal and financial documents, primarily regarding the management of land.
Francis Gurney (1738-1815) was a veteran of the French and Indian Wars, the American Revolution, and the Whiskey Rebellion. A prominent Philadelphia merchant, Gurney held several political offices such as city Alderman and representative and senator to the state legislature. Gurney also served as a trustee of Dickinson College from 1798 until his death in 1815; the majority of the collection reflects his service to the College, particularly in soliciting funds in Philadelphia under the direction of Treasurer John Montgomery.
The Hays family papers include correspondence, deeds, and memorabilia of six generations of this prominent Carlisle, Pa. family whose scions include General Ephraim Blaine (1741-1804), Commissary-General in the American Revolution and charter trustee of Dickinson College, and James G. Blaine (1830-1898), presidential candidate and U. S. Senator from Maine. Ephraim Blaine's account books from his war service, his will, deeds, and other papers are included. John Hays (II), great grandson of Ephraim Blaine, was an 1857 graduate of Dickinson College; many others of his family represented here were also alumni. John Hays' own papers reflect his Civil War service, his veterans' activities, literary interests, genealogy, his interest in the history of Carlisle and Cumberland county, and his varied career as lawyer, bank president, founder of the Carlisle Gas and Water Company and of the Carlisle Frog, Switch and Manufacturing Company. Also included is an exchange of correspondence between Mary Abigail Dodge and John Hays concerning her projected biography of James G. Blaine. In addition, there are significant bodies of 19th century correspondence of lawyers James Hamilton and George Metzger.
The Bevery Hess collection consists of the various papers, newspaper clippings, books, audiotapes and photographs collected by Hess during her most active period of involvement with local anti-nuclear groups. Bevery Hess was a resident of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania prior to the accident at Three Mile Island, Unit 2. After the accident, Beverly Hess became heavily involved in the local anti-nuclear movement. She was a founding member of the Susquehanna Valley Alliance and the Public Interest Resource Center (PIRC). An appendix is included, which lists the books belonging to the Beverly Hess collection.
This collection primarily provides evidence of the personal and professional life of Charles Francis Himes, student, photographer, scientist, teacher, administrator, amateur historian and father. Also found in this collection is evidence of the lives of family members including, most notably, C. F. Himes' wife Mary and her father Joseph A. Murray. Information on Dickinson College is featured prominently throughout this collection through the close association of C. F. Himes with the institution during most of his life. Beyond family and institutional history, this collection offers information on a number of social, political, economic, and historic topics. Some of these broader topics include post-secondary education in the latter half of the nineteenth century, south central Pennsylvania society, the history of photography, and nineteenth century travel.
This collection contains the papers of William Irvine, a physician during the American Revolution, and his family; the papers are housed in one document box and have been arranged into two sections: Correspondence, and Legal and Financial Papers.
The Correspondence section contains letters and notes divided into four sections: Anne Callendar (Mrs. William Irvine), Robert Callendar, Callendar Irvine, and William Irvine. Of note within the Correspondence section are letters to General John Armstrong, General Wilkins, and a set of General Orders to Carlisle. The Legal and Financial Papers section contains two legal contracts, one proposed contract, a folder of receipts and two pages of accounts. One of the account pages is for Robert Gilmore, a student at Dickinson College, under the care of Colonel Henry Lee.
Horatio Collins King was the son of Postmaster General Horatio King and the nephew of Dickinson College President Charles Collins. A graduate of Dickinson College, class of 1858, King was admitted to the bar in 1861 and saw active service in the Civil War from 1862 until 1865. A songwriter, King composed the Dickinson Alma Mater, among other works. The collection contains King's correspondence, diaries, and copies of his songs. Topics in correspondence and diaries include student life, Civil War, and democratic politics.
The journals in this collection are available for reading online (see links for related entries below).
These records contain materials related to the termination of Dr. Laurent R. LaVallee, assistant professor of economics. In 1956, the Dickinson Board of Trustees voted unanimously to dismiss LaVallee as a result of his failure to answer questions about his alleged participation in Communist activities.
The Jane Lee collection consists of the various papers, court dockets, government documents, and newspaper clippings collected by Lee in the years following the accident at Three Mile Island. Jane Lee, a farmer from Etters, Pennsylvania, became active in various public-awareness groups such as Three Mile Island Alert following the accident at the Three Mile Island Nucler Station on March 28, 1979. Over the years she dedicated a considerable amount of time and energy to the fight against the restart of Three Mile Island.
The collection consists of correspondence, genealogical materials, legal materials, printed and scrapbook materials relating to George Burt Lincoln. Correspondents include Abner Doubleday, Horace Greeley, Julia Ward Howe, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Of particular note is a letter from Julia Ward Howe discussing women's study clubs.
This collection is composed of photocopies of the papers of Ralph L. Minker, Jr., Class of 1947. These papers, currently held at the Historical Society of Delaware, pertain to Minker's service as a bomber pilot in World War II. These items include correspondence between Minker and his family and scrapbook materials.
Jacob Simmons Mosher (1834-1883) was a prominent physician and professor of medicine in Albany, New York. Samuel L. Southard (1787-1842) was a lawyer, politician, and cabinet member from New Jersey. These papers contain correspondence and other materials that reflect the professional and personal lives of these two men, as well as genealogical materials regarding their families.
T. Edward Munce Jr. (1914-1980) graduated from Dickinson College (class of 1939) and the Dickinson School of Law. He was a World War II veteran, State Department employee, and lawyer for the Public Utility Commission. The bulk of this collection consists of correspondence and Christmas cards from authors Robert Frost, Logan Pearsall Smith, and Nancy Byrd Turner. The correspondence also includes letters from Lord Wilfred Arthur Greene regarding the acquisition of a piece of rock from London's Inner Temple for the Dickinson School of Law. In addition, this collection contains World War II medals awarded to Munce by the British government in 1945.
The John H. Murdoch collection consists of various papers, newspaper clippings, audiotapes, and photographs collected by Murdoch during his involvement with Three Mile Island Alert. John Murdoch was a long-time resident of Lower Allen Township, Cumberland County and became involved in emergency communications and the activities of Three Mile Island Alert, the public-awareness group, following the accident at Three Mile Island on March 28, 1979. Throughout the decade after the accident, Murdoch devoted much of his time and energy to the fight against the restart of Three Mile Island.
The collection consists of the papers of Charles Nisbet, first president of Dickinson College, and his family, particularly his son-in-law, William Turnbull. The majority of these papers is correspondence conducted between Nisbet and his daughter, and also between Nisbet and Lady Leven of Scotland. The business ventures of William Turnbull are reflected through legal, financial, and other miscellaneous documents; the collection's single artifact is Turnbull's leather wallet.