The pamphlet was published by the First Baptist Church in Monroe, Louisiana, and a photograph of Penney, with his hair sleeked to the side and his bow tie carefully arranged, takes up the center part the cover. Within the pamphlet, Penney describes his life, from growing up in a poor family in Mississippi to running a large, nationwide department store from its headquarters in New York. Throughout his speech, Penney emphasizes the importance of Christianity and a strong work ethic.

After reading the speech, I couln’t help but wonder how the pamphlet came to the Middletown Press. There isn’t a date of publication on the pamphlet, and the envelope did not contain an accompanying article from the Middletown Press. On the back cover of the pamphlet, however, I found a few notes that were difficult to read. But from what I could make out, it seems that J.C. Penney might have come to Middletown’s YMCA, and that the pamphlet was a bit of preliminary reading for the Press’s reporter.

If this were the case, I wonder what influence Wesleyan as a Methodist institution had on bringing Penney to Middletown. Special Collections and Archives has many documents about the University’s Methodist origins and student activities related to the religion. Many of these primary sources deal with missionary work that dispersed Wesleyan alumni across the globe. If this pamphlet did have something to do with Wesleyan’s role as a focal point for religion, it is just another example of how Wesleyan students and alumni were part of a larger network.

We continue to go through the photographs, negatives, and press clippings, and there will be a finding aid soon. Can’t wait to see what other things we’ll come across to share!

Written in 1972, Louise “Lucy” Wilby Knight sent surveys to those female and male students who had been present for Wesleyan’s coeducation “experiment” (1872-1912). Elderly at the time, these alumni and alumna remembered their experiences at Wesleyan and provided an invaluable record of that first period of coeducation. Special Collections & Archives also has Knight’s original research notes and completed surveys.

Now that The Quails is available online, more readers will be able to learn about Wesleyan’s history–and see the incredible work completed by Wesleyan students!

STORY 1

There are exciting stories about competitions between the Freshmen and Sophomore class on Washington’s birthday to be the first to fire a cannon.  In one instance in 1892, the competition went terribly wrong when a bomb (meant to be a decoy of the cannon fire) exploded in a Freshmen’s hands and blew up parts of North College.

CONFIRMED: several newspaper clippings confirm this event really occurred.

STORY 2

In the 1880s, the faithful Methodist Wesleyan men would set fire to a “scandalous” billboard owned by the Colgrove Opera House (which housed burlesque shows). The billboard was located on the corner of High and College Streets and faced the dormitory, which was then North College. It featured “drapeless contours” of feminine forms which were often offensive to prim Wesleyanites of that period.  However, every time the students burnt down the billboard, Colgrove would replace it.

PLAUSIBLE: One other source also mentions these events.

STORY 3

Then there’s the story of the campus mummy. During the 1880s Professor Van Benschoten went on sabbatical in Athens. While he was away he purchased a mummy from an institution that was in need of cash. However, after the mummy was shipped to the port in Athens, the dock official mentioned that Van Benny was missing a permit (or a bribe). Van Benny went to the British Consulate (since there was no American consulate at the port) and asked for help. Upon hearing his story they suggested that he wait a couple days and something might happen to relieve the situation. He waited and on the morning of the third day, a British warship had arrived in the night to end any shenanigans over the shipment of the mummy.

The mummy used to be on display in the Wesleyan Museum, which was in Judd Hall. Later the mummy was stored in the attic of Olin Library, unsecured. In 1990, a student discovered the mummy and hid it in his unsuspecting friend’s bed. The mummy lost a finger during this adventure and now is under lock and key.

FACT: There are many articles in Special Collections & Archives that identify Van Benschoten as the original purchaser of the mummy and a couple of Argus articles about the mummy in the bed.

STORY 4

And finally a piece of economic landscaping advice from the 1870s written by A. Sear Pruden (class of 1914). “I cannot vouch for the authenticity of this story but as Joseph Jefferson once said when questioned as to the actual historical background of his anecdotes, ‘One might say the story is good enough to be true.’”

“It seems in the good old days that the Board of Trustees of the University was dominated by a few economical and hard-fisted Connecticut and New England Yankees. The quite sizable area of campus in front of College Row boasted a crop of grass that might have done credit to the pampas. There was a considerable debate at the Board of Trustees meeting as to how the grass could be kept from entirely overrunning the college grounds. Instead of employing manual grass cutters, it was decided to buy a flock of sheep and pasture them on the front lawn where they would, by grazing, keep the grass down to a respectable height. The flock of sheep duly arrived and were pastured on the campus. Shortly after, the college body was very much astounded, going to the Chapel one morning, to be greeted by scores and scores of pitiful bleatings which apparently were projected out of the ground. On close inspection it was found that some mischievous people had buried each one of these sheep up to the neck in the ground, allowing only their heads to protrude from the ground. The chapel and college exercises were suspended for the day to enable the entire college body to join in the excavating and exhuming of the sheep.” Or so the story goes!

BUSTED: There is no way students could have dug several scores of holes in one night and captured all the sheep without being noticed.  It is plausible that the university did purchase sheep to take care of the landscaping, however.

If you like the stories here, check out the Alumni Council Collection of Recollections. A newly available finding aid can be found on the SC&A website.

Some of my other favorite information from this collection are the shipping folders, one from the 18th century and one from the 19th century.  They contain information about the cost of a trip on a ship, lists of items bought, lists of the ship’s crew, as well as some great looking tickets for trips on the ships.

These are two tickets form the 18th century folder, from 1829 and 1831, both on steamboats in Connecticut.

The 19th century tickets, while there are only a couple, are reflective of the change in technology.  The most interestingly designed ticket is for the New Haven, New York & Hartford railroad from 1891.  Railroads became an important part of Middletown beginning in the mid-19th century when the big railroad companies began to develop lines through Middletown.  There are a few letters from the big companies to the people of Middletown and surrounding towns telling them whose land they would be building through and a date to meet with a representative to object to the proposed plans, but I highly doubt the rail companies really took any complaints into consideration.

Train ticket from 1891 still intact!

Along with all these legal documents are some from the bank, specifically some paper money, and even some bank IOUs.  They are really quite beautiful and like most printed official documents of the time, they have blank spots for the pertinent information to be filled in, such as the date and the name of the person to whom the bank owes money.

A $10 IOU from the MIddletown bank in May of 1918.

The last two folder of the collection contain information about the Addises, a prominent Middletown family.  The entire first section is a collection of bills and checks to and from Ms. Daisy Addis, apparently quite the shopper.  From all the different bills Ms. Addis seems to have accumulated, it is really amazing to see how many shops there were along Main Street in Middletown in at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century!

A receipt from J. H. Bunce, Dry Goods, Carpets, and Furniture for the purchase a chair, $1.75, in 1898.

The rest of the Addis collection is mostly made up of deeds and legal documents, mostly revolving around the Doane family, who seemed to have quite a lot of land in the Middletown area.  Overall, the fact that this collection contians various documents makes it all the more interesting, as we get a little bit of Middletown history from a lot of different sectors: legal, commercial, nautical, etc.  If you have any interest in the history of Middletown, I recommend checking this collectiuon out as you may get a new look on some aspects of daily life from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries!

This celebration is being held in conjunction with the opening of an exhibit of the same name in Olin Library, and coincides with the completion of the processing of the Manchester Papers. A finding aid will be available soon.

The Friends of the Wesleyan Library are sponsoring this event. Hope to see you there!

Statistical Account of the County of Middlesex, in Connecticut, by David Dudley Field (originally published in 1819) includes all manner of intriguing information about events major and mundane, from murders to mining to the mysterious Moodus noises.

The 1884 History of Middlesex County with Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men, (published in 1884) includes detailed histories of each of the 16 towns in the county, highlighting religious, military, and industrial heritage along with interesting tidbits about fixtures of local life such as taverns, newspapers, and schools. It includes biographies of more than 150 notable individuals, and portraits of more than 50 of them.

The 1903 Commemorative Biographical Record of Middlesex County (published in 1903) features biographies of more than a thousand men – and a few women – that were prominent at the turn of the twentieth century, along with their family lineages, and hundreds of portraits. The majority of the biographies are of individuals with roots that extended back to the colonial era, some of whose names are still part of the landscape today, such as Russell, Wilcox, Pelton, Lyman, and Gildersleeve. However, among them are included biographies of a number of recently arrived immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, and Germany, with names like Dunn and Inglis and Kretzmer, who had prospered in their adopted homeland.

These resources are invaluable for historians and genealogical researchers, and we are delighted that the Godfrey Library and Middlesex County Community Foundation teamed up to make these scarce materials widely available.

As one of the earliest “town and gown” organizations at Wesleyan, the Middletown Scientific Association explored popular scientific topics from 1871 to 1968. Its membership was comprised of Wesleyan University faculty members as well as residents from Middletown and surrounding areas. At their frequent meetings, most often held in science lecture halls at Wesleyan, members presented papers on their own scientific interests or heard lectures from visiting scientists and educators. Occasional field meetings found members exploring hands-on scientific inquiry in the fields of botany, biology, astronomy and geology. As early as 1880, women were admitted into the association’s membership.

One notable visiting lecturer was Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi in 1940.

Even though membership swelled to over 300 members, attendance at meetings began to dwindle. In 1968, the association’s leaders polled the membership about meeting attendance and a consensus replied that while their interest remained high, they were just “too busy” to attend. The association directly disbanded.

The records of the Middletown Scientific Association, recently processed by Special Collections and Archives, contain the organization’s administrative records. Included are several books of minutes, printed meeting announcements, treasurers’ and presidents’ reports, clippings, correspondence, and other historical materials which document the organization’s operations.

Here are a few things to know about research in Special Collections & Archives:

1) Our hours are Monday-Friday, 1 to 5pm.

2) Most items need to be requested using one of our request slips, which can be found right outside our door on the first floor of Olin Library, or at our front desk. Don’t be shy–we’re here to help with any questions, and we’re always happy to talk with you about your research and our resources.

3) We have a few rules: pencils only (no pens), no food or drink, and you need to leave your coat and bags in a locker or the closet. These rules help protect our collections and prevent accidental damage. Ask if you have any questions.

4) We have a lot of finding aids now online. However, many collections are not yet fully described. If you have a research topic and are wondering if we have information, please check with us. We have other guides to collections that are not online and might be useful to you.

As we enter fall and start thinking about Wesleyan traditions, can anyone identify this item?

Leave your answer in the comments. First correct answer gets one of our fancy SC&A pencils!

(This is an image of the course schedule by class year from the 1890-1891 course catalogue. Click image to enlarge.)

The course catalogues themselves are pretty interesting as well, although they are not part of the examinations collection. They were pretty elaborate when the student body was much smaller, with a list of every student by class, where they were from, and where they lived on campus, and a list of all the professors and their addresses too. There was also a list of the graduates of the spring before and the degrees they had earned. There were campus maps, some years more detailed than others. Like the current course catalogues, there was a brief history of Wesleyan, a short explanation of all the academic prizes, a list of the members of the board of trustees, a list of building on campus and their purpose, available scholarships, and rules and regulations.

If you want to see specific exams to see if what your’re learning has changed at all over the past 150 years, come check out the Examinations Collection, made up of over 800 exams!

After a month of deciphering handwriting from the 1800s, I’ve finally produced two finding aids for the diaries of Lorenzo Whiting Blood and Harriet Stewart Judd. Surprisingly both of these two figures had very complex lives, much different from what the current Wesleyan student goes through.

The first diary was from Lorenzo Whiting Blood who regales the reader with his adventures as a Wesleyan University student during the 1830s and some details on his later life. The diary begins when Blood is a freshman at Wesleyan who is struggling to become a Methodist minister. However, after completing a year at Wesleyan, Blood attempts to open his own school in Cheshire, which after a few months is forced to close. He then comes back to Wesleyan where he has to take twice the course load to catch up to his class. Somehow he is able to accomplish this, but then again Blood decides to leave Wesleyan, this time to teach at Amenia Seminary. Unfortunately while he is teaching there, he is diagnosed with the measles which leaves him on the verge of death for two months. Miraculously he recovers and returns once again to Wesleyan where, somehow, he goes on to graduate near the top of his class. The journal then describes the troubles Blood faces trying to find a job, marrying his hometown love, and ends with him becoming deacon of Mystic.

The second diary is from the wife of Orange Judd, a former Wesleyan student, by the name of Harriet Stewart Judd. This diary is from 1872-1873 and chronicles three trips taken by the Judd family across the Eastern coast of the United States and throughout Europe. Judd visits many tourist points of interest including Shakespeare’s grave and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, while giving great details on the architectural and historical background. Judd also writes about her traveling family’s dynamic, along with Orange Judd’s continual sicknesses.

If these sound interesting, come check them out at Special Collections & Archives or check my finding aids: you won’t be disappointed!