The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
CredoResearch digital collections in Credo

Collecting area: New England

Litchfield Hills Monthly Meeting of Friends

Litchfield Hills Monthly Meeting of Friends Records

1979-1991
1 folder 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 902 L583

The Quaker Litchfield Hills Monthly Meeting began as a worship group in Watertown, Conn., that met under the care of Hartford Monthly Meeting from 1969 to 1974. Set off as a monthly meeting in 1975, the name was changed to Litchfield Hills in 1980. The meeting has been part of Connecticut Valley Quarter since its establishment.

The scant documentation of the Litchfield Hills Monthly Meeting consist solely of an incomplete run of meeting minutes from 1979-1984 and a state of the society report from 1980.

Gift of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends, April 2017

Subjects

Litchfield (Conn.)--Religious life and customsQuakers--ConnecticutSociety of Friends--Connecticut

Contributors

New England Yearly Meeting of Friends

Types of material

Minutes (Administrative records)
Lloyd, Richard E., b. 1834

Richard E. Lloyd Daybook

1859-1862
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 229 bd

Born in Wales in 1833, Richard E. Lloyd found great financial success after migrating to Vermont in the 1850s. Beginning as the proprietor of a dry goods business in Fair Haven, Vermont, he diversified and expanded his holdings, eventually becoming a senior partner in the slate manufacturing firm Lloyd, Owens, and Co.

The daybooks from Richard Lloyd’s dry goods firm include numbered accounts of customers (many with Welsh surnames), lists of items purchased, price per measure, forms of payment (cash, goods, services, credit, making clothes), and the goods sold. Lloyd dealt in a typical range of goods found in a rural general store, including fabrics, ready-made clothes, eggs and dairy products, fruits and nuts, garden seeds, cutlery and tinware, and jewelry.

Subjects

Consumer goods--Vermont--Fair Haven--Prices--19th centuryFair Haven (Vt.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryFair Haven (Vt.)--History--19th centuryGeneral stores--Vermont--Fair HavenWelsh Americans--Vermont--Fair Haven--19th century

Contributors

Lloyd, Richard E.

Types of material

Daybooks
Locke, Samuel A.

Samuel A. Locke Account Book

1821-1829
1 vol. 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 168

Businessman from West Cambridge, Massachusetts with additional dealings in Charlestown, Quincy, Waltham, and Tyngsboro.

The volume includes lists of personal and business purchases, services provided for his family, and business services such as whitewashing, carting coal, sawing wood, carrying letters, collecting debts, relaying a brick fireplace, and “work loading Sloop Rapid,” and barter and cash transactions. References made to Locke’s involvement with Universalism and members of the Tufts family of Cambridge and Middlesex County.

Subjects

Arlington (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryBarter--Massachusetts--HistoryBuilding materials industry--Massachusetts--ArlingtonBuilding trades--Massachusetts--ArlingtonCharlestown (Boston, Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryQuincy (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryTufts familyTyngsboro (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th centuryUniversalismUniversalist churches--United States--History--19th centuryWaltham (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Contributors

Locke, Samuel A

Types of material

Account books
Loomis Communities

Loomis Communities Records

1909-2015 Bulk: 1980-2000
11 boxes 15.75 linear feet
Call no.: MS 685
Loomus House logo
Loomis House logo

Temporarily stored offsite; contact SCUA to request materials from this collection.

In 1902, a group of residents of Holyoke, Mass., secured a charter for the Holyoke Home for Aged People, wishing to do “something of permanent good for their city” and provide a “blessing to the homeless.” Opened in March 1911 on two acres of land donated by William Loomis, the Holyoke Home provided long-term care of the elderly, and grew slowly for its first half century. After changing its name to Loomis House in 1969, in honor of the benefactor, Loomis began slowly to expand, moving to its present location in 1981 upon construction of the first continuing care retirement community in the Commonwealth. In 1988, the Board acquired a 27-acre campus in South Hadley on which it established Loomis Village; in 1999, it became affiliated with the Applewood community in Amherst; and in 2009, it acquired Reeds Landing in Springfield.
The Loomis Communities Records offer more than a century perspective on elder care and the growth of retirement communities in western Massachusetts. The collection includes a nearly complete run of the minutes of the Board of Directors from 1909 to the present, an assortment administrative and financial records, and some documentation of the experience of the communities’ residents, with the bulk of materials dating from the 1980s to the present. An extensive series of oral histories with residents of Loomis Village was conducted in 2010.

Subjects

Holyoke (Mass.)--HistoryHolyoke Home for Aged PeopleLoomis CommunitiesLoomis VillageOlder people--Care--MassachusettsRetirement communities--Massachusetts
Loomis, Lyman

Lyman Loomis Daybook

1836-1857
1 vol. 0.1 linear feet
Call no.: MS 626 bd

Born on July 31, 1818, the fifth of eight children of Squire and Patience (Root) Loomis, Lyman Loomis spent his life as a farmer and agricultural worker in Westfield, Mass. Loomis married Elmina Hayes in March 1846, and died in May 1902.

A slender and rough hewn volume kept by a farm laborer, the Loomis account book contains sketchy records detailing work performed and crops tended, with occasional notes on commodities purchased.

Subjects

Agricultural laborers--Massachusetts--WestfieldWestfield (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Contributors

Loomis, Lyman, 1818-1902

Types of material

Daybooks
Loring, George G. (Gid)

Gid Loring Collection

1947-1996
1 box 1.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 1138

Jazz musician and collector George G. Loring, known as Gid, played the cornet with a number of bands including his own (Gid’s Giddy Gang), especially after retiring from a career in the financial industry. Although he never considered himself a professional musician, he kept busy playing professional and semi-professional gigs and casual jam sessions in the Boston area, occasionally in his own home in Manchester, Mass. In addition to jazz, he played swing and Dixieland. Also dedicated to the environment, he was a founder of the Manchester Conservation Trust in 1963.

This collection contains an assortment of material relating to and describing jazz music and performances mainly from the 1940s through the 1960s, including collections of letters by musicians Jim Wheaton and James Weaver (mostly written in the early 1990s), notes about Boston Jazz Society performances, and ephemera including programs and clippings, with an emphasis on Louis Armstrong.

Gift of George G. Loring, Dec. 2020

Subjects

Jazz musicians--Massachusetts

Types of material

CorrespondenceEphemeraNewsclippings
Lyman Family Papers

Lyman Family Papers

1839-1942
7 boxes 2.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 634
Depiction of Edward H.R. and Catharine A. Lyman on their wedding day
Edward H.R. and Catharine A. Lyman on their wedding day

The descendants of Joseph Lyman (1767-1847) flourished in nineteenth century Northampton, Mass., achieving social prominence, financial success, and a degree of intellectual acclaim. Having settled in Northampton before 1654, just a generation removed from emigration, the Lymans featured prominently in the development of the Connecticut River Valley. A Yale-educated clerk of the Hampshire County courts, Joseph’s descendants included sons Joseph Lyman (an engineer and antislavery man) and Samuel Fowler Lyman (a jurist), and three Harvard-educated grandsons, Benjamin Smith Lyman (a geologist and traveler in Meiji-era Japan) and brothers Joseph and Frank Lyman (both trained in the natural sciences).

Consisting of the scattered correspondence and photographic record of three generations of an intellectually adventurous Northampton family, the Lyman collection explores the ebb and flow of family relations, collegiate education, and educational travel in Europe during the mid-nineteenth century, with important content on antislavery and the Free State movement in Kansas. Although the family’s tendency to reuse names (repeatedly) presents a challenge in distinguishing the various recipients, the focal points of the collection include the geologist Benjamin Smith Lyman, his uncle Joseph (1812-1871), cousins Joseph (1851-1883) and Frank, and Frank’s son Frank Lyman, Jr. Antislavery is a major theme in the letters of Samuel F. Lyman to his son Benjamin, and in the letterbook of the Kansas Land Trust, an affiliate of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, of which the elder Joseph was Treasurer.

Gift of Christine Lyman Chase, 2009.

Subjects

Antislavery movements--MassachusettsGermany--Description and travel--19th centuryHarvard University--StudentsKansas Land TrustKansas--History--1854-1861New England Emigrant Aid Company

Contributors

Lawrence, Amos Adams, 1814-1886Lyman, Benjamin Smith, 1835-1920Lyman, Joseph B, 1812-1871

Types of material

Photographs
Lyman, Florence Porter

Florence Porter Lyman Papers

1894-1931
10 boxes 5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 946
Depiction of Florence Porter Lyman with her dog (from the Lyman Family Papers)
Florence Porter Lyman with her dog (from the Lyman Family Papers)

Florence Porter Lyman (1870-1960) was born into the Chapin Moodey family in the late 19th century. She married Charles Wendell Porter, a Northampton lawyer who spent his summers in Northern Maine, in 1894. After her first husband’s death in 1899 she continued to spend her summers in Maine. She then married Frank Lyman of the prominent Lyman family in 1903. They had three children together and lived in both Northampton and Brooklyn. During her summers in Northern Maine, Florence Porter Lyman stayed in touch with her many family and friends who lived in Massachusetts and New York.

This collection contains almost forty years of Florence Porter Lyman’s in-coming correspondence. Letters refer primarily to domestic matters including: her first husband’s train accident and death, her engagement and re-marriage to Frank Lyman, and the birth of her three children.

Subjects

Northampton (Mass.)--HistoryNorthampton (Mass.)--Social life and customsPerry (Me.)--HistoryPerry (Me.)--Social life and customs

Contributors

Lyman, Frank, 1852-1938Porter, Charles Wendell, 1866-1899

Types of material

Correspondence
Lyman, Frank

Frank Lyman Papers

1927-1980
6 boxes 9 linear feet
Call no.: MS 735
Depiction of Frank Lyman, ca.1945
Frank Lyman, ca.1945

A manufacturer of electronics and radio communications, Frank Lyman was a native of Northampton and graduate of the Williston Academy and Harvard (class of 1931). The grandson of Joseph Lyman and great-nephew of Benjamin Smith Lyman, Lyman joined Harvey Radio in the late 1930s, during a time when it was building radio transmitting equipment, purchasing the company in 1940 and becoming its president. An investor in Boston-area radio stations, Lyman oversaw the company’s post-transition into the manufacture of of autmomatic machines and tooling and its merger into the electronics firm, Cambridge Thermionic Corporation (later renamed Cambion) in 1968. Lyman died in 1992, followed by his wife, Jeanne (Sargent), in 2005.

The Lyman Papers contain business correspondence and associated documents relating to both Harvey Radio Corporation and Cambridge Thermionic Corporation, along with associated materials pertaining to Frank Lyman’s investments and personal interests. Beginning during his time at the Williston Academy and extending through his adult life, the collection includes Lyman’s diaries and a small amount of personal correspondence.

Subjects

CambionCambridge Thermionic CorporationHarvey Radio CompanyRadio industry and trade--Massachusetts

Contributors

Lyman, Frank

Types of material

DiariesLetters (Correspondence)Photographs
Lyons Family

Lyons Family Correspondence

1859-1895
1 box 0.25 linear feet
Call no.: MS 133

Includes letters addressed mostly to Mary Lyons or her brother Frederick D. Lyons about friends and family in Greenfield and Colrain, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. Topics discussed are sickness, death, accidents, an instance of probable wife abuse, recipes, Greenfield scandals, clothing, quilting, Methodist/Universalist bickering, and Aunt Mary’s investments.

Subjects

Abused wives--United States--History--19th centuryClothing and dress--United States--History--19th centuryColrain (Mass.)--BiographyColrain (Mass.)--Social life and customs--19th centuryCookery--United States--History--19th centuryGreenfield (Mass.)--BiographyGreenfield (Mass.)--Social life and customs--19th centuryLyons familyMethodist Church--Relations--Universalist ChurchMethodist Church--United States--History--19th centuryQuilting--United States--History--19th centuryScandals--Massachusetts--Greenfield--History--19th centuryUniversalist churches--Relations--Methodist ChurchUniversalist churches--United States--History--19th centuryWife abuse--United States--History--19th centuryWomen--Massachusetts--Colrain--Correspondence

Contributors

Lyons, J. LLyons, Mary

Types of material

Letters (Correspondence)