Kenneth Spencer Research Library Archival Collections

Overview

This collection consists of correspondence and documents involving Charles H. Branscomb, agent for the New England Emigrant Aid Company in territorial Kansas, dating from 1853-1886. Correspondents or individuals mentioned in the letters include James Gillespie Blaine (1830-1893), Amos Adams Lawrence (1814-1886), Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), Charles Robinson (1818-1894), John Pierce St. John (1835-19140, and Charles Sumner (1811-1874).

Overview Single handwritten letter, written by Edward Everett Hale to Abbott Lawrence, regarding the formation of the New England Emigrant Aid Company and requesting Lawrence to consider financially backing the company. The company was formed soon after the creation of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, with the intention of settlers from the northeastern states going to Kansas to settle and help it become a free state, rather than a slaveholding state. Folder also includes envelope in which...

Overview

This collection includes Lewis Timothy Litchfield's diary, 1854-1855, containing an account of his trip and settlement in Lawrence, Kansas, as part of the second Emigrant Aid party, and a certificate presented to Litchfield from his English study at Cambridge High School in Massachusetts.

Overview

This collection consists of microfilmed copies of the official records and correspondence of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, an organization founded to help individuals from the northeastern United States move to the newly opened Kansas territory in order to help the territory become a free state rather than a slaveholding state.

Overview

This collection includes letters written by Tovey to his wife Eliza, as well as a manuscript of Tovey's life in the Kansas Territory intended to help possible emigrants to the territory.