Curtis family papers

The Curtis family papers are contained in two boxes (18 folders) and span the dates 1695-1912. The largest amount of material concerns the Curtis and allied families of Adams, Hallam, Poole, and Pygan. Additional material of an autograph nature was collected by George H. Curtis (1857-) and the collection also includes several letters to George M. Curtis in 1905-1906, most concerning the hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of Meriden. The Curtis family papers weredonatedto Yale University in 1948 by Mrs. William B. Church, formerly Agnes M. Curtis, the daughter of George M. Curtis.

Correspondence and other papers, arranged chronologically, folders 1-4, contain items of autograph and historical value. The collection includes, for example, two documents signed by Andrew Belcher (1648-1717) and two by his son Jonathan Belcher (1681-1757), governor of Massachusetts. It also contains the August 1700 will of Alexander Pygan of New London, the inventory and distribution of the estate of Benjamin Curtis (1703-1754), of Wallingford, a 1759 list of Wallingford men who received arms from James Wadsworth (1730-1817), a 1768 Benedict Arnold letter, and six letters, five of them drafts, of Governor Jonathan Trumbull (1710-1785). The five Trumbull drafts, all dated December 1774, discuss his financial problems, western lands, Samuel Peters, and family matters. Among the other important items are a February 1776 letter from Thomas Seymour (1735-1829) and others to General Charles Lee concerning activities of a group of some twenty volunteers and a November 1776 letter from Dr. Phillip Turner asking for the discharge of seventy-five named invalids from the American army.

Perhaps the most interesting items relate to the Reverend Benjamin Trumbull (1735-1820). The Curtis family papers include a 1790 letter to Samuel Peters concerning Episcopal ordination, an 1806 letter from William Winthrop discussing Trumbull's history of Connecticut, and Trumbull's notes on Connecticut history and copies of letters on Anglicanism, undoubtedly intended for his history of Connecticut. Among the other items of interest are an 1819 commission signed by Governor Oliver Wolcott (1760-1833), an 1862 letter from Robert A. Hallam concerning Episcopal history, genealogical notes on the Adams and Christopher families of New London, and a variety of autograph items. The collection has autograph letters and documents signed by Lyman Abbott, Charles W. Fairbanks, Edward A. Freeman, Ebenezer Huntington, Samuel Farmar Jarvis, William Travers Jerome, William Ledyard, Thomas R. Lounsbury, Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873), General George G. Meade, Orville H. Platt, Christopher R. P. Rodgers, and Daniel Webster.

The collection also includes two diaries written by Elizabeth Adams Poole (1752-1845), one from 1782 concerning an exchange of prisoners; a series of Curtis family Wallingford-Meriden deeds, of at least two Benjamin Curtises, Elisha Curtis, Amasa Curtis, and Asahel Curtis (1786-); diaries of William Adams (1650-1685) of Dedham, Massachusetts and Eliphelet Adams (1677-1753) of New London; and account books of Joseph Allen, Thomas Berry (1670-1728), Thomas Berry (1734-1812), Thomas Hubbard (1788-1871), and Asahel Curtis.