Colorado -- History -- To 1876

The collection contains correspondence between Gen. S. R. Curtis and his family while in military service or on engineering jobs, his official correspondence with copies of orders, telegrams, and other military papers while serving in the Mexican and Civil Wars, as Indian Commissioner to make treaties with the Sioux in Montana and Dakota and while working on the Union Pacific Railroad. Family letters also record Samuel Stephen Curtis's experiences prospecting in California, 1858-60.

The papers contain correspondence, Civil War memorabilia, diaries, and photographs of Mason Cogswell Weld, Lewis Ledyard Weld, and Charles T. Weld, sons of Lewis Weld (1796-1853). The collection has letters written from Leipzig, Germany by Mason Weld, 1853-1855; and several letters from Lewis L. Weld describing his life and activities in Colorado, 1860-1863. The bulk of the correspondence, however, dates from the Civil War, in which all three brothers served.