William Griswold Lane memorial collection

A collection of documents on the early history of Connecticut assembled by Wolcott Griswold Lane as a memorial to his father, William Griswold Lane. The original bequest consisted of approximately 1,000 letters and papers (1670-1866) of the Lane and Griswold families of Connecticut and Ohio. Families represented in the correspondence include: Daggett, Dana, Edwards, Ellsworth, Fish, Goodrich, Hillhouse, Huntington, Lanman, Sherman, Stiles, Swayne, Swift, Trumbull, Waite, Whittlesey, Williams, Wolcott, and Woodbridge. Later additions include the extensive financial records of Joshua Huntington of New London, Connecticut recording his activities during the Revolutionary War, including the building and outfitting of the frigate, Confederacy. Huntington's account books after 1784 are for a commissary business in New London as well as his records for a factory that processed linseed oil and meal. Also included are deeds for real estate in Norwich, Connecticut.

The papers of Augustus Henry Griswold make up another substantial part of the collection and include temperance lectures, stories, and ships' account books (1811-1836). Also in the collection are legal and financial papers (1797-1840) relating to the building and reconstruction of the wharf in New Haven, the account books (1793-1818) of Avery & Tracy, general merchants of Norwich, Connecticut, as well as the day books (1773-1794) of Samuel Avery and his tailoring business. Other major additions are whaling logs (1850-1859), a memorial on the need for a pest house in New Haven (1785), papers of the Rowland family of Fairfield, Connecticut, letters of Jabez Huntington, major general of the Connecticut militia during the Revolutionary War, and fourteen letters (1838-1876) from President Rutherford B. Hayes to William Griswold Lane.