Cummings Family Papers, [1797 – 1861]

Two boxes (222 items)

Joseph Cummings (1784 – 1860), of Ware, Massachusetts, was an active community leader who held a wide variety of local and state positions: deacon, postmaster, justice of the peace, bank director, school teacher and town representative to the state Senate and House.

The Cummings family papers include miscellaneous legal and financial documents and correspondence to and from patriarch Joseph Cummings and other members of his family. Principal correspondents are: a) Joseph Cummings; b) his son, William B., a manufacturer in Brooklyn, New York; c) his son, Elbridge, in Beloit, Wisconsin; d) his son–in–law, James Yale, M.D., in Ware; e) his son–in–law, Nicholas Harris, a school teacher in Hartford in the 1840s and 1850s and a published author of textbooks. Organized in five series:

Box 1

Series I: Background

Series II: Cummings family papers, no date and miscellaneous (8 items)

Series III: Cummings family legal and financial documents

A Legal and financial documents, no date and [1796] – 1839 (28 items)
B. Legal and financial documents, [1841] – 1860 (26 items)

Series IV: Cummings family correspondence

A. Correspondence, 2 May 1835 – 30 Aug. 1839 (11 items)
B. Correspondence, 26 Oct. 1841 – 25 Dec. 1845 (14 items)
C. Correspondence, 9 Jan. 1846 – 29 Feb. 1848 (13 items)
D. Correspondence, 4 Apr. 1850 – 28 Dec. 1852 (25 items)

Box 2

Series IV: Cummings family correspondence(continued)
E. Correspondence, 11 Jan. 1853 – 4 Nov. 1855 (24 items)
F. Correspondence, 3 Jan. 1856 – 24 Dec. 1858 (22 items)
G. Correspondence, 17 Jan. 1859 – 13 May 1861 (10 items)

Series V: Nicholas Harris correspondence, letters from

A. Letters from, no date – 8 Aug. 1844 (12 items)
B. Letters from, 31 Jan. 1846 – 20 Nov. 1849 (14 items)
C. Letters from, 15 May 1850 – 7 Jan. 1857 (15 items)

Total Items: 222

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Prepared for electronic publication by Michael J. Breen '99, July 1999.